Page 37 of Dark Things
Groaning, I stand up. My pity party has been ruined, and I don’t feel like cleaning up a dead body right now.
“Exactly how have you been keeping Cat safe?” Haunt’s growl shouldn’t be sexy, especially given the topic, but my black heart shudders in response.
“I was assigned this post after a mission went bad in Romania. Call sign, Texas. Security code, 2254.”
I laugh, and soon Haunt is following along. “Your team was the fuckup we had to clean up after? What should have been an in and out kill order for a fuckingsunflowerfarmer.”
Brett’s face is as red as a tomato. He looks like he’s going to go nuclear. “If the intel hadn’t been afucking disaster we would have known that behind his sunflowers was an arsenal of machine guns. I lost three of my best guys in that fight.”
It sobers me up enough to pour a little of my bourbon into the dirt. “To fallen soldiers or whatever the fuck they call killers-for-hire these days.”
Brett isn’t going to be my friend, but that’s the normal around these guys. Haunt’s been the only one who’s gotten my darkness and revealed in it.
“Listen, why don’t we go into the barn, have a drink and talk this shit out, yeah? I mean, if we’re going to be working together, we should be communicating instead of trading insults, as much fun as that is,” Haunt says, breaking the tension.
Our barn manager nods and marches toward the back doors. Once he’s out of earshot, Haunt turns to me. “What was that? You didn’t need to be a dick.”
“But it’s so much fun when they’re all cocky, and then I swoop in and make sure they know that my dick is bigger than theirs.”
He kisses my head before pulling me behind him back into the barn. The horses stick their heads out, but I don’t stop to show them love. We need to get back to the matter of Brett and his lack of competence.
An office door swings open and Brett disappears through it. I take my blade out just in case Brett is super stupid. But when we clear the doorway, he’s sitting at his desk with a laptop open.He taps something on the keys and swings the screen around so we can see.
“This is the security feed for the property. You’ll see there is a guard at the driveway gate, Steve. Then there are two teams of two guards on the north and south of the property. The west is this building and the east is covered through thick wooded areas. It’s been three years and we’ve never had a breach.”
I flip through the cameras, taking note of where they’re located. I see the other guards and then freeze on one frame that’s on the western side. I cock my head before turning back to Brett.
“It does us no good if you’re a liar, Brett. I assume you’re used to the hands off approach, which is why you didn’t introduce yourself until today, but going forward it’s a team effort. And by team, I mean you and your guys are under our command.”
Haunt stands behind me, arms crossed over his chest, T-shirt straining from the effort. All it would take is one move and stitches would be popping.
“My boss is Stan. He didn’t authorize you to take command. This is my post.”
I slide the screen back around to him before slamming the Indigo’s Hour on the desk. Using my finger, I lean over the screen and point to the corner.
“You forgot to mention the sniper in the perch behind where we were just talking. Thank goodness Haunt was there to make sure our chat continued. I don’t like to bemade a fool of, Brett. I like it less when people try to kill me around my fucking horses. Do you know how traumatic it would be for them if my brains were splattered on the grass? Lots of horse therapy, Brett. Lots.”
His jaw ticks before he looks between the two of us and grabs a file folder out of the desk. Haunt still has his gun in his hand, but it still makes me tense up for a moment. He throws it towards me and says, “Nothing personal.”
I flip open the folder and start to read, the usual bullshit that seems to follow Haunt and I around. Stan is constantly testing us, setting us up even with our own people. Says it builds a solid merc. I’m pretty sure none of the other teams suffer through this bullshit. It’s reserved only for us.
“Usual write up. Nothing different except this part here. He was willing to let Rex or Peanut die,” I growl and turn to Haunt.
He’s a statue frozen in time. The only thing he hates more than harm coming to me and Cat is harm coming to the horses. He’s a big animal lover.
I breathe out and turn to Brett. “You have a choice here, since this was technically not your fault or your fight. We'll keep you on and you do the job you’re paid for with some tweaks, or I kill you and you don’t have to suffer anymore from Stan's games. Take the deal, Brett. We could use the extra bodies.”
His eyes move back and forth between us and I seethe moment he’s decided that we’re the bigger threat. It’s really the only choice.
“You have a deal, Pitch. But I want guarantees for my guys too. They’re on a need to know and this mission wasn’t a need to know, copy.”
“Sure, Military Ken, I copy. Your guy is alive, by the way; he’s just hanging from his perch taking a nap. Haunt’s much better than me about not pushing the envelope,” I say with a perfect villainous grin slapped on my face.
“I’ll leave it up to you boys to work out rotations and better protection protocols. I’m too tipsy to get into detail. Just give me the cliff notes in the morning,” I say to Haunt, before giving him a kiss on the cheek and a pat on his bicep.
Turning to leave I give Brett a sarcastic bow and slip out of the door, going back to the pasture with the last of my Indigo’s. I need to get these boys out of my head, and the only way to do that besides killing them all is to drink myself into oblivion. Because there’s nothing worse than being torn between your past and your future.
15
