Page 40 of Unmasked Rivalry
I ignore them and make myself a coffee before taking a seat. As soon as my bottom hits the chair, I wince and stiffen. God damn, he made a mess of me. I am so tender it hurts to sit. Wolfe’s eyes swing to me and a grin spreads across his face.
“Say nothing,” I warn.
“Guess the big guy has still got it.”
Knox shoots Wolfe a glare, which he is completely unbothered by.
“Been a busy night then?” Talon chimes in. “Judging by the way she’s walkin’, you two didn’t get much sleep.”
“Wow. You guys really do have a sense of humor,” I say, then sip my coffee. “Not a good one, but...” The door slams open before I can finish. Kael and Zane stumble in, arms so overloaded with random-ass junk that I can’t see their faces. Zane’s got what’s clearly a propane tank wedged between his elbow and his chin, and Kael’s cradling a heap of glassware and what looks like a whole Home Depot shelf’s worth of cleaning chemicals. They stagger to the bench and pile it all on there.
“What the fuck is all this?” Knox grunts.
Kael grins. “DIY project.”
Zane, who hasn’t even bothered to sit down, just starts lining up little bottles and jars. “Got a plan,” he says, “figure we set the whole thing up here. Get Ralston and his goons in one spot.”
“And then what, bake him a cake?”
Zane grins at me. “No, darlin’, we’re goin’ to build an entire meth lab in here, and blow him the fuck away.”
I’m sorry...what?
They’re going to do what I stare, waiting for someone to correct him, say it’s a joke, but all I get is Talon rooting around in the fridge for juice. Kael must see something on my face because he sets down the glassware and leans in. “Guess Wolfe hasn’t filled you in.”
Wolfe turns in his chair, facing me. “We’re gotta be careful how we take a man like Ralston down, and the way to do that, is to make it look like he was runnin’ other business through this farm. Sellin’ meth, to be precise. We’ll set it up, then, create a plan to get him and his men here before we blow it. When the cops come, they will find a pile of dead bodies, some ledgers leadin’ back to Cupp and nothin’ directing him to you.”
I blink. “You’re going to blow up my house?”
Zane snorts. “Come on now, don’t act like you like the place.”
I don’t...but...Harper grew up here.
“Unless you got a better plan,” Wolfe goes on. “It’s insured, you’ll get a payout and you can go on with your life, untouched.”
“What about Harper? They will tie it back,” I say.
“No, they won’t. They will assume Harper was workin’ with Cupp, and they’ll be right. They will likely just assume she got in too deep and they killed her. No reason to look further. But, it will give them reason to go after anyone else Cupp is working with, and that will keep them out of town.”
I can’t deny that it’s a good plan, but like all good plans, it can go bad.
“And what if it goes sideways?”
Wolfe shrugs. “Our job to make sure it don’t. Zane will have it rigged so he can blow it manually, but make it look like it blew on its own. Trust us, it’s good.”
I go silent. “I guess I don’t really have a choice,” I whisper, staring around at the old house. “She grew up here...I don’t know how I feel about watching it burn.”
Knox steps up next to me. “Better than watchin’ you burn.”
He makes a point.
I nod. “Well...where do we start?”
“We’ll need to move the gear into the garage.” Zane stands, stretching. “Callie, you wanna help? You know how to make a good batch, right?”
“Fuck off.”
He chuckles, and we move a heap of stuff into the basement.
