Under Fire (Love Over Duty #1)(71)

Demyan Kovalenko was about to be haunted by ghosts. Thanks to the wireless phone tap that Six had put on the guy's cell phone, they knew that Kovalenko was pissed that he hadn't been paid, even though the attempted snatch on Lou had been a bust. In a train wreck that Mac, who'd been listening in on saw coming a mile off, Kovalenko had called someone named Mitty demanding payment and protection.

One way or another, things were unlikely to end well for him.

Six watched from his spot behind the derelict brick wall behind the abandoned building. Bailey and Ryder, who'd decided to accept the offers to join Eagle Securities, weren't happy to be assigned protection duty for Louisa, but the meeting time and place had been arranged, and Mac, Cabe, Six, Buddha, Lite, and Gaz had spent the afternoon casing the location to ensure that no matter where the action went down, they had eyes on it. They'd also done some serious heavy lifting. The collapsed portions of the wall had stuck together in clumps of seven or eight bricks, and they had carried piles of them into the road to prevent vehicles from passing through in a move designed to limit car use on the cracked concrete road. 

"So, I hear you and Louisa are getting tight," Mac whispered from his hiding spot seven feet away, muting with one hand his mic that kept them all connected through their earpieces.

Six looked toward the main entryway, curious as to whether the two parties were going to arrive by car or on foot. He muted his mic too. "It's unlike you to be chatty on a job, Mac. You've been hanging with Cabe too long."

"She's easy on the eyes, I'll give you that. Reminds me of Delaney that way."

Despite Mac's needling him, Six hoped that Mac and Delaney would figure their shit out one day, as highly unlikely as it seemed. She hadn't spoken to Mac since the day she'd slapped him in front of her brother's coffin. "If you spend more time looking around for our targets than gossiping about Lou, this night will be so much more productive."

"Headlights." Positioned on the third floor of the building where he could see the road leading up to the warehouse, Lite was sparse as ever with his commentary.

"Do we have eyes on how many? Visible weapons?" Six asked.

"Working on it."

Moments like this always seemed to drag on forever, seconds feeling like minutes, but Six knew the value of taking their time, especially on the shot, until they had all the intel.

"Three. None visible."

The car pulled around to the back of the warehouse and to the side of the road, just before the bricks. If shit went down, Buddha was going to take out the front tires from his position. Their vehicles were over on the shoulder of a road not easily accessible from the warehouse unless on foot, with a pissed-off Gaz behind the wheel of one of them. He wasn't happy to be left out of the key action after being left behind from the gig in Mexico, but he hadn't said a word. Instead, he'd let his driving speak for him. They'd been lucky to have not been pulled over by the police.

"Second vehicle, one driver, no passengers."

"Wow," Buddha whispered from his hiding spot. "That was almost a sentence, Lite."

"Fuck you. How's that for a sentence? Verb and pronoun included."

Mac looked over toward Six and grinned.

The second car parked behind the first. Rookie mistake, Six thought. The driver should have turned the car around, left it facing in the direction he needed to exit. Now if he had to run quickly, he'd be faced with the prospect of having to do a three-point turn under pressure, and possibly in a hail of bullets.

A battered and bruised Kovalenko jumped out of his car without killing the engine and recklessly marched toward the other vehicle, a small gun tucked in the back of his jeans. "Where's my money?"

Six rolled his eyes. It was playing out like a bad scene in a B-list movie. All stilted dialogue and bad acting. The driver of the first vehicle stepped out. Typical meathead. Thick neck and sausages for fingers. Looked the size of a small tank, but would run slower than a turtle. He'd be an easy target to take down.

The driver opened the door to the back of the car, and two men got out, both in jeans and T-shirts and one of them wearing a leather jacket despite the heat, which told Six that he was likely heavily armed.

"Mitkin," Kovalenko said loudly. "You need to pay me."

Mitty. The abbreviation made sense.

"And tell me why you think I should do that," Mitkin said. "Because I most definitely don't have the girl."



       
         
       
        

The driver of the vehicle was slowly sliding his hand behind his back, which was all the confirmation Six needed that at least two of the people they were watching were armed.