Outlaws by Matt Rogers (phonics books TXT) 📕

It was the equivalent of calling your enemy’s phone and hearing it ring right behind you.

It had well and truly spooked him.

He’d let an imposter into the house, allowed him access to his private space, made himself vulnerable.

Duke didn’t let the SIG waver an inch.

He said, ‘Kurt. Tie him up.’

King stiffened.

He knew if he let that happen, he was as good as dead.

But from here, he couldn’t spot any feasible escape plan.

He’d been stumped by a goddamn fingerprint sensor.

As Kurt rummaged around in one of the kitchen island drawers for something to restrain their prisoner with, King vowed that if he made it out of Emerald Bay alive, he would never allow a mistake like that to happen again.

52

Dead quiet.

Kurt lifted a couple of rolls of duct tape out of the drawer and held them up for all to see. Duke flicked his gaze sideways, took in the sight, and nodded once. Supremely cautious. Barely allowing a half-second without his eyes fixed on King.

King could see Quinn in his peripheral vision. The guy had his shoulders hunched, and his whole body was wound up, tight with stress. Unease rippled off him like he was radioactive with the stuff. The only other person in the room — Aaron — was an enigma. He shifted his weight from foot to foot, his movements lazy. King figured that unless the surfer lifestyle had made him inhumanly calm, then Aaron was probably high as a kite.

Which would make him useless in a fistfight, if that’s what it came to.

King’s heart thudded. He could feel it pounding in the left side of his chest, creeping up to his throat, where a vein in his neck pulsed at a hundred and twenty beats per minute. He actually hoped Duke noticed, because it was deceptive. Hopefully Duke took it as a sign of weakness. It didn’t mean he was afraid. The physical stress response is inevitable in a situation like this.

You’re going to be on edge regardless.

What you do with it is the key.

King stayed deathly still, ratcheting the intensity of the atmosphere up a few notches. If he had any hope of surviving…

Kurt approached.

Duke tightened his grip on the SIG.

‘Drop your gun,’ Duke said. ‘You don’t need it. And you need your hands freed up.’

King dropped the gun.

He tried to raise his heart rate even further.

It worked.

The vein in his neck pulsated, a little harder, a little faster.

Duke noticed.

A half-smile crept into the corners of his mouth. He said, ‘Afraid?’

‘A little.’

‘You should be.’

Kurt kept coming forward.

Quinn backed off a step.

Aaron seemed to sense something. Out of the corner of his eye, King saw the surfer tense up. Anticipating…

Maybe it was good weed. Maybe he was so high he’d become prescient.

Because he sure as shit should be anticipating something.

If that duct tape went around King’s wrists, he was rendered useless.

He was at the mercy of Ryan Duke.

Which simply couldn’t be allowed to happen.

He’d rather die.

King put his wrists together, making no sudden movements. He offered the pair out to Kurt.

Who smirked and reached forward with the duct tape.

Then King made a sudden movement.

He interlocked his fingers, forming a two-handed club, and swung it up toward the ceiling with all the strength his shoulders could muster.

He could muster a goddamn tank’s worth of strength.

He’d picked the right trajectory. There was a key obstacle between his fists and the top of their arc.

Kurt’s chin.

He shattered half the teeth in the big man’s mouth with the uppercut. The exact same physical reaction played out. No matter how tough you think you are, that sort of abhorrent discomfort isn’t something you can train for. You can pump yourself up all day and inflate your ego with tales of how you’ll push through pain and overcome adversity, but until you experience both rows of teeth being smashed together and half of them breaking, you really have no idea how you’ll react.

Kurt leapt backward like he’d been electrocuted.

But King had been expecting that.

He leapt with him.

Duke panicked and fired and hit Kurt in the small of his back. The gunshot roared. No matter how high the ceilings were or how big the space was, it was still a gunshot. It blared, and Quinn practically shit his pants, ducking for cover. King lost sight of Aaron but it didn’t matter because all his attention was focused on keeping Kurt in front of him. The big man roared in turn, hand flying to where he’d been struck, and King knew the guy’s concentration was now ruined.

He skewered himself into the ground with one foot and used the other to front-kick Kurt in the stomach.

Perfect placement.

Smooth technique.

Inhuman strength.

Accurate trajectory.

Check, check, check, check.

Kurt careened backward, completely off-balance, and crashed into Duke. King sprinted after them and hurled Kurt aside and found Duke’s aim was now off by a few inches.

Not much. Any sane person would have panicked and tried to run, because all Duke needed to do was swing the barrel around and pull the trigger and King would die in grisly fashion. That was enough to deter almost anyone.

Not King.

He realised if he kept his momentum the bullet would miss. So he threw caution aside and threw himself forward and crash-tackled Duke to the floor. The SIG went off, but the bullet went wide. King had no idea how close it had come — all he knew was that it didn’t hit him.

He landed on top of Duke, and instead of throwing a strike he pivoted on top of the guy and snatched at his gun hand.

He got both hands on Duke’s wrist.

Then it was simple physics.

He smashed the wrist into the floor, maybe breaking it, definitely bruising it. Duke still had his finger inside the trigger guard and he pumped it with all the desperation he had left. He fired four shots at random, none of them coming close to hitting the adversary on top of him. King slammed the guy’s wrist into the floor again, this time definitely breaking it.

Duke gasped and