I lowered my gun enough that it wasn’t a direct threat but didn’t holster it. Carl swung the door open and stepped back to reveal Jerry Steiner easing across the porch toward the door with his gun tucked close to his body, and Tsuneo on the walkway behind him.
Jerry leaped nimbly aside to get out of the potential line of fire from a shooter within, while Tsuneo did the same in the opposite direction. When no hail of bullets materialized, Jerry made a tactical peek around the door frame. Satisfied he wasn’t about to get his head blown off, he leaned out for a more thorough inspection.
“You cool?” he asked McDunn.
“Like the ice planet Hoth,” McDunn replied as chill as ever. Some of the tension left Jerry’s stance at the answer, which told me it was a code phrase.
Jerry entered the house, shut the door behind him and put his back to it. Fine by me. No sense letting the neighbors see if things went to shit in here. His eyes darted this way and that as he took note of threats and tried to figure out what was going on. At the sight of Idris he paled and went still as a rabbit beneath a circling hawk. Idris regarded him with seething malevolence that radiated danger and a promise of death. Didn’t matter that fifteen feet separated the two. Jerry was terrified of Idris, and for damn good reason considering what he’d done to Idris’s sister.
Though McDunn surely felt the tension, he remained placid as he turned to me. “Unless you have any objections, I’d like to take my people and go now.”
“None whatsoever,” I said cheerfully.
He looked over at Eilahn. “Could I have my weapons back?” he asked, polite and respectful.
She gave him a tight smile and thrust a plastic grocery bag containing heavy, angular items into his hands. Wary, McDunn peered into it, then let out a sigh and withdrew what I recognized as the spring and barrel for his handgun. While Tessa and I had shouted at each other, my boldly clever guardian had slipped away to unload and disassemble McDunn’s weapons. I wasn’t sure, but I thought I detected a trace of not-so-grudging respect in his expression as he dropped the items back into the bag and tied it shut.
Jerry shifted, uneasy. “C’mon, let’s roll out,” he urged.
McDunn shot him a quelling glance then touched Tessa’s shoulder. “Miss Pazhel, we need to leave.”
Eyes on me, Tessa began to speak then stopped. Maybe she realized it was too late for mere words to undo the damage. Or maybe she understood that nothing could undo or repair it. Whatever part of our relationship had been based in truth was as dead as ash. She dropped her gaze and turned away without another word.
Idris took a lurching step forward. “Did you know?” he blurted to Tessa’s back. Distress rose in his face when she failed to reply or react. “Did you know?” Before I could stop him he reached and caught her arm, swung her around to face him. “Tell me! Did you know about me and just not give a shit?”
Tessa hissed in a breath, eyes wide. She pulled away, and Jerry yanked his gun up to cover Idris. “Get the fuck away from her, asshole!” he yelled.
Idris turned a look of utter menace onto Jerry, intense enough to make his lord-daddy proud. With Jerry already on a hair-trigger, the air crackled with stress. Idris was Jerry’s greatest foe. Kill Idris, and he wouldn’t have to live in fear anymore.
McDunn yanked Tessa behind him, damn near squishing her against the wall to shield her from both Idris and Jerry’s overreaction. “Steiner! Stand down!” he roared, but Jerry gave no sign he heard McDunn. His attention stayed riveted onto Idris. I took careful aim at Jerry as Pellini did the same, tightened my finger on the trigger—
The heavy grocery bag flew across the room to smack into Jerry’s head with an ugly thwock. A gunshot slammed through the hallway as Jerry staggered back, and it took me several heart-pounding seconds to realize it hadn’t come from my gun.
I spun toward Idris, but he stood unscathed, eyes wide and breathing hard. I looked around to see McDunn glaring big scary daggers at Jerry, who leaned against the door with the bag of gun pieces at his feet and one hand pressed to his forehead. Blood trickled down his face, and his gun dangled from the fingers of his other hand.
Snarling, Pellini yanked the gun from Jerry’s grasp. He appeared unhurt as well, but my heart dropped as I continued my hurried scan.
“Eilahn!” She sat on the stairs, hands clamped onto her thigh and an aggravated expression on her face. My stomach did a horrible flip at the blood that stained her jeans though I told myself there’d be a lot more if the bullet had hit her artery. I sprinted to the kitchen and grabbed a dishtowel, ran back and pressed it to her wound.
“Leave. Now,” I growled to McDunn.