Chapter Twelve
He was awake instantly, years of combat training overriding the warm weight of her body against his. His phone buzzed on the nightstand, Pike's name flashing on the screen.
"Talk."
"Sal's place. They hit it twenty minutes ago." Pike's voice was tight. Controlled. "Dozen men, maybe more. Professional. They've got the staff locked in the walk-in cooler and they're tearing the place apart."
Edge was already moving, sliding out from under Angela's arm, reaching for the jeans he'd left on the floor.
"Sal?"
"Beat to hell but breathing. They want to make a statement, not a massacre. For now."
"Who's running it?"
"Witnesses described a guy in a suit. Clean-cut. Giving orders like he's done this before."
Dean Carver. Vitale's operations manager. The brains behind the shore town distribution network.
"I'm on my way." Edge grabbed his jacket, his weapon, his keys. "Get Ace and Ghost moving. This ends tonight."
"Already rolling. Ten minutes out."
Edge ended the call and turned to find Angela sitting up in bed, the sheet pooled around her waist, her eyes sharp despite the hour.
"What's happening?"
"Vitale hit a restaurant in Ventnor. Outlaws-protected." He shoved his gun into his waistband. "I have to go."
"I'm coming with you."
"Like hell you are."
Angela was already out of bed, pulling on clothes with efficient movements. "It's my territory too. You said it yourself—downbeach is yours to protect. I'm part of that now."
"This isn't a flower shop with three men. This is a coordinated assault with professional muscle."
"And I've already proven I can handle myself." She met his eyes, and the steel there made his chest tight. "I'm not staying behind while you ride into a war zone."
Edge wanted to argue. Wanted to lock her in this room and keep her safe while he handled the violence that was his to handle.
But she wasn't wrong. She'd dropped a man at the safehouse. Held her nerve through a chase that would have broken most people. And the look in her eyes said she wasn't asking permission.
"You stay behind me. You shoot only if you have to. And if I tell you to run, you run. Understand?"
Angela nodded once. "Understood."
They were on the bike in three minutes, tearing through the empty shore town streets toward Ventnor. The salt air whipped past, cold and sharp, and Edge felt Angela's arms tight around his waist. Holding on. Trusting him.
Mine, he thought. She's mine, and I'm taking her into a war.
The thought should have made him turn around. Instead, it made him push the bike harder.
Sal's Restaurant sat on a corner in the heart of Ventnor's commercial district—an old-school Italian place that had been serving the neighborhood for thirty years.
Outlaws protection meant nobody messed with Sal's deliveries, nobody hassled his staff, nobody tried to squeeze him for tribute he couldn't afford.
Tonight, somebody had decided to test that protection.
Edge killed the engine a block out and walked Angela through the shadows, both of them moving low and quiet. He could see the restaurant ahead—lights blazing, front window shattered, two vans parked at awkward angles like they'd stopped in a hurry.
Ghost materialized from the darkness beside them. "Eight inside, two on the door. Carver's running the show from the bar."
"Sal?"
"Alive. Kitchen staff too. They're using them as leverage in case we show up heavy."
"Which we did."
"Which we did." Ghost's smile was cold. "Ace is on the roof across the street. Pike's got the back covered. Say the word."
Edge assessed the scene. Two guards at the front, focused on the street, not expecting an assault from the side alley. Eight more inside, probably spread between the dining room and the kitchen. Dean Carver at the bar, thinking he was safe because he'd brought enough muscle.
He wasn't.
"Angela." Edge turned to her, his hands finding her shoulders. "There's a service entrance through the alley. Pike's there. You go to him, you stay low, and you don't move until this is over."
"Edge—"
"I need you safe." His voice cracked on the word. "I can't do what I need to do if I'm worried about you getting caught in crossfire. Please."
She searched his eyes. Whatever she found there made her nod.
"Don't die."
"Wasn't planning on it."
He watched her slip into the shadows toward Pike's position, then turned back to Ghost.
"Let's go hunting."
The front guards died quiet. Ghost took one with a knife across the throat, dropping him before he could shout. Edge handled the other with brutal efficiency, crushing his windpipe and catching the body before it hit the ground.
They moved through the shattered front window, glass crunching under their boots. The dining room was chaos—tables overturned, chairs scattered, blood smears on the white tablecloths. Sal's staff had fought back before they'd been overwhelmed.
Three men turned at the sound. Edge dropped two before they raised their weapons. Ghost got the third.
The kitchen door burst open and more muscle poured through, drawn by the gunfire. The dining room became a killing floor—muzzle flashes strobing in the darkness, bodies falling, the copper smell of blood mixing with garlic and marinara.
Edge moved through it like water.
He'd learned combat in places worse than this, against enemies smarter than these. Vitale's men were supply chain workers and drivers promoted to muscle, not soldiers. They panicked. They missed. They died.
But Dean Carver wasn't panicking.
Edge spotted him through the chaos—still at the bar, still in his suit, a gun in his hand and cold calculation in his eyes. He was watching the battle, assessing, looking for an exit.
Their eyes met.
Carver smiled—the smile of a man who thought he was the smartest person in any room—and raised his weapon.
Edge was already moving.
He closed the distance in three strides, batting Carver's gun aside and driving his shoulder into the man's chest. They crashed through the bar, bottles shattering around them, whiskey and vodka soaking into Edge's jacket.
Carver fought better than Tony had. His corporate exterior hid training, military or private security, something that kept him alive when most men would have folded. He blocked Edge's first strike, landed an elbow to Edge's ribs, scrambled for the gun he'd dropped.
Edge grabbed a broken bottle and buried it in Carver's forearm.
The scream echoed through the restaurant. Carver's hand spasmed, fingers jerking away from the weapon, and Edge kicked it under the bar.
"Vitale sent you," Edge said, hauling Carver up by his collar. "Sent you to test our response. See if downbeach would fold."
"You can't—" Carver choked on blood, his arm hanging useless at his side. "You can't stop what's coming. This is bigger than one restaurant. Bigger than your little territory."
"Doesn't look that big from where I'm standing."
Carver's laugh was wet, pained. "Vitale has resources you can't imagine. Money. Men. Connections that go all the way to—"
Edge didn't let him finish.
He drove his fist into Carver's throat, crushing the windpipe the same way he'd crushed Tony's. Watched the man choke on words he'd never say. Watched the light fade from eyes that had calculated and planned and underestimated.
Carver died on the floor of a restaurant he'd thought he could take.
Edge let the body drop and straightened, breathing hard. Around him, the sounds of battle were fading. Ghost and Ace were finishing the last of Vitale's men. Pike's voice came through the kitchen, calling all clear.
"Edge!"
Angela's voice. Coming from the kitchen.
He moved before thought, shoving through the swinging doors to find her crouched beside Sal. The old man was bloody and bruised, one eye swollen shut, but he was conscious and talking.
"The staff," Sal was saying. "In the cooler. They're okay, just—"
"We'll get them." Angela's voice was steady. Her hands were covered in blood from pressing against a wound on Sal's side. "Just stay still."
Edge dropped to his knees beside her. "How bad?"
"Knife wound. Deep but not fatal if we get him to a hospital." She looked up at him, and the fear in her eyes was for Sal, not herself. "He needs an ambulance."
"Pike. Call it in." Edge pulled off his jacket, pressed it against Sal's wound. "Anonymous tip. Robbery gone wrong."
"On it."
Sal's hand found Edge's arm, gripping with surprising strength. "They wanted to send a message. Said the Outlaws couldn't protect their own."
"They were wrong." Edge's voice was hard. Final. "You're alive. They're not. That's all the message anyone needs."
The next twenty minutes were controlled chaos. Staff released from the walk-in, shaken but unharmed. Bodies dragged into the vans they'd arrived in. Pike driving those vans somewhere they'd never be found. Ace and Ghost sweeping for evidence, making sure nothing connected back to the Outlaws.
Edge stayed with Sal until the ambulance arrived, then faded into the shadows with Angela as the EMTs took over.
They stood in the alley behind the restaurant, dawn just beginning to lighten the sky. Angela's hands were still bloody. Her face was pale. But she was standing.
"You saved his life," Edge said.
"I put pressure on a wound. You saved his life. You saved all of them." She looked at the restaurant, at the shattered windows and the blood-stained tablecloths visible through the glass. "Is it always like this?"
"No." Edge pulled her against him, not caring about the blood or the exhaustion or the men still cleaning up the massacre inside. "Sometimes it's worse."
She laughed—a broken sound, half sob—and buried her face in his chest.
"Carver's dead," Edge said. "Vitale's operation just lost its logistics. The supply chain, the distribution network, all the efficiency that made them dangerous—that died in there too."
"What happens now?"
"Now Vitale gets desperate." Edge looked east, toward the brightening sky, toward the shore towns that were his to protect. "And desperate men make mistakes."
Angela pulled back enough to meet his eyes. "We'll be ready."
We.
Edge let the word settle into his chest. Let himself believe it.
"Yeah," he said. "We will."
Behind them, the restaurant stood dark and quiet, its staff safe, its owner heading to surgery, its attackers scattered across the floor like warnings.
Downbeach had teeth.
And Vitale had just learned what happened when you forgot that.