Read Online Razor's Edge by Shannon K. Butcher - Free Book Online

he hadn’t eaten in weeks. A scraggly growth of beard shadowed his face—something he couldn’t stand. It was against regulations.
    He tried to remember how he had gotten here. The last thing he could recall was being transported to his new assignment with several of his army buddies. They’d all been recruited into some secret hush-hush type of group—the kind that was invitation only. He’d been proud to be one of the few selected and had to fight the urge to tell his family—something that was strictly forbidden.
    It had been winter then. The trees had still been bare. Everything was green now, as if several months had passed without his notice.
    A heavy sense of anger and loss wrapped around him. Someone had hurt him. They’d stolen his life. They’d done things to him. Made him do things.
    A strangled scream of rage burst from his chest, and he pounded his fists against the steering wheel. He was going to find who’d done this to him and kill them. He was going to shatter their skulls like glass.
    An image of a white rose burst inside his mind, blinding him with the intensity of the vision. He heard children screaming and saw blood splatter the rose. It trembled in pain, and that same pain detonated inside his skull, radiating down to his limbs until he was shaking with it. A woman’s voice washed over him, easing the agony.
    Don’t you have a job to do? she asked inside his mind. Brad did. He had to find the rose and pluck it. He had to bring it back for her. It was important. His life depended on it. So did the lives of his friends.
    He reached for the keys to start the car, only to find that there were none. A memory popped into his mind. He’d hot-wired the car—stolen it from the mall parking lot, where he’d left his last stolen car so the woman he was following wouldn’t see him.
    That was right. There was a woman. She had stolen something, and it was Brad’s job to get it back, even if he had to torture her to find out where she’d hidden it. And then he had to bring her back, just like he’d promised.
    She was the white rose. She was the one who would be splattered in blood and shivering in pain.

Chapter Five
    R oxanne let Tanner drive her to the storage facility where she kept Jake’s things for his return. A few hours ago, she wouldn’t have let him come with her, but now she was glad for his company.
    Seeing her childhood home destroyed had shaken her more than she was willing to admit. She had no fondness for the place, but whoever had done it had vented some dangerous rage.
    She had no idea that anyone in her life hated her quite that much.
    Roxanne kept trying to tell herself that it had nothing to do with her—that whoever had done it had simply seen the vacant house as an opportunity for mayhem—but there was something about it that wasn’t sitting right. That level of destruction was no teenage prank. It was vengeance.
    Tanner pulled into the storage facility. She’d paid extra for twenty-four-hour access, since her work schedule was often chaotic. She swiped her key to open the gate and directed Tanner to the numbered unit that housed Jake’s belongings.
    She unlocked the padlock and lifted the overhead door, displaying three rows of boxes and a few pieces of furniture she thought Jake might want when he finally settled down and got his own place.
    â€œThere’s not much here,” said Tanner.
    â€œJake never was much for things.”
    Tanner shifted a snowboard to a more stable position, propping it against the wall. They were at the back of the facility, and the evening traffic was barely audible.
    â€œDoes he talk about coming home?” asked Tanner.
    â€œNot much. He loves what he does. He got a promotion recently and some new assignment he was really excited about. He said he couldn’t tell me what it was, but that he was sure I’d be proud of him.”
    And she was. He