She's Got the Guns (The Suite #45 Series Book 1)

by M. O. Mack

  “Does what bother me?” he asked.

  “People trying to kill you.”

  “Ah.” He nodded, his sharp eyes on the busy street, including frequent mirror checks. “I much prefer to stay on my side of the bullets; but no, it doesn’t bother me. The risk comes with the territory.”

  “Does that bother you? The…” She searched for the right words. “Your territory and ridding it of rats?”

  “Haven’t lost any sleep over it yet, but that’s why vetting is critical. It helps if you know what side you’re on.”

  Interesting. “Why did you kill Rick, then?” Not that Rick was a nice man.

  Charge’s jaw tightened and his lips flattened. She hadn’t really noticed before, but Charge was actually a handsome man—cleft chin, strong jaw for taking punches, nice lips. The short black beard was a little too rugged for her taste, and his hair needed a trim, but yeah, she bet he cleaned up nicely. She’d also bet that huge chip on his shoulder and the whole murder-career thing was a buzzkill for his dating life. The ominous vibe was a definite turnoff for her.

  “You ask too many questions,” he grumbled.

  “Ah yes. I forgot about the rules. I will work harder to turn everything I say into a statement, sort of like the opposite of Jeopardy.”

  He didn’t laugh at her little joke. Too bad. He needed to understand that if she was going to do this job, she would need at least some information. “Okay. No questions. Here’s the first statement. It’s a fill-in-the-blank. My name is Charge. I killed Rick because…”

  Charge growled. “You’re pushing your luck, Emily.”

  “If I’m bothering you, feel free to fire me,” she threw back.

  He shook his head impatiently. “If you’re so fond of questions, I have one for you: What’s your obsession with poking the bear all about? Do you want to die?”

  “That was two questions, but let’s just say I’m a woman who’s lost her patience with bullies. And bears. I’d honestly rather have you put a bullet in my head than be talked down to, pushed around, or threatened. So no, I would like to live, thank you very much. In fact, it’s pretty important that I do, but I’ve also learned that when you run with vicious animals, you’d better not be the weak little rabbit with the broken paw. They’ll eat you.”

  He chuckled and veered right to hit the on-ramp east. “I knew you’d be perfect,” he said to himself.

  “Sorry?”

  “Never mind. Just watch your manners around the operators tonight. Some of them have short fuses.”

  “Whoa. Wait. Am I going to have to meet them?”

  He shrugged. “Yeah. How else are you gonna know who’s who?”

  Her stomach churned. “Meeting thirty-nine killing machines does not sound like the sort of mixer I want to attend.”

  “Don’t look so terrified. And you won’t meet everyone. Most work in pairs, so only one member of each team will be your contact.”

  Oh, well, that makes a huuuge difference. “Sorry. I’m busy tonight. Plus, I don’t have anything to wear,” she said flippantly. “Doing laundry has been a little tough to squeeze in between having a gun pointed at me, getting handcuffed in some guy’s car, and trying to save the world’s saltiest assassin from dying.”

  He kept his eyes on the road and shook his head as if to say he wasn’t quite sure what to do with her. “I’m sure you can figure something out.”

  “So, are you one of the men who works solo?” she asked.

  “Yes.”

  She nodded. “How did you get into this line of business?”

  “Stop asking questions,” he growled. “It’s considered rude in our line of work.”

  “Oops. Sorry. True or false: You got into this line of business after serving in the armed forces, and the CIA recruited you to take care of the type of people who are a threat to society but can’t be dealt with through legal means.”

  “Jesus, woman. You’re lucky it’s just me in this car.”

  From his tight grip on the steering wheel, she guessed she’d hit a nerve, one that ran too close to the truth perhaps. “Never mind. I don’t actually want to know. If I find out you’re some war hero, I might start thinking you’re a good guy and forget that I’m here under duress.” She paused, noting the exit number. “Take this turnoff and then go left at the light. The property is a few blocks down.”

  They remained silent for the next few minutes. Probably for the best. She wasn’t trying to pick a fight with him, but this whole situation had ground her down to the last nerve.

  “Right here. Pull over.” She pointed to the Spanish-style stucco building with a red tile roof and arched windows.

  He pulled into the small six-car parking lot right in front. “It’s a bookstore.” His tone was all disapproval.

  “Correction. It was a bookstore—a really nice one that had a coffee shop inside, so it comes with a small kitchen, an abandoned Illy espresso machine, and a very nice bathroom.”

  “No. This won’t do.”

  “Why not?” It met every item on his checklist.

  “The rent in this area is too high. People would become suspicious if there wasn’t an actual business with regular customers operating from here.”

  “Ah. But I thought about it already. The cartel knows you guys try to keep a low profile. And now you say they know what I look like. Maybe they even know what you look like, since they cased that house yesterday.”

  “I always cover my face.”

  “Awesome. So it’s just me, then. Anyway, they’ll be looking for me in every grubby hole-in-the-wall. That is, if they don’t assume I’ve left town. Anyway, this is the last place they’d look for our office. It’s a nice clean store in a nice part of town. As for the business, it can be appointment only—so no unexpected customers wander in. We can choose a cover business that sounds upscale but doesn’t require health department visits or special licenses. Maybe a private art gallery or something similar? We could declare a certain portion of sales and look completely legit.” Hide right under everyone’s noses. The Sampson way.

  He tilted his head to the side. “Actually, that isn’t such a bad idea.”

  “I’m glad you think so, because this place was also a small credit union about ten years ago. There’s a vault in the back where we could store valuables. Were you able to recover anything from Sampson’s electrified safe room?”

  “What safe room?”

  “The one on the other side of the file room, right next to all the guns and ammo. You mean, you never went back there?”

  “No. I never asked to.” He frowned. “What sort of files were there?”

  “Every job you guys did, including the notes and amounts paid.”

  “He left that kind of information lying around?” He sounded pissed.

  “No, it was locked behind a wall.”

  He shook his head, but she wasn’t sure of the context. Was he irritated because the files existed, or because he hadn’t known? “Most of it should have burned up with that bomb, but I’ll have to go back tonight and make sure.”

  That was brave, because the fire department had probably started sorting through the rubble and discovered a bunch of scorched guns.

  “Are you going to try to find out what was in the secret room?” she asked.

  He shook his head. “I have a pretty good idea.”

  “What?”

  “He had money set aside for our operations—equipment, travel expenses, things we need to do our jobs. Also, money to pay us.”

  She had been right. Sampson’s safe had been back there.

  “The bomb probably burned it all up,” he added.

  “And?” She waited for the bad news.

  “And we’re going to have to find another way to get new guns.”

  She stared. “You’re talking about real guns this time, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “Oh.”

  “You’ll have to talk to the team tonight and ask them to cough up some cash,” he
said. “That should tide us over until you can generate more money and get things back up and running.”

  What the hell was the matter with this guy? First they had her answering phones. Two calls. That was all she got. And the calls were both from the same guy: him. Next they’d blackmailed her into being their “office manager.” Now she had to do fundraising for guns and generate cash?

  “This is ridiculous,” she said. “I can’t just wave a magic wand and make money appear. If I could, I sure as hell wouldn’t be living where I do, starving to death.”

  “You’ll have to double the prices on all new jobs. It’ll slow down business a little, but as is, we have more work than we can handle, which is why our operators are loyal. It’s steady work that pays well.”

  “Okay. So how will the jobs come in?” Was there a Craigslist for criminals? she wondered.

  “I will tell you what you need to know, when you need to know it. In the meantime, you focus on getting the things done that I’ve asked for.” He got out of the car and walked toward the building, looking over the outside with great care, even going so far as to knock on the stucco.

  She sat there mulling for a long moment. I’m beginning to feel like this guy is just messing with me. Honestly, now that she was thinking about it, what did she really know about him? Nothing. He said he worked for Sampson, but how could she know for certain? Maybe he’d killed Sampson. Maybe he wanted to take over the business. He sure as hell acts like it. It was a little strange, actually, the way he stepped in and started calling the shots. Or…maybe he’s not a hit man at all. Shocking how that bothered her, but it did. Maybe his cover is hit man, and he’s really a rival cartel member doing some scouting on Sampson’s operation? Maybe an undercover CIA agent? Or a cop? Or…

  He could be anyone.

  Emily quickly ran through the facts and stacked them up against her assumptions. Day one, he called claiming he’d done some job. Day two, he showed up and demanded money. Next time she saw him, he killed Rick—

  Wait. She didn’t actually know for certain, now did she? She’d only heard noises outside after Charge left. Later that same day, Charge returned, and she gave him more money. That evening, he called claiming he was cornered at a target’s house. He said it was a setup. He said cartel men had cornered him. When she arrived, she saw two men sitting in a car in front of a house. But was she absolutely sure whose house that was or that those men belonged to a cartel? No. They could have been two regular guys having a private chat, not wanting to mess with the crazy lady screaming into her phone.

  She never actually saw Charge leave that house either. Maybe he was never there at all. Then he caught her in the alley and instructed her to find a new property, but he told her to do so before suite forty-five blew up. How did he know that would happen?

  In short, all along, he’d been telling her things, and she’d just…believed him. Like a sad little sheep grazing on his words.

  She suddenly felt the ice-cold slap of reality across her face. It was time to plug in that brain of hers. In her defense, she’d been blindsided by all the crap going down in suite forty-five, and her head hadn’t been in the game. Not this game, anyway. That other game consisted of villains of another breed on the east coast. And, frankly, that was the game she couldn’t lose sight of. She had to save those women and shut down that business. Human trafficking was just about the worst thing anyone could do to another human being.

  The last straw had been when she’d heard Ray, one of Ed’s associates, pushing him to expand their business. Little girls. “There’s demand, man. And we don’t have to go full-on pedi. Let’s just lower the bar a little, yanno? There’s big bucks in thirteen-year-olds.”

  Emily had been freshening up the cheese dip bowl in the kitchen while they played poker in the other room and discussed systematic child abuse for money. She’d had to run into the bathroom and throw up. The next morning, her vague pipe dream of escaping Ed and stopping these animals felt so real, she could taste it. The lame excuses and fear that had been holding her back suddenly dissipated. She already had a plan. She had evidence—tapes and videos she’d made of their poker games. And now she had something to eclipse her fear.

  Her goal was still there now, weighing heavily on her mind, but she’d neglected to see what was going on right in front of her. Something’s not right. I mean something besides the other fifteen things that are wrong with working for assassins—if that’s truly what’s happening.

  The problem now was that she couldn’t formulate a plan if she had no idea what she was up against. CIA. Cartel. Hit men. Gang. Crazy person. Those were all possibilities.

  After doing a few laps around the building, Charge returned to the car and slid behind the wheel. “I think this place will work. Send me the lease details to look over tonight.”

  “Should I yell out my window or smoke signal you?”

  He held out his hand. “Phone.”

  She dug out her burner from her purse. She really didn’t want to swap numbers with him, since he probably knew how to use it to track people, but there wasn’t much of a choice. She handed it over, and he entered his number.

  “This is only for emergencies or when I request something. Got it?” he said. “Otherwise, you wait until I see you in person to talk business.”

  “What if I’m just missing your warm, fuzzy personality?”

  He grumbled something unintelligible under his breath.

  “Well, if we’re done here,” she said, “I’m starving and need to find a place that has a dollar menu.”

  He raised a brow in question.

  “My rent is due in a week, and the small amount of cash I managed to set aside for food has been expended on Uber rides.”

  He leaned toward her, and her entire body went into a cold panic. She sucked in a breath and froze up, her eyes wide.

  “Easy now. I’m just reaching for the glove box.” He stretched his muscled arm in front of her and pulled the lever. Inside were a few bundles of cash. He grabbed them and shut the compartment.

  She remained perfectly still, feeling like her heart might slam its way through her rib cage and out of her chest.

  He gave her a curious look. “Christ, woman, do I even want to know what happened to you?”

  He was referring to the fact that she was about to scream or cry, all because he’d gotten near her.

  “I prefer not to discuss it,” she croaked, trying not to get choked up in front of him. She knew she had PTSD, but she didn’t always know what triggered it.

  He nodded once. “Well, if you ever want a freebie, you just say the word. Perk of the job.”

  Had he just offered to kill Ed? No. I’m sure he was kidding. In any case, death was too good for her husband.

  Charge held out two bundles. “Here.”

  She glanced at the money, but didn’t take it.

  “Consider it a loan.” He shoved the money closer.

  “Loan?” Why was the guy who’d threatened to shoot her for these same bundles of cash now willing to loan money to her?

  “Get yourself a safer place,” he said. “It needs to be in a secure building with several exits on a busy street. The rest of the money can be used for necessities—like real food—and getting the office set up.”

  “You mean, like pens and coffee beans, or hotwiring the place to electrocute anyone who tries to break in?”

  “Yes.” He added, “The office expenses can be paid back out of the business’s cut of our profits—ten percent. You’re on the hook for the rest out of your cut, and your cut is decided by how much work you have to do for each job. Got it?”

  She shook her head no, but replied, “Sure. Whatever.”

  “Good. I also need you to go to ninety-one Alameda tonight at eight. Go around to the back of the building. There’ll be a plain white delivery truck with the keys inside. Drive the truck to the Rusty Screw—it’s a bar. Make sure you know how to get there before you pick up the truck, and make sure you’re
not being followed. Pay attention this time.”

  “What happens when I get to the bar?”

  “You come inside and have a beer with us.”

  Us. She assumed he meant the operators. The thought of throwing back a few suds with a group of assassins made her stomach knot. “And I’m guessing that asking you about the contents of the truck will be met with hostility and a reminder that I’m being rude.”

  “You’re catching on.”

  “No. You’re just predictable,” she threw back.

  He scowled. “Good luck with the errand.” He stared at her expectantly.

  “Oh. You want me to leave now?”

  “I’m not your chauffeur, and I have business to take care of,” he said.

  She wasn’t even going to touch that one. She nodded and slid out of his car. Charge drove off, and she stood there, reeling with a thousand thoughts. Who was this guy for real? What had she really gotten herself into?

  She had no idea, but until she did, she would simply have to go with the flow. Carefully.

  Maybe meeting the team tonight would offer some insights.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Emily wasn’t sure what to expect tonight, so she went with the worst possible scenario her brain could conjure: The truck contained bodies, and Charge and his buddies were going to have a team-building event tonight to bury them. Or maybe the truck contained crates of dynamite. I’ll wear my Converse just to be safe. Always be prepared for a quick escape.

  She slid on her jeans and grabbed her last clean T-shirt, the red one. Tomorrow, she would look for a new place and buy some necessities. She still didn’t know what to make of Charge loaning her money, but she wasn’t in much of a position to argue. Until she knew exactly who he was, she had to pretend she was on board. With luck, he’d make a mistake or tip his hand. That said, the more she drilled into the facts—how there had never been proof behind anything he told her—she was becoming convinced: Charge was law enforcement trying to infiltrate this illegal operation.