Page 17 of The Bait

Younger men, keen to prove a name for themselves. Thinking they could take out Harry Harrigan and Asher Garin. Fools, they were.

Dead fools now.

Though Harry was certain those younger men’s bodies didn’t ache in the mornings, joints stiff, and muscles sore.

Well, when they were alive, that was.

Taking those three Croatian men out had been easy enough. Harry and Asher had the element of surprise on their side, thanks to August Shaw.

Those men definitely weren’t there to fish or camp. They had knives and rifles. Plastic 3D-printed types they hadn’t even got around to fully assemble when Harry and Asher found them.

They also had a map with Harry and Asher’s place marked on it. Harry took out the first two with perfect aim, then Asher had tried to get the third guy to talk.

Harry couldn’t understand much. It was all in Croatian, but when Asher started to smash the guy’s head in with the plastic rifle stock, Harry was sure the interrogation was over.

“He refused to talk,” Asher had said. “And to think they were going to kill us with plastic rifles. A fucking children’s toy!” he’d cried, duly offended. “I’ve never been more insulted.”

Harry had smiled at that.

He wasn’t smiling now.

Like when he had to carry three bodies deeper into the woods. He wasn’t smiling then. He was too old for that shit.

Asher had helped, of course, but Harry did the heavylifting. They’d taken them into the ravine on their land, where the wild pigs had their dugout. The rutting season was over, the earth was all dug up, trees, roots, leaves. Appetites were frenzied.

See, the thing about wild pigs is that they’ll demolish a human body, hair, bones, and all.

It was why Harry and Asher fed them sometimes, adding some bones and blood to their diet over the last two years. So they’d come in handy in a time like this.

Wild pigs had even been known to eat clothes and boots. Not that Harry and Asher risked that, but three naked bodies, slit open and for the taking?

They’d be gone in twenty-four hours.

Not that it mattered.

Because it was highly unlikely Harry and Asher would be returning to Tallowwood, to their little house in the woods. And that made Harry’s heart heavy. They’d finally had the perfect place, to live out their perfectly quiet lives.

Until that came to an end.

If he was being honest with himself, Harry was surprised they’d even got two years. And it was a perfect two years.

Until he got complacent . . .

Now he wasn’t sure where they’d go after this, if they survived. He couldn’t put his finger on it, but this felt final. He didn’t know why.

He didn’t want to know.

Asher needed his help. Yunho and Lucas were missing, and Asher would stop at nothing to find them. And Harry would be right beside him the whole way.

Till the end.

“You awake?” Asher asked.

Harry shot him a look. “Yeah. Of course.” He hadn’tbeenasleep. Jeez. They were walking along a street in broad daylight, for fuck’s sake. He’d been lost in his thoughts, that’s all. Which wasn’t conducive to staying alive, but still. “Wassup?”

“The doctor’s office is this way,” Asher said, nodding up the alley.

Harry and Asher had watched the two smiling maintenance guys board their boat, loaded up with crates of vegetables and food—Yunho’s standard weekly order—heading out to Yunho’s island. Well, according to the guy who sold them the boat. And if they were going out there as if nothing was wrong, then they had no clue what they were about to find.

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