Chapter 7
Butcher
Lock motioned for me to sit down at his desk. Toxic followed me in and sat too. We’d been in his office far too fucking much over the last month. A sure sign that I was getting sloppy. Or lazy. There was a time that Lock didn’t know half of what I got up to.
“What’re you doing?” Lock asked Toxic as he made himself comfortable.
“Just want to hear the rest,” Toxic said with a shrug and a grin.
I shot him an unamused look. We’d just finished up with church and Lock had released the others. But he had questions. Considering I’d just told them something that had silenced the room, I wasn’t surprised.
Lock sat down, cleared his throat, then spoke. “Could you repeat what you just said in there?”
“Yeah, cause I’m pretty sure I’m still drunk. Either that or I’m hallucinating,” Toxic added. Lock shot him a dark look and he just shrugged. “It’s not something you’d think you’d hear this asshole say,” he said, defending himself.
“I want to keep her.”
Lock focused back on me. “You can’t just fucking keep her Butcher.”
“Why not?”
“Why do you want to keep her?” he countered, narrowing his eyes. When Lock answered questions with a question it always ended badly for me.
“Pretty sure she’s one of the assassins.”
They both fell quiet at that. Finally, Lock asked, “Pretty sure?”
“Well, she came at me with a knife.” Toxic chuckled.
“Admittedly, that’s not the first time a girl has done that during sex,” I told Lock.
“So, I want to find out for sure.” I wasn’t about to admit I wanted to hang on to her for other reasons, too.
So I could fuck her again, for one. And because my inner demons had actually let me sleep for once.
It could have been the sexual release, but I had a feeling it had something more to do with the woman sleeping in my arms. I needed to figure out what that was all about.
“This isn’t the first time someone’s come after you with a knife during sex?” Lock echoed, looking amazed.
Toxic shook his head in answer. “That’s your takeaway here?”
Lock looked back and forth between us, opening his mouth to say something.
“You know what, never mind. I don’t want to know.
” He wiped a hand over his face. “You can’t just keep a woman.
Nowadays they tend to have opinions on shit like that.
And if she’s an assassin… What about the women? The kids?”
“I’ll keep her in line. I won’t let her hurt anyone, Prez,” I told him. “I’m not sure she would.”
“How’s that?”
“Well, she’s being paid to kill me. I don’t get the ‘kill people for fun’ vibe from her.”
“You’d know,” Toxic added, but he wasn’t joking.
My word was gospel on this topic. Years of hunting the worst of the worst of humanity had honed my instincts into a fine-tuned machine. Not to mention like recognized like. She may kill people for a living, but she didn’t get any enjoyment out of it.
Lockout nodded at Toxic in agreement. “That’s a big risk if you’re wrong,” he told me.
“I’m not.”
“So, you’re going to interrogate her, then kill her?”
I swallowed as rage flared up in my chest as his question. It was that quick. “No,” I bit out. “When I say keep her, I mean it.”
Both his and Toxic’s brows shot up. Lock sat up straight, putting his forearms on his desk as he leaned forward and pinned me with an intense stare. “What’s the plan here, Butcher?”
I shrugged, but when his gaze hardened, I told him, “I don’t know yet.”
“You really think she’s not going to hurt anyone else?”
“Nah, didn’t get that impression from her. Shit, she could barely bring herself to try for me. I know when someone’s heart isn’t in it. She’ll make a few more attempts on me, but they won’t be serious.”
Lock sat back and rubbed his temples. He was probably thinking that he never expected to have conversations like this. Most of our conversations were probably off the wall to him.
“Her heart wasn’t in it? What were you doing to her at the time?” Toxic asked with a wide grin.
“Don’t answer that. I don’t need to fucking know,” Lock said with a sigh.
Toxic and I shared looks that said, ‘maybe he did.’ If it would remove that stick from his ass then I’d let him live vicariously through my sex life.
“Fine,” Lock said, the word rolling around the room like thunder. “But if she puts one fucking toe out of place...”
“Heard, Prez. I’ll handle it.” Just the thought of having to dispatch Isla made my stomach churn.
I frowned. That wasn’t my typical response to violence and death.
What the hell? That was the reason I needed to keep her around.
I was using the assassin shit as an excuse.
I was having feelings. I needed to figure out why there was this connection between the two of us. She felt it, too. I knew it.
Lock pointed at the door. “Get the fuck out.” There was no heat in the words. In fact, he just sounded tired.
I glanced over at Toxic. He looked worried.
I was almost as good as Lock at reading people, and right now I knew that Lockout was struggling.
He was fighting something, but he was a damn fortress of solitude about it.
I used to be like that. If he didn’t let people in and talk about what was fucking with him, he was going to end up going deeper and darker.
But I also knew if I brought it up before he was ready, he would bite my head off.
I left his office, deciding to give him space for now. I had enough on my damn plate.
We walked out into the main part of the clubhouse and Toxic shot me a grin. “You going to tell me about what else happened last night?”
“You going to tell me how many of those women you fucked?” I countered.
He tipped his head back and laughed. “You weren’t there. Had to make sure the ladies weren’t lonely.”
“That doesn’t answer my question,” I pointed out as I went up the stairs. He just waved me off and went toward the bar. My mind focused on the woman currently tied up in my room as soon as he was out of sight.
I was looking forward to interrogating her.
This wouldn’t be like any other I’d performed.
My dick hardened as my smile turned grim.
Lock was right though. I wasn’t about to let anything happen to the families living here.
They depended on us for safety and a couple of the women and children had been through enough already.
I hadn’t been lying when I told Lock that I didn’t get the feeling that Isla would hurt anyone here.
Well, other than me. And even that was mostly for show.
Pausing when I saw Static, Hellfire, Smokehouse, and Ricochet standing in front of my door, I frowned. “What’re you doing?”
“Watching the show,” Hell replied, eyes glued to whatever was happening inside my room.
“Move,” I growled, shoving Static out of the way.
“Why are you in such a pissy mood?” he asked with a chuckle. “I’d think having a woman tied up inside your room might actually make you smile.”
I just shot him a look, shoved between Hell and Smoke, then slammed the door shut behind me.
Their laughter echoed through the wood, making me scowl.
It wasn’t surprising that they wanted to get a look at the woman that I announced I wanted to keep.
For all they knew, I just wanted to hang onto her short term.
To find out who she was working for. Only Lock, Toxic, and I knew, for now, that it was so much more than that.
I wasn’t sure I could actually let her go.
That was what Lock saw when he’d been studying me downstairs after I announced I wanted to keep her for good.
That if he denied me on my request that even I wasn’t sure how I’d react.
Letting Isla, a trained assassin, stay in his clubhouse was risky.
But telling me to get rid of her was even more so.
He didn’t want to lose me in the process.
I’d never leave for good, but I would for as long as I needed to in order to sort my shit.
Didn’t want to, but what I wanted often didn’t matter.
The urges inside of me controlled what I did most of the time.
But Lock knew he could trust me and my word. I was going to be keeping a very close eye on her. Well, as much as I could until we found Randal. Finding out about him and meeting Isla on the same damn day was inconvenient as hell.
Isla returned my dark look with one of her own. “I have to pee,” she announced.
My brows shot up and I cocked my head. “Okay. But first, you’re going to answer some questions.”
Her glare darkened further. “I will pee right on your floor.”
“Just a few more minutes. Who hired you?” I asked, getting right to the point.
She sighed and her eyes darted away from mine. “I can’t tell you that.”
“Why’d you take the job?”
Those gray eyes flashed back up to mine and she frowned. “You were a name in a folder.”
“And now?”
She scowled at me. “You’re the man holding me hostage.”
I grinned at that. I didn’t want her to lose that edge. I liked it. Walking over, I pulled the knife—her knife—from where I had it tucked inside my boot and released her bonds.
She hissed as she brought her hands forward, then stared in shock as I moved in front of her, squatted until we were eye level, and grabbed her arm.
I massaged from wrist to fingertips, helping the blood move back into the area.
She didn’t say a word so I moved on to her other hand.
Her lips were parted as she stared at me and the confusion was back in her eyes.
Great. I didn’t want to be the only one who couldn’t figure out this feeling between us.
At least I knew it wasn’t only me who was shook by it.
She put her free hand on my chest. Her touch burned through my t-shirt. Then she shoved me hard enough that I almost ended up on my ass. I managed to move my foot backward and catch myself just in time. She didn’t pause, just made a beeline to the bathroom.