Deep Trouble: A MacKenzie Family Novella (The MacKenzie Family) Read Free

under his pillow. Graphite-bladed KA-BAR on the night stand. Empty motel room, empty bed.
    Business as usual.
    “Hey, Dev. It’s Walker. Sorry to wake you, but I’ve got a situation on my hands, and I need your help.”
    Devon read the seriousness between the lines of his fellow Ranger’s words, digesting them in a blink. Kellan Walker was a friend, a brother. If the guy needed backup, Devon was in, no questions asked.
    “You straight at the fire house?” he asked. Kellan had channeled his adrenaline into fighting fires after they’d gotten out of the Army three years ago. Funny, really, that Devon put out fires, too—just that the heat he dealt with while freelancing private security jobs was a lot more figurative than literal.
    “Yeah. This is actually a family thing. Not about me. Well, not directly, anyway.”
    Devon took in the intel, keeping his surprise to himself. “Copy that. What’s going on?”
    “Please tell me you’re still out there in BFE.” Kellan’s voice stretched thin, barely covering the words.
    “I’m crashing in Montana, not outer Mongolia,” Devon said for the sake of clarity. After all, he and Kellan had done no less than a dozen ops in places more remote than Surrender, Montana, and Devon couldn’t help it that his sister Cat had ended up marrying the town doc here. There were worse corners of the world to kill time between jobs with MacKenzie Security, and he and Kellan had been to most of them. “But if that’s what you mean, then yeah, I’m still in the zip code.”
    His buddy exhaled a hard breath. “Thank fucking God. You remember my sister Kylie, right?”
    “Yeah. Of course.” Probably five years had passed since Devon had met her when he’d hung with Kellan on R and R, but between her smart mouth and her tough-girl demeanor, Kylie would be difficult to forget. Especially since she and her brother were tight, to boot.
    “I just got a phone call from her. She’s been working at some dive bar in Grant’s Pass for the last six months.”
    Devon’s mind spun in calculated thought. “I passed through the town on my way here a few weeks ago. It’s about an hour from Surrender.” Not much to write home about, if he remembered right. And he always did.
    “Well, that puts you a hell of a lot closer than me.” Kellan paused. “She’s jammed up pretty bad, Dev.”
    Shit . “How bad?”
    “Bad enough to call me and ask for help for the first time in our lives. She witnessed a local drug dealer by the name of Xavier Fagan murder her boss, and then the guy came after her.”
    “Jesus,” Devon breathed. “Where is she now?”
    “Safe,” Kellan said, and didn’t that explain why the guy hadn’t gone completely over the edge in the re-telling. “She managed to get away from Fagan, but she says the guy is no joke. Apparently he’s really well connected, all the way up to the Feds.”
    On second thought, “shit” wasn’t even in the same hemisphere as this. “So she can’t call the cops.”
    Kellan murmured an affirmative, followed by a couple of nasty curse words. “Exactly. I got her about fifty miles from Grant’s Pass, and she’s safe for now, but the first flight out of North Carolina doesn’t leave until oh-seven-forty my time.”
    “Which won’t put you in BFE until nightfall.” Commercial flight across the country was a bitch and a half. The drive from the airport to Surrender? Even worse. “So how do you want to run this?”
    Kellan paused, his normally unshakeable demeanor sounding like someone had taken a whack at it with a tire iron. “Do you think you can sit on her and just make sure she’s okay ’til I can get there tonight? Kylie’s tough, and I’ve got her holed up pretty tight off the grid…”
    Devon frowned, running a hand over his dark blond high and tight. “But?”
    “But she’s my kid sister, and you’re the nearest resident badass,” Kellan said. “Fagan sounds like a nasty son of a bitch. I’d feel better knowing