I came awake again to the sound of breaking glass. It was muffled, but I’d spent way too many hours on special forces missions to sleep through a sound like that.
“Augie,” I whispered, shaking him. “Baby, wake up. I think someone’s breaking in again.”
“Wha? Saint?” He looked adorably confused, but I needed him alert and on the move. I reached for my trousers and slipped them on. I was pretty sure my shoes were in the living room or kitchen.
“Babe, I need you to find a place to hide while I get my weapon. It’s in the truck. Can you do that? Take your phone and call 911. I’ll call Seth.”
“Saint? Fuck. I don’t…” He shook his head to clear it. “Yeah, go.”
“Remember what I taught you. The best way to stay alive is to stay away.”
He was already stumbling out of bed but turned to me and nodded before heading to the closet. I knew he had an attic space above since that’s where he’d hidden the writing slope earlier. If I’d known what or who was outside, I would have forced him out the bedroom window with me. But for all I knew, they were still out there while we were in here. I locked the bedroom door closed and jammed some kind of decorative metal crab under the jamb as a kind of doorstop. It wouldn’t stop them, but it might slow them down enough for me to get there with my weapon.
I made my way out the window into the freezing night air. It wasn’t like me to leave my truck unlocked with the weapon inside. Hell, it wasn’t like me to leave the weapon inside either. But we were in the middle of nowhere, and Augie was terrified of guns. I’d planned on coming back out to get it after he was asleep. So much for that plan.
Scattered rocks in the lawn poked hard into my bare feet. I noticed a white sedan in the drive behind my truck, and the front door of the house was hanging wide open. Why hadn’t the damned alarm gone off? Had we forgotten to set it? Had we seriously been that horny? I deserved to be fucking fired.
I tried not to worry about Augie alone and scared in the closet. Just the thought of him at anyone’s mercy made me see red.
This was all my fault. If the intruder was Brett, I might as well have waved a red cape in front of him before we left.
After making sure the coast was clear, I raced to the passenger-side door of my truck and eased it open. The dome light went on, so I lurched up to click it off as soon as I could.
I reached for the Glock 19, anxious to feel the familiar comfort of the pistol grip in my hand. It wasn’t there. The memory of stashing it in the locked box in the bed of the truck came rushing back. I quickly grabbed the extra magazines of ammo deep in the storage bin before sneaking around to get the gun out of the tool box. Once I’d checked the chamber and pocketed the two extra magazines, I squat-ran across to the front door and peeked in. I could hear someone moving around, but I couldn’t swear it was only one person inside.
Quick decisions were something I’d learned had to come from your gut. I took two steps away from the front door and pulled my phone out of my pocket before pressing the speed dial button for Otto.
“Don’t say anything,” I hissed before he had a chance to bitch me out for the middle-of-the-night call. “Burglary at Augie’s.”
I heard a quick grunt which I assumed was him hitting Seth awake. After quickly setting the phone on the ground so the light wouldn’t come on inside the dark house and rat me out, I slipped back to the door.
Suddenly the loud sound of someone banging on a door cut through the night. I rushed in on quiet feet and followed the sounds to the bedroom door.
Two men stood outside the door. One was Brett and the other one was a darker-haired man with olive skin.
Both men had weapons held at their side. The hallway was dark, but it looked like one of the men held a phone out using its flashlight function.
Brett took a kick at the door, bouncing back and almost stumbling into the wall opposite.
Stupid bastard had obviously never done this before. He was a paper pusher for god’s sake. These guys were idiots. I took aim on the one who wasn’t Brett. Augie had told me a story about Brett being a terrible shot, so I made a calculated decision to worry more about the unknown gunman. This wasn’t a covert mission where I could shoot at will or snap someone’s neck. I was a private citizen. And one of the intruders was a blood relative of the homeowner.