Chapter 15

CHAPTER 15

Butcher

" W hat kind of chicken shit runs?" I muttered, kicking an empty filing cabinet.

"You expected him to wait here for you to find and kill him?" Rip asked, grinning over at me. The fucker always seemed to be relaxed and happy. How the fuck did he do that?

"Yeah, he'd be a fuckin' idiot to take you on," Hush added.

"Stupid is one thing Randal isn't," Isla offered up. "He's smart, conniving, and hard to pin down."

"Why do you say that?" Toxic asked her.

"Otherwise the assassin community would know exactly who he is," she replied, picking up a stack of papers and looking through them. The way she tossed them aside told me they were useless. "He's only dangerous because he's a mystery. If you don't know who he has backing him, then you don't know the real risks of coming after him."

"There's nothing about him you can tell us?" Lock asked.

She shook her head. "I wish I could, but he's one of the big players as far as middlemen go and this was the first time I'd even met him." She glanced over at us. "I don't know his real name and neither does anyone else. Hell, I'm not even sure that that was his real face when I met him."

"You mean the other assassins don't know," Priest clarified.

She shrugged. "As far as I know anyone in the community. Assassins, middlemen, clients." She looked over at Rip and gave him a smug grin. "How much have you found on me ?"

He looked surprised at first that she knew he was digging into her, then he shrugged. "Nothing."

"Exactly. We pay good money for skilled people to keep our shit protected."

Lockout turned and pinned her with a look. "Which means you have a contact."

"What?" She looked confused.

"You know someone who can find Randal. Whoever hid your information."

"Oh... I don't know," she hedged. "These guys are picky about who they work for and the kind of stuff they do."

"Can't we just call Rat and Ari?" Hellfire asked, jerking open a desk drawer and glaring at the empty space inside.

"No," Hush replied before Lock had a chance. "They're out of this life, for the most part," he added. "Ari's pregnant again. We don't need to drag them into it."

"Agreed," Lock said. "I'm not willing to put them, or any of the Austin guys into harm's way."

"You know Cade and the others would come if we needed it," Ricochet told him.

"I know," Lock said with a sigh. "And that's exactly why we can't use them. I refuse to be the reason one of them ends up in jail or dead." He shook his head. "We can handle this."

"One hand tied behind your back," Isla muttered so softly that only I heard her. I was about to ask and she shook her head dismissively.

Smoke let out a happy grunt as he pulled a box of cigars out of one of the filing cabinets. He shoved Hell away when Hell got too close to touching his treasure. He pulled the box in close to his chest and glared at his friend. "Mine."

"Didn't your mom ever teach you to share?" Hell muttered, scowling at him.

"Not when it comes to Cuban cigars she didn't," Smoke replied.

"Besides, his mom was a selfish cunt," Ricochet added.

Smoke pointed at him, giving Hellfire a ‘see, I don't have to share' kind of look.

Hellfire rolled his eyes and kept searching through the walls of filing cabinets.

"What about Glitch?" Toxic asked, looking bored as he leaned against the desk in the middle of the room. He wasn't bothering to search since the rest of us were.

"Who's Glitch?" Ricochet asked.

"Oh, right," Toxic said. "You guys haven't met him yet. He's Cypher's techie."

"Is he any good?" Smoke asked. "‘Cause he has to be better than Riptide here or he's not finding shit."

Rip flipped him off, but didn't seem to be truly bothered by the comment. Flipping Smoke the bird seemed to be more an obligation to the happy-go-lucky fucker than anything.

"I mean, Cypher recruits the best of the best for his security company," Toxic answered with a shrug. "I want to say Glitch was a part of some alphabet government agency before Cypher stole him away."

"Let's get out of here," Lock told everyone as I jerked open a closet. "I'll call Cypher, see if Glitch can help. If he can't, we're getting a hold of whoever you used," he warned Isla.

My foot hit something on the floor and I looked down, "Guys," I called out.

Everyone stopped and Lock came to stand next to me. "Fuck! Out! Everyone out!"

There wasn't time. The timer on the bomb sitting at the bottom of the closet had less than a minute on it. There was no way we were getting out of this building before it came down on top of us. Not to mention all the other people in this fucking building. It was in downtown Tucson. Reaching in, I grabbed the fucking thing.

"Was anyone an Explosive Ordinance Disposal Tech?" Isla asked, watching with wary eyes as I moved across the room.

"No," Hush replied.

Everyone was waiting because despite Lock's order, once they realized I wasn't leaving they'd stopped. Lock moved over to the window. "There's a dumpster down there," he said, pointing.

It wasn't ideal, but it was the best we were going to get. Thankfully, the damn bomb wasn't very big. I didn't have a lot of experience with this shit, I was more of a hack and slash, or shoot and move, kind of man, but I knew enough to know this thing wasn't going to level all the buildings around us. If I could get it away from this room the threat would be minimal. The only reason it was an issue here was because we were in the middle of the building. If it took out enough of the floor the building on top of us would come crashing down and would crush everything below it.

Moving over to the window, I gauged the distance, then chucked the bomb out. We watched as it landed in the partially full dumpster, then took cover. There was still a chance it would take out the building at the base, or even turn the dumpster into shrapnel, sending shards of steel through the building, but fuck I hoped it wouldn't. Grabbing Isla around the waist, I hauled her away from the outer wall and covered her with my body.

She didn't have a chance to protest because the boom of the bomb shook the building. Plaster and glass rained down as the concussion caused the windows to break. We all waited, breaths held to see what would happen next.

"Time to go," Lock muttered, motioning for everyone to leave. He waited until we were all out, making our way down the stairs before he followed. That was the kind of leader he was. He led by example. He led the charge, and you wouldn't see him running away, leaving his men to follow.

As soon as we got out onto the street, we could see the aftermath. Trash was splattered up against the two buildings the dumpster had been parked between, and it looked like the fucking thing had vomited its contents everywhere. I'd been right. It would have been a bad day for us if we'd been in the room when that fucking thing went off, but out here there wasn't much for it to damage. Though the surrounding brick walls did have scorch marks on them. And the dumpster was on fire while the green paint boiled and melted onto the pavement.

We kept moving. The last thing we needed was anyone pointing us out once the cops got here. Sirens were already wailing as the police, firefighters, and ambulances rushed past. People were pouring out of both buildings, helping us get lost in the crowd until we got to our bikes.

"Safe to say he knows we're onto him," I told the group as we all got on our bikes.

"Yeah," Hush muttered. "We better not give him too much time to try again."

"We won't," Lock replied, "but we have too much to lose to run off all half-cocked. Rip, stay behind, figure out how he got past the cameras and got that bomb in here, then make sure it doesn't happen again. He must be running some high dollar tech. We need to get our shit in order before we can take this fucker out."

"It's only been a few hours," Rip muttered. "So either he looped the security feed days ago so that anyone looking would think he was still here, or somehow he knew we were coming and beat tracks and looped it then."

As soon as Isla had told us about this office, Rip had hacked into the video surveillance to get the lay of the land. Not once had he seen Randal moving anything out of here or we would have moved on him faster than we did.

"This asshole seems to be one step ahead of us every time," Toxic said, rolling a cigar between his fingers.

"Hey!" Smoke snapped. "Where'd you get that?" He pulled the cigar box out from under his cut and counted how many cigars were still in it. His eyes narrowed. "You took one. "

"Prove it," Toxic said, placing the cigar between his teeth and giving Smoke a feral smile.

"Asshole." Smokehouse scowled at him as he put his precious cargo away and left a hand over it, in case Toxic went back for round two.

We pulled away from the curb, eager to get some distance between us and the destroyed alleyway. We weren't exactly keen to see the fucking cops again so soon after all the Fremont bullshit, so the last thing we wanted was to be caught at the scene. We followed Lock and pulled into a parking lot a few miles away.

"What's the plan?" Smoke asked.

"I'm betting Static might have some contacts we can shake down," I told the group. At least his lawyer bullshit was helpful for something. Though, he had gotten us out of jail a couple times, too.

"Ricochet, Smoke, head back to the clubhouse. Tell Static to come meet us. We'll see if we can find anyone who knows anything about this piece of shit," Lock ordered.

"I'll go, too," I offered. "I want to drop Isla back at the clubhouse."

She'd been quiet for the last little bit as we planned, but now she gave a squawk of protest. "I can help!"

"You have any associates who will give this guy up?" Lock asked.

"No," she admitted.

"Any other contacts in Tucson we can talk to?" Lock continued.

"No." I didn't look behind me, but I knew she had a mulish expression on her face now. I could hear it in her tone.

"What is it you can help us with then?"

"I'm good at torturing people for information," she answered.

"That's what he's for," Lock pointed at me. His eyes met mine and I shook my head at his silent question. If I'd asked for her to stay with us he would've happily let her come along. But I wanted her back at the clubhouse where it was safe. I didn't care that she'd made a career of killing people, you never knew what could happen and I'd feel better having her back at home. Besides, if they managed to get a bomb in under our noses, then having our own assassin hiding in a closet might be the safest thing for the women and kids. "Come back with Static once you drop her off. "

"I'll ride with them," Toxic offered.

I nodded and started up my bike. The five of us pulled away from the others and headed back toward the clubhouse. Once we parked our bikes and walked toward the building, I looked over at Isla. She didn't look pissed. That was a start. I hadn't known her very long, so I was just guessing that's how she'd react.

"I'd rather have you here protecting the other women," I told her. It was partially the truth.

She shot me a sidelong look and shook her head. "Yeah. Okay."

"That's it?" I asked, pausing, letting the others get ahead of us.

She shrugged. "What do you want me to say, Butcher?"

"I don't know... I figured you'd be pissed."

She sighed. "You guys are helping me. Going to a lot of trouble, too. If this is where you want me I'll play ball, for now," she warned. "But I'm not much for team activities. I'm a bit of a loner, if you haven't noticed. If you try to keep me from participating when you go after Randal, I'll just follow you and show up when you least expect it."

I grinned at her. "Wouldn't fucking dream of it."

Her eyes narrowed. "You swear?"

"Yeah." I held her stare. "I might be an asshole, Terror, but I keep my promises. You can come when we go to take down Randal."

She breathed a sigh of relief and it thrilled me to realize it was because she was taking me at my word. I nodded at the clubhouse door where Static was exiting. "Go inside. Stay there."

She nodded, then hesitated, looking like she wanted to say something, but instead turned on her heel and went inside.

I wasn't exactly good with dealing with women on a long term basis. It's why I didn't have an old lady, but Isla and I seemed to have this natural understanding. She wasn't weak. She wasn't useless. Really, she had a lot to offer us, but she was heading inside the clubhouse and was going to stay there because I asked it of her. I wasn't going to take advantage of her good nature, and I'd keep my damn promise to let her help take out our mutual enemies, but until then, I needed her here. Needed her somewhere I knew was safe. And honestly I did want her to help watch over the others. She knew her kind far better than any of us did. Who better to watch over our families? To help keep them safe so we could do what we needed to?

Static and Toxic met up with me and we walked back toward our bikes. If we were going to be stuck waiting for the Wyoming guys to make their way down to us, we'd at least do as much digging as we could. It didn't matter that we didn't manage to find Randal the first, or even second time, he could only hide for so long.

Eventually we'd find him. And then I was going to make him fucking regret every decision he made that had him coming after me and Isla. He was going to die wondering if he'd never made those mistakes if he would have lived a full, lengthy life.