Eye of the Sh*t Storm by Jackson Ford (most romantic novels .txt) 📕

us right now. Each of us wear tiny, adhesive pinhole cameras on our shirts, undetectable by any sweeping devices. Sometimes, working for the government means cool toys.

Normally we have comms earpieces, too, but we left those at home. Hard to pretend to be gun-buying criminals when you have one of those in your ears. Anyway, the cameras have a very tiny mic, so Reggie can hear us even if she can’t talk to us.

Annie raises her chin. “OK,” she says. “Six hundred. But I am gonna run some tests, make sure these aren’t just stock.” She reaches for the gun. “Got a little setup out in Oxnard. Everything gravy, then we come back and settle up.”

Robert has the grin of a Hollywood actor: big and white and completely fake. “Hold your horses there. That little sampler doesn’t go anywhere without Pop’s say so.” Is it my imagination, or is there the very slightest waver of his smile as he says the name?

“So get Pop up here,” I say.

“Naw, Pop’s got more important shit to do. I will call though.” He pulls out his own phone… and stops when another biker pushes open the sliding door to the patio. He’s missing an arm, and the other is a forest of tattoos. He’s clutching a cellphone, and as he crosses the balcony to Robert, he gives me a completely blank look.

Uh-oh.

The guy bends down and whispers in Robert’s ear, like something out of a bad James Bond movie. Robert’s expression doesn’t change. A weird thought: he enjoys this. Enjoys the whole rooftop-balcony-meeting, Nicaraguan coffee, sophisticated criminal schtick. It’s the kind of thing he’d never have gotten to do when he was just a shitty street-level biker. For him, the earthquake represented a growth opportunity.

A sudden quiet settles over the balcony. Even the wind has stopped.

“OK.” Robert claps the edge of the table, gets to his feet. “Looks like we’re all good to go here.”

“Thought you needed to call Pop,” Annie says.

“Naw, not a problem. Pop says I can do whatever I need to.” He rolls his eyes slightly at me, as if trying to say, Can you believe how difficult your partner is being?

It is very tempting to beat him to death with his own phone. But I’m a hero and a classy human, so I restrain myself.

“So we can go ahead and test this?” Annie lifts the gun as she gets to her feet.

“Sure, sure. Answer me one question, though.”

“Uh-huh?”

His smile never wavers. “What’s China Shop?”

Double uh-oh.

Annie, to her credit, gets it together – just as well, because I can’t keep the alarm off my face. “Moving company. It’s the legit part of our operation.”

Robert leans back against the thick balcony railing. “So… you don’t do any work for the government?”

Triple uh-oh, quadruple goddamn-it and all of the yikes.

We don’t get a chance to deny any of it. Three of the bikers grab hold of Africa. They kick his legs out from underneath him, grabbing him in a chokehold as he goes over backwards. Three more hit Annie, wrestling her to the table. Two of them, Alan and the one-armed guy, grab hold of me, squeezing my biceps tight. Goddammit, who the hell tipped these assholes off?

“Get the fuck off me,” Annie snarls.

I need to do something, but I’ll have to play this very carefully. I’m not supposed to reveal my ability, even in cases where the people watching are unlikely to alert the media.

What happens next happens really freaking fast.

Robert pulls the modified H&K off the table, whips it up to point at Africa. He aims carefully, centre-mass, not wanting to hit his buddies. Then without another word, he pulls the trigger.

Or tries to. I don’t let him. Trigger stays locked. He snarls, chucks the gun to the ground, snatches a rifle from one of his buddies. I lock that one down too, all the while thinking, Come on, come on, find a way out of this.

Robert gives up and drops the weapon, jerks his chin at the men holding us. My heart skitter-beats as they heft Africa like a sack of grain. He roars, tries to buck them off. But like I said, he’s lanky and skinny and utterly useless in a fight.

And before Annie and I can say anything, before I can switch my PK to the men holding Africa, they lift him onto the balcony wall, and topple him over the edge.

There is a long, horrible second where he’s looking right at me. His eyes are wide, terrified. Disbelieving.

His feet flick upwards, as if saluting the deep blue morning sky. Then Africa is gone.

THREETeagan

You’re probably wondering why I let that happen.

After all, what’s to stop me grabbing every object on the balcony, from guns to ashtrays to those cute directors chairs, and using them to beat ten shades of shit out of our biker pals?

That was my first thought too. The problem is that it reveals my ability in a major way. Reggie is always… well, everybody is always telling me to think before I act. And in this case, I actually do. There’s a better, smarter solution here.

Of course, it has a few problems of its own. I need to keep everyone’s eyes on me. I can’t tell Annie, or Africa. And it may or may not result in us all falling to our deaths.

I go fucking nuts, twisting and yelling. Alan has to plant his feet, jerk back as I try to smash his nose in with the back of my head. One of the other goons grabs my legs, ignoring my furious, angry howls. “You cocksuckers, what the fuck? What the fuck? I’ll fucking kill you, I’ll tear your dicks off and play a drum solo with them, you – let go!”

Thinking: That’s it, keep your eyes on me, don’t you dare look over that balcony…

With a mutual grunt, Alan and his accomplice lift my screaming self onto the two-feet-thick railing. Behind me, Annie’s breathing is hot, harsh, panicked. “Teagan,”