Total pages in book: 54
Estimated words: 49393 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 247(@200wpm)___ 198(@250wpm)___ 165(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 49393 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 247(@200wpm)___ 198(@250wpm)___ 165(@300wpm)
I nodded and went ahead and dropped my head in my hands, elbows propped on my knees.
“You’re crazy about her. That’s why. We all are. You grabbed him and roughed him up, threatened his life. I understand how that’s freaking you out. I wish I could say that I would’ve responded rationally in your shoes, but I don’t trust myself to claim that. When I thought about it, I decided I probably would have dragged him out of the car and into the street so I had room to beat his ass thoroughly. You know, where all the security and traffic cameras could pick up on every single move I made so I’d end up in jail. Not a real intelligent move. My point is, I don’t think I would have reacted better than you did in the same situation. That’s not a boast, it’s acknowledging the fact that we’re all too close to this situation to see clearly. I don’t know how to get her out of this without getting our hands really dirty.”
“We didn’t go into security to keep our hands clean,” Jake said. The most by the book of all of us, Mr. Law and Order, let the authorities handle it himself, was coming down on the side of dirty justice. “I felt bad about it at first, that it was unethical and flies in the face of everything we all fought to uphold and protect in the Armed Forces all those years. But I thought about this too, and the thing is, I don’t care. I don’t care as much about my ideals as I thought I did. Not if it comes down to a choice between protecting Jasmine and clinging to our reputation for integrity in our operations. She’s family. You don’t fuck with our family and live to tell about it. Agreed?”
We both stared at him for probably a full minute. Jake was the very last person I expected to say something like that.
“What’s the plan?” I asked at last.
He dipped his chin, a slight nod of thanks or acceptance of my agreement to get on board with whatever strategy he had in mind. It would be high tech in some way I didn’t fully comprehend, I expected that much. But I didn’t expect the rest of it.
“I’ve got an app in beta right now and I’m feeding it his locations and patterns as far as we know, what we’ve spotted on traffic cams with the AI I’ve got scanning the footage at speed. I’m hoping the app will triangulate a pattern and help me better predict his next moves. If it does, we’re a step ahead of him. If not, then I retool the code and try again, but in real time, we keep her shielded, one of us physically by her side, at all times on this trip and otherwise. If she takes a shower we check the fucking bathroom first, I mean it. When he shows, and he will, whoever’s on the ground gets first shot at him. No bullshit about let her talk to him and calm him down or whatever. She calls 911, and we do whatever we need to do to subdue him until authorities get there. Ideally he knows he’s caught and goes without a fight. Realistically, this motherfucker doesn’t know when to quit, which is why he’s cropped up in her life again. So we teach him when to quit. It’s when the Burns boys have your back against a wall and there’s not a damn one of us with capacity for mercy toward him now.”
“Damn, that’s a thorough strategy,” Eli said.
“Now that we’ve got a plan lined out to commit some felonies on an as-needed basis,” I quipped, “what do we need to do to make this trip special for Jasmine?”
“She needs ski gear. There’s no way she has the shit she needs. I want to be in charge of outfitting her. I got this urge to spoil her and wrap her up warm, you know,” Eli said, a little sheepishly.
“Okay, thanks for taking care of all that,” I said. “How about we plan a romantic night for her, let’s say the second night since she’s going to be wiped out from traveling and exploring the resort the first night. Maybe a fancy dinner at the hotel or something,” I said. “Flowers, music, the whole nine.”
“I’m sure the resort has terrific food and all that, but I want to cook. We’ve got a cabin, right, E?” Jake asked.
Eli nodded in agreement.
“Great, that means a kitchen. Now, I hit their site and saw they have a charcoal grill on the deck of each cabin, so I thought I’d go all out, steaks, lobster, make the truffle butter and mushrooms and everything,” Jake offered. “Get a dessert from the hotel though. I don’t bake for shit.”