Page 41

CHAPTER 41

Toxic

S cowling at Hellfire over my shoulder, I made a cut it out motion as the big fucker stepped on the back of my shoe and flat tired me. My eyes narrowed when he grinned at me. Asshole had done that on purpose.

Leave it up to Hell to be fucking around while we were creeping through the desert about to meet the fucker who’d been going after my woman. It’d been a fight to convince Billie that she wasn’t coming with us. Threatening to tie her up and leave her that way until we got back was the only thing that finally got it through her head that she wasn’t coming.

Brently didn’t need to see her, like she insisted, because the minute he popped his head up out of his hole—like the weasel he was—I was taking it off. He’d been smart enough to have his men meet him out in the desert where there wouldn’t be as many people to see him threatening a woman. Too bad for him all his men were dead, my woman was at home being protected by Warrant and Pops, and his fucking luck had run out.

Someone grabbed my cut, hauling me to a stop. Lock shook his head, then released my cut and pointed. Guards. Huh. Brently wasn’t nearly as stupid as I’d thought. I didn’t get the chance to do anything about the two men standing off to our left, because one went flying backward as Butcher yanked him off his feet and dispatched him before he could make a peep. The second was stumbling around as Isla rode his back, her hand covering his mouth and her knife puncturing his kidneys.

A heavy sigh had me glancing over at where Lockout was glaring at them. He’d been the one to spot the two scumbags, he should have had first dibs, but telling that to Butcher and Isla was just a waste of time. They’d end up killing your target before you had the chance to finish explaining.

I had a feeling this was going to be our guys fighting with each other over who they got to kill while Brently’s men tried to escape. We were all a little pent up and needing to release some aggression. Especially after having gone to Phoenix and not getting to actually kill anyone.

We continued moving through the brush. There wasn’t enough of it to really conceal us so we were moving quickly. If Brently saw us he’d bolt. And that was the last thing I wanted. He’d been hard enough to find; I wasn’t letting him get away this time.

A group of men came into view and Lock motioned for the others to spread out. He and I remained where we were, and after giving the others enough time to circle around, we closed in.

As soon as one of Brently’s bodyguards spotted us creeping toward them, Lock and I stood—in unison—and we each grabbed the guy closest to us. Chaos erupted as Brently’s men found themselves surrounded. Bullets started flying, and screams of pain split the air as the sun dipped down over the mountains.

The guy I’d grabbed tried to reach his gun, but I pulled mine and shot him three times in the chest before he had the chance. Dropping his body, my eyes glued to Brently, I started forward. I ignored everyone else around us. The screams acted as a shield, a special bubble insulating the two of us.

“It’s over Brently,” I called out.

He turned, stumbling a little, his eyes wide. “How-”

“Your men are dead,” I told him. It was obvious, but he seemed to still be a little shocked that Billie wasn’t being dragged before him by his hired help. The fact that he was fine with not only intimidating a woman, but trying to actively hurt her and destroy her life, erased any sense of pity for the dickhead standing in front of me.

He shook his head. “No. You’re dead.”

“Really?” So he did know who I was. Considering he’d managed to stay out of our grasp for over a month, I figured he’d done his damn research. But obviously not well enough or he’d have realized I wasn’t a man to mess with. Neither were my brothers. Or our club. Once we stepped in, if he was smart, he’d have given up his plot to take Cholla Summit Ranch from Billie. Instead, here we were.

The shots surrounding us didn’t worry me in the least. My brothers had my back. They wouldn’t let one of these fuckers get a lucky shot off at me.

Brently’s mouth dropped open and all the color left his face as we watched an ax whiz through the air and imbed itself into the chest of a man who’d started to line his sights up on me. He fell with a groan of pain. Butcher strolled by, winking at Brently before going to the man, planting his foot on the guy’s face and yanking the ax out of his chest.

“You fucked up,” I said, getting back to the matter at hand. “Came after my old lady.” It didn’t matter that she hadn’t been mine at the start of this. She was now. “You tried to fucking kill her.”

“No,” he said, panic creeping into his tone. “If I killed her then she couldn’t sign over the deed to the land.”

My eyes narrowed and he looked even more nervous. “As if that’s better?” I asked. “As if those assholes wouldn’t have killed her and then said it was an accident.”

He shook his head, starting to back up. There was nowhere for him to go. The gunfire was dying down. Men were lying on the desert sand, their blood soaking into it. None of them were my brothers.

“I won’t come after her again,” he said, his voice turning into an irritating whine.

“You’re right,” I said, walking forward as he backpedaled. “You won’t.”

“I’ll leave. You’ll never hear from me again.”

“Right again,” I said, tone cheerful because I knew what was about to happen.

“You can’t do this.”

I chuckled. “The fuck I can’t. I’d say that hopefully you’ll learn your lesson about pulling shit like this on people, but you’re not going to learn a damn thing.”

“That’s because you’re going to be dead,” Butcher said from nearby.

We both looked over at him and he shrugged. “Just helping.”

The others were busy dragging bodies into a pile, but Lock met my gaze, then tapped his watch. Didn’t matter that we were out in the desert, I didn’t have enough time to play with my food. I needed to get this done so we could bury these fuckers and get the hell out of here before somehow we were spotted.

There wasn’t likely to be a lot of people out in this remote area at this time of evening, but you never knew. I wasn’t about to go to prison now that I’d found Billie. I focused back on Brently.

“Have you been working with anyone else?” I asked. It’s not like we could fully trust whatever Brently had to say, but it would give Rip somewhere to start as we wrapped all this up.

“Only people I hired,” he insisted.

“The rest of your board doesn’t know about this? Either board?” He frowned when I said that. “Not Heliaz Relay or Fission Solutions?”

His jaw dropped. “How do you know about-”

“We know a lot about you, Jonathan,” I said, walking to the side so that I’d be shooting away from where my brothers were busy consolidating all the bodies into one area.

“N-no one knew,” he said, his voice cracking.

“How many other ranchers have you run off their land?” I growled.

“No one. Really, this is the first time. She’s sitting on a fucking gold mine,” he insisted. “And she doesn’t even fucking know it. She’s raising cows like it’s fucking nothing, and all of that Uranium is under her feet.”

“And she’s going to keep raising cattle,” I told him, voice low, “while that Uranium stays put.”

“I’ll pay you,” he offered, his last ditch attempt to avoid the death he was seeing in my gaze.

I snorted and raised my gun. He didn’t even have one, that was how much he trusted his guards to protect him. “No thanks,” I told him, pulling the trigger. I watched as the bullets ripped through his body and he crumpled down to the ground. He wasn’t dead yet when I walked over and dragged him through the dirt.

Hell and Smoke had gone back to the vehicles to grab the shovels we’d brought with us and everyone was already digging the hole for the mass grave.

Dropping Brently like he was nothing but a sack of shit, I picked up a shovel and got to work. It took about thirty minutes to dig it large enough for all the bodies, thank fuck we didn’t run into any caliche, or we would have never gotten the hole dug. When Lock started tossing them in, we stepped back. The others hefted bodies into the hole with our president while I stared down at Brently. He was gasping, trying to breathe even though one of my rounds had punctured his lung.

I was surprised the piece of shit was still alive to be honest. Picking him up, I dropped him into the hole, on top of the pile of men he’d trusted with his life.

He lifted his hand. I watched as it trembled and fell as his strength gave out. Without a word, I grabbed my shovel and dropped a pile of dirt on his face. It didn’t take us nearly as long to fill the hole in. No one spoke while we worked, but once we were done Isla looked around, then her gaze settled on me.

“Remind me not to piss you off,” she said with a grin. “Everyone assumes you’re the laid back one, but Goddamn you’re vicious.”

My smile was more a baring of teeth. “As long as you don’t mess with my family, I am laid back.”

“Fair enough,” she said.

“Let’s get out of here,” Lock said. “Hush, Rip, brush out our tracks.”

We headed back to the trucks while Hush and Riptide broke branches off a nearby mesquite tree and started sweeping them over the ground to erase the evidence that we’d been out here. Butcher and Ricochet had been going around, picking up all the shell casings. The less we left here, the less likely anyone would ever find the mass grave.

The knot inside my chest finally eased now that Billie and her ranch were safe. No one was going to bother them again. I’d make damn sure of it.