Chapter Twelve
Bedrock was already awake—had been for hours, watching Opal sleep in the pale moonlight and trying to convince himself this wasn't a dream that would dissolve at dawn. When his phone vibrated against the nightstand, the dread was instant and familiar.
"Talk."
Bedrock was on his feet before Slag finished speaking, pulling on clothes with one hand while his mind raced through tactical options.
"Numbers?"
"Fifteen, maybe twenty total. Split across targets. They're trying to spread us thin."
"The store—"
"Grit's closest. He's en route, but he's alone until backup arrives."
Opal stirred, her eyes opening to find him already armed, already moving. She didn't ask questions. Just threw off the covers and reached for her own clothes.
"I'm coming with you," she said.
"Opal—"
"It's my store." Her voice was steel wrapped in velvet. "I'm coming."
He should argue. Should lock her in this room and handle the threat himself, the way he'd handled every threat for six years.
But he'd seen her face down three armed men with a baseball bat. Had watched her burn threatening notes and bury dead birds without flinching. She wasn't the kind of woman who hid while her life burned down.
"Stay behind me," he said. "Do exactly what I tell you."
"Agreed."
They were on his bike in under two minutes, tearing through compound gates that were already being fortified against the perimeter assault. Bedrock caught a glimpse of Sledge directing defense, his massive frame silhouetted against security lights, before the night swallowed them.
The ride to her store took eighteen minutes at speeds that would have killed anyone who didn't know these roads by heart. Opal's arms were locked around his waist, her body pressed against his back, and even in the middle of chaos, some part of him registered the rightness of her there.
Gunfire reached them before the store did.
Bedrock killed the bike a hundred yards out, coasting into shadow behind a burned-out gas station. Through the darkness, he could see muzzle flashes—Grit, pinned behind his bike, returning fire against at least six attackers who'd taken positions around the general store.
"Stay here."
"Like hell."
He grabbed her arm, forced her to meet his eyes. "I need to flank them. That means I need to know exactly where you are. Stay here until I call for you."
Something in his expression must have convinced her. She nodded once, sharp.
Bedrock moved through the darkness like he'd been born to it—low, fast, silent. Six years of enforcement work had taught him how to become a shadow, how to close distance without being seen, how to turn the night into a weapon.
The attackers were focused on Grit, pouring rounds toward the downed bike without realizing their perimeter had been breached. Bedrock came up behind the nearest one and put a knife through his kidney before the man could scream.
One down.
He moved to the next, and the next, working through them with methodical precision while Grit kept their attention forward. By the time the remaining attackers realized they were being flanked, three of their number were bleeding out in the gravel.
"Reapers!" someone shouted. "Fall back to the—"
Bedrock shot him in the throat.
The survivors scattered, abandoning their assault formation in a panicked retreat toward the vehicles parked behind the store. Grit emerged from cover, bleeding from a graze on his arm but steady on his feet.
"Took your time," the Marine growled.
"You're welcome."
Engines roared to life behind the building. Bedrock sprinted toward the sound, Grit on his heels, but by the time they rounded the corner, two trucks were already tearing down the back road.
One truck remained. And standing beside it, directing the retreat with the calm precision of a man who'd coordinated a thousand operations, was a thin figure Bedrock recognized from Slag's intel photos.
Marvin Sluss. The logistical brain behind Henson's cockfighting empire.
Sluss saw him at the same moment Bedrock raised his gun. The thin man dove for cover behind the truck's engine block, a move that bought him seconds but nothing more.
"Grit—circle right."
They moved as a unit, years of brotherhood translating into wordless coordination. Sluss fired twice from behind the truck, both shots going wide, the panic in his movements betraying a man more comfortable with spreadsheets than shootouts.
"It's over!" Bedrock called out. "Your assault failed. Your men are dead or running. Come out and this ends clean."
"Clean?" Sluss's laugh was high and strained. "You think Henson will let this end? You have no idea what you've started. No idea what—"
Grit's shot took him in the shoulder, spinning him out from behind cover. Sluss hit the ground hard, gun skittering away, his careful plans dissolving into blood and gravel.
Bedrock walked toward him, unhurried.
"Henson sent you to do his dirty work," he said, standing over the thin man. "Coordinated assault on three targets. Professional. Precise. Exactly what I'd expect from the man who kept his operation running for twelve years."
Sluss coughed, blood flecking his lips. "You don't understand. The records—everything—if I die—"
"If you die, his operation loses its brain." Bedrock crouched beside him, voice cold. "That's the point."
"Wait—" Sluss raised a trembling hand. "I can give you information. Locations. Schedules. Everything you need to—"
"I don't need anything from you."
The shot echoed across the empty lot, and Marvin Sluss stopped planning anything, forever.
Bedrock straightened, ejecting the spent magazine and loading a fresh one. The night had gone quiet—no more gunfire, no more engines. Just the settling dust of a battle won.
"Bedrock!"
Opal's voice. He turned to find her sprinting toward the store, ignoring his instructions to stay put, her attention locked on the building that held four generations of her family's legacy.
He let her go. Some things mattered more than following orders.
She reached the front door and stopped, her hand pressed against wood that was splintered but intact. Bullet holes pocked the facade. One window was shattered. But the walls stood. The roof held.
Damage that could be repaired rather than destruction that couldn't.
"It's still here." Her voice cracked on the words. "Curtis, it's still standing."
He came up behind her, wrapped his arms around her waist, pulled her back against his chest. She was trembling—adrenaline and relief and exhaustion all tangled together.
"They hit it hard," he said. "But it held."
"Because you came." She turned in his arms, her eyes bright with tears she wasn't quite shedding. "Because you knew this mattered to me."
"Everything that matters to you matters to me." He cupped her face in his hands, smearing her cheek with blood that wasn't his. "That's how this works now."
"Bedrock." Grit's voice cut through the moment. "Got movement."
They broke apart, weapons raised, but the figures emerging from the darkness wore Reaper cuts—Timber and two prospects, arriving as backup that was no longer needed.
"Compound?" Bedrock asked.
"Perimeter assault was a feint. They scattered when they realized we weren't taking the bait." Timber surveyed the bodies scattered around the lot, the blood soaking into gravel. "Garage?"
"Slag handled it personally. Two dead, one captured for questioning." Timber's eyes found the thin corpse near the truck. "That Sluss?"
"Was."
"Good. Intel says he was the operational mastermind. Without him, Henson's flying blind."
Opal had moved away, circling her store like she needed to touch every wall to confirm it was real. Bedrock watched her run her hands over the weathered siding, the bullet-scarred doorframe, the window that would need replacing.
Four generations of Whitakers had built this place. Tonight, it had survived its worst assault yet.
"Casualties?" he asked Timber.
"Two brothers wounded, nothing critical. The captured guy's talking—says Henson's son is pushing for escalation. Wants to make an example."
Dale Henson. The third layer of this operation, still out there, still dangerous.
"And Henson himself?"
"Wasn't at any of the targets. He sent Sluss to coordinate. Stayed safe at his farm, letting others take the risks."
Coward. The word burned in Bedrock's chest. A man who sent others to die while he waited in comfort, calculating losses like livestock instead of lives.
"He'll send more," Bedrock said.
"He'll try." Timber's smile was cold. "But he just lost his brain and his best fighters. Whatever he sends next will be desperate, not smart."
Opal returned to Bedrock's side, her trembling subsided into something steadier. She looked at the bodies, at the blood, at the evidence of violence that had touched her family's legacy.
She didn't flinch.
"What happens now?" she asked.
"Now we regroup. Assess damage. Plan our next move." Bedrock pulled her close, his arm anchoring her against his side. "And we make sure Henson understands that attacking what's mine has consequences he can't calculate."
"What's yours?"
"You." He pressed a kiss to her temple, not caring that Timber and Grit and the prospects were watching. "This store. Everything you've built and everything you're building. All of it's mine to protect now."
She leaned into him, solid and warm despite the chaos around them.
"Then protect it," she said. "And I'll help you."
The sun was beginning to lighten the eastern sky, painting the aftermath in shades of gray and gold. Bodies would need moving. Damage would need assessing. Reports would need filing with the compound.
But for this moment, Bedrock stood in front of a store that four generations of Whitakers had kept alive, holding a woman who'd chosen him despite everything she'd seen him do, and felt something he'd almost forgotten how to recognize.
Hope.
Sluss was dead. The operation was crippled. And Opal's store still stood.
It wasn't over. Henson and his son were still out there, still dangerous, still determined to take what wasn't theirs.
But tonight, the Reapers had won. And tomorrow, they'd finish what these bastards had started.