Cut and Run 5 - Armed and Dangerous

breathing hard, as if they’d just run up the steps of eleven stories and not taken the elevator. At first glance, Burns thought he was looking at Zane, but when he looked at the man directly, he realized his mistake.
    “Director,” Ty said to him in a sarcastic, hoarse voice. “Door-to-door delivery. Sorry we’re late.”
    “Jesus, Dick, you didn’t tell me you sent Earl’s boy out there!” Jonas blurted in outrage.
    The man Burns now recognized as Julian Cross tensed and took a step back, face grim. His eyes darted to Jonas and back to Burns. “What is this?” he asked. He turned on Ty, grabbing him by his shirt collar and slamming him against the door to Burns’ office. “You lied to me!”
    Ty seemed shocked, staring at him in confusion. “What are you talking about?”
    “Let him go,” Jonas said, and Burns saw him draw a gun from the small of his back. It had a silencer on the end of it. Certainly not standard-issue.
    Julian eased his grip on Ty’s shirt and shoved him one last time against the door before turning to face Jonas.
    “What the hell is going on?” Ty asked as he looked at Burns.
    Burns met his eyes with a growing sense of apprehension. He wasn’t sure he knew what was going on anymore. “Randall. Put the gun away,” he said.
    Jonas shook his head. “You didn’t tell me you sent Earl’s boy after him,” he said again through gritted teeth.
    Burns glanced back at Ty, who was standing with his hands out like he was balancing on a thin piece of rope.
    “You want your mastermind?” Julian asked in a disgusted voice. “There he is.”
    “What?” Burns blurted out as he looked between them.
    Jonas glanced at him, his eyes hard. “I’m sorry, Richard. You were my last chance to get to him.”
    “You used me?” Burns growled, taking one step forward in his anger. Jonas turned the gun on him, then back to Julian and Ty as he stepped further toward the corner of the room.
    “Disarm yourself, Richard, or I shoot him right here.”
    Burns clamped his teeth together and carefully removed his weapon to set it on the floor.
    “Now you two,” Jonas said to Julian and Ty. “All your weapons.”
    Ty still looked stunned. He had known Jonas since he was a little boy. He’d spent family vacations with the man.
    He took his standard-issue sidearm out of its holster and tossed it to the ground, eyes never leaving Jonas. Julian slid a gun from the belt of his trousers and tossed it away as well.
    “No backups?” Jonas asked with narrowed eyes.
    Ty shook his head. “No, sir,” he said, sounding as if he hated himself for using the same term of respect he probably always had with Randall Jonas. Ty’s habits were hard to break, though.
    Jonas glanced at Burns again. Burns knew he was trying to decide whether to kill them all or try to convince Ty and Burns to go along with him in his scheming.
    Ty took one step forward and slid over, putting himself between Julian and Jonas’ gun.
    “Stop moving, Tyler,” Jonas said as he took a step back to match.
    Ty shook his head. “I can’t let you shoot him, sir.”
    “Boy, I told you to move.”
    “Ty,” Burns whispered. He knew now how deep Jonas’ betrayal went. He didn’t know if Jonas had it in him to shoot the son of one of his oldest friends, a man he’d literally rocked as a baby, but Burns didn’t want to find out.
    Ty lowered his head like a bull preparing to charge. “I can’t let you shoot him.”
    Julian moved behind Ty, shifting from one foot to another.
    “Stop moving!” Jonas shouted.
    “You’re going to have to go through me,” Ty said. His words wavered, like he knew how high the possibility was that Jonas would do just that.
    Jonas’ eyes narrowed, and the muzzle of his gun trembled. Burns held his breath, afraid to move for fear of setting Jonas off. He could not stand here and watch Ty be shot in front of him. He would not.
    “He’s the only one who can take me down.”
    “Not anymore,” Burns said. “We all can. Are you going to kill us all, right here in my office?”
    “If I have to,” Jonas said. His eyes hadn’t left Ty and Julian.
    “I’ve known you since we were eighteen!” Burns shouted.
    The crack of the bullet hitting the glass window behind them made them all jump. Burns dove to the ground as he tried to decide where the sniper’s round had come from. The bulletproof glass had spiderwebbed in concentric patterns around the high-velocity round that was still lodged in it, just