Chapter 12
Blizzard was in the garage working on his bike when his phone buzzed with Scout's name. He answered on the first ring.
"Movement. Three crews, three targets. They're hitting Wolf businesses in Bridgeport."
Blizzard was already moving toward the clubhouse. "Which ones?"
Phil Kaspar. Dante's operations man. The one who'd turned a fencing ring into a well-oiled machine.
"Dante?"
"Negative. He's not in the field. Kaspar's running it from a rental van—I've got eyes on him two blocks from the bakery."
Blizzard pushed through the clubhouse door and found Alpha already gearing up, Razor beside him.
"You heard?" Alpha asked.
"Heard. Three targets, coordinated strike. Kaspar's directing from a van." Blizzard grabbed his cut from the hook by the door. "I anticipated this. Brothers are already positioned at the bakery and the tackle shop."
"The deli?"
"Unprotected. But Claire's there."
Alpha's expression went cold and deadly in the span of a heartbeat. "Then we move. Now."
They split into three teams.
Alpha took Fang and Stockyard to the deli—Claire was inside, and nothing on earth would stop him from getting to his woman. Razor led Lakeshore to the tackle shop, where Tess was working the counter. That left Blizzard and Scout to intercept Kaspar directly.
And Wendy.
She'd been at the bakery when the call came, picking up pastries from Jessica. Right in the middle of the target zone.
Blizzard's bike ate up the distance between the compound and Bridgeport, Scout riding beside him, both of them weaving through traffic with a speed that made cars blur. His phone was connected to his helmet, Scout's voice feeding him updates.
"Kaspar's van is moving. He's circling, coordinating his crews by phone." A pause. "First strike just hit the tackle shop. Razor's engaging."
"The bakery?"
"Crew's approaching now. Four men, armed. They're thirty seconds out."
Thirty seconds. Wendy was thirty seconds from violence, and Blizzard was still six blocks away.
"Jessica's got a back office," Scout continued. "Reinforced door. If your woman can get everyone inside—"
"She will."
He didn't question it. Didn't doubt. Wendy had survived weeks of Arthur Dante's threats, had stood in a safehouse while men died downstairs, had looked at Blizzard after he'd killed eight people and said I'm not scared of you.
She could handle thirty seconds.
The bakery came into view as they rounded the corner onto Halsted.
Glass was already shattering. Kaspar's crew had hit the front windows, four men pouring into the shop with bats and crowbars, ready to destroy everything they couldn't steal.
Blizzard didn't slow down.
He took the bike up onto the sidewalk and through the front door, scattering Dante's men like bowling pins. One went down under his wheels. Another took a boot to the face as Blizzard dismounted in a single fluid motion.
Scout came through behind him, gun already drawn.
"Where's Kaspar?"
"Van's two blocks east. Go." Scout put a round into a man reaching for a weapon. "I've got this."
Blizzard went.
He sprinted through the back of the bakery, past overturned displays and scattered pastries, past the reinforced door of the back office where he could hear voices inside. Wendy's voice, calm and steady, telling someone it was going to be okay.
That's my woman.
He hit the back alley at full speed, tracking the rental van by the engine sound. Two blocks east, Scout had said. Around the corner, down the side street, right where a man running a coordinated assault would position himself for maximum visibility.
The van was idling in front of a closed auto shop.
Phil Kaspar sat in the driver's seat, phone pressed to his ear, watching his operation unfold through the windshield like a general surveying a battlefield.
He didn't see Blizzard coming until the driver's door ripped open.
Kaspar was faster than Mrazek.
He had a gun out before Blizzard could drag him from the van, and he got off one shot—close enough that Blizzard felt the heat of the bullet pass his ear—before Blizzard's hand closed around his wrist and twisted.
The gun clattered to the pavement. Kaspar screamed.
"That's for the bakery," Blizzard said, and broke his other wrist.
Kaspar collapsed against the van, cradling his ruined hands, his face white with shock and pain.
"You think this ends anything?" he gasped. "Dante's got resources you can't imagine. He'll burn this whole neighborhood—"
"He can try."
Blizzard grabbed Kaspar by the throat and slammed him against the van's side panel. The metal dented under the impact.
"You coordinated attacks on Wolf territory. You threatened businesses under our protection. You sent men with bats into a bakery where my woman was standing."
Kaspar's eyes went wide. "I didn't know—"
"You should have." Blizzard's grip tightened. "You should have known that everything in Bridgeport belongs to the Wolves now. Every shop. Every street. Every person Arthur Dante ever threatened."
"Please—"
"Too late for please."
He didn't make it slow. Kaspar wasn't worth the time.
One sharp twist, and the logistics coordinator who'd kept Dante's operation running for fifteen years stopped breathing.
Blizzard let the body drop and pulled out his phone.
"Kaspar's done. Status?"
Alpha's voice came back, tight but controlled. "Deli's secure. Claire's fine. Three of Dante's men down, two ran."
"Tackle shop?"
Razor this time: "Handled. Tess dropped one of them with a fishing gaff before we got here. Woman's got better aim than Lakeshore."
"Hey," Lakeshore protested in the background.
"Bakery?"
Scout answered: "Four down, zero casualties. Your bookstore owner locked the owner and her kids in the back office before we breached. They're shaken but safe."
Your bookstore owner.
Something warm spread through Blizzard's chest—pride, relief, a fierce possessive satisfaction that his woman had done exactly what needed to be done.
"I'm coming back," he said. "We need to assess damage and plan the next move."
"Agreed." Alpha's voice hardened. "Dante's down two lieutenants now. He's going to get desperate."
"Let him. Desperate men make mistakes."
Blizzard ended the call and walked back toward the bakery, leaving Phil Kaspar's body cooling in the November air.
He found Wendy in the back office, kneeling beside a woman with two small children clutched against her chest.
Jessica. The bakery owner. Stockyard's woman.
She was shaking, tears streaming down her face, but she was alive. Her kids were alive. And Wendy was there, talking in that soft, steady voice, telling them the danger was past.
"Hey."
Wendy looked up at his voice, and something in her expression made his chest tighten.
Relief. Trust. And underneath it, a fierce pride that matched his own.
"Hey yourself." She stood, brushing flour dust from her borrowed jeans. "You took care of the van guy?"
"Kaspar. Yeah."
"Good." No hesitation. No flinch. Just acceptance of what he was and what he did. "Jessica's okay. The kids are scared but unhurt. The front of the shop is trashed, but the ovens are fine. She's already planning tomorrow's batch."
Blizzard looked at the woman on the floor, still clutching her children, already thinking about baking. The resilience of it. The stubborn refusal to let violence win.
"She's pack," he said quietly. "We'll rebuild what they broke."
"I know." Wendy stepped closer to him, close enough that he could smell smoke and sugar and the particular warmth that was uniquely her. "I got them in here before the glass started breaking. Locked the door, kept them calm, waited for the cavalry."
"You did good."
"I did what needed doing." She met his eyes, and something passed between them—an understanding that went deeper than words. "That's what pack does, right? Protects its own?"
Pack. She was calling herself pack now. Claiming the identity, the belonging, the place at his side.
Mine, he thought, the word settling into his bones like it had always been there.
"Yeah," he said. "That's what pack does."
Scout appeared in the doorway, surveying the scene with tactical efficiency.
"Brothers are cleaning up outside. Alpha wants everyone back at the compound for debrief." His gaze flicked to Wendy, then back to Blizzard. "Your woman did good. Cool under pressure."
"I know."
"Better than some prospects I've seen."
"I know that too."
Wendy rolled her eyes, but she was smiling. "I'm standing right here."
"Yeah." Blizzard took her hand, threaded his fingers through hers. "You are."
They walked out through the ruined bakery, past shattered glass and scattered pastries, past the bodies Scout's team was already making disappear. Outside, bikes were lining up for the ride back to the compound.
Three businesses hit. Three businesses defended. One more of Dante's lieutenants dead.
The war was escalating. Arthur Dante was running out of men and options.
And Wendy Callahan, the bookstore owner who'd just helped save a baker and her children while glass shattered around her, walked beside him like she belonged there.
Because she did.