Page 113 of Beware of Dog

Leave Reese alone. Got it.

“Alright.” Shep had to look the address up on his phone before he punched it in. Then he settled in for an awkward ride.

It was silent the first few blocks, save the expensive purring of the engine. Then Reese said, “This is Cass’s friend’s house we’re going to?”

“Yeah,” Shep said, and then, not knowing how much they knew, gave them the quick and dirty on the whole situation.

Tenny hummed thoughtfully as they crossed the bridge. He’d put his phone away and sat up to peer between the front bucket seats. “Tell me again why you haven’t offed this little wanker?”

“Believe me, I want to so bad I can taste it,” Shep said, letting his bitterness and frustration bleed through. “But the friend’s a civilian, and so’s the little rich shit who raped her, so the girls went to the cops, and now…”

“Now if something happens to him, everyone’s going to point to the Dogs,” Tenny said. Hetsked. “What were you thinking? Flying colors while you slapped him around.”

Shep stiffened in his seat. He hadn’t included his little pistol-whipping transgression in his version of events.

Tenny chuckled. “What, you thought Raven would leave that part out?”

“I hoped she would.”

“No such luck. Idiot.”

Shep sighed. “Yeah, okay, I deserve that one.”

It was quiet a beat, tires hissing over pavement. Then, with an edge of grudging respect, Tenny said, “No. I’d have sent a message, too.But,” he stressed, after. “I would have done it with a ski mask and without my cut.Idiot.”

“He doesn’t usually mean it when he says idiot,” Reese offered.

“Pipe down, you,” Tenny said. “I mean it.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Shep muttered. “I won’t do it again.”

Tenny hummed and flopped back against the seat. It proved more damning than any further insults.

Shep had been thinking for weeks that this whole shitshow could have been avoided if he’d exercised a little caution. In the wake of Abacus collapsing, the Dogs across the globe had enjoyed an unprecedented level of influence. So much so that, on the day Shep walked into that townhouse with his face bare and his cut on full display, he’d thought he could leverage that influence without repercussion. Apparently, there were still those willing to go running to the authorities when the big bad Dogs showed up at their doorsteps.

“You know,” Tenny drawled, a sly lilt in his voice. “Sending a message isn’t a liability if you send the right message. And if it’s strong enough.”

“And,” Reese added, “if you disable the cameras afterward.”

Tenny snapped his fingers. “Yes.”

The GPS told them to turn right in five-hundred feet. Reese slowed, eased through the turn, and Shep spotted the van.

It was the same one he’d seen a few days ago, when Raven came to talk to Jamie’s parents. Black, tinted windows, dent in the left rear door, right below the handle.

“Hold up,” Shep said, sitting up straighter in his seat. “That’s the van.”

“Stop,” Tenny said, “babe, stop.”

Reese braked to a halt, only halfway through the turn. Tenny popped the door and rolled out before Shep could finish saying, “What?”

The door closed almost soundlessly, and Tenny had disappeared behind a parked car by the time Shep turned his head to search for him through the window.

“Shit.”

“He can get closer on foot,” Reese explained, touching the gas again. “Is anyone sitting on the house right now?”

“No. I’m on shift, and I just got here.”

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