Page 50 of Butcher

“Who?” she asked, frowning.

“Friends of ours up in Phoenix. Trust me, we’ll want all hands on deck for this.”

Relief flashed in her eyes. “Okay. Not that I don’t like it here...”

“I’m ready to end this, too,” I told her. It was strange. There were very few people I really understood. Their motivations and what moved them didn’t really compute. But her? I just seemed to get her. And I had the feeling it was mutual.

“Has Glitch managed to find anything?” she asked.

“Last I heard he was following Randal’s trail. He’s confident he’ll pin Randal down soon. So first, we take care of the assassins, then we go after Randal.”

An excited look crossed her face, and I realized I was grinning too. Toxic was right, we fit well together. I didn’t know exactly what that meant once all this was over, but I wasn’t exactly aplan for the futurekind of man. I’d deal with it when the time came.

“Owwwww! Call off your dogs!” Toxic hollered.

It was too late. Gabby had used the weight racks to gain height and was hanging from a bar we’d installed to do pull ups. She swung her body and dropped onto Toxic’s shoulders.

I watched, impressed, as Toxic stumbled around, trying to pull the girl off his shoulders, but she’d been taught well. She managed to execute a perfect wrap around his neck. Sean and Dex grabbed her ankles and pulled. Toxic’s eyes widened as he realized what was happening, but between her weight and the boys adding to the pressure, he was shit out of luck. The only way he was getting out of this was to hurt Gabby and I knew he’d rather get choked out than do anything to harm these kids.

He took too long deciding what to do and dropped to his knees, that way he wouldn’t hit as hard. It wasn’t long before he was out like a light. Within seconds his pockets were empty and the kids scrambled away from his prone body.

I laughed and shot Isla a look. The pride on her face was enough to tell me who’d taught them that move and how to work together.

“Okay kids,” Isla said, voice cool and calm. “Back to work.”

“Hey, Toxic.” Warrant walked through the door, tripping over his Toxic’s body. “Oh. Nice when it’s not me.” He winked over at Isla, making my blood boil, but she just rolled her eyes and turned away from him.

“Ugh, fuck me.” Toxic was coming to and staggering to his feet.

“I’m just going to kill him,” I told Toxic, ignoring the fact that my friend was still struggling to focus. “Put him out of my misery.”

“Give him a chance,” Toxic replied, rubbing his throat and shooting the kids a menacing look. “You’ll like him.” He didn’t bother to scold the kids because they were already back to practicing.

“Never said I didn’t like him,” I muttered. “He just keeps making stupid decisions.”

“What’s up?” Toxic asked Warrant, ignoring me.

“Got a surprise for you, Brother,” Warrant answered, ignoring my scowl.

“What is it?” Toxic asked.

“You better come out front and see for yourself.”

We walked together out of the gym, leaving Isla and the older kids to their practice. “Word of warning,” Toxic told Warrant, “from brother to brother since I’ve known you most of my life.” Toxic had been in the Berserker’s Rage MC when he was younger, but circumstances brought him to Tucson and he’d ended up joining up with Lockout and the Vikings. No one held it against him and he was still close with his old club brothers. “I’d quit making eyes at Isla,” Toxic continued. “Otherwise you’ll have to deal with him.” He jerked a thumb in my direction.

Warrant turned to study me, then just nodded as we kept walking.

I was holding back on beating his ass out of respect for Toxic, and to try to keep Lock from going nuclear. Our president was already at max capacity planning this mission and trying to keep all of us, the Berserkers included, in line. He didn’t need more shit from me. Fuck was it hard being responsible and shit though. I didn’t like it much.Good thing we were about to go kill a lot of fucking people. It would help take the edge off. Besides, something told me that beating Warrant’s ass wasn’t going to make Isla any happier. And that seemed to be important to me.

We stepped outside and Toxic froze next to us. Warrant had a shit-eating grin on his face as we stared over at the people clustered around a newcomer.

“What the hell is he doing here?” Toxic asked, frowning.

“Tried to come with us yesterday. Told him that old beater pick-up couldn’t keep up with our bikes,” Warrant replied. “Guess he still decided to come. If I’d known, I would’ve made sure to stick with him.”

“He wouldn’t have let you hear the end of it.” Toxic made a face, then mimicked, “I’m a fucking grown man, I don’t need a babysitter.”

Warrant and I chuckled at that. I’d met Daryl Sutton years ago and I liked him immediately. He didn’t take shit from anyone. And judging by the way Scarlett and Silvia were smiling and giggling at him it was safe to say that Toxic had come by his charm naturally. It rolled off his old man in waves whenever he was speaking to the girls.

---