Chapter 40 Boone
Boone
My phone is already hot in my hand before I even get out of the truck. My fingers fumble with the screen like I’m trying to unlock the part of my brain that says “think.”
There is no time to think. There is only movement—orders, people, an answer to a scream I heard in a video that keeps looping through my head.
“Boone?” I bark into the phone when it connects on the second ring. Gabe’s voice is raw, tight as a wire.
He tells me fast—Shepard is hurt, Sadie’s been taken, there’s a video, Scott’s pack is in town. The names land like blows. My mouth goes dry so fast I choke.
“I’m on my way,” I say, not giving him time to argue. I throw the cooler into the back, grab my radio and a spare magazine, slide on my boots.
The grill in my chest is already a furnace. There’s a part of me that wants to throttle every bastard who’s touched her, but there’s another part—wiser, older—that knows how plans get made and how people get home with their limbs in one piece.
I’m not going to hand that pack an excuse to finish what they started by going in blind.
I punch Jake’s number first. The mayor picks up on the third ring, voice thin and high with strain. “Boone. What do you know?”
“She’s been taken,” I say flat. I don’t waste time. “We need to lock every exit to town. Shut the highway. Plugs at the usual spots—Folkside, the ridge, the old mill road. Don’t let anyone out and don’t let any cars in without ID. Rope off the access points and hold ’em.”
There’s a stutter of breath on the line. “I can—I’m on radio with Julian—”
“Do it,” I cut in. “Use the flaggers. Call the county. If you need troopers, get them. If you need volunteers, get them. We need to net this place tight. They’ll try to get her out of town fast.”
He swears and repeats my orders. I hang up and hit the contact for the county sheriff. He answers on the first ring. The way he breathes, I know he’s already hearing the helicopters and the smoke.
“This is Boone Walker,” I tell him. “You’ve got to seal Highway 7 and the slip at Northridge. Put up roadblocks. Pull every deputy you can. Anyone with a K-9—bring them. We have a pack moving through town. They’ve got a woman. We need to stop them before they clear county.”
There’s a pause, and then the sheriff says two words that make my gut loosen just a fraction—“I’m on it.”
The man knows me. He knows what I sound like when I don’t give myself room for doubt.
I call in favors the way I used to hand out bandages after a call—fast, without drama. I text my old EMTs. I buzz Declan, Rowan and Rhys.
They’re at the harbor with a truckload of volunteers, but those guys already know how to move. Declan answers and says he’ll tack east to block Ridge Road. Rhys says he’ll grab two ATVs and meet me at the north exit.
Millie, bless her, is already on the phone with Marjorie, telling them to keep people indoors; we don’t need anyone wandering into a trap.
I dial Gabe next. “I’m closing the highway,” I tell him. “Who’s got Shepard?”
“He’s alive. Bad shape,” Gabe spits. “Maddox has crews holding the main blaze. He’s sending what he can to Shepard’s location. You need to find Sadie.”
“On it,” I say. I hear him curse and the line cuts.
I don’t know where Sadie’s headed. I know Scott’s men like to move quick, quiet, and goddamn violent. Their truck could already be downriver, could already be across the county line.
Closing the highway is the first piece. Tracing those men is the second.
I slide the truck into gear and fly. By the time I pull onto Main, the town is chaos—a tangle of hoses, people hauling what they can out of buildings, reporters shouting over shoulder mics.
My stomach clenches with all of it, but I push through. I don’t have time for outrage, not now. I have time for action.
I dispatch two guys—Riley and Marco, my best scrappers—from the grill and tell them to take my pickup and barrier tape to the north exit. I point them toward the ridge road and tell them to refuse passage to anything that isn’t an emergency vehicle.
I make them swear on my name and they laugh in that brittle way only people who’ve seen too much do. They leave like they’re walking into a fight. I don’t care how they move, as long as they move.
Next I call an old buddy upstate—Frank “Knuckles” Moretti. Knuckles still runs security for the casino up on Route 9 and he owes me for the time I pulled him out of a jam with a drunk uncle.
He answers before the second ring, voice gravelly. “Boone. You’re up to something?”
“Bring men,” I say. “Block the exits. And don’t let anyone with a plated truck out. Especially the ones that don’t belong to town.”
“I got you,” he says. I tell him where to be and he confirms it.
Muscle matters. Numbers matter. Engines matter. We stack it all up like Lego bricks until we have something strong enough to hold a man down.
I touch base with Julian—he’s the one who lent us the yacht. He’s literally the only person in this town who can tell me what small, fast boats are under the county’s nose.
“I need fast extraction points,” I say. “If they try to cut to the water, they have to move past the cove and the breakwater. Put a watch on the cove. Anyone you trust, you pull. Block the docks where you can.”
He promises, voice steady. He’s a good man. Lucky for me, he likes Shepard. Lucky for us, he likes me, too.
“What do you need from me?” he asks. He’s breathing hard. I can hear trucks idling in the background, the city mobilizing.
He doesn’t ask for my plan. He knows what I’m going to do. This is what pack does for pack.
“I need you to send people to check on Shepard,” I say. “Get a medic there now. If he’s alive, he needs to be moved before he bleeds out. After that, take anything you can spare—men, trucks, everyone. Start canvassing the township to stop any vehicles moving east.”
“On it,” Julian says. No hesitation, no cussing. That’s all the answer I want.
I wheel my own truck into a convoy—two of my rookies, Riley, Marco, and Rhys’ ATV riders—then hit the gas. My chest is burning. Every red light is a personal insult.
I sail through intersections because right now the town needs speed more than it needs traffic lights. I run radio to the county. I patch into the towing crews, tell them to look for a battered black pickup with scratches on the tailgate.
“It’s probably got alloy rims,” I tell them, because those details matter. They’ll look twice. They’ll get a lead.
The dispatcher calls back with a fragment—a sighting near the old mill road, a truck that matches the description headed north. My foot slugs the pedal.
North is the highway out of town. If they’re moving that way, I have my window.
I shout at the rookies with a voice so sharp they flinch. “Eyes open. Call anything you see. We do this clean. We box them in. No heroics unless you absolutely have to. I’m going to the mill; you cover the ridge.”
They nod. I watch them shift into position—faces taut, hands steady enough for now. The littlest one, Tyler, eyes wide but determined, catches my glance and gives me a quick, brave nod like he’s been doing this his whole life.
That’s faith. That’s family.
I wedge my shoulder into the radio again and tell the sheriff’s men the coordinates, set a perimeter. I add one more layer—volunteer fishermen with boats that can block the water exit.
I make a call to Declan; he’s already driving heavy machinery past the harbor. He grunts and promises lines, ropes, anything handleable to string across the cove. I can hear the strain in the background like a drumbeat.
Everyone in town is waking now. Fear spreads fast, but so does loyalty.
Then I get a ping on my phone. The video Shepard sent to Millie is circulating. It’s grainy, but I know what I’m watching: Sadie screaming, Scott’s face like a coffin lid, the four of them herding her into a truck.
My stomach goes cold in a way that isn’t about the smoke.
“No,” I whisper, like saying it loud will make it untrue. I won’t let that happen. Not on my watch.
The sheriff radios confirmation that the north exit is blocked. Knuckles’ crew is in position on the east approach. Riley reports a truck matching the description on Route 9; it’s headed west, trying to skirt out of the county.
I stomach the thought of them making it. I don’t have that luxury.
“Box them in,” I tell the sheriff. “Use the secondary roads. Force them to take Route 9. If they go west, Knuckles has them. If they go north, I’m on it.”
I sling my radio in my pocket and sprint out of the truck, boots slapping pavement, lungs burning with the cold sting of smoke.
The team moves as one—my boys, the sheriff’s deputies, a handful of volunteer hands bigger than their fear. We grid the roads and we watch.
Then there’s the moment when it comes down to seeing or not seeing: a black pickup on the north road, a spray of motion as it tries to break a bar. My hands are already on the radio as I shout coordinates.
“Stop them. Tire spikes. Now.”
Someone answers and the world houses itself into a single heartbeat of movement. Road spikes unspool. Tires meet metal.
The truck careens, fights for traction, and then gives up. Four figures tumble out and scatter. I run.
I am wild with blood and intention. Every name crawls up my throat—Sadie, Gabe, Shepard—and I run until my lungs are on fire.
We close like a tide, and I won’t stop until I’m face to face with the men who thought they could take her without consequence.