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

Looking at Angela, he said, “Convenient of her to invite us in.”

“I’m not sure how convenient it’ll be for him, but Maisie definitely invited us in.” And Angela gave him a wolfish smile. “Besides, the warrant just came through as well.” He looked at her in surprise, as she nodded. “Coercion and blackmail don’t go over well here.”

“So we subdue our prisoner and then get a free-for-all at his place.”

“Well, hardly a free-for-all,” she said. “I haven’t got the warrant in hand, so I don’t know exactly what it covers.”

“Well, it sure as hell better cover his electronics and all the rest of that shit.”

“I would hope so too,” she said, “but I have to wait for that to come in.”

“Well, to do all that, yes, we do,” he said, “but not for picking him up, right?”

“No,” she said, “not for that.”

At the doorway, they knocked, and, at the first clip of knuckles against wood, the door opened, and Ronnie stood there, glaring at them.

“You’re trespassing,” he said, holding up his phone. “I already have my lawyer ready to dial,” he said, sneering and speaking directly to Angela. “Obviously I can’t call law enforcement, when it’s so corrupt.”

“Interesting,” she said. “You see? We have full rights to be here. For one thing, we were actually welcomed onto the property.” She caught the surprise in his eyes, as he looked down the driveway, and then a frown appeared.

She nodded. “Your lovely girlfriend Maisie told us to come on up,” she said. “So here we are.” Smiling, she went on. “However, we do have a warrant, and we’re actually here to take you in for questioning.” He looked at her and moved back several steps.

“Like hell you are,” he said, his fingers pressing Call on the phone.

“Oh, I think it’s more than that,” she said, looking over at Bonaparte. “Do you want the honors?”

Bonaparte smiled and stepped forward, and she knew that anybody with half a brain would have felt some fear or at least respected his obvious physical superiority and complied, but these guys were not very smart. Ronnie was also starting to look a little on the seedy side.

“I’m not going anywhere with you,” Ronnie said. “You lay your hand on me,” he said, “and I’ll have you arrested.”

“You can try, but, if you’re resisting arrest, it’ll just get much harder.”

Ronnie shook his head. “You’ve got nothing on me. I didn’t do anything.”

“That’s not quite what Johnny and Henry are saying,” she said. “Or the two women.”

He looked at Angela in surprise. “What? You mean, your friends?”

“Hardly,” she said cheerfully. “Not when they’re criminals and when they’ve put themselves on separate sides of a legal issue. But now that’s not up to me. That’s for the prosecutors to resolve. And I don’t really care how you feel about this. If you won’t come calmly and quietly, you’ll be resisting arrest, so do your worst.”

He backed up several steps, his hands up to ward off Bonaparte’s approach. “He’ll just beat me up.”

“He’s never beaten up anybody who didn’t need it,” she said quite cheerfully. Her phone buzzed just then, and she nodded in satisfaction and said, “Oh, good, we have the warrant in hand now.”

“I want to read it,” Ronnie shouted.

“Well, you could,” she said, “if you went to the station. But, at the moment, we’re more concerned about securing our prisoner,” she said, with a hard look at him.

“What are the charges?”

“Well, I don’t have the complete list at hand right now,” she said, “but we’ll start with embezzling, kidnapping, coercion, threats, and any number of other things. We might even get ourselves worked up to murder.”

At that, he stopped and stared.

She nodded quietly. “In case you haven’t figured it out,” she said, “the game is up.”

“It’s not up,” he said in a mean, vindictive voice. “It’s only just started.”

“Says you,” she said in a bored tone, and, at that, Bonaparte moved so damn fast that Ronnie didn’t have a chance to do anything.

“Pretty damn sure if we check that vehicle hidden in the tree line, we can probably match it to the Hummer from my dash cam that tried to run us off the road too,” Bonaparte said. “Was that an employee of yours? Or just a friend?”

The guy looked at him. “What’s the matter? You don’t even know how to drive?”

“Depends,” Angela said, “if driving also means trying to run people off the road. I mean, we’ll have to see about an attempted murder charge there—of a sheriff and her deputy.” She watched as Bonaparte quickly handcuffed Ronnie and sat him down in a chair. She asked Bonaparte, “Do you want to run him back to the jail?”

“Really could use a few more deputies,” he said, looking at her.

She nodded. “I know, but I need him back in the jail and separated from the others.”

“Fine,” he said. “But I don’t really like the idea of you staying here alone.”

She grinned at him. “Glad to know you care,” she said cheerfully. “But, on the other hand, I am the sheriff,” and, with that, was a very quiet reminder of who was the boss.

He looked at her sideways, gave a clipped nod, and said, “Point to you.” He walked over and stood Ronnie back up on his feet, then together they led Ronnie out to the truck and loaded him in the back. “I’ll take him down and be right back.”

“You do that,” she said, then stood there with her hands on her hips, waiting for them to disappear, before heading back inside. She pulled up the warrant on her phone and quickly read through it. When she found it included all electronics, she whooped and turned around to get started, only to find herself facing a handgun pointed right at her. She didn’t recognize his face or know his name, but the shape of his body matched the man who shot into her house. And she could never mistake the look on