CHAPTER ONE
Bradford
“Let’s get him in there,” I gesture to Turner to grab the feet as I hoist the upper torso. “One, two, three…”
“Fuck, this guy’s a big one,” Turner grunts, making a face as he strains.
I ignore the commentary as we lift the heavy motherfucker into the back of my truck. As the body thuds against the metal, a cool drop of moisture hits my cheek. I peer up, the moon hidden behind clouds.
“It’s gonna rain,” I say, glancing around the parking lot. “That’ll work in our favor for cleanup, but it’s gonna make it all slick when we get out to the farm.”
“Yeah, we need to get this going,” Turner mutters, hopping into the bed of the truck. He grabs the guy’s ankles, pulling him deeper into the bed with the other three.
I glance down and notice the guy’s cheek slide along the edge of the tailgate. Before I can react, Turner’s final jerk scrapes flesh off the man’s face. More blood pools in the bed of my truck, dripping to the ground.
This is so fucked up.
The horror starts to creep in, but I force it down. I’ve handled corpses plenty of times, not all of them villains. Many were Marines I loved and cried for countless times.
Good people die, too.
And they die because there are too many damn bad people in the world. And yet, we always shy away from killing for the sake of morality, but… well, morality’s a bitch.
I joined the Marines decades ago to protect the good from the bad—and now? I don’t even know where I fall in the realm of good and evil. Hell, I don’t even know what makes a person either or.
Am I a monster, too?
I purse my lips and distract myself with my newest recruit. My eyes flicker to Turner as he jumps out and rolls the bedcover shut. He’s a wreck. Worse than most.
But not the worst.
“You good?” Turner asks, dark brows furrowed beneath his baseball cap. He wipes his hands on his jeans, leaving a streak of crimson.
“Yeah, why?” I say, reaching up and locking the bedcover.
“You look a little pale.”
“Meh,” I blow him off. “It’s just the cold settling in. Let’s get moving.”
I glance down once more, noticing the rain falling steadily, helping rinse off the tailgate. I breathe out a sigh of relief. This whole thing got way out of hand, and the worst part of my fucking job is that I’m responsible for cleanup, too.
Because Cade is MIA. Again.
Fuck, I have to find him.
But that’s a task for another day—and one that cannot involve Turner. Cade isn’t like him. Cade lacks empathy and heart. He can dismember a body with a chainsaw and never think twice.
He’s fucking dangerous. He is the worst.
I need to get him back under control. Before I have to call Ben.
I shove my hands into my pockets and head for the driver’s side of my truck, sliding in and getting a blast of heat to the face. I wince, then shift the vent lever.
“I didn’t mean to make this big of a mess…” Turner’s voice trails off as I roll forward, leaving the shitshow behind. “The dude slit her throat.”
“Yeah, and he probably would’ve regardless of your inability to hold your fire,” I say, monotone. “No sense in making it a bigger deal than it is. We deal with what we have.”
Turner takes a deep breath, reaching for his seatbelt. “Yeah, maybe so. I get lost in the moment, I guess.”
“Happens,” I mutter, feeling the back tires of my dually spin on the wet, icy road. My mind flashes with the corpse of the woman with the slit throat. It’s nasty, but I don’t let the thought simmer long.
“You think I’ll ever see Em again?” Turner’s staring out the window, a thousand-yard stare in full swing.
I fight the urge to roll my eyes at his sensitivity. “If you keep getting ambitious with the trigger, maybe not.” Honestly, I’m glad Turner found his reason to hold his fragile mental state together…
But not glad the reason is as wishy-washy as his self-control.
I hate to break it to him, but some girl who showed up and became a victim of his chaos, isn’t going to hang around. They never do. And they shouldn’t.
I’d never want my daughter exposed to the men I work with. Turner doesn’t understand that imbalance yet. It’s a deep pain to look yourself in the mirror and know you’re not the kind of man you’d ever pick for your own flesh and blood.
Speaking of… I pull my phone out of my pocket, seeing a text from her.
Molly: I hate being at Mom’s. Why can’t I stay at your place? I’m nineteen for fuck’s sake. I’m not a child.
I sigh, choosing to ignore it. Too many unstable assholes know where I live. It’s not safe for her. I never intended to be a rehabilitation center for wackos, but here I am.
And normally, I do a good job.
Right now? I’m on overload.
“Why a Christmas tree farm?” Turner asks as I pull up to a locked gate. “This seems…fucked up.”
“It’s closed for the season,” I say, rolling down the window and punching in the gate code. “Lots of composting opportunities.” I leave it at that, not mentioning Cade’s favorite commercial mulcher.
“Damn,” Turner deadpans as I pull through the entrance. “Do you do this a lot?”
“No,” I answer. “Normally, I have someone else, or a better setup.”
“Right,” Turner frowns. “You have a cleanup crew.”
More like one clean-up psycho who needs a tight leash.
I navigate down the asphalt drive, then take a hard left into the field. I pause to kick it into 4-lo, then stomp the gas. The truck roars through the mud, never missing a beat.
The rain’s coming down in sheets now, and I grimace. Four fucking bodies. We have to deal with four bodies in this weather.
I squint through the windshield, searching for the excavator in the field. My family opened this Christmas tree farm forty years ago. I never expected it to become a mass burial ground.
If it ever got out, I’d be royally fucked.
Along with the government, who sent half the bodies here.
“At least we don’t have to do it by hand,” Turner comments as I pull in beside the massive yellow machine.
“Finding the silver lining,” I grunt, patting his shoulder. “That’s a positive, even if it’s fucking morbid.”
He grins. “Progress.”
“Progress,” I snort, kicking open my door. “Sit tight. This’ll take a minute.” I adjust my cowboy hat and fish the keys out of my pocket for the machine.
The sound of the rain drowns out the diesel truck, and I shake my head at the mess ahead. I thought tonight would be no big deal.
Man, was I wrong.
Turner got trigger-happy, and Cade went MIA.
My shoulders slump as I turn the key in the ignition and stomp the pedal to roar the excavator to life. It’s always fucking temperamental this time of year.
But I’m pretty sure when Gramps bought it, he didn’t expect early-morning body burying either.
I spend the next twenty minutes digging a hole that next year’s trees will cover.
It’s a fucking muddy mess, but thankfully, I’m done before the ground completely turns to slop.
When I finish, I park the machine and return to the truck.
The rain pounds down, but I still manage to back the truck up to the hole.
“Let’s roll them off,” I instruct Turner, already a step ahead, flinging the door open. “Try not to slide into the hole yourself.”
“Got it, boss,” he grunts, waiting by the bed rail as I unlock the bedcover.
I push it back, and Turner hops in. I let down the tailgate, climb up, and we begin the methodical, gruesome task of tossing bodies into the mass grave.
“He’s a big guy,” Turner points out as we heave the first one off the back. “Fuck.”
“Three hundred pounds?” I guess, feeling a little less anxious than I was at the parking lot.
Turner nods. “Probably.”
The body hits the bottom with a strange slopping noise. I cringe. Nothing about this ever gets easier, legitimate business or illegal.
It’s all fuckery.
“Next one.” I grab the woman’s ankles, doing my best not to look at her. Turner’s eyes are fixated on her neck, staring at the very thing he was trying to prevent.
“Look at me, Martin.”
He shakes his head, but I can already see the wires in his brain faltering.
“Martin,” I sharpen my tone. “Eyes.”
He snaps up. “Shit, sorry.”
“I can’t have you breaking down in the middle of this. If it’s too much, go sit in the goddamn truck.”
“No sir, it’s not too much,” he shoots back. “I’ve done this plenty of times. Doesn’t bother me.”
He’s lying. That’s fine. Whatever it takes.
I gesture to the body. “One, two, three…” Together, we toss her into the hole with the others. It seems morally wrong to bury a victim with the predator.
I only feel guilty for a second.
Mostly because we need to get the job done. Also…
“Do you hear that?” Turner stills, picking up on the distant rev of an engine. “Who the fuck is that?”
I turn just in time to see the bouncing glow of a headlight and hear the familiar hum of a four-stroke dirt bike engine.
Fuck. Looks like we have company.