Chapter 16
The bar was called Lucky's, and Craig Driscoll was about to learn how wrong that name was.
Anchor studied the building from across the street—two-story dive on a corner lot, neon signs buzzing in the windows, three vehicles parked out back that hadn't been there an hour ago.
Turnpike's intel put Craig inside with four remaining loyalists, celebrating the fire that had gutted Independence Ink.
Celebrating.
Anchor's hands tightened on his handlebars.
"Four plus Craig," Gallows confirmed, appearing at his shoulder. "Back entrance is a single door. Front has two. Windows are barred."
"Exits?"
"Fire escape on the east side. Already covered." Gallows nodded toward the shadows, where Pounder waited with a shotgun and a grin. "Nobody leaves unless we want them to."
"Good."
Anchor looked at Colleen.
She sat rigid on the bike behind him, still wearing his cut, her face pale in the streetlight but her eyes burning. She hadn't spoken since they'd left the compound—hadn't needed to. Everything she wanted was written in the set of her jaw and the gun in her hand.
"You stay in the back," he said. "Gallows and I breach the front. Pounder covers the fire escape. Anyone comes out the rear—"
"I handle them."
"Carefully. Craig is mine. The others are collateral." He caught her chin, turned her face toward him. "You understand? Craig Driscoll dies by my hands. For what he did to your shop. For what he tried to do to you."
Something fierce flashed in her eyes. "And if he runs my direction?"
"Then you slow him down." His thumb traced her cheekbone. "But I finish it."
She held his gaze for a long moment. Weighing. Deciding.
Then she nodded.
"Make it hurt."
"That's the plan."
Anchor dismounted, checked his weapons—AR-15, sidearm, blade in his boot. Gallows moved into position at the front entrance, silent as death, shotgun ready.
The street was empty. Three in the morning, and Kensington had learned to stay indoors when Sons bikes rolled through.
Smart neighborhood.
"On my signal," Anchor said into his earpiece. "Three. Two. One—"
He kicked in the front door.
The bar exploded into chaos.
Five men scrambled for weapons, for cover, for anything that might save them. Too slow. All of them too goddamn slow.
Gallows's shotgun roared, taking out the first hostile before he cleared his holster. Anchor put two rounds into the second, center mass, watched him crumple behind an overturned table.
Craig Driscoll stood frozen at the back of the room.
Twenty-six years old. Gym-built. Warren's nephew who'd wanted so badly to prove himself. He'd proven plenty tonight—proven he was a coward who burned buildings while women slept.
"Run," Anchor said. "I dare you."
Craig ran.
He bolted for the back door, shoving past his own men, abandoning them the way cowards always abandoned people. Anchor let him go—for now. The remaining three hostiles needed handling first.
Gallows put down the third with brutal efficiency. Anchor caught the fourth trying to flank and dropped him with a spray that painted the bar wall red. The fifth raised his hands, weapon clattering to the floor.
"Don't—don't shoot—I'll tell you everything—"
Anchor didn't have time for surrenders.
He fired once. The man dropped.
"Clear," Gallows reported.
"Back door. Now."
They moved through the bar, stepping over bodies, following the trail Craig had left in his panic. The back door hung open, cold air rushing through, and somewhere in the alley beyond—
Gunfire.
Two shots. Then silence.
Anchor burst into the alley to find Craig on the ground, clutching his leg, blood pooling beneath him. Colleen stood ten feet away, Glock steady, expression carved from ice.
"He tried to run past me," she said. "I slowed him down."
That's my girl.
Craig whimpered, trying to crawl away, leaving a smear of red on the concrete. Twenty-six years old and crying like a child.
"Please—" He twisted to look at Anchor, face white with pain and terror. "Please, I didn't—it wasn't my idea—Warren made me—"
"Warren made you burn her shop?"
"He said—he said we had to send a message—"
"You sent one." Anchor crouched beside him, close enough to see the fear pooling in his eyes. "Now I'm sending mine."
"I'll tell you where Warren is! I'll give you everything—his safehouse, his accounts, his—"
"I already know where Warren is." Anchor grabbed Craig's collar, hauled him up against the alley wall. "Kensington row house. Back room with the ledgers. Your uncle's been hiding there since we killed his brain and his muscle."
Craig's face crumpled. "Then what do you want?"
Anchor leaned close.
"I want you to understand why you're dying," he said, voice soft. "Not because you worked for Warren. Not because you threatened businesses in our territory. Not even because you helped coordinate an assault on our compound."
He pulled the blade from his boot.
"You're dying because you burned something she loved."
Craig's eyes flicked to Colleen, standing in the alley mouth with his cut draped over her shoulders and his blood on her hands.
"She's just—she's just a tattoo artist—"
"She's mine." Anchor pressed the blade against Craig's throat. "And you touched what's mine. You burned what she built. You tried to break her because your uncle was too much of a coward to do it himself."
"Please—"
"Your uncle will get this message soon enough." Anchor increased the pressure, watched blood well around the steel. "His enforcer's dead. His operations manager's dead. His nephew's about to join them. And when we come for him—and we will come for him—I want him to know exactly why."
"I can help—I can tell you—"
"You can die."
Anchor drew the blade across.
Craig Driscoll's eyes went wide. Then empty.
The body slumped to the alley floor, and Anchor stepped back, blood dripping from his hands.
Three down. One to go.
"It's done," he said.
Colleen moved to stand beside him, looking down at the body without flinching. Craig's blood pooled between them, dark and spreading, and she didn't step back.
"Good," she said.
That was all. No tears. No second thoughts. Just good.
Anchor had never loved her more.
"Compound," Gallows said, materializing from the shadows. "Patriot wants a debrief. And Pounder's getting twitchy—says there's movement on the next block."
"Warren?"
"Scouts, probably. Checking on his nephew." Gallows's mouth curved. "They're not going to like what they find."
"Let them look." Anchor took Colleen's hand, pulled her toward the bikes. "Let them run back to Warren and tell him exactly what's waiting for him."
They mounted up. Engines roared to life. The alley fell away as they tore through Kensington streets, leaving blood and bodies in their wake.
Six dead tonight. Craig and his five loyalists.
Warren Driscoll's operation was gutted. His nephew was cooling in an alley. His carefully built empire of fear and pressure had collapsed in a matter of weeks.
And he was next.
The compound gates opened as they approached. Brothers lined the courtyard, waiting for news, weapons still ready in case the night wasn't over.
Patriot stood at the entrance, arms crossed, cold eyes tracking their arrival.
"Craig?" he asked.
"Dead." Anchor killed his engine. "Along with everyone at the bar."
"Casualties?"
"Theirs, not ours."
Patriot nodded slowly. "Warren's going to be desperate now. No muscle, no brain, no family. Just him and whatever scraps he can scrape together."
"Let him scrape." Anchor swung off his bike, pulling Colleen with him. "We hit his headquarters tomorrow night. End this."
"Church at noon. We'll plan it out." Patriot's gaze moved to Colleen, lingered on the blood speckling her hands. "She did well?"
"She did what she needed to do."
"Good." Patriot turned toward the clubhouse. "Get some rest. Both of you. Tomorrow's going to be bloody."
Anchor guided Colleen inside, past brothers who nodded with respect, past old ladies who watched with understanding. Up the stairs, to his room, to the door that closed behind them and shut out the rest of the world.
She stood in the center of the room, still wearing his cut, still holding the Glock, still covered in Craig Driscoll's blood.
"Colleen." He moved toward her. "Talk to me."
"I shot him." Her voice was steady. Distant. "I didn't hesitate. Didn't think. He came running and I just—"
"You did what you had to do."
"I know." She looked up at him, and there was something in her eyes that hadn't been there before. Steel, maybe. Or acceptance. "I know. And I'd do it again."
He pulled her into his arms, held her against his chest, felt her breathe.
"Warren's all that's left," she said. "When he's gone—"
"When he's gone, we rebuild." He pressed his lips to her hair. "Everything he burned. Everything he took. We build it back, together."
"Together."
The word settled between them like a promise.
Tomorrow, they'd plan Warren Driscoll's death.
Tonight, they had each other.
Anchor held her close, blood drying on both their hands, and knew with absolute certainty that this was where he belonged.
Not at the docks. Not in the compound.
Here. With her. Whatever came next.
"I love you," she whispered against his chest.
"I love you too." He tightened his grip. "Always."
Outside, the night bled toward dawn.
And somewhere in Kensington, Warren Driscoll was learning that his empire had finally run out of family.