Bounty Hunter

Chapter 48

Kit parked next to three cutters he recognized as belonging to Iron Guildsmen. They'd been easy to locate; Cat required all her employees to have trackers on their vehicles. What Cat didn't know was that her tracking system was child's play to hack into. Kit had originally hacked Cat's system so he could change the location reading of his tracker at any time, which had come in handy earlier that day when he'd driven Joe around Cavil.

One of the parked cutters belonged to Lobo, a hunter loyal enough to Cat to loan her his rig until hers could be repaired. Sucker. Kit couldn't imagine allowing anyone else to drive Silver Shark, especially not someone he disliked as much as Cat. She wasn't a bad person, but she never let anything like morals or scruples get in her way. To her, money came first, with pride a close second. That made her the opposite of Kit. Sure, he liked getting paid, but he'd become a bounty hunter to take out the worst of the worst.

His sister had always jested that wanting to be a hero would only get Kit killed, but he never wanted to be a hero. Heroes had altruistic motives, and Kit's were selfish. A thief, one with an active bounty on his head, had killed his sister and her husband, who'd had the misfortune to come home during a robbery. If a bounty hunter had been doing their job, Kit's sister would still be alive. Kit couldn't save Miko, but he could save someone else's sister.

Or in this case, Nick Swinton's widow.

He put his cutter into lockdown and stood, looking at the MRC building before him. The stone exterior had plenty of patches from blaster shots and cannon fire. All murc buildings had been Zenith State government buildings before the Revolution. Many had been destroyed, but those that hadn't, had become the offices for murcs, primarily administrators, or held barracks for soldier housing. Cavil's MRC building was the largest Kit had seen that was still standing.

He headed toward the building in which Gabriel Sloan, Cavil's administrator, worked and lived. Kit had heard that Sloan had other homes that offered him more privacy and even access to a silo that hadn't been sealed off by Zenith, but Kit only knew the location of Sloan's publicly known home, where he hoped to learn of Sara Swinton's whereabouts.

Murcs guarded the front entrance. One held up a hand as Kit approached.

"No weapons," the murc said.

Kit tapped the emblem of two crossed spears on his bicep. "I'm with the Iron Guild."

The murc gave a small nod and stepped aside for Kit to enter. The bounty hunter strode into the long building. The atrium was a bustle of activity. Amid armed murcs, people came and went, many carrying things from tablets to boxes of fresh produce. Small cafés and vendors filled the central space. Doors dotted the walls on each side of the large building. Nearly every door had the MRC letters printed on it, from officer quarters to armory to offices.

Kit reached the middle of the long atrium when he saw a door that read, GABRIEL SLOAN, MRC ADMINISTRATOR, CAVIL, MIDLAND ZONE.

Outside the door was what looked to be a café, with lush plants hanging from the ceiling and a water fountain providing soothing, bubbling background mood. He took a seat under an exceptionally large fern so that he could take in the area.

Sara Swinton could be working anywhere in the building, at a food stand or in housekeeping, if she was even there. Knowing the Sloan brothers' reputation, she was likely already dead or sold off to a factory farm in another zone. It wasn't right. Nick Swinton was the best man Kit had ever known and would've done anything for his fellow Ravens—including sacrificing himself to save them, which he did. He should've lived instead of Kit or Joe or any of the others, but that wasn't how fate played her hand. Instead, Nick was six feet under while his widow was in trouble. The least Kit could do for Nick now was to get his widow to safety, and if that wasn't possible, kill the man responsible for killing her.