Chapter Eighteen #2
“Do it,” I said, and a split second later the report of Burke’s rifle split the air. Then silence, eerie and complete.
The car skidded to a halt outside. I edged to the front window, saw a man in a suit climb out—Hargrove himself, flanked by a driver and a third goon with a sidearm.
Hargrove had his hands raised, white flag style, but his face was twisted into a mask of hate.
I opened the door, gun at my side. “Get off my property,” I said.
He smirked, then nodded at the wounded men on my floor. “You’re crazy, you know that? You’re a fucking lunatic.”
“Yeah,” I said. “But I’m the lunatic still standing.”
He wiped his hands, then spat in the dirt. “This isn’t over, Steele. You’re making a mistake—this could all be settled with a check and a handshake.”
I aimed the Mossberg at his chest, safety off. “My family is not for sale. You want the land, you bring an army next time. But you won’t find me unprepared.”
He held my gaze, then flicked his eyes to the window above, where he could just see Jojo’s pale face peeking through the crack.
“That little bitch in there worth dying for?” he sneered.
I didn’t answer. Just kept the barrel level.
He grinned, then turned to his driver. “Let’s go,” he said, voice heavy with defeat and something worse—fear.
They piled into the car and reversed down the drive, tires carving ruts in the mud.
I let the silence settle for a full ten seconds. Then I walked back into the house, where Jojo was still hiding, trembling but unhurt.
I opened the door, and he spilled out, arms wrapping around my neck so tight I thought he’d cut off my air.
“I’m okay,” I said. “We’re okay.”
He nodded, face buried in my shirt.
I looked over his head at Macon, who just grinned and gave a two-finger salute.
Behind me, I heard Harrison exhale for the first time since the shooting started. He stood, hands shaking, but when he spoke, his voice was different—smaller, maybe, or just honest for once.
“You could’ve gotten us all killed,” he said.
I looked at Jojo, at the hand he held over his belly, then back at my father.
“No,” I said. “I just kept you alive. Like always.”
He stared at me, and for the first time, I thought maybe he saw me. Not the fuckup son or the embarrassment, but the man I’d become. The protector, the weapon, the goddamn wall between everything I loved and everything that wanted to destroy it.
We stood in the ruins of the living room—glass everywhere, blood pooling on the floor, the wreckage of my life on full display.
But Jojo was safe. The baby was safe.
I wiped the sweat from my face, smeared it with a little blood, and smiled for the first time since the alarms went off.
Let them come. I’d be waiting.
You can always tell when a firefight’s about to break wide open. There’s a moment, after the first volley, when everything slows down—sound drops out, colors flatten, and all the years of muscle memory do the heavy lifting while your brain catches up.
That was where I lived, in the gray-space between shots, dragging Jojo behind the kitchen island as another barrage of bullets ate the clapboard above our heads. Plaster dusted the floor, mixed with the shattered remains of Mom’s wedding china and a week’s worth of Jojo’s careful, perfect pies.
He landed hard, knees up, hands over his ears. I pressed him down, bent low until my breath mixed with his. “You stay here, understand? If I say run, you run. If you hear anything that isn’t my voice, you crawl out the back and get to the horses.”
He nodded, but his eyes never left mine.
Above us, a bullet ripped through the light fixture, showering us with glass. I rolled to my side, Sig in hand, and fired two blind shots toward the noise. It wasn’t about hitting anything—just reminding them I wasn’t afraid to shoot through my own goddamn walls.
Burke’s voice crackled over the walkie, low and urgent: “Contact, west side, closing fast. At least four, all carrying. Possible heavy on point.”
“Copy,” I replied, keeping my tone level. “Macon, you got east?”
“Eyes on,” he grunted. “They’re stacking up by the feed shed. Gonna lose sight if they break left.”
I risked a glance over the island. Through the warped window glass, I could see figures moving along the fenceline—ducking low, advancing in twos, rifles out and ready. My land. My home. I’d tilled the earth those bastards now trampled.
I felt the old training settle over me like a Kevlar shroud. No more emotion, no more rage—just the next action, then the next. The familiar coldness was almost a relief.
“Hargrove must have spent a fortune on these assholes,” I muttered, mostly to myself.
Jojo heard me anyway. “Will the police come?”
I glanced at the old rotary phone, now a mosaic of shattered Bakelite. “Eventually.” I didn’t say that sometimes help came too late.
I checked my ammo, then swapped the Sig for the AR-15. The balance was perfect, the grip worn smooth from years of practice. I felt a twitch of nostalgia—a better time, or at least a simpler one, when violence was the job, not the last line between everything I loved and oblivion.
Glass shattered again as the west-side team breached the old sun porch, feet clomping on the tile. I crouched, aimed low, and fired three quick rounds through the drywall. The first missed, the second hit flesh—a yelp, then a curse—and the third pinged off a support beam.
Someone returned fire, but the angle was wrong, and the bullet chewed up the linoleum instead.
“Movement, center hallway,” Macon called. “You got ’em, boss?”
“I got ’em.”
Jojo clung to my belt, refusing to let go even when I tried to edge him deeper into cover. “You promised you wouldn’t get hurt,” he whispered.
I grinned, couldn’t help it. “Not even scratched, baby. I got a bet to win.”
He ducked his head, but I saw the tiny, insane smile he hid in the crook of his elbow. He trusted me, with a faith that was either beautiful or totally fucking reckless.
Barrett’s voice rose from the living room, high and panicked. “They’re coming through the—shit, the front window—”
I pivoted, sighted down the hall. One of Hargrove’s men was already halfway through the window frame, trying to clear the jagged glass with the butt of his rifle.
I didn’t waste a round on his vest—went for the thigh instead. He dropped, screaming, legs kicking at the air, and the next guy behind him froze just long enough for Macon to take him out from the side.
Two bodies, one clean floor.
Harrison barked, “This is insane! There’s a law against this—there’s—” Then he caught my eye and shut up. He saw what I was, in that moment—a cold, calculating son of a bitch who didn’t care about laws when family was on the line.
But there was something else, too, flickering at the edge of his anger. Not respect, not yet. More like a dawning realization that all his years of discipline and ambition were a pale imitation of what it took to survive for real.
Burke’s voice again, clipped and sharp: “Eagle’s nest compromised. Got three shooters on the hill behind the barn. I’ll keep their heads down, but they’re not amateurs.”
“Light ’em up,” I said, then checked Jojo for the hundredth time. He hadn’t moved, just breathed in time with my heart.
I peeked out again, scanned for the next wave.
Sure enough, two figures were running across open ground toward the chicken coop—trying to flank the house, maybe get a shot at the rear.
I took a knee, lined up, and double-tapped the lead guy.
The other dropped behind a rain barrel, probably shitting himself.
The AR’s recoil sent a shock up my bad leg, but I barely felt it. My body was all electricity and focus, the rest background noise.
“Burke, you got suppression?” I called.
“Working on it,” came the answer, and a split second later I heard the dull thump of a grenade launcher.
Not real grenades—Burke wasn’t that nuts—but the smoke round he’d rigged up for crowd control.
The back of the barn disappeared in a cloud of white.
I heard panicked shouts, then the scattered thunder of retreat.
“Three down, four remaining,” Macon called from the mudroom. “But they’re digging in.”
“Hold position,” I said. “If they breach, we go close-quarters.”
Barrett peeked around the couch, wild-eyed. “Is this—are you—killing them?”
“Only if they make me,” I said. “Stay low. Help your father.”
He nodded, then dragged Harrison deeper into the living room, away from the broken glass and the bodies outside.
Jojo caught my arm, nails digging in. “Don’t go, Rawley. Don’t leave me here—”
“I’m not leaving,” I said. “Just defending.”
His lips trembled, but he nodded.
I knelt beside him, put my mouth to his ear. “You’re everything. You and the baby. I’m not going anywhere unless it’s through every man they send.”
He squeezed my wrist, hard. “Promise?”
“Swear to God.”
I left him behind the island, then crept along the hall to support Macon. I passed the remains of the two attackers in the foyer, blood already pooling into the old rug. The smell was sweet and sick, the kind that made you want to scrub your skin off afterward.
Macon was posted up behind the door, AR steady and eyes unblinking. “They’re waiting you out,” he said. “Bet they think we’ll run out of ammo.”
I grinned. “They don’t know us very well.”
We watched, silent, as the next pair of attackers moved toward the house.
One tried the window, the other circled for the back.
I held my fire, waited for the angle. When the first guy broke cover, Macon put a round through his shoulder and I took the second man in the chest as he cleared the doorway.
It was over in four seconds.
Macon eyed me, deadpan. “Still got the touch, boss.”
“Always did,” I said.
He nodded, then risked a glance outside. “More coming. Vehicles this time.”
I checked the driveway, saw the headlights—at least two trucks, probably loaded. The math was bad, but I’d worked worse odds.
“Burke, can you hit the engines?” I called.