Bonaparte's Belle: A SEALs of Honor World Novel (Heroes for Hire Book 24), Dale Mayer [read an ebook week .TXT] 📗

Isabel immediately shook her head and pointed upstairs.

Angela nodded. “Go get me a zip tie, will you?”

Isabel immediately bolted into the kitchen, and then she shrieked.

“That’s okay. It’s Bonaparte,” Angela said. Isabel came back out, Bonaparte right behind her, with the zip ties. She looked at Bonaparte and pointed upstairs. He nodded and headed to the stairwell. She watched, as, instead of hopping up the stairs of the old house, he hopped onto the railing and casually made his way up, missing all the squeaking stairs.

“I didn’t even get a chance to tell him that the fifth one’s a doozy,” Angela muttered, as she hopped up and made her way carefully up the stairs herself.

Isabel whispered at the bottom of the stairs, “What do I do?”

Angela looked at her friend and said, “Hide.” Then Angela went up to the landing and around the corner, her weapon at the ready. By the time she got upstairs, Bonaparte was in a scuffle with a much smaller man. A much younger one. Once she reached them, Bonaparte already had the man subdued.

She looked at him and said, “Henry?”

Henry just glared at her.

“Who’s the kid?” Bonaparte asked.

“This is Henry. I’m sure your dad will be thrilled to hear about your third strike.”

“What strike?” he said. “I’m just here, visiting Isabel.”

“I wonder if that’s the story she’ll tell when it comes to the courts?” she said.

“I didn’t do anything. I’m just here visiting,” he protested. “You got no right to even handcuff me.”

“You think so?” she said. “I’m allowed to do all kinds of stuff.”

“You better get your hands off me,” he said. “You’re done here anyway.”

“Ah, so you’ve aligned yourself with them too, have you? That’s okay,” she said, with a shrug. “We’ll see how you feel about it when they’re in jail, and so are you.”

There was only a tiny waver of his gaze. “They haven’t done anything wrong,” he said.

“Then what are you so worried about?” she asked. “If you haven’t done anything wrong, why get all panicky and start issuing threats? If you’re making threats, you’d better back them up.”

And, with that, Bonaparte led him downstairs. She looked around, and, as she walked down with them, she asked Bonaparte, “Where was he anyway?”

“He was in the master bedroom.”

She looked over at Isabel as she got to the bottom of the floor. “Why were they in your bedroom?”

“I don’t know,” Isabel said. “I really don’t want to go back in there now.”

“Come on up with me,” she said. “Let’s take a look and see if they stole anything.”

“We’re not thieves,” Henry said from the floor. The other guy didn’t say anything. “Jesus, you’re so stupid,” Henry told Angela, as he looked at the other man on the floor. “When he gets loose, he’ll be so pissed at you.”

“He might,” she said, “but he’s also likely to get pissed at you for letting your mouth run.”

“He’s not my boss,” he said, with derision.

“Yeah?” She stopped on the stairs, looked at him, and said, “So you came here voluntarily, did you?”

“Of course I did,” he said. “And Isabel let me in.”

“That’s funny because you know what? I got the impression she was afraid and in a very dangerous situation,” she said. “And that sounds like kidnapping.”

“Hell no,” he said.

“And you were in her bedroom,” she said, crossing her arms and leaning against the railing. “What the hell were you doing in there? Unless you had something nefarious on your mind.”

He looked at her and then a look of horror appeared on his face. “That’s just gross. She’s old.”

A strangled exclamation came from Isabel, but she managed to stay quiet.

“Ah, so rape wasn’t part of your plan then?”

“God no,” he said, “I already have a girlfriend. What do I need that for?”

“I don’t know, but, when we find guys stalking women, and they’re up in their bedrooms, nothing good comes to mind,” she said. “However, we’ll take your response under consideration.”

*

Bonaparte watched the interactions between her and the others. There was an obvious caring on her part, derision on the kid’s part, and anger on Johnny’s part. Bonaparte was still trying to figure out the other woman, Isabel. She had admitted that she and her mother had pulled some shenanigans to get her granddad’s property sold, and, while Bonaparte understood their financial needs to cover escalating medical bills, the mother and the daughter had crossed a serious line.

He also didn’t know what criminal action that entailed because it had apparently been the grandfather’s wishes to sell his property. But, without a proper power of attorney, the other family members didn’t have the legal right to do it. Bonaparte shook his head, thinking about all the times that there were actual crimes, wondering if this one was really something that mattered. It surely wasn’t the priority at the moment because somehow these two idiots had latched on to Isabel, and that did matter.

He looked over at Angela. “Will you go up and check?”

“Yeah, are you okay to stay here with these two?”

He gave her a wolfish smile. “I’d be delighted to. Don’t blame me, if you find them with broken noses or black eyes, when you come back down. They look like they might try to escape.” She gave him an alarmed look, but he just gave her a sweet, almost angelic smile.

He meant it but would never cross the line like that. But he could hope that one of these two assholes wouldn’t try to escape and cross the line for him. He would like nothing better than a chance to knock them both into tomorrow, and, from the look of these two, they realized it. The younger one shut up immediately, and the other one just lay on the floor, quiet. Bonaparte wondered at that and walked over and pulled out his ID.

Immediately he started screaming, “Don’t you touch my wallet, you asshole.”

Bonaparte gave him a hard nudge with his boot. “You were caught in the criminal act of threatening