Chapter 23
Two days after the meeting, the Wolverines struck first. It wasn’t loud or bloody. Not yet. But it was precise.
The men moved out on marked SUVs, heading toward the edge of Rodes’ former territory, an industrial zone south of the city, tucked behind a row of fake shell companies and forgotten warehouses. Intel from Gunner and the Blood Fangs had paid off.
One name kept coming up. Eddie Vallo. A fixer. A middle-tier middleman. The kind of man who always knew more than he should, always kept just far enough from the dirt to keep his hands clean. But he’d worked with Rodes for years—moved money, cleaned paper trails, paid off dirty cops.
And according to Viper’s last trace, Eddie hadn’t left town. Big mistake.
The blacked-out SUVs rolled to a quiet stop in front of a rundown laundromat with boarded-up windows and a faded CLOSED sign. “This the place?” Frost asked, stepping out and scanning the street.
King nodded. “Back entrance. Two exits. One man inside.” Goliath was already moving. He didn’t knock, he kicked the door in. Eddie Vallo nearly fell out of his cheap office chair, spilling coffee across a stack of fake invoices. His eyes went wide, face pale. He knew exactly who they were.
“Whoa…Jesus Christ” Hunter slammed the door shut behind them while Fang and Frost flanked both exits.
Goliath walked in slowly, like a loaded weapon with a heartbeat. Eddie raised his hands. “Hey…whatever this is…”
Goliath didn’t stop. He grabbed the man by the collar and yanked him out of the chair, slamming him against the wall with a crack of drywall and plaster.
“Where is Jason Rodes?”
Eddie’s breath came in a panicked wheeze. “I—I don’t know—he cut contact after—after that girl disappeared—”
Goliath’s fist hit the wall an inch from Eddie’s head. The man flinched so hard he nearly pissed himself.
“Try again,” King said coldly.
“I swear! I just…look, he’s using a new handler. Goes through a guy named Marcus now—Marcus Cree. The guy’s a ghost. Runs shit out of an abandoned airstrip twenty miles west. Used to be one of Rodes’ black book contractors.”
Frost stepped closer. “And you’ve got the location?”
Eddie nodded frantically. “Yeah—yeah, I’ll give it to you. Just don’t kill me, alright? I don’t know anything else. I stay out of the dirt.”
Goliath growled. “You’re already neck deep.”
“Goliath,” King said firmly. “We need him talking. Not bleeding.”
Goliath’s jaw ticked, but he let Eddie go, shoving him back into the chair.
King crouched in front of the fixer; voice quiet. “You give us this location, and you disappear. Don’t show your face again. You even think of helping Rodes again—we find you first.”
Eddie nodded, already scribbling the coordinates down with a shaking hand.
Back at the clubhouse, the brothers gathered around a large map in the chapel, tracing the route to the old airstrip.
Frost pinned the paper Eddie had given them down beside satellite images. “If he’s keeping contact through Marcus, that strip’s his new base of movement. Drops. Safehouses. Maybe even a place to disappear.”
“He won’t disappear,” Goliath said. “Not before I get to him.”
King looked around the room. “We move tomorrow night. No noise, no delay. This is our shot.”
Fang cracked his knuckles. “So we hit hard and leave nothing standing?”
King gave him a sharp smile. “Exactly.”
The brothers nodded one after another. The chain was cracking. The walls were closing, and Jason Rodes had just run out of places to hide.
The clubhouse was quiet. For once, no laughter echoed through the halls. No thundering music. No clinking bottles. Just tension, coiled and silent. They were at war, and everyone knew it.
Upstairs, in Goliath’s room, the air was still. Moonlight poured through the window, casting a soft glow across the bed where Sofia sat with her knees pulled to her chest, watching the door. Waiting.
When Goliath stepped through the doorway, the weight of what was to come heavy in his shoulders—she felt it before he even spoke, he didn’t need to. She stood and crossed the room in three soft steps, wrapping her arms around his waist, pressing her face into his chest. He held her without hesitation, burying his face in her hair, breathing her in like he was afraid it might be the last time.
“I don’t want you to go,” she whispered, voice trembling. “Not because I don’t trust you. But because this isn’t about just stopping him anymore. It’s about revenge. And revenge… changes people.”
His arms tightened around her. “I’m not coming back changed.”
“I know,” she said. “That’s what scares me. You’ll come back broken instead.”
Goliath pulled back just enough to meet her eyes. The gold in his gaze burned steady—not with rage this time, but with devotion.
“I was already broken,” he said quietly. “Until I met you.”
She bit her lip, her hands sliding up to his face. “And if he takes you from me—”
“He won’t.” His voice was steel. “I swear it, Sofia. Nothing is taking me from you. Not him. Not death. Not anything.”
He kissed her then—not urgent or rough, but slow and deep. The kind of kiss that said everything words couldn’t. The kind that branded. When they pulled apart, Sofia was breathless.
“Promise me something,” she said softly.
“Anything.”
“Come back with blood on your hands if you have to. Just… come back.”
Goliath rested his forehead against hers. “I’ll come back with your name on my lips and his blood under my boots.”
She smiled through the fear, through the tears threatening to rise. “I love you.”
“I’ve loved you since the second I saw you.” She nodded, finally letting go, stepping back slowly as he turned toward the door. He didn’t look back; he didn’t need to.