Page 4 of Butcher

Ah, a rhetorical question. Good enough for me.I stayed quiet.

“Howthe fuckdo you know they’re assassins?”

Another glance at Toxic. A nod. So I answered, “Once the third one showed up, I figured someone must be sending them after us. Got a hold of Gail and she confirmed that they’d already killed Cliff and Ralph.” He hadn’t continued breathing long after I found that out. “Though they might be running out of assassins. Real ones that is. This last guy was an absolute joke.”

That ought to ease his nerves.

Lock just glared at me.

Or not.

Gail was my handler. She and the others who were watchdogs for men like me and my team were pretty tight. Cliff and Ralph had been good men. I couldn’t call them friends, though Toxic did, because I wasn’t sure I had friends back in those days, but I’d been pissed that they’d been killed. That was why I’d sent the head and body swap message to whoever was doing this. After I’d annihilated the man who’d killed Cliff and Ralph that was.

If they—whoevertheywere—didn’t get ‘leave us the fuck alone or end up like these two assholes’ from that message, I wasn’t sure whatwouldget through to them. Other than a bullet. That tended to get a message across nicely.

Lock’s shoulders finally dropped as he sighed. He’d given in to the fact that there wasn’t any other way out of this mess but to kill whoever was trying to off me—something I’d realized a while ago but still waited to tell him—and accepted that he was going to have to deal with it.

“I’m fully capable of handling this on my own,” I told him.

His eyes snapped up to mine. “Being a part of this club means you don’thaveto deal with shit like this on your own,” he told me. The anger was still there, but it was banked. It was an impressive skill of his. Except there were times he lost his shit and ended up being way more like me than he realized. The only difference between us was his ability to control himself ninety percent of the time. I lacked that. Well, that and my official diagnosis as a psycho.

Thanks, Mom.

Having it confirmed hadn’t really helped me out as a kid. Though, it had gotten the military interested in me. Turned out they wanted men exactly like me for those ‘special’ jobs that would end up fucking with normal men until they were non-functional. For men like me, we thrived in those situations.

So the Army had recruited me. Trained me. Put up with all my bullshit, until one day, they’d passed me, and ten others, over to the CIA on loan. Eleven if you counted Toxic, but he was just our transport. He helped with a few of the lighter missions, but I knew better than to involve him in most of the shit we did. Even back then I wanted to protect him from the monster I was. He didn’t need to see what I did. What I reveled in.

From that point on I’d been in charge of a special task force that handled all of the government’s most heinous missions. Military, CIA, civilian, it didn’t matter. We went where they told us. Killed who they told us to—and maybe a few extra—and did whatever they needed in the name of our country.

And once they were done with us they’d chucked us back into society and told us to assimilate back into being ‘ordinary men’. Problem was, we’d never been normal, and now we had years of violence and killing under our belts and no off switch to help keep those impulses under control.

“Don’t worry,” Lock said, leaning back into his chair. “We’ll find these fuckers and dispose of them.”

I grinned. Now he was speaking my language. And the fact that he and my other MC brothers would be there to back me up? If I had a heart that would have made me feel all light and happy. Instead, all I could think about was the upcoming bloodshed. And that made my dick harden. Reaching down, I adjusted so my zipper wasn’t digging into it. This wasn’t a new, or concerning reaction.

After everything with Fremont, we’d had three months of quiet. Well, the others had. Toxic and I had still had our fun thanks to our little assassin friends. But that was over now. It was time to go on the hunt.

CHAPTER 2

Manta

Present Day

Igroaned as my phone rang again. Digging it out of my pocket, I eyeballed the number then answered. “I can’t do my job if you keep bothering me, Randal.”

The guy was clingier than a needy ex-boyfriend.

“It’s been a month, Manta. We’re not paying you to sit on your ass-”

“You’ve only paid me half,” I reminded him, my eyes following the two men as they stood up from the table and walked over to the taco truck. “I told you. I’m doing thismyway.”

“My clients have expectations-”

“And yet no one has managed to meet those expectations, have they Randal?” I purred into the phone. It wasn’t for Randal’s sake, but because the two men ordering lunch were fucking sexy.Dark hair, tattoos, boots, jeans, and most importantly, leather cuts with a Viking head on the back.

I’d found the man they called Butcher only a few days after my meeting with Randal. But I hadn’t made my move yet. Instead, I was following him. Learning Butcher’s habits. Biding my time. True to his word Randal had sent more of my colleagues after him in the month I’d been following Butcher around, and he’d killed them as easily as all the others. I wasn’t worried that the competition would get to him first. In fact, I was enjoying the show.

He was impressive. Even I had to admit it. And his friend that was his constant shadow, Toxic, wasn’t half bad either. Though, my heart only sped up when I looked at Butcher. I was pretty sure that was some kind of medical condition. But I didn’t trust doctors, so I’d just have to deal with it on my own. Killing him would be a good place to start. I was finally ready. Such a shame I could only do this once.

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