Page 25 of The Butcher

The secret got out early, not that I wanted it to get out at all. But some things can’t be helped, and this was one of those things.

We found out the day we buried our mother that the Harden’s were responsible, that those sex trafficking bastards were the ones who ruined the lives of hundreds of people and changed the entire future of one small town.

The Harden’s had been running shit for such a long time, an underground circuit producing omegas to any alpha willing to pay, providing a service that was second to none. If you were a piece of shit who didn’t believe in the natural order of things, anyway.

Three generations of Harden assholes had been trafficking omegas, kidnapping them from their homes, taking them right off the street, and sending them directly into the pits of Hell. Everyone within one hundred miles of the ranch knows about it and what they do there, but their pockets run deep, and no matter how terrible they were, everyone turns a blind eye to anyone carrying that last name.

Over time, things only got worse and with the creation of the internet, Bryce Harden brought the family business into the 21st century, putting them on the map in a national way, and creating an even bigger demand than what they had before.

Thus, also creating the tragedy that took place in our town fifteen years ago.

And once I found out just how close to home that slimy motherfucker and his business got, I made it my personal mission to make him and everyone he’s ever met pay.

A mission I was fortunate enough to start almost immediately following my mother’s funeral.

Nash and Clayton took me hunting, an actual hunt—for deer and not people—to try to let off some steam and start to cope with what happened. It was a good idea, even if I didn’t think so at the time, and that’s why I agreed. That and the fact that I owed it to my partners to try to decompress and start to process things while giving them the time to do the same.

I didn’t exactly make it easy for them.

An hour into the trip and I was already a brooding bastard, but the universe was on my side that day because that was the very moment The Butcher of Obsidian Falls was truly born.

We stopped for gas, and so Clayton could buy his weight in junk food, and while I was filling up the camper, fate intervened.

None other than Stewart Harden pulled up to the gas pump next to ours during that very pitstop, and I thought we hit the goddamn jackpot.

I debated on using him as bait, taking the son of a bitch and trying to draw Bryce out by letting him know we had his baby brother, but I couldn’t. I needed answers, I needed vengeance, and it didn’t matter how big the fish was at that moment, someone was going to fry.

Needless to say, the hunting trip was cut short, we followed him all the way to some stupid fucking resort, and I took him right out from under the Egyptian cotton sheets while he was sleeping in his five-star bed.

My original plan was to find out what they did and why, to pump him for all the information I could get so we could shut their entire operation down, but the longer he pleaded for hislife, the less I gave a shit. And I decided to show Stewart Harden the same kindness he’d shown my mother because of it.

We went home and the second our camper was parked, I stripped him down, chained him up, and dragged him through town then ran him up the flagpole by his fucking dick and let every single person who’d lived through the horror his family brought to ours take a swing on him. Once they were finished, so was he.

I beat Stewart to death with my bare fucking hands then left his rotting corpse swinging in the wind until his limbs started to fall off.

It didn’t quell the need for justice, though. Not even when I packed up his decaying remains and anonymously sent them to Bryce.

Ultimately, I knew all that I needed to know; the Harden’s infiltrated our town, they became our friends, then they struck when our guard was down.

But killing him didn’t make me, or anyone else feel better.

It didn’t change what happened, it didn't bring my mother back.

What they did was unforgivable, it was heinous and thinking about what actually happened still makes me angrier than I thought I would ever be.

How could I respond in any other way?

Any omega who was packed up, who had mates and a fucking family, they were slaughtered. Annihilated. Wiped the fuck out.

I still don’t know how they did it, but I suspect it was tampering with scent blockers, the ones almost all of them took when they were working or when they would head to another town to shop. The bastard tapped into a fucking prescription that was vital for most of them, something they used to stay safe in an environment where an unmated alpha could be present at any given moment, and they did it while they smiled andwaved from neighboring yards and businesses. Do we know that for sure? No, and I’m not sure we ever will but poison was the only explanation because there was nothing evident in any of the autopsies performed, and there was not one physical symptom between the last time an omega was seen alive, and when their alphas started finding them dead.

We have no hard proof, nothing solid after years of picking them off, but the shit Zeke started to find the second he gave in to the most logical conspiracy theory he’s ever had, it all but confirmed the Harden’s were behind it, and they did it to further expand their incredibly illegal and unethical business that had been booming for decades.

Then they kicked us when we were down.

Using grief and pain as a veil, the motherfuckers swarmed Obsidian Falls about six months later, came in like a fucking swat team, and they stole every omega who was still there, the few who had just found out their designation, and the even less who remained and had managed to stay safe from the mass murder that no one had begun to heal from.

That time, they didn’t bother hiding who they were or what they were doing.

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