Recon Marines II: Marine's Heiress, The Read Online Free PDF Page A

and felt safe. Until it caught Russ and
that was on a shallow water day.”
    “ Who puts them out there?”
Vin had seen traps used to capture wild beasts but hadn’t imagined
any coward would use them on men.
    Moe slapped his hand on the table,
quieting the conversations near them. “No proof, but it can only be
those greedy bastards running Hadrason’s mine up on the mountain.
They tried to tell us the silver we take should be theirs when we
first started this settlement but even in this lawless corner of
the universe, they can’t enforce such an idea.”
    “ Why they care is beyond
our figuring.” Vannie refilled his mug from the teapot. “We manage
enough silver to keep us in food and clothing. None of us are
getting rich.”
    “ It’s pure maliciousness,”
Moe spat. “They have their tons of silver and resent our
ounces.”
    Vin lifted the tea to his lips, knowing
the expected behavior. He’d rather have pure water but wanted to
continue his act of fitting in. The hot drink surprised him with a
rich taste of honey and cinnamon. Not as good as water but not
horrible. “Can’t you set guards on the stretches of water you
pan?”
    “ We cover about three
miles of stream, too much for us to watch. And it’s not safe out
there at night,” Vannie said. “Moe and I traveled to see the big
boss up the mountain. He told us they knew nothing about the traps
and if the work was too dangerous for us we should pack up and
leave.”
    “ If they want to get rid
of you why don’t they kill everybody? Twenty armed men could take
this town.” Vin wanted to call the words back when he saw their
expressions. “I meant from a military viewpoint, it seems expedient
for them to just attack.”
    Moe looked at Vannie and received a nod
before answering. “We feared that very thing after they ordered us
to leave and we told them to go to hell. We fortified our walls and
purchased some weapons when we could gather enough silver. They
haven’t come at us yet so maybe we’re only a minor stinging insect
to their great hulking beast. Killing or injuring one of us here
and there is just them taking a swipe at us.”
    Vannie shrugged. “I’d like to think
they have some hint of humanity and don’t want to outright kill us.
There are many women and children here. And lot of our people keep
in contact with relatives in the civilized systems. An outcry for
an investigation would occur if all these families were
killed.”
    “ I think Hadrason Mining
could make us disappear completely and the hell with any protest.
They’d throw out bodies in some deep branch of their mine or dump
them in the middle of the jungle to be eaten. If anyone came to
investigate, they’d find us gone and no hint to what happened,” Moe
said.
    Vin sensed the two burly men had argued
this before. “Hadrason Mining doesn’t wield the power it once
did.”
    “ We heard those rumors a
few months back.” Vannie leaned toward Vin with an intense gleam in
his eyes. “Is Hadrason in prison?”
    “ Yes.” Satisfaction shot
through Vin as it always did imagining the rich bastard suffering
in some dank cell. Joe and the other Recon Marines had taken care
of Geoff Hadrason. The mine owner deserved death but Vin would
accept the prison sentence for now. All of the soulless men who had
manipulated and used the Recon Marines were either dead or in
prison. Except for one. Did that man protect this little town
because his daughter lived here? “I don’t understand how the mines
keep working when the owner is incarcerated.”
    Vin caught the look exchanged by the
two men. Damn, he must have said something stupid again.
    “ Big business like that
runs itself, lad,” Vannie said. “Hadrason is probably still raking
in millions every month. I bet his prison cell is a plush resort.
Money buys almost anything.”
    “ This is true?” Was it
possible that the pieces of human trash he’d delivered to the doors
of various military outposts weren’t suffering