Chapter 11 Extraction #2
I saw what was happening before Tyler did.
Cross had stopped returning fire at the rest of us.
His attention had narrowed to a single target—Tyler, exposed behind the SUV, too focused on the Wolves in front of him to see the real threat approaching from his flank.
Cross raised his weapon, sighting down the barrel with the cold efficiency of a man who'd done this a hundred times before.
Aimed directly at Tyler's head.
I didn't think. Didn't calculate. Didn’t realize I had already been running towards Tyler by the time I saw Cross’s attention rest solely on him.
My body slammed into Tyler's a fraction of a second before Cross's shot cracked through the space where his head had been. We hit the ground hard—Tyler underneath, me on top, the impact driving the air from both our lungs. Another shot sparked off the SUV's bumper, inches from where we'd landed.
"TANK!" Tyler's voice, raw with shock.
I rolled, brought my weapon up, and returned fire. My first shot went wide—adrenaline, bad angle—but the second caught Cross in the shoulder, spinning him sideways. His third shot at us went wild, kicking up dirt three feet to my left.
For one frozen moment, our eyes met across the chaos.
Cross looked from me to Tyler—still on the ground, still tangled together—and something ugly twisted in his expression. Recognition. Understanding. Jealousy so pure it burned.
"You." The word came out like venom. "You're the one who's been watching him. The one he's been—" He laughed, short and sharp, even as blood spread across his shoulder. "Oh, Tyler. Trading down, are we?"
"Go to hell, Marcus." Tyler was on his feet now, weapon raised, standing shoulder to shoulder with me.
Cross's eyes found mine. "You'll regret this. Both of you. I promise you that."
The thunder of engines announced Hawk's arrival.
The reinforcements poured over the ridge like a wave—ten Phoenix members on bikes and in trucks, guns blazing, turning the Wolves' ambush into a two-front disaster. Hawk was at the front, his face carved from granite, laying down covering fire as his men spread out to flank the enemy position.
The tide of battle shifted in seconds. What had been a controlled assault became a desperate scramble. Wolves who'd been advancing moments ago suddenly found themselves caught between two forces, exposed, outgunned.
"FALL BACK!" Cross's voice cut through the chaos. "Everyone fall back! NOW!"
The Wolves broke. Those who could still move retreated toward their vehicles, dragging wounded comrades, abandoning the dead. I counted at least six bodies that weren't getting up—Wolves we'd dropped between the six of us, before Hawk's cavalry arrived.
Cross went with them, one hand pressed against his bleeding shoulder, his face twisted with fury. But not before he found Tyler in the chaos one last time.
Their eyes met across the battlefield—former partners, former lovers, now enemies. Cross's expression held a promise that made my blood run cold. Not just anger. Something colder, more calculating. The look of a man who'd just added new names to his list.
Then he was gone, disappearing over the ridge with his surviving men, engines roaring into the distance.
The silence after battle was always the worst part.
I stood in the middle of the kill zone, weapon still raised, ears ringing, trying to process what had just happened.
Bodies lay scattered across the asphalt and sand—Wolves we'd killed, contractors we'd dropped before the ambush.
Smoke rose from Declan's destroyed truck, black and acrid against the morning sky.
The air smelled of cordite and blood and burning rubber.
"Sound off." Hawk's voice was rough, strained. "Everyone sound off. Now."
The names came through the comm one by one.
Tyler—alive, cuts and scrapes from the dive we'd taken together.
Axel—alive, already repositioning to cover any secondary attack.
Blade—alive, cleaning his knife on a dead man's jacket.
Irish—alive but hurt, the shrapnel in his leg had gone deep and he was losing blood fast. Declan—alive, burns on his arms and face from the RPG explosion, cursing steadily in a mix of English and something that might have been Irish Gaelic.
Three of our reinforcements had taken hits. Reno, the prospect who'd been watching the south perimeter at the warehouse, had caught a round in the shoulder—through and through, painful but not fatal. Marco had taken fragments from a near miss. Santos was limping but mobile.
We'd been lucky. Cross's ambush should have killed half of us. Would have, if Hawk's reinforcements had been thirty seconds slower.
"The transport." Tyler's voice cut through the chatter. "Sarah's still in the van."
I turned. The transport van sat where it had crashed, tilted at an angle, rear doors still closed. Bullet holes pocked its sides, but the armored construction had held. Through the small windows, I could see shadows moving inside.
The marshals. Still alive, still trying to protect their prisoner from a threat they didn't understand.
Tyler was already moving toward the van, bolt cutters in hand. I fell in beside him, covering his approach, watching for any Wolves who might have stayed behind.
The doors came open with a grinding shriek of stressed metal. Inside, two marshals pressed against the walls, weapons raised, faces tight with shock and adrenaline. Professional stance, good trigger discipline—these weren't rookies.
"Federal marshals! Hands where we can see them!"
Tyler and I held position, weapons trained but not firing. Behind us, the sound of Phoenix reinforcements spreading out, securing the perimeter.
"Look around you." I kept my voice calm, authoritative. "Count the guns pointed at this vehicle. Then make a smart decision."
The lead marshal—a woman, mid-thirties, sharp eyes that were rapidly calculating odds—glanced past us. I knew what she was seeing. A dozen armed men surrounded the van. Bodies scattered across the desert. Smoke rising from destroyed vehicles. Her backup contractors were either dead or restrained.
Her partner's weapon wavered. Hers didn't. "Who are you people?"
"We're the reason your prisoner is still alive." Tyler's voice was ice. "Those contractors you were riding with? They were here to kill her. Check their ink when you get the chance—Iron Wolves MC. This whole transport was a setup."
The marshal's eyes flicked to the bodies visible through the open door. Something shifted in her expression—doubt, maybe the beginning of understanding.
"We're not here to hurt you," I continued. "We just want her. Lower your weapons, step out of the vehicle, and this ends without anyone else getting shot."
A long moment. The partner was clearly ready to comply, but the lead marshal held his gaze, making him wait for her decision.
Finally, she lowered her weapon. Her partner followed half a second later.
"Out of the vehicle. Slowly."
They complied, hands raised, moving with the careful deliberation of people who knew exactly how many guns were pointed at them. Blade materialized at my shoulder as they stepped onto the sand.
"Take them to the front," I ordered. "Secure them to the steering wheel."
Blade nodded and guided the marshals around the van's crumpled front end—not roughly, but not gently either. The woman started to protest, then thought better of it when she saw Blade's expression.
Tyler was already climbing into the van's rear compartment, bolt cutters in hand.
Behind the marshals' former position, handcuffed to a metal bar, sat Sarah Reyes.
She looked older than the photos Tyler had shown us.
gray threading through her dark hair, new lines around her eyes, the particular pallor that came from weeks of federal custody.
Her orange jumpsuit was stained and wrinkled.
Her wrists were raw where the cuffs had bitten into skin.
But her eyes—her eyes were sharp, alert, taking in the situation with the speed of someone who'd spent decades reading dangerous rooms.
"Tyler." Her voice cracked on his name. "They told me you were dead."
"Cross lies about everything." Tyler climbed into the van, already positioning the bolt cutters around her chains. "That's what he does." The cuffs came free with a metallic snap. Sarah rubbed her wrists, wincing at the raw skin beneath.
"He knew you'd come." Her voice was barely a whisper. "Cross. He told the guards this morning—said there might be 'complications' during the transfer. That's why he brought extra men."
"He underestimated us." I reached into the van, offered Sarah my hand. "Can you walk?"
She took it, let me help her to her feet. Swayed once, steadied herself. "I can do whatever I need to do."
"Then let's move. We've got wounded, and Cross might come back with more people."
The extraction was chaos organized into something resembling efficiency.
We loaded our wounded into the surviving vehicles.
Sarah went into the back of Hawk's truck, Tyler beside her, already checking her vitals.
The marshals we left zip-tied to their steering wheel—not our enemies, just people doing a job.
They'd have a hell of a story to tell their supervisors.
I mounted my bike and fell into formation as the convoy pulled out. Behind us, the battlefield faded into the distance—bodies and burning vehicles and the scattered debris of a fight that had almost gone very wrong.
Cross was still out there. Wounded, but alive. And now he knew about me.
You'll regret this.
His words echoed in my head as the desert swallowed us. A threat. A promise. The beginning of something that wouldn't end until one of us was dead. But that was a problem for later.
Right now, Sarah was safe. Our people were alive. And we had a long ride back to the compound.