Chapter 3

CHAPTER 3

Butcher

T oxic smacked me in the gut with the back of his hand, making me grunt, and focus back on the conversation. Everyone was staring at me with their brows up. Shit. What had I missed?

Toxic cleared his throat. "Yeah, Prez, we definitely want to handle the torture of this guy."

I nodded, trying to keep up with what was going on. We had the would-be assassin tied up in the locker room area of our gym. The showers in there were the only place with a drain in the floor. We couldn't just torture this guy for information out back behind the compound because any of the women or children could come along. They didn't need to see that. Although knowing Priest's little hellions, they might want to.

"We'll handle it," I added.

"What's wrong with you?" Toxic huffed as soon as our brothers started filing out of the room .

It wasn't that they couldn't torture properly, they just didn't seem to know how to enjoy themselves. It was all business. What a waste. Whatever. They knew we'd come back to them and tell them anything we learned.

"Sorry. Mind was someone else. I'm back."

He studied me. "You love torture." It was true. I did. "What could have distracted you from one of the things you love most?" He stopped dead in his tracks. " Someone ? Not somewhere?

Was that what I'd said? Well, hell. I gave him a look that said he was the crazy one losing his hearing, not that I'd slipped up.

The fact that he knew me so well wasn't surprising anymore. It was the fact that he didn't give a shit that I was crazy. Most people cared about that kind of thing. Not Toxic. He accepted it as though it was some mundane piece of information about me, like I enjoyed vanilla ice cream. I didn't, of course. Who would like plain vanilla ice cream? It was so fucking boring.

I sighed when he continued staring. "I saw a woman at the taco truck."

Toxic paused as he was about to pick up a knife. "A woman?"

"Yeah." I scratched the back of my neck. "I don't know. She just seemed familiar."

He grabbed the knife and turned to face me. "You're distracted over a woman?" He made a dramatic sniffing sound. "I'm so proud."

Shaking my head with a grin, I flipped him off before I grabbed my blow torch.

"Where do you know her from?"

"I don't actually know her," I admitted.

We walked over and stopped in front of the guy who was sitting there, looking back and forth at us with panic in his eyes. He had a gag in his mouth for now. I didn't want to listen to the begging just yet. It was the screaming I enjoyed anyway.

"So why the fascination?"

"Fuck," I muttered. "I don't know . Okay?"

"Okay. Shit, you're fucking pissy today." He looked over at the guy. "Look. This torture shit isn't my deal. All the blood and screaming, it makes me queasy. So understand that I really don't want to be here." The man nodded enthusiastically, hope glimmering in his eyes. "But this guy, torture makes him so horny I bet he's walking a tripod right now," Toxic continued, pointing at me.

The man looked over at me and I gave him a wide grin, flashing teeth. The hope vanished and panic set in.

"And since he's the one you were trying to kill, he's a bit eager to get at you."

I started up the blow torch and sighed as a tear slid down the guy's face. Damn. If he was already crying, then this wasn't going to be much fun. He was going to end up spilling his guts the minute we took the gag out and I wasn't going to get to play at all. I was pretty sure what I told Lock before was right. Whoever was sending these guys after me must be running out of good assassins. Or they weren't paying them enough to come after me, because this guy seemed way too fucking soft to be a professional killer.

That made me pause. They better be running out of professionals. If they're too cheap to pay the pros I was going to fucking lose it. I deserved the best, damn it.

"Here's the deal," Toxic continued, "you tell us everything you know, and I'll make sure you're dead before he starts cutting you up." He paused, letting that sink in. "Believe me it's much more preferable than what he'll do to you while you're still alive."

It wasn't fun to cut them up after they were dead. Except that one time, but I was just sending a message to the assholes who'd hired an assassin to kill Cliff and Ralph. Even then, the first head came off a dead guy. I told the second guy I was going to staple his head to the other corpse. That had really freaked him out.

Usually, I only cut them up if I needed them to fit someplace small. I might be a psycho, but I wasn't a weirdo. I didn't bathe in the blood of my victims or any stupid shit like that.

Toxic reached out and untied the cloth, pulling it away from the guy's mouth. "Do we have a deal?"

His terrified eyes darted to me and he nodded, licking his lips. Sad. Usually you get some pleading or begging. This guy went straight to the acceptance phase. Weak.

"Are you actually an assassin?" I asked, disgusted with him and his cowardice.

"In training," he admitted.

My brows shot up. "That's a thing?"

"Sure," the man replied with a shrug. "Just like anything you have to learn the ropes somewhere."

Toxic shot me an amused look, then asked, "Who are you learning from?"

"My cousin, but he told me not to take this job. Said the guy…you," he corrected, looking at me, "was too much of a risk. I thought he was being stupid because they're offering a fuck ton of money."

That made me happy. If I was a discount job, I might have to do something more drastic to change that. I leaned forward and got in his face. "How's that money seeming now?" I asked in a low voice.

"Not worth it," he replied, gulping. "If you let me go-"

"Not happening," I interrupted. "You heard the deal. It's the best you're going to get."

"How much they offering for him?" Toxic asked.

"Don't get any ideas," I growled.

"Just curious. Alright, who hired you?" Toxic asked.

"I don't know."

Toxic crossed his arms over his chest. "You do understand what cooperation means? Right?"

"I just know the name of the middle man," the guy said, shaking his head. We hadn't even bothered to get this guy's name. It wasn't going to matter in ten more minutes anyway. The only names that mattered now were the bosses, but I'd take a middle man for now. Hmm…I'd have to cut out his midsection, be poetic and shit.

"Well, what's his name?"

"Randal."

"Stupid fucking name," I muttered.

"Randal what?" Toxic asked, giving me a nod of agreement about the name .

"I don't have a last name. He doesn't disclose who his clients are. He just told me about Butcher and that they wanted him dead. Guy wouldn't even meet with me, since I'm new to all this. Just called me on the phone and shipped me the information packet on you."

"Was there a return address?" Toxic asked.

The guy shook his head, then shrugged when I glared at him for being useless. "Any particular reason why they want me dead?" I asked.

He shook his head. "They don't tell us anything… Probably for this exact reason," he admitted in a rueful tone.

"How many others are there?" I asked.

He shrugged. "No idea."

"Does this count as cooperating?" I looked over at Toxic.

"Unfortunately for you, it does. Chump here might be an amateur, but Randal…"

"Stupid fucking name."

"Randal stupid fucking name sounds like a professional."

"Hey it's not my fault that I don't actually know anything," the guy said, starting to babble. "I'll give you money. My savings. Whatever you want."

"Ugh. I thought we'd get through this without the begging. He made an agreement, and he broke it. Now can I play with him?" I muttered, glaring over at Toxic.

Toxic sighed again and pulled his gun from the waistband of his jeans.

Reaching over, I grabbed it from him. "No way. He broke the deal. He's mine."

Toxic shrugged. "Go ahead."

"Wait-"

I didn't pause. The guy would have happily killed me, and later would have gone after the rest of my team, including my best friend. I didn't really give a fuck about my own death, but no one touched my friends. I didn't have many to spare. Raising the gun, I pulled the trigger. Toxic had been smart enough to put a silencer on the end before he brought it down here.

We didn't need the women, or the hellions, upstairs hearing gunshots and coming to investigate. Because they would. Especially the hellions.

Toxic stared at the bullet hole in the guy's forehead. "Where should we dump him this time?"

"Do we want him found?"

"Naw, Lock said to make this one disappear."

"Then it's back to the mineshaft." We'd dumped numerous bodies down that mineshaft out in the desert now. It was a handy place to get rid of them where no one was likely to find them. We'd stumbled upon it one night when some douchebag was threatening Idaho's old lady. He was the first, but there were going to be many more, especially if these assholes kept coming after us. We also always had the club's friend who owned the mortuary, but we tried our best not to over-run him. Last thing we needed was him panicking and going to the cops.

"Seriously."

I glanced over at Toxic and raised a brow in question.

"What the fuck is wrong with you? You didn't even whine about me not letting you mess that guy up first. I mean, you didn't really try."

"That was kind of fucked," I told him. "You could've made the deal that I would only torture him for ten minutes and then I'd kill him."

"Oh, bullshit. I can see you're distracted. If you really wanted to torture this guy you would have."

"Maybe I didn't feel like doing the torturing." I grabbed the keys to the van. We'd need to go dump his body tonight.

Toxic was staring. He shook his head. "I knew it."

"Don't want to talk about it."

He grunted then grabbed the keys from me. "I'll go get the van and pull it around."

"Make sure no one sees you."

"I know what I'm doing, asshole," he tossed over his shoulder as he left.

It took a few hours to dump the body and update Lock. After we were done, I showered and met Toxic back out in the hallway. "Let's go over to the Bunker and grab a drink."

"Alright."

We walked across the compound to our bar. Since things had been quiet for a few months, Lock had told Riptide to open it back up. That made Rip and Kit really happy.

It was still early, but I sat down at our usual table and looked around as Toxic went to grab us a bottle. He was right. I was off. Completely unsettled. Though I wasn't sure why. Something about that woman this afternoon was bothering me. And it wasn't just that she was smoking hot.

Toxic set two bottles of Jack on the table. He dropped the shot glasses on the table, too, though neither of us were going to bother with those.

"An assassin isn't goin' to have to take you out if you keep drinkin' like that," Hush said as he dropped into a chair next to me. He grabbed one of the bottles and filled a glass, then tossed it back.

I snagged the bottle away from him. "Get your own, Old Man."

He just grinned at me. "What're you two up to tonight?"

"Nothing," I muttered, feeling restless.

"We've been grounded," Toxic added, taking a swig from the bottle.

"Like you can't get into enough trouble right here?"

"Eh," Toxic replied. "Not as much fun."

"Hmmm," Hush grunted. He worked as the bouncer for the bar more often than not. We were picky about who we let in here since it was on our club's compound. He was facing the door and a frown crossed his face. "Who the fuck are they?"

"They're hot," Toxic said as he glanced over at the women who'd just walked in. "Let them stay." He stilled, then kicked me under the table.

"The fuck is your problem," I growled.

Toxic was used to my bad temper, so he just grinned. "Remember that girl from today?"

"Yeah," I said, suspicious about where he was going with this .

"Well, she just walked through the door."

I sat up straight and turned to look. He was right. She walked in behind the group of four women. The others were in short skirts and tops that barely covered their tits. It wasn't hard to see what they were after tonight. But my girl was in a pair of jeans, sneakers, and a pale blue tank top. Her hair was loose and hung down almost to her ass.

My girl.

She didn't look like she belonged with them. I moved my chair so I could watch her. It was taking all my self-control not to get up and go over to her.

Sure enough, she broke off from the group of women and went to the bar.

"Wonder what she's doing here?" Toxic asked. "That's too much of a coincidence."

"Want me to let her stay?" Hush glanced over at me.

"Yeah, something about her is nagging me."

"Probably just need to get laid," Hush replied with a grin. He motioned to the group of women. "You want any of that Toxic? Or should I boot ‘em?"

"Why would you boot a group of gorgeous women?" Toxic asked, giving Hush a confused look.

"‘Cause most of us are married these days, asshole. If you want ‘em, I'll let them stay. If not, they're gone."

Toxic glanced over at me, then back at Hush. "Let them stay. I'll keep them company tonight. Something tells me my wing man is going to be busy. Besides, they might have friends."

Hush chuckled as he stood up, about to head back to the door. "Friends? ‘Cause four isn't enough?"

"You're right, I should take it slow tonight."

Hush just shook his head as he walked away.

I was still staring at the woman at the bar. She wasn't drinking any of those disgusting girly drinks women loved to order. Looked like she was having a Jack and Coke. My kind of woman. I frowned.

"You going to tap that?" Toxic asked, taking another swig from his bottle .

I cocked my head, studying her. "Yeah."

He barked out a laugh. "I'll leave you to it."

I shot a look over my shoulder at the group of women. "You going for all four?"

He seemed to consider the question. "Why choose?"

Toxic loved to fuck. Hell, so did I. But lately the appeal has been wearing off. Same with drinking. I still drank of course, because otherwise it was fucking impossible to stifle the urges inside of me. But I hadn't fucked a woman in months. It was just too goddamn boring. And the women always got clingy. I thought the choking and smothering would send a hint, but it always backfired on me. They seemed to love it.

But this woman had been invading my thoughts all day. And now here she was sitting at our bar. It was like she'd been delivered like a fucking gift. I didn't believe in God, heaven, or any of that shit, but someone was watching out for me tonight.

This was as good a time as any to break that dry streak. My cock twitched inside my jeans as my eyes roamed over her body. She wasn't tiny and thin. She was tall and had an athletic body. There were curves in all the places there should be, but her arms were toned and sexy. I shoved out of my chair, grabbing the bottle, and headed in her direction.

"Yeah, okay!" Toxic called out. "See you later. Dick."

I chuckled at him, but didn't respond. My focus was zeroed in on the blonde. After that disappointing kill earlier today, and the unsettled feeling plaguing me, she was going to be the perfect distraction.