Page 74 of Butcher

“Oh man, they got the rocket launcher?” Kilo complained, staring longingly down at where the vehicle was blazing.

“Focus,” I told him as I lined Donna’s scope up on a man as he tried to run from one tree to another. With one trigger squeeze Donna bucked in my hands and the man dropped. There was gunfire all around me as the six of us tried to even the odds for those waiting by the cabin. There was no way I was letting eight of them go up against as many men as my former co-workers had brought with them. We were thinning the herd, but damn it seemed like it was never ending.

Gunfire from behind me had me turning my head and looking down into the small valley. Some of the hired killers had gotten smart—they probably went on foot a mile to get past. I could only hope some of them got waylaid in my traps. Regardless, they had managed to get around us. The bikers down at the cabin were now a part of this fight. It was too much to ask for fifty men to come right through a choke point. I tried to settle my aching stomach. Butcher was down there. And so were the other men I’d come to know, and like, over the last few weeks. I didn’t care about the assassins at all. They were a threat that I wanted to take out as quickly as possible.

Swinging Donna to the side, I looked through her scope, scanning until I found Butcher. My jaw dropped open as I watched him beating a man with something.

“What’s he got?”

Glancing over at Kilo, I bit back the laugh. He’d turned his weapon to check in on the others as well and was seeing what I was watching. “He’s beating the guy to death with his own arm.”

Overdrive’s head lifted and he frowned. “How’s that work?”

“Hacked it off with his ax,” I replied, turning back to my own job. I knew Butcher was down there having the time of his life hacking and slashing away at people. We’d had a slight lull, but it was time to get back to work.

“Oh shit! Pretty sure you hit that one right in the balls,” Overdrive muttered with a laugh as he looked through his scope at where Kilo was once again shooting.

“Focus on your own damn people,” Kilo told him in a calm controlled voice. “And don’t try to shoot their dicks off.”

Overdrive’s rifle barked out another round. “Too late. Your fault for giving me the idea.”

These guys were amazing. They didn’t get fired up about much in the heat of battle. They were calm and collected. These were exactly the kind of men I had no problem fighting alongside. I’d seen my share of people who’d panicked the minute the shooting started.

Aiming in, I set my sights on another man’s chest as he raised his own weapon. I didn’t know who he was about to shoot at, but I wasn’t about to let him pull the trigger. Gunfire exploded in my ear and the man crumpled to the ground.

“I seem to have a lull,” Overdrive complained. “Why aren’t they coming my way anymore?” There was a brief moment of silence. “I’m bored. Let me shoot at one of yours.”

“No. Go away, asshole. These are mine. You’re the one who wanted that side so badly.”

“Yeah, ‘cause I figured they’d be swarming through here.”

“Figured wrong,” Kilo muttered, eyes already on another target. Their arguing was drowned out as he took the shot.

“Just let me shoot one. Just one,” Overdrive begged.

Rolling my eyes with a grin, I swept the area, looking through my scope as I did. Overdrive was right. They were thinning out. Which meant most had gotten through, gone around, or were dead. “It’s almost time to move,” I warned them.

“I have eyes on two more,” Kilo told me.

“It’s because you’re shooting them so slowly. That’s why you have some left,” Overdrive muttered.

“I’m not fucking shooting them-” Bang. “slowly. Fucking hell, Isla, go ahead and move and take this asshole with you while I finish up.”

Getting up, I made my way to the secondary spot we’d scouted out yesterday. It would give us the perfect view of the cabin and everything happening down there. Our previous spot allowed us to see the cabin but wasn’t as clear for shooting. This way we could help pick offeven more. The less the guys had to fight on the ground, the better it would be.

“Up there,” Overdrive said, pointing toward the little marker we’d left on the tree.

I made my way over, lifting Donna and using her magnified scope to take another look around. Laying down, I focused in on a man running toward Hellfire and Smokehouse, gun spewing rounds in their direction, pinning them down. My grin was feral as my shot took him down, sending him face first into the dirt.

“Shit.”

“What?” I asked without looking Overdrive’s way.

“Fucking rifle is jammed.”

“Did you tap rack it?” Kilo asked as he jogged up.

“Did I tap rack it?” Overdrive muttered in a mocking tone. “Of course I did, but here, I’ll do it again.” The man slammed the heel of his palm into the side of the stock, then racked the slide back.

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