Chapter 3
The plywood where her window should be told him everything he needed to know.
Anchor had seen the damage the moment he'd pulled up—spray-painted message scrubbed but not erased, brick sitting on her counter like a trophy she refused to hide. Three years of tattoo sessions, and he'd never seen Colleen Brannigan rattled.
She wasn't rattled now.
She was pissed.
And something about the fury burning behind those green eyes made him want to find whoever had done this and teach them what happened to men who threatened what was his.
Not his. Not yet.
But the thought stuck anyway.
"Shirt off," Colleen said, snapping on fresh gloves. All business, like her shop wasn't held together with plywood and stubbornness. "We're finishing the chest piece today. Unless you've changed your mind about the placement."
"Haven't changed my mind about anything."
She glanced up at that, something flickering in her expression. Awareness, maybe. The same current that had been building between them for three years, session by session, needle stroke by needle stroke.
Anchor pulled his shirt over his head and settled into the chair. The leather was warm, familiar. So was the buzz of her machine as she prepped, the smell of ink and antiseptic that meant he was about to let someone mark him permanently.
He'd only ever trusted Colleen with that.
"Your knuckles," he said.
She froze. Just for a second, then recovered with a sharp laugh. "You noticed that, huh?"
"I notice everything about you."
The words came out lower than he'd intended. More honest. Colleen's hands stilled on her equipment, and when she looked at him, there was heat underneath the surprise.
"That so?"
"Tell me what happened."
"It's handled."
"Colleen."
She set down the tattoo gun. The buzz died, leaving silence that felt heavy with everything unsaid.
"One of Driscoll's collectors came back this morning," she said finally. "After the window. Wanted to discuss the 'doubled price' for my disrespect." Her mouth curved in a smile that was all teeth. "I discussed it with my fist."
Anchor's hands tightened on the armrests. "You fought him off yourself."
"Four years Army, remember? Field hospitals weren't exactly safe spaces." She flexed her bruised knuckles, studied them like they belonged to someone else. "Guy wasn't expecting resistance. They never are, from a woman half their size."
Pride and fury warred in his chest. Pride because she was a goddamn warrior, standing alone against predators who'd broken harder targets. Fury because she shouldn't have to.
"What did he look like?"
"Big. Former repo man type—you know the build. Takes professional pride in scaring people." She picked up the gun again, tested the needle. "Name's Neil something. Garrett, maybe. He's the one who painted my window."
Neil Garrett. Anchor filed the name away. Warren Driscoll's primary enforcer, according to what he'd heard in church yesterday. The escalation specialist.
Dead man walking.
"You should have called me."
Colleen's eyebrows shot up. "Called you? You're my client, Anchor. Not my bodyguard."
"I'm Sons of Liberty."
"Yeah, I noticed the patch." She moved closer, leaning over him to examine the half-finished memorial piece on his chest. Professional distance, but he could smell her shampoo—something clean and sharp, like eucalyptus.
"Didn't realize outlaw motorcycle clubs offered security services to local tattoo artists. "
"We protect what's ours."
"And I'm yours now?" Challenge laced her voice. Amusement too, but underneath it, something that sounded almost like hope.
Anchor caught her wrist. Gentle, but firm enough that she couldn't pull away without a fight. Her pulse hammered against his thumb.
"Fishtown is Sons territory," he said. "Has been for years. Which means every business on these blocks falls under our protection—whether they know it or not."
"Very generous."
"Warren Driscoll has been operating here without permission. Squeezing shops, breaking windows, building an empire in ground we bled to hold." His grip tightened fractionally. "That ends. And you—"
He stopped. Forced himself to let go of her wrist before he did something stupid like pull her into his lap and show her exactly how he felt about men who threatened her.
"Me what?" Colleen asked. Her voice had gone breathy, and she hadn't moved away.
"You're not going to fight this alone anymore."
"I've been alone since I got back from overseas. I'm good at it."
"Good at it isn't the same as wanting it."
She stared at him. Those green eyes, sharp and assessing, the ones that had seen through his bullshit from the first session when he'd told her the memorial piece was "just something he wanted to do."
"You don't know what I want," she said.
"Then tell me."
The silence stretched. Outside, a car passed, bass thumping. Inside, just the two of them and three years of something neither had acknowledged.
"I want to finish your tattoo," Colleen said finally. "And I want Warren Driscoll to choke on his own teeth. Not necessarily in that order."
Anchor laughed—a real one, rusty from disuse. "I can help with both."
"The tattoo, sure. The other thing—"
"Church meets tonight. I'll bring what you've told me to the table. Driscoll's been a problem for too long." He settled back into the chair, offering her his chest like it was a peace treaty. "But right now, finish the piece. I've waited three years for my father's name to be complete."
Colleen hesitated. He watched her weigh the options—pride versus pragmatism, independence versus the reality that she was outgunned and they both knew it.
Then she nodded once, sharp and decisive, and picked up the tattoo gun.
"Don't move."
"Wouldn't dream of it."
The needle bit into his skin, familiar sting that always felt like paying a debt. His father's name, letter by letter, being etched into flesh that would carry it forever.
Michael Carlyle Sr.
The man who'd drowned in bottles when the work disappeared. Who'd left behind a son with anger and nowhere to put it until the Sons gave him a home.
Colleen worked in focused silence, her hands steady despite the bruised knuckles, despite everything that had happened today. She was good—better than good. Every line precise, every shadow exactly where it needed to be.
"Why the memorial?" she asked after a while. Soft, like she knew the question was loaded.
"Because someone should remember him as more than a failure."
Her hands paused. When she looked up, there was understanding in her eyes that made his chest ache.
"My father wasn't perfect either," she said. "Drank too much, talked too little. But he taught me how to throw a punch before he taught me how to ride a bike." A ghost of a smile. "Said a girl who could fight would never be at anyone's mercy."
"Smart man."
"Dead man. Liver gave out when I was nineteen." She went back to work, needle buzzing. "I think about him every time I ink a memorial piece. All these people carrying their ghosts on their skin."
"You carry yours on your arms."
She glanced down at the tattoos covering her from collar to wrist. Her own work, some of it. Other artists for the rest. A history written in ink.
"Soldiers I couldn't save," she said quietly. "Every face I remember goes somewhere I can see it. Reminds me why I do what I do now."
Anchor understood. Carrying the dead wasn't a burden—it was a purpose. A reason to keep moving when everything screamed to give up.
"Warren Driscoll picked the wrong artist to threaten," he said.
"Damn right he did."
"Finish the piece." He held her gaze, let her see the promise underneath the words. "Then I'm making some calls. By tomorrow, you'll have more backup than you know what to do with."
"I told you, I don't need—"
"Not about what you need." He reached up, caught a strand of red hair that had fallen across her cheek, and tucked it behind her ear. The touch was light. Deliberate. A claim so subtle she might have missed it if she wasn't paying attention.
But Colleen was paying attention. Her breath caught.
"It's about what you deserve," Anchor finished. "And you deserve a hell of a lot better than fighting alone."
She didn't argue.
For the next two hours, she worked in focused silence while he made mental lists of every brother he'd need to brief, every asset they could bring to bear against Warren Driscoll's operation.
This wasn't just about territory anymore.
It was about her.
And by the time Colleen finished the memorial piece—his father's name complete and perfect across his heart—Anchor knew one thing with absolute certainty:
Anyone who touched her would answer to him.
He just needed to make some calls.