Page 55 of The Butcher

Straightening to my full height, I look down at our omega, my heart pinching over the conflicting feelings I anticipate won’t go away for a long time. “Everything’s fine.”

“It’s him, isn’t it?”

I frown, then ask like I genuinely have no idea. “Who?”

“The one I haven’t met, the one who…” She pauses and looks over her shoulder as Clay joins us by the door. “Who doesn’t like me.”

He loves you, we all do. “Don’t worry about him, ok?”

Indy searches my face, my cheeks growing hot from how much braver she seems to be, from the way she scrutinizes every feature as if she can read the truth the exact same way Bramley does. “You’re worried about him.”

Not a question, and it has me looking over her shoulder at Clayton.

Who shrugs and makes this moment his. “We’re always worried about him, he makes it hard not to be, but that asshole can wait. I promised you could try to tattoo me before we went to see the horses, and I’m sure Nash would love it if you tattooed him, too. Just not on the ass,” he says with a worried grin as he motions toward the back. “We have to work our way up to ass tattoos, they aren’t for the faint of heart.”

Indy giggles a little as they make their way to the curtain, and I can’t help but smile a little as I watch.

This would be perfect if Bramley was here, but he’s not, and I’m worried he might never come home again.

Chapter Fourteen

BARBARIANS AND BOOBYTRAPS

Bramley

“That’s right, motherfucker, go have a fucking smoke.”

Crouching behind a tree and out of view of the security cameras, I watch the two suits by the garage shoot the shit, talking about somenew batch of bitchescoming in from auction, and everything they plan to do to them when they get here.

I don’t know why I drove to Harden Ranch.

I’ve made it a point to stay the fuck away from here ever since I started picking off its employees but fighting with Nash has me all kinds of fucked up still, and I was gunning to find someone with blood I could spill to make me feel better.

These mafioso looking fucks aren’t going to cut it, even if they’re talking about doing some pretty vile shit to the new omegas they’re apparently waiting for.

I need someone big. Someone important. Someone Bryce Harden will actually miss, otherwise my entire night is shot to shit, and I’m not going home no matter what, so this needs to be worth it.

Especially since these asshats are clearly packing, and I don’t even have my hunting knife because I left the shop so fast I didn’t grab anything other than what I needed to leave.

It’s very possible I could die tonight, and right now, I don’t really give a shit. I just want someone worth the risk.

Please, give me a bastard who deserves to die more than I do. Anyone who lives in that gigantic house and makes a good chunk of the population miserable on a daily basis. Just one member of the inner circle, one piece of shit from the family. If I’m going down, make it worth it for me. Give me one last chance at redemption, one shot at trying to avenge my mother. Let me…

Bingo.

As if the gods of fucked up serial killers heard me, a car goes flying down the driveway and comes to a screeching halt in front of the two dumbass henchmen before none other than Alan Harden throws open the driver door.

Walker’s oldest brother.

If I had my phone and actually gave a shit right now, I might text Zeke to double-check that his friend really has written off his entire family. Walker swears its all for show, that he only lives here, and goes out of town to scout for omegas, to help us. He says that after his grandfather was murdered—not one of mine, unfortunately—and he saw what his family was all about, he vowed to never be like them.

So far, he’s proven that to be true, but I haven’t had the opportunity to kill someone so close to him before. Walker could look at things a little differently when he finds out his brother’s hugely overweight corpse is hanging in my cooler, so we’ll see where his loyalties lie when we get there.

I’m killing that big, fat, smug son of a bitch, if it’s the last thing I do.

It very well might be, too, so I have to make it good.

Keeping him in my line of sight, I watch as he starts pacing by his side of the car, holding up a finger to the two goons who seem to be waiting for his instructions. He’s yelling at someone, losing it about a shipment, the auction, and how his dad can’t find out about his fuck up. Alan is going ballistic on whoever is on the other end of the phone in his hand, but that last bit has me curious.

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