Page 89 of Butcher

I didn’t say anything. Neither did Toxic or Warrant. Scythe wasn’t around, so I assumed he was still below, taking care of the remaining guards.

“I can’t imagine you kept her with you just to make sure you didn’t die. Otherwise you’d have just killed her,” he mused.

“We’ve got the guard,” Toxic muttered to me. He’d slowly inched his way closer until he was standing next to me.

“Yeah,” Warrant said in an equally low voice. “You take the weasel.”

“Shut up!” Randal screamed, spit flying out of his mouth. “I swear to God I’ll fucking kill her if you don’t-”

That was when I saw what my friends had seen.

Isla’s eyes were open. The two men near her weren’t watching her, they were focused on us. She pulled a mini blade from her boot and with one smooth move, drove the knife into the side of the guard’s knee. She rolled out of the way of his gun, but he was too busy reaching down, howling in pain. The chaos continued from there.

My gaze was fixed on Randal as I ran forward. I knew Toxic and Warrant would handle the other man, and take care of my old lady—who was already taking care of herself. That left me free to kill the fucker who’d helped put out a contract on my life. Who’d tried to have Isla killed. He yelped when I bolted at him, trying to run. He wasn’t a fighter. He was thin and wiry, and I knew it wouldn’t take much to end him. But that wasn’t my only goal.

One blow to the back of the head sent him careening toward the edge of the building. He was screaming, covering his face with his arms, but he stopped when he realized he wasn’t falling. He looked over his shoulder and grimaced when he saw my face. “Don’t kill me. I can tell you everything,” he pleaded.

I tilted my head and nodded. “Do that,” I demanded.

“It wasn’t me. I’m just the middleman. I didn’t want you dead.”

“Who did?”

“Someone from within Heliaz Relay Telecom Corporation.”

“Why does that sound familiar?” Toxic asked as he walked up.

A quick look over my shoulder was all it took to see Warrant helping Isla to her feet. Knowing she was safe, and alive, I focused back on Toxic and Randal. “That was the corporation we ditched against direct orders.”

Toxic’s eyes widened. “Shit, you’re right.”

“Who?” Isla asked as they walked up.

“When we were still with the elite group Butcher led,” Toxic explained. “Heliaz Relay made a lot of the radios and equipment we used overseas. We were given orders to back up some mercenaries who were hired by Heliaz Relay Corp to help find one of their board members who’d been taken hostage in a village.”

“Why was a board member overseas, and taken as a hostage?”

“Good question, never bothered to ask. When we got there, the guy was the one starting trouble. They were trying to force this village to move. Didn’t matter to him that their families had been there for hundreds of years and that was their home.”

“Why did they want them out?” Warrant asked.

“Never found out,” I replied. “As soon as his hired guns got there he told them to start executing anyone who wouldn’t leave.”

“Men, women, children, it didn’t matter to these assholes,” Toxic snarled.

Isla gasped. “That’s terrible.”

It didn’t escape any of our notice that the professional assassin in our group agreed that what they’d done had been barbaric.

“Thankfully, it only lasted about a minute,” Toxic said with a grin. “Butcher gave the order and we killed the mercs and the businessman. And by ‘gave the order’ he just started shooting the pricks and we got the hint.”

“Not before a father and daughter died,” I replied, the anger still blazing inside of me even after all these years.

“Bet your higher ups were pissed,” Warrant said with a grim look.

“Wasn’t long after that my unit was disbanded and we were kickedback into civilian life,” I admitted. “We’d gone against orders. Had proven we wouldn’t kill for them under any circumstance anymore.”

“You did the right thing,” Isla insisted, sounding angry. “How did they not see that?”

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