Their Bounty (Four Mercenaries 1)

But if Tank, Pyro, and Drake ended up dead because of his insubordinate decision, he’d never forgive himself. And with them being at such disadvantage in terms of numbers, a single headshot wouldn’t make Clover safe either.

“Put down your weapon!” the woman said, her voice nothing like the meek way she’d sounded back in Nevada. “I’m the buyer, your money is in the suitcase. Just give. Him. To. Me!”

Boar chewed on his lip, his eyes passing over Pyro, whose left hand kept opening and closing around the device that would set off the explosives planted by the gate. He was also hesitant about the best course of action. None of them had expected the enemy to arrive in a group so large. His friends were too close to their adversaries to avoid initial blows, and since Clover was bound, he was most at risk.

Boar wanted to hiss out his frustration but decided not to distract his friends and focused all his attention on the enemy, ready to warn his people if there was even the slightest chance of betrayal. If he was particularly successful, fast enough, he could take out three, maybe four people within the first few seconds. His skin tickled with heat that trailed up his neck and bloomed on his face, but he remained steady, focused.

So focused that the quiet squeak behind him, which he’d have otherwise dismissed, was as loud as the screech made by chalk pressed to the blackboard too hard. Boar stopped breathing, unwilling to take his eyes off the dangerous situation below, but when he heard the noise again, just as close and from the same area, he looked back.

The bald man creeping up to him from behind darted toward Boar like a jackal, the large blade in his hand glinting in the sun that streamed inside in slim rays. There was no time to wonder where he’d come from of how he’d found out Boar was here. With the rifle lodged between chairs, Boar had no weapons on hand, so he avoided the slash to his face by rolling away. The guy was fast, as fast as Drake, and climbed on top of Boar before he could have grabbed his handgun. With the huge blade descending toward his throat, Boar grabbed the fucker’s wrists and pushed them back against the superior force of muscle and the man’s own weight.

The sunlight cast a white glow on the twisted features above, reflecting off the man’s even teeth and shining through his right eye as if it were made of glass. Boar wheezed when the tip of the blade steadily lowered despite his efforts to push it back.

Life passed through his head like the images whirling in a kaleidoscope. Church. Happy times with family when he was still their perfect son. First kiss with a boy. First night on a park bench. Pyro pulling him down the street, and smelling of too much liquor. Tank saving his life. Training with the guys. The peace of having a home. Clover telling him he loved him.

Boar’s breath caught, and he clenched his teeth, struggling while the face above became the red image of fury.

“Boar?” came from the headset, and the sound of Pyro’s voice was like an unexpected injection of pure strength. Boar kicked the wall and used its leverage to throw the man off him.

“Trap. It’s a trap,” he said, reaching to the side of his hip. The weight of Boar’s gun was as familiar as the taste of his favorite candy, but before he took off the safety, the mercenary slashed at him again. Boar deflected, ducking and pushing away the knife-wielding hand, but before he could have taken a shot, pain stabbed his thigh and made him look down just in time to see the blade sink into his flesh.

“Fuck! You motherfucker!” Boar yelled at the top of his lungs and shot the man straight in the face.

The impact made the assailant fall back, but Boar wasn’t bleeding any less because of it. In the headset, he heard yelling, the screech of wheels, but he was too far away to see what was going on. He took one glance at the knife in his thigh, decided against ripping it out, and crawled back to the rifle.

He was about to peek through the scope when the walls shook from a sudden explosion and made him fall back, pain spreading through his entire leg. His head was a ball of hot air when he looked at the huge blade stuck in his thigh. He couldn’t afford to take it out so far away from a hospital, and moving could only make the problem it posed worse.

“Guys?” he shouted into the headset, crawling back up to the drumming of gunshots. They all counted on the explosives entrapping the enemy, but hope died in Boar’s heart when he kneeled and saw two of the black cars speeding away in a cloud of dust. Chunks of the road were missing where the bombs had gone off, and while one of the three black limos lay on its roof surrounded by bodies, Clover was nowhere in sight.