Page 45 of Toxic

Rip reached forward and grabbed the remote for the TV hanging on the wall. He flipped it on then tapped on his laptop in front of him. “This is Cholla Summit Ranch,” he told the room, showing a mapping image of Billie’s place.

“Decent sized place, but nothing so big a large company would want to buy it out,” Idaho said, speaking for the first time. He was studying the map. “Does it have a fucking diamond mine hidden on it or something?”

“Or something,” Rip said, giving him an approving look. He tapped the laptop again and now we were looking at a map overlaid on another map.

“What the fuck is all that?” Lock asked, looking at the color-coded formations dotting Cholla Summit Ranch.

I frowned, staring at them. “Is that underneath the soil?”

“Yeah,” Riptide said with a nod. “That’s Uranium deposits.”

“What?” I muttered leaning forward and studying the map more intently. “Holy shit, they’re everywhere.”

“It’s scattered pretty thin. Up until a few years ago it wouldn’t be worth the effort to mine, but new mining tech makes it highly profitable now,” Rip explained.

“Well, that explains why a nuclear energy company is so invested in this place then,” Hush said, leaning back in his chair.

“Exactly,” Riptide said with a nod. “I knew it had to be something in connection with what they’d be interested in. This geological survey was done in the early nineteen twenties.”

“Does Billie know about this?” Lock asked me.

“Not as far as I know. Not even sure her grandfather knows about it,” I told them. “Pretty sure one of them would have brought it up if they did.”

“For those of us who’ve been working out at that fucking place are we going to start glowing neon and shit?” Smoke asked, arching a brow.

Riptide chuckled. “No. Uranium deposits put off super low amounts of alpha radiation, typically-”

“In English,” Hellfire told him.

Riptide shook his head. “It’s buried beneath soil and rock. Alpha radiation has a low…output…and wouldn’t even be likely to affect the local plant life, let alone animals grazing there, or people living there.”

“So Billie’s not in any danger?” I asked. I was a rancher, not a fucking geologist. This was just as new to me as the rest of the guys.

“Not likely. If the deposits were putting off higher levels of radiation they would have known about it before now, since that ranch has been in her family for so long,” he replied.

“So Fission Solutions wants to run her off her ranch so they can dig up those Uranium deposits,” Lock said, getting back to business. “At least now we know why they’re doing this.”

“As far as I can tell, this is Jonathan Brently and has nothing to do with Heliaz Relay,” Rip reiterated.

“But that fucking company obviously doesn’t give a shit that it’s run by a bunch of lowlife shitheads,” I growled. “Who thefuck is fine with beating an old man nearly to death and trying to run a woman off her property?”

Everyone muttered in agreement.

“So I kill Jonathan Brently and this shit stops,” I told the room.

Lock’s brows shot up. “You may be spending too much time with Butcher,” he told me with a grin.

Butcher shook his head. “Nope. He’s always been like this. You don’t fuck with his people or his land. Do either and he’ll rain hell down on you. That’s not my doing.”

A sly grin formed on Lock’s face. “His people, huh?”

I shot him an unamused look. “Don’t-”

“Oh yeah,” Hush said, interrupting me. “Did we forget to tell ya that Toxic’s in love?”

“He was here for the whole part before,” I muttered, glaring at Hush. “Remember the fucking groceries?”

Hush shrugged. “Gotta make sure he realizes what we’re sayin’.”

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