Total pages in book: 61
Estimated words: 56395 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 282(@200wpm)___ 226(@250wpm)___ 188(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 56395 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 282(@200wpm)___ 226(@250wpm)___ 188(@300wpm)
“I understand.” There was no hesitation in her answer, only a quiet sadness that never came close to doubt. “I don’t trust you because I think the Black Crowns are harmless, Brogan. I trust you because you know exactly where to point the part of you that isn’t.”
My grip tightened around the phone while every violent thing inside me went still. Jacqueline understood the man beneath the suit, the cut, and the control, and she accepted that men like mine existed to make predators regret their choices.
“Fuck, I adore you.” The words came out rough and absolute, my body reacting to her acceptance with the same possessive heat she could ignite in the middle of anything. “When this is done, I’m going to remind you exactly what it means to belong to me.”
Her breath caught softly over the line, but warmth entered her answer. “I’ll be there when you come home.”
“Good girl.” I ended the call then turned to Hawkeye and pointed toward the drainage line. “Get Nomad and Falcon onto the eastern track. Zero and Breach take the warehouse’s south side. We close the service shed before Wade reaches it.”
Hawkeye relayed the orders while I studied the route Jacqueline had found. Wade knew the quarry because his father once owned it, but the Black Crowns hunted predators through territory that had been ours long before Wade decided fear made him untouchable.
21
STRYKER
The eastern track narrowed between the quarry wall and a scrub-choked drainage cut, forcing Hawkeye and me into single file as we closed on the service shed Jacqueline had remembered. Rusted conveyor frames and abandoned crushers threw broken shadows across the gravel while Nomad confirmed the county wash was blocked and Zero reported movement near the warehouse’s southern bay.
Hawkeye’s cheek still carried a narrow streak of blood from the truck window, but his weapon remained steady as he covered the rear corner and murmured, “He’s boxed. Unless the bastard grew wings while we came around.”
“Wade would make somebody else flap them.” A scrape inside the shed was followed by hurried whispering and the metallic click of a weapon being handled by someone whose hands had started shaking. I counted two men from the uneven footsteps, one dragging his left leg, then stepped away from the door an instant before a round tore through the warped wood at chest height.
Hawkeye broke the rear window and drove his pistol through the opening. “Drop it. Next shot goes through your wrist.”
A gun struck concrete inside before Wade started cursing at his escort to hold his nerve. I kicked the door inward and cleared the room, finding the wounded man against the rear wall with both hands raised while Wade crouched behind an overturned cabinet. Wade lifted his weapon toward me, but Hawkeye put a round into the floor beside his fingers, spraying fragments across his knuckles and knocking the pistol loose before he fired.
I crossed the room, kicked the weapon away, and caught Wade by the jacket when he scrambled toward a side door. “Done running.”
His back struck the wall hard enough to empty his lungs, leaving his face gray beneath the grime while his gaze jumped between Hawkeye and the exits. “You don’t understand what you’re stepping into. There are men above me who won’t let this go.”
“You’re hiding in your dead father’s quarry after running a local theft ring.” I pressed my forearm across his throat until his hands stopped clawing at me. “Don’t embarrass yourself by inventing a bigger bastard now.”
Zero and Breach entered from the warehouse side while reports came through my earpiece that the final runners had been caught at the eastern wash and western exit. Wade heard every update, and the last of his confidence drained when he realized no one remained between him and the consequences he’d spent years forcing onto weaker people.
“I never meant for anybody to get hurt,” he insisted, changing tactics so fast the lie nearly collided with his earlier threat. “The boys got carried away. Trent was only supposed to make the girl understand that ranch wasn’t safe for her.”
“The girl has a name.”
“Jacqueline,” he corrected, licking his dry lips while his pulse hammered beneath my arm. “She should’ve listened. None of this would’ve happened if she’d taken the money and left like a sensible person.”
The urge to crush his windpipe was immediate, but rage didn’t get to choose while my brothers were still clearing the quarry and Raines remained on his way. I turned Wade, cuffed his wrists, and forced him through the side door into the warehouse, where the Black Crowns had already secured the final members of his crew.
Wade had filled the abandoned building with everything he couldn’t risk leaving at the public yard. Stripped tractors and a skid steer sat among replacement plates, boxed tracking units, stolen tools, forged bills of sale, and red fuel cans matching the ones recovered from Jacqueline’s burned barn. Judge stood beside an open ledger recording machines, owners, buyers, cash splits, and subcontractors, while Cipher held a drive loaded with messages and account records tying Wade directly to the operation.