Chapter 24

CHAPTER 24

Isla

" T hey'll cook breakfast," Lockout said, pointing with a thumb over his shoulder to the bikers standing behind him. "You have a job to do."

I tried to bite back laughter at the look on Smokehouse's face because Lockout's thumb landed on him. Horror washed over his features at the prospect of cooking for so many people. Or maybe it was just cooking in general. His question answered that.

"You want me to cook?"

Toxic shook his head. "I'll help you. Come on." The two men headed toward the kitchen, still talking. "It's not that hard, whatever you would cook for yourself, cook that much again and it will feed everyone else.

"The fuck is that supposed to mean?"

"It means you're lucky Dani cooks for you," Toxic told the younger man. "If you eat all that take out shit all the time, then by the time you hit my age we'll have to roll you off your bike. "

"Roll me-" Smoke paused. "What the hell are you talking about?"

"You'll lose that six pack, Son," Toxic teased, smacking the back of his hand against Smoke's stomach. He then rubbed his hand, clearly hurting himself more than Smokehouse.

"What?" Smoke asked, horrified again.

"That's the difference between being twenty and being forty."

"I'm thirty-one, dickhead."

"And I'm forty-two, same fucking difference."

Smokehouse rubbed his hand over what I assumed were his washboard abs, most of these guys seemed to have them, then followed after Toxic. "You still have a six pack, though," he pointed out.

"Yeah, ‘cause I don't eat that shit. I'll give you some pointers."

I caught Butcher's eye and grinned. "Does he really have a six pack?"

"You're never going to find out, Woman," Butcher muttered, giving me a dark look.

Rolling my eyes, I went over and sat down in front of my laptop. Feeling breath on the back of my neck I looked over my shoulder and frowned. I wasn't sure who it belonged to because Lockout, Riptide, Butcher, Priest, and Hush were all crowded around. The rest of the guys were over in the kitchen helping Toxic and Smokehouse. "Guys?" Five sets of eyes focused on me instead of the screen. "Could you maybe back up a step?"

Now I was facing five handsome grins and damn, how was a woman supposed to complain with that much charm aimed her way? They shuffled backward, though, so I focused on my computer again. I pulled up the program that my friend—the one who did all my tech stuff for me—had installed on my computer.

Tilting my head, I thought about the message I wanted to send.

"You sure we can trust your...friend?" Hush asked

"She's the best," I answered, still considering how I wanted to word things. Even with Switch being as good as she was, she'd freak on me if I just said plainly what I needed her to do. Everything always had to be coded with that girl. I'd gotten used to it.

"How long you known her?" Priest asked .

"Years." I wasn't about to tell them I hadn't had the pleasure of meeting her in person yet. We were both in businesses where it was better not to be seen. Not to be known.

I started typing, fully aware that the guys were jostling each other to be able to read over my shoulder.

"I swear to fucking Christ if you don't get off my damn ass I'm going to kick your ass," Lockout snapped at someone.

"You've been real cranky lately, Prez," Butcher pointed out, telling me it was him who was crowding in too close.

"Can you blame me? I'm always dealing with you assholes."

Shaking my head, I tuned out their arguing so I could concentrate.

Manta: It's that time of year.

I held my breath as I waited. It never took Switch long. I wasn't sure if she slept and showered with her laptop near her or what, but she always responded to me quickly. My friendship with her was why I'd hesitated when the guys said my person might have to be the one to track Randal down. I didn't want to pull her too far into this. What I was about to ask her to do was quick, easy, and wouldn't blow back onto her. It was a relief when they'd said one of Cypher's guys was already on Randal's trail. It kept Switch safe.

Switch: Too early for the snow.

"The fuck does that mean?"

I looked over and found Smokehouse leaning far over my shoulder.

"It's code," Rip replied.

"Get back in the kitchen," Hush told him, shoving him out of the way.

Smokehouse muttered the whole way, but he returned to the kitchen and an impatient Toxic.

Manta: It's time for Christmas.

Switch: Damn. Did you buy all the presents?

Manta: Yeah, just waiting on Santa.

I drummed my fingers on the desk as I waited for her reply. She knew what I wanted. We'd talked it over before, on a secure line of course .

Switch: The kids are getting restless.

She'd been keeping an eye on the assassin community for me. That was who the kids were. They'd been looking for me. That was why we couldn't wait too long to do this, otherwise they'd have found the clubhouse and the families. It would be a damn disaster.

Manta: Set out the milk and cookies.

Switch: Midnight?

Manta: Now. Wouldn't want to miss the jolly fat man.

The word ‘typing' flashed on the screen.

Switch: Give me five minutes and cookies will be ready. There was a pause, then she typed out. Good luck.

I shut down the program, knowing she'd be waiting to hear from me. To make sure I was okay at the end of this.

"What did you just do?" Lockout asked.

"Switch is about to hit the dark web," I told him, standing up and facing them. "She's going to release my location."

"Won't that make the assassins suspicious?" Butcher asked. "I wouldn't trust that shit."

"Of course you wouldn't," Riptide teased. "It came from that magic box."

Butcher flipped him off, but was staring at me.

"She's putting it out as a hit," I replied. When I'd gone over my plan with them, I'd told them I had a friend who could help with this part, but we hadn't gone over the specifics. There'd been plenty of other pieces of this to plan out and Lock had trusted me to take care of it. "You guys are included in it."

"Why would you include us?" Kilo asked from across the room. "Wouldn't it be better if they didn't know what they were walking into?"

"Bait," Lockout answered before I could.

"Exactly." I looked around because now everyone was staring at me. "If Switch put out that it was just me, we'd only draw in a couple assassins. It would take us months to kill them all because they'd come one at a time. This way, they'll realize that they need numbers to combat ours. "

"So they'll team up and come at us full force," Hush finished with a nod. "Good plan."

"Thanks," I replied. "Just so you know, it's not going to be only assassins."

"What do you mean?" Ricochet asked.

"Well, there's probably only twenty or so good assassins left," I told them. "Since Butcher here has done a number on our ranks." He shot me a wicked grin. "I'm guessing there will only be about five who are going to take us on. The rest are going to chalk this up to a mistake on both mine and Randal's part and let us hash it out ourselves."

"Do you know which assassins will join the fight?" Toxic asked.

"I think so, but it's just a guess. I'll go over their skills with you, though."

"Five shouldn't be a problem," Hell commented.

I shook my head. "That's the assassins. Now that they know our numbers they're going to bring help. But we needed all five to come at us at once, so it's a risk we had to take."

"Help?" Kilo asked. "What kind of help?"

"Sicarios, for one," I told him.

"Isn't that just Spanish for hit man?" Kilo pointed out. "What's the difference between a sicario and an assassin?"

"Most of the sicarios work for the cartels," I told him, leaning back against the desk. "And something the cartels have in droves are men. They've been training them since they were kids to protect their compounds and their drugs."

"Why would they get involved in this?" Lockout asked.

"The cartels won't, but when things are quiet, they don't mind if their sicarios take...outside work. Money is a huge motivator for all of us."

"Okay so assassins and cartel hit men," Priest said. "What else?"

"Mercenaries. Guns for hire," I continued. "Pretty much anyone who is willing to kill another person for money."

"What are we talking, as far as skill?" That came from Butcher.

"Anything from as good as us, to where did this asshole come from?" I quipped .

Everyone laughed, though there was tension in the room.

"Does that change things?" I asked them. I hadn't meant to hide this from them. Sometimes I forgot that people who weren't in the game didn't know how it went. These men were all former military. Their kills had all been sanctioned. They'd been trained to do this to protect our country. It didn't mean they knew how it worked when the government wasn't in charge of shit.

"No," Lockout replied to my question. "It doesn't change anything."

"Do you have a number?" Kilo asked.

I shook my head. "It's a rough estimate."

"How many?" Overdrive insisted.

"Forty? Fifty?" I guessed. "Each of the assassins coming for us is going to come with at least ten." I shrugged. "That's what I would do anyway."

Silence descended on the room. "Fourteen against fifty. Well, guess we better eat and get ready then," Toxic said, breaking the tension.

I glanced over at Lockout and Butcher as everyone filed over to the kitchen. "I'm sorry. I should have explained better, I-"

"Don't apologize," Lockout told me. "We knew the plan. We agreed to it."

"Doesn't matter if its assassins, sicarios, mercs, or whatever the fuck they send at us. We'll kill them all," Butcher said in agreement. He leaned down and kissed me.

Their confidence eased the worry that I'd messed up. I didn't want to do anything that put us in any more danger than we were already in. Blowing out a breath, I followed them into the kitchen. They'd have more questions and I was going to do my best to prepare them for the assassins I expected to respond to this contract.

"Time is it?" Overdrive asked.

"Five minutes since you last asked," Kilo snapped.

It was about two in the afternoon. I knew as soon as my location was released that the assassins would come as fast as they could. They probably already had whatever teams were working for them nearby, waiting to find out where to attack.

As soon as Riptide had seen activity on the camera he'd installed on the road out to the cabin, we'd all come up to our places. Kilo and Overdrive were with me. Priest, Rip, and Drifter were on the other hill across from us. Bolo was waiting down with the others in the valley. The cabin was about two hundred yards away from where we were holed up on these slopes. Through the scopes on our rifles we could see everything that would go down in the wide expanse of field in front of the cabin. This location was perfect for what we were about to do. It was the reason I bought this place.

The cabin sat in a bowl of slopes and hills. At the back of the three acres of grassy field was the wooden structure. There were trees all over the property, enough for cover, but not so much you couldn't see what was going on. My back was currently resting on the trunk of a tree as I stared down at the single road that would bring our enemies straight to us. They'd fan out, if they were smart, and that was why we were posted up here. It was our job to make sure they weren't able to circle around and come up on us from behind. And to take out as many on the road as we could before they got past the chokepoint the hills made.

"Tired of waiting," Overdrive grumbled. "Thought Rip said it'd take about twenty minutes from the time they tripped that alarm?"

"They'll be going slower," I told him in a low voice. "They're not sure what to expect."

"Good. Means we can kill them easier," Kilo muttered.

"Exactly."

We sat in silence, ears straining as we waited.

I wasn't sure how much longer we waited, but a grin stretched over my face. "Incoming."

Both men froze, listening and they returned my smile. We could all hear the revving of an engine. If you wanted to sneak up on someone in a vehicle it helped to keep at a steady pace. The more you stepped on and eased off the gas, the easier it made it to hear them coming from a distance. A steady hum of an engine was harder to pick up on than someone fluctuating their speed.

Unfortunately for our prey, the bumpy road up to the cabin made it hard to stay at a consistent speed. I laid down on my stomach, getting comfy as I stared through my scope. Aiming it toward the road, I waited for them to come into view. It was time to play.