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A grin breaks across my face before I can stop it, and I’m grateful the balaclava hides every trace of Tate Crowe beneath the lethal, unrepentant Butcher.
I end the call, draw my semiautomatic, and level it at the man standing over Callum with busted knuckles and rain-soaked hair falling across a pair of very inconvenient green eyes.
A few hours until my twenty-first birthday, and I may have outdone myself.
“Inside.” I point the gun toward the farmhouse. “Through that door.”
Rafe drags a hand over his face, then takes a few steps. He lowers himself beside Callum with more care than he used before the fight started, one knee touching the concrete before the other. The pause is tiny, but I see it.
And obviously he senses my observation because his jaw tightens before he starts searching Callum’s pockets.
The fucking audacity of this man.
There’s no way he didn't hear me. The bastard probably thinks obedience will happen on his schedule, not mine.
He finds a squashed packet of cigarettes, rises, and taps one out before curling his hand around the lighter flame to protect it from the wind.
“You gonna make me a champion’s dinner?” He draws in a lungful of smoke and starts toward the door with a swagger that tells me putting Callum on his arse polished the shine on his ego.
I’ll stab that out of him eventually.
“Have you still got your teeth?” I follow behind him with my aim fixed squarely between his inked shoulder blades.
He looks back and flashes me a pearly-white smile marbled with red. “You’ll have to fight me yourself if you want one of these.”
“I wouldn’t stop with just one,” I mutter. “I have pliers for cocky assholes with veneers.”
“Suppose you make necklaces with them and hang them on your rear-view mirror.”
“Quite the opposite.”
I glance over at Callum, who’s being dragged by the armpits by two of my men. He catches my eye and shakes his head.
My crew knows I earned my title as the Crowe butcher because I can disembowel a man in under a minute. And Callum totally fucking embarrassed himself tonight. However, being a shit fist-fighter won’t be the end of him tonight.
I’m a professional assassin, not a cold-hearted killer.
“I prefer to hang my victims’ ballsacks from my rear-view mirror.” I quip.
Rafe stops with the cigarette hovering near his mouth, and I wait for the disgust I’ve seen from other men when they realize I’m a woman with a collection of Japanese hankotsu knives who loves getting the chance to use them.
Even a damn blink would do.
Instead, his intense gaze travels from my shin-high laced boots to the hood shadowing my eyes, taking his time as if he’s trying to locate the best place to plunge a knife.
When he reaches the balaclava, the corner of his bloody mouth lifts and a dimple winks at me. “Aren't they a bit bulky?”
I narrow my eyes and stay tucked within the shadows beneath the overhang. “Depends on the victim.”
He takes another drag, entirely unbothered. “Suppose mine would block the windscreen.”
An involuntary smile plays on my lips under the wool. “You’re assuming I’d keep yours.”
His dimple deepens as his smile spreads wider. “You’re assuming I’d let you take them.”
Oh, Rafey Cakes. You’ve absolutely no idea what’s ahead of you.
I prod the gun into his kidney from behind to steer him inside.
