Page 136 of The 9th Man

“And my family will be in the crosshairs. He’s a vengeful man with no morals. He can hire it done.”

“We can deal with him.”

Talley motioned with the rifle.“No. We. Can’t. If that were possible, I would have already done it.”

Motion came from Luke’s left, among the rubble. He was exposed and unarmed. Who was that? Talley whirled to his right at the sound. One of Talley’s men appeared with a pistol aimed ahead, steadying himself to take a shot. The man planted his feet. No way Luke could dive for cover in time. Talley angled his rifle toward the man and fired. The round caught the guy in the upper chest, the impact sending the black-clad figure lurching backward off his feet.

Another gunshot echoed.

From behind Luke.

The top of Talley’s head exploded in a mass of red mist.

No. It can’t be.

Their gaze met and he watched as the life drained from Jack Talley’s eyes, which went from surprised to sad to nothing. Talley opened his mouth to speak but nothing came out. Then the body collapsed to the ground.

He spun around.

Jillian was advancing with her Beretta aimed and level, both hands on the weapon.

“For God’s sake, why did you do that?” he yelled.

“He had a rifle. He fired.”

“He just saved my life.”

“That’s not the way I saw it.”

He was furious.

She lowered her weapon. “There were two of them, with guns, and you looked like you needed help.”

“I was talking him down. He shot the other guy to protect me.”

“Luke, I saw what I saw and reacted. You would have done the same thing. And let’s not forget Talley killed my grandfather.”

“No, he did not.”

“You believe that bullshit? Talley worked for Rowland. Persik worked for Rowland. They’re all the same. He was no innocent.”

His anger turned to rage. “You killed him for nothing.”

“He came here with an army to take us out. That’s not nothing. And that’s twice I’ve saved your hide inthe past half hour. You’re welcome.”

He knew that part of her marine training included high-risk detention, similar to police stop protocol. She was schooled in situations just like this, taught how to handle them and not jump the gun. But bad things happened when volatile situations spun out of control.

“Look,” she said, “I get that I may have fired too soon. But I reacted, to save your life.”

Let it go, he told himself.

For now.

“The rest are gone,” she said.

“How did one of them get by you?”

“I didn’t have a list of all the bad guys with guns here. I thought they all left, as Talley ordered. That one over there slipped away. But that might have been planned. He and Talley are now dead. Let’s get the evidence and leave. This is over.”