Page 72 of Reaper Razed

“So fourthly, you can both go fucking fuck yourselves and fuck right off, and officially cut the bullshit because we’re done. We’re out! Game over! The motherfucking end!”

She flops back down in her seat. “Oh, and these are yours!” Then she proceeds to flip us both off.

We both just stand there gob-smacked, and Bran and Dane grin like the stupid motherfuckers that they are. “You fucking bookends got anything to add?” I ask smarmily.

They both lean past Ray to look at each other, then flop back. “What she said!” Bran adds.

“What they said!” Dane replies.

The look of hurt on all their faces fucking cripples me. We handled this all wrong, and it’s only gonna get worse from here. I step around the table and pull Ray to her feet, grabbing her into my chest. “I’m sorry, Squirt!” And I hug her like it might be the last time. Once I hug her enough, I step in front of Bran and pull him to me, too. “I’m sorry.” And then I grab Dane. “I’m sorry. I love you all. You know that, right?”

“Fuck’s sake, this is supposed to be official!”

“Bernie, shut the fuck up and stop acting like an asshole.” I shoot over my shoulder at him.

He climbs out of the chair and heads round the table, too. “I’m sorry.” He opens his arms wide, and they all step in! “We do need to have a serious discussion, though, okay?”

We all take a seat around the desk again.

“When we left here, we went straight to the Adventure Centre. We emptied everything we thought you would like to keep. It’s all in the storage rooms downstairs. Then we torched everything. None of us wants to go back there. We wouldn't have kept the place going. This way, we get the insurance money.” Bernie speaks coldly and almost robotic as he glosses over the information.

“Like we need the fucking money!” Dane spits.

“It would have been nice to be asked what we wanted to do with our childhood home,” Ray mutters.

“Anyway… the official ruling will be arson, but seeing as we all have an alibi, we will be fine. Steven and JJ used the private jet to come on the mission, but the logs say they came here instead for a vacation. They died in a car accident this morning, and the funeral will be next week.”

“Are you fucking shitting me? You passed off their deaths from last month on a fucked up mission as a car accident this fucking morning?”

“Yes! That way, we can cremate them here. We brought everyone else home with us, too.”

“That was our fucking home! We have more fucking family members in urns than we do breathing right now!” Bran rolls his eyes and rubs his jaw.”

“Look, we’re doing our best in a shit situation, okay?” I try to placate everyone. “We just need to regroup and re-game plan.”

“So, what now?” Ray looks us both over, trying to figure out what's gonna go down from here.

“Alpha 1 is retiring!” Bernie adds

“Delta 1 is retiring too!”

“Wait, what the hell?” Bernie spits out.

“We’re done! We’ve been at this since we were twelve. Training since we were five. It’s fucking draining. We will help with the rest, but the Mercs, we’re done!” Ray insists, and the others nod.

“One last mission? The five of us together!”

“Why the fuck should we?”

“One last mission. Together, to end this. We’re going after Dante. Then Cade and I will take over the day-to-day running of the Mercs and security, and you three are the new faces of dealing and distributing. We’ve kept everything far too hush-hush, and now Dante is convincing everyone he’s a bigger fish than he is by passing himself off as The Armoury. We'll take him out!”

Ray looks between her brothers, and they both nod. “Fine. But if I die on this mission, my husband will skin you all alive.”

“It won’t come to that.” I smile. “We have an inside man!”

Ray flies up out of her chair. “Don’t say it. Do. Not. Fucking. Say. It!”

“We made Liam an offer he couldn’t refuse. We sent him back to Dante, and he’s been filling us in on him. We still don’t have a visual or a description, but Liam’s getting closer, so it’s just a matter of time, and we have Kent working on some stuff.”

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