Chapter Seven
Nail heard them coming before he saw them.
Boot steps on cobblestones. The low murmur of men trying to be quiet and failing. Car doors closing three blocks away, where they'd parked to approach on foot.
Ten men. Maybe more. Troy Mercer leading the pack, convinced he'd finally cornered his prey.
Nail smiled.
Six hours he'd worked the network. Six hours of calls and texts and careful misdirection, feeding Mercer's people information through sources they thought they owned.
The bartender at the corner pub who owed money to the wrong people.
The parking attendant who'd been told exactly what to say and when to say it.
Mercer thought he'd found the safehouse through smart work. He didn't know he'd been led here like a dog on a leash.
"They're coming up Thames," Nail said into his phone. "South side approach, just like I said."
"We're in position." Cull's voice was flat, emotionless. The voice of a man who'd done this a hundred times and stopped feeling anything about it decades ago. "Back entrance is covered. Formstone's on the fire escape."
"Wait for my signal."
"Copy."
Nail pocketed the phone and turned to Sadie. She stood by the window, watching the street below with a stillness that impressed him. No panic. No tears. Just attention.
"They're here," he said.
"I heard." She didn't look away from the window. "Ten of them. Moving in pairs."
"You counted?"
"I count everything." Now she turned, and her eyes were steady on his. "What do you need me to do?"
He crossed the room and took her hands. They were cold, but they didn't shake.
"The fire escape leads to the alley. Formstone's out there—he'll get you to safety. When the noise starts, you go."
"And you?"
"I'll be fine."
"That's not what I asked."
Something moved in his chest. Something warm and dangerous that he didn't have time to examine.
"I'll be right behind you," he said. "But I need to know you're clear before I can work. Can you do that for me?"
She held his gaze for a long moment. Then she nodded, once, sharp.
"Don't die."
"Wasn't planning on it."
The first boot hit the stairs.
Nail moved to the door, positioning himself beside it, back flat against the wall. The stairwell outside was narrow—old Baltimore construction, built when people were smaller and building codes were suggestions. Two men could fit abreast. Three would be a crowd.
Which meant Mercer's numbers meant nothing.
He heard them on the landing below. Voices too loud, too confident. They thought they were hunting a bartender and a mechanic. They didn't know they were walking into a kill box.
"Go," Nail whispered to Sadie. "Now."
She moved to the window, easing it open. The fire escape groaned softly beneath her weight. Then she was gone, disappearing into the fog-thick alley, and Nail was alone with the sound of men coming to kill him.
He pulled his knife. No guns—not yet. Guns were loud, and he wanted Mercer's crew inside the building before Cull and Formstone hit them from behind.
The door crashed open.
The first man through was big—six-three, wide shoulders, expecting to find his target cowering. He didn't expect a blade across his throat before his eyes adjusted to the dim light.
Nail caught the body and threw it into the second man, sending them both tumbling backward into the stairwell. Screams and curses from below. The clatter of boots as men tried to climb over their fallen.
"Contact!" someone bellowed. "He's at the—"
Nail was already moving. Down the stairs, into the chaos, knife finding flesh before his targets could raise their weapons. The stairwell was perfect—tight quarters, bad lighting, bodies in the way. Everything that made Mercer's numbers an advantage out in the open turned into a liability here.
A gun went off. The bullet sparked off the brick wall behind him, close enough to feel the heat. Nail grabbed the shooter's wrist and twisted, feeling bones snap, then drove his elbow into the man's temple.
Three down. Seven left. Plus Mercer.
The back door exploded inward.
Cull came through like a freight train, his presence filling the narrow hallway at the bottom of the stairs. Behind him, Formstone was a blur of efficient violence, dropping men before they could turn to face the new threat.
Mercer's crew was trapped. Nail above them, Cull and Formstone below, the walls too close for them to use their numbers or their guns effectively.
It was over in ninety seconds.
When the noise stopped, the stairwell was full of bodies. Some moving, most not. The copper smell of blood mixed with gunpowder and fear-sweat, painting the air thick enough to taste.
Nail stood on the landing, breathing hard, scanning the carnage for the one face he needed to see.
There.
Troy Mercer was pressed against the wall at the bottom of the stairs, gun raised, eyes wild. He'd hung back while his men died—smart enough to let the cannon fodder go first, not smart enough to realize it wouldn't matter.
"Mercer." Nail started down the stairs, stepping over bodies. "We need to talk."
"Stay back!" The gun shook in Mercer's hand. "I'll fucking shoot—"
"No, you won't." Nail kept walking. Easy. Calm. The smile sliding onto his face like it belonged there. "Because if you pull that trigger, Cull is going to do things to you that'll make you wish I'd just killed you quick."
Mercer's eyes darted to Cull, who stood behind him with a knife still dripping red. Whatever he saw there drained the fight right out of him.
"This—this isn't what Fisk wanted." Mercer's voice cracked. "He just wanted the garage. The mechanic. This was supposed to be easy—"
"I know." Nail reached the bottom of the stairs and stopped in front of Mercer. Close enough to smell his fear. "That's the problem with plans. They're only as good as your information."
"What do you want? I can give you Fisk—his location, his operation, everything—"
"I already have that." Nail tilted his head, studying Mercer the way he studied everyone.
Reading the desperation, the bargaining, the slow realization that nothing he said was going to matter.
"You came to Canton. Threatened a woman under our protection.
Took her garage. Hunted her through our streets. "
"I was just following orders—"
"So am I."
The knife moved fast. Faster than Mercer could track. One second he was opening his mouth to bargain, to plead, to offer whatever scraps might buy him another minute.
The next second, Nail's blade was buried in his throat.
Mercer made a sound—wet, gurgling, his hands coming up too late to stop the blood. His eyes went wide, then confused, then empty. He slid down the wall, leaving a dark streak on the bricks, and didn't move again.
Nail watched him fall. The smile was still there, but his eyes were cold.
That's for the garage. That's for making her run.
"Nail." Cull's voice cut through the ringing silence. "We need to move."
Right. The job wasn't done. There were bodies to deal with, evidence to clean, exits to secure before police or civilians started asking questions.
Nail cleaned his knife on Mercer's jacket and straightened up. "Casualties?"
"None of ours." Formstone was checking the fallen, making sure nobody was playing dead. "These boys weren't soldiers. Half of them dropped their guns when the real fighting started."
"Fisk doesn't hire soldiers. He hires car thieves and enforcers." Nail stepped over Mercer's body and headed for the back door. "Where's Sadie?"
"Fire escape. I put her in the alley with a sight line to the harbor." Formstone looked up from the body he was checking. "She wanted to come back in."
"You stopped her?"
"Barely. Your girl's got balls, Nail."
Your girl.
The words landed somewhere in his chest and stayed there.
He found her in the alley behind the building, pressed against the brick wall with a length of pipe in her hands. She was pale in the streetlight, her breath visible in the cold air, but her grip on the pipe was solid.
"Nail." Relief flooded her face when she saw him. Then concern, her eyes scanning him for injuries. "You're bleeding."
He looked down. A cut on his forearm, shallow, probably from the first guy's watch as he fell. He hadn't felt it.
"It's nothing."
"Bullshit." She grabbed his arm and pulled it into the light, examining the wound with practiced hands. "This needs cleaning. Maybe stitches."
"Sadie."
She looked up, and whatever she saw in his face made her stop.
"It's done," he said. "Mercer's dead. His crew's finished. We need to get to the compound."
"The compound?"
"Club headquarters. It's the safest place in Baltimore right now." He took her hands—the ones still wrapped around his injured arm—and held them. "Fisk is going to find out what happened here. He's going to come back harder. You need to be somewhere he can't reach."
"And my garage?"
"We'll get it back. But first, we make sure you're alive to see it."
She held his gaze for a long moment. In the distance, sirens were starting—someone had heard the gunshots and done the responsible thing. They had minutes, not more.
"Okay," she said finally. "Lead the way."
They moved through Fell's Point in a group—Nail, Sadie, Cull, and Formstone, navigating the fog-thick streets toward the compound.
Behind them, the safehouse was already being handled.
Prospects dispatched to clean, to remove evidence, to make sure that when the police arrived, they'd find nothing but empty rooms and unanswered questions.
The compound gates opened before they reached them. Beltway must have been watching the cameras, tracking their approach. Inside, the courtyard was quiet, bikes parked in neat rows, the brick building rising solid and protective against the night sky.
"She stays in the guest quarters," Nail said to no one in particular. "Second floor, corner room. Best sight lines."
"I'll let the prospects know." Formstone peeled off toward the clubhouse.
Sadie stopped in the middle of the courtyard, looking up at the building with an expression Nail couldn't quite read.
"This is where you live?"
"This is where the club lives." He stood beside her, close enough that their shoulders brushed. "This is where you live now. Until Fisk is handled."
She turned to look at him. The pipe was still in her hands—she hadn't let go of it since the alley.
"You killed him," she said. "Mercer."
"Yes."
"For threatening me."
"For threatening what's mine."
The words came out before he could stop them. Raw. Possessive. The truth he'd been dancing around since she walked into Flynn's.
Sadie's breath caught. Her eyes searched his face, looking for—what? A lie? A manipulation? The catch that would make this make sense?
She wouldn't find one. Because there wasn't one.
"I barely know you," she said quietly.
"I know." He reached out and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear—she'd lost her ponytail somewhere in the chaos, and it fell around her face in dark waves. "Doesn't change anything."
She didn't step back. Didn't tell him he was crazy, or possessive, or moving too fast. She just stood there, pipe in her hands, blood on her clothes that wasn't hers, and looked at him like she was seeing something new.
"You're dangerous," she said.
"Very."
"And you just killed a man because he scared me."
"I killed him because he tried to take something that belongs to this club." Nail's hand slid from her hair to cup her jaw. "You belong to this club now, Sadie. That means nobody touches you. Nobody threatens you. Nobody even looks at you wrong without answering to us."
"To the club? Or to you?"
His thumb traced her cheekbone. The same touch from the safehouse, but different now. Charged with everything that had happened in that stairwell.
"Both."
She held his gaze for three heartbeats. Then she leaned into his touch—just slightly, just enough—and something settled in Nail's chest. Something that felt like the beginning of everything.
"Okay," she whispered.
"Okay?"
"I'll stay." She stepped back, and the moment broke, but something remained. Something that would grow. "But tomorrow, we talk about my garage."
Nail smiled. Real this time, all the way through.
"Tomorrow," he agreed. "Tonight, you sleep. I'll have someone show you to your room."
She nodded and let Formstone lead her toward the clubhouse. At the door, she paused and looked back.
"Nail."
"Yeah?"
"Thank you. For—" She stopped. Shook her head. "Just thank you."
Then she was gone, disappearing into the warm light of the clubhouse, and Nail stood alone in the courtyard with blood drying on his sleeve and the ghost of her touch still warm on his palm.
Cull appeared beside him. "Mercer's people will report back to Fisk. He'll know what happened by morning."
"Good." Nail stared at the door where Sadie had disappeared. "Let him know. Let him understand exactly what he's up against."
"And then?"
Nail's smile returned. The dangerous one. The one he'd been wearing when he put a knife in Troy Mercer's throat.
"Then we take his whole operation apart, piece by piece, until there's nothing left."