Sons of Anarchy: Bratva by Christopher Golden Read Free Book Online

an aura that could be felt.
    “You sit tight a second, Carney,” Temple said. “You brought these folks here.”
    “Can we get down to business?” Trinity asked, raising her hands in supplication. “All we want is a fair price, and we’ve heard you’re a man who deals fair.”
    Temple exhaled. He glanced at Aaron, who seemed to deflate a bit, and most of the tension drained out of the room. Oleg and Gavril relaxed visibly, but Feliks didn’t move any farther away from Aaron.
    “What are you looking for exactly?” Temple asked.
    Carney hummed to himself, looking at the floor, pretending he wasn’t involved in an illegal gun deal.
    “MAC-10s. Tec-9s,” Oleg said. “Mix and match. We need a dozen, plus twenty handguns. Hollow-tip rounds, if you can get them.”
    Temple whistled appreciatively as he scraped chopped vegetables onto a plate and walked over to the simmering pot. “You guys have quite a Christmas list. That’s a lot of guns just for the four of you.”
    No one said a word. Temple dumped the vegetables into his stew and then went back for the big plate of chicken.
    “I can get them,” he went on.
    Antoinette stepped back into the kitchen. Temple glanced at her, and the woman gave a tiny tilt of the head.
    Trinity didn’t like that head tilt, or the way the left side of Temple’s mouth lifted in an almost imperceptible smirk. Something had just passed between Antoinette and her employer, and Trinity ran back through the past couple of minutes in her head, trying to figure out what she had missed.
    “How soon can you have ’em?” she asked, as if she hadn’t felt the change in the room.
    Temple scraped the chicken into the pot and then adjusted the level of the flame.
    “Something’s got me wondering,” he said. “Not that it’s any of my business, but I’m curious what sort of shitstorm you’re all in that you’ve got to come to me. Let’s face it, most of the guns ghosting their way up and down the west coast of this country came through Irish or Russian hands at some point, so why not go to your own people for this?”
    Trinity felt cold. “Like you said, Mr. Temple. It’s not your business.”
    The smarmy, condescending look returned to Temple’s face. The bastard had snake’s eyes and a predator’s smile.
    Antoinette’s pocket buzzed once. The kitchen had fallen silent except for the hum of the refrigerator and the tick of the clock, and the buzz was loud enough that everyone in the room glanced over at her.
    Everyone except Oscar Temple.
    Trinity stared. Why wouldn’t Temple react to the buzz of Antoinette’s phone, the sound of a text message coming in? Unless he’d been expecting the sound—waiting for it. Suddenly all the talk made sense, as did the way Antoinette had slipped out of the room.
    Swearing under her breath, Trinity darted left, slipped behind John Carney, reached up under the back of his jacket and drew the gun the old man kept holstered there. Antoinette barked a warning even as Carney cried out in protest, but she nudged the old man aside and leveled the gun at Oscar Temple.
    Aaron swore and reached inside his jacket for the pistol holstered at his armpit. Feliks was in motion as he drew the gun, ripping it from his grasp and then slapping him so hard that Aaron crashed into the wall and slid down to one knee, shaking his head to try to clear it. Feliks followed him, cracked the gun across the bridge of Aaron’s nose, smashing cartilage. Temple seemed too calm. Antoinette went for her own gun, but the rancher gestured for her to be still.
    “Son of a bitch,” Aaron growled, starting to rise as he wiped at the crimson flooding from his nose.
    “No, stay there,” Temple instructed, sneering at the man who’d been his bodyguard. Trinity had the feeling he was fired.
    Oleg and Gavril were staring at Trinity like she’d lost her mind. Maybe she had. Paranoia could be an insidious thing—she’d seen it in others, but never in the mirror.
    With his