Chapter 5
Dawn came gray and cold, and Danny Shale's work truck was parked on the access road before the sun cleared the tree line.
Tourniquet spotted it from the cabin's east window—white Ford with the Greer Construction logo, sitting just far enough back to blend with the morning shadows. The foreman wasn't even trying to hide. Just sitting there, engine running, watching.
Confirming.
He stepped back from the window, keeping his silhouette out of the frame. Paige was still asleep in the cabin's single bedroom, and he intended to keep it that way until he had a full picture of what they were dealing with.
His med kit sat open on the kitchen table—not because anyone was wounded, but because his hands needed something to do while his mind worked.
He'd already reorganized the gauze three times, checked the expiration dates on the hemostatic agents twice, and verified that every tourniquet in the bag was properly staged for rapid deployment.
Preparedness was the only prayer he believed in.
The truck hadn't moved in forty minutes. Shale was running recon—confirming that the florist had fled instead of signing, tracking where she'd gone, reporting back to Greer. The construction network doubled as a surveillance grid. Probably had been from the beginning.
Tourniquet pulled out his phone and texted Ice: Company on the access road. White Ford, Greer Construction. One occupant, been here since dawn.
The response came in thirty seconds: Tracked. Shale's phone pinged a tower near your location at 0530. He's been there longer than you think.
Before dawn, then. The foreman had rolled up while they were sleeping, positioned himself on the only road in, and waited for light to confirm his target.
Professional.
Dangerous.
The bedroom door opened, and Paige emerged in yesterday's clothes, hair pulled back, eyes sharp despite the early hour. She clocked his position by the window immediately, registered the tension in his shoulders, and didn't ask stupid questions.
"How many?"
"One truck. One occupant. Shale."
She moved to the window on the opposite wall, staying back from the glass the way someone trained would. Her gaze found the white Ford, assessed it, dismissed the immediate threat.
"He's not here to hit us. Not with one truck and no backup."
"No. He's confirming we ran and reporting our location."
"So Greer knows where I am."
"Greer knows where you were." Tourniquet closed the med kit with a snap that was louder than necessary. "We're not staying."
"The hell we're not." She turned from the window, and the steel in her eyes was the same steel he'd seen when she'd faced down Shale's crew in her shop. "I spent all of yesterday running. I'm not spending today doing the same thing."
"This isn't about running. It's about positioning."
"It's about you deciding where I go and when." She crossed her arms. "I'm not a package you're delivering, Tourniquet. I'm not cargo."
The words hit harder than they should have.
He closed the distance between them in three strides, stopping close enough that she had to tilt her head to meet his eyes. Close enough that he could see the pulse jumping in her throat.
"You're not cargo," he said, low and rough.
"You're the reason I haven't slept in thirty-six hours.
You're the reason I'm standing in this cabin watching a man who burns buildings for a living instead of being anywhere else.
You're the reason I'm reorganizing med kits at five in the morning because if I stop preparing, I have to think about what happens if I fail. "
Her breath caught. Just slightly. Just enough.
"You're not cargo," he repeated. "But you are mine to protect.
And I will move heaven and earth and every brother in my club to make sure Greer doesn't touch you.
So when I say we're not staying, it's not because I'm making decisions for you.
It's because I've seen what's parked on that road, and I know what comes next. "
The silence stretched between them, electric and charged.
"Yours to protect," she said finally. "That's a hell of a claim for a man I met three days ago."
"It's the only claim that matters right now."
Something shifted in her expression. Not surrender—Paige Kirkland didn't surrender—but acknowledgment. A veteran recognizing that sometimes the tactical call wasn't hers to make.
"Fine. What's the play?"
He stepped back, giving her space. The distance felt wrong immediately, like his body had already calibrated itself to her proximity.
"Shale's reporting our position, but he doesn't know the terrain. This cabin has one road in and three ways out through the forest. We stay mobile, stay unpredictable, and let my brothers set up the welcome party."
"And Shale?"
"Shale's about to learn that hunting in Savage territory has consequences."
She nodded once, then moved to the small table where she'd set up her makeshift workspace the night before. Client files, a laptop, and the bucket of salvaged flowers she'd refused to abandon.
"I need thirty minutes. I've got two arrangements I can finish with what survived, and the Henderson wedding is in four days."
"You're making flower arrangements while a construction crew is surveilling the building?"
"I'm maintaining my business while a construction crew is surveilling the building." She pulled the bucket toward her, hands already sorting stems by viability. "You want me to sit in the corner and wait to be rescued? Not happening. I can work and watch at the same time."
He wanted to argue. Wanted to tell her that this wasn't the time for client management, that every minute they stayed was a minute Shale had to call in reinforcements.
But her hands were steady on the flowers. Her focus was absolute. And the set of her jaw said this wasn't about stubbornness—it was about control. About maintaining some piece of her life that Greer hadn't managed to destroy.
He understood that better than she knew.
"Thirty minutes," he said. "Then we move."
She was already stripping leaves from a rose stem. "Clock's running."
Tourniquet returned to his position by the window. The white Ford hadn't moved. Shale was still inside, probably on his phone, relaying information to Greer about the cabin, the road, the single truck parked beside it.
Let him report. Let Greer think he knew where they were and how to get to them.
By the time his crew arrived, they'd be ghosts.
His phone buzzed. Tundra: En route with Ironside. Twenty minutes.
He texted back: Hold at the south ridge. Let Shale call in his backup. I want to see who he brings.
Copy.
The minutes ticked by. Paige worked in focused silence, her hands transforming half-dead flowers into something that looked almost intentional—roses and greenery arranged in a style that said "sympathy" without screaming "disaster.
" She'd done this before. Built something beautiful out of whatever she had available.
Convoy logistics applied to flower arrangements.
"You're staring."
He didn't deny it. "Trying to figure out how you do that."
"Do what?"
"Stay calm. Work. Function." He nodded toward the window. "There's a man out there who's burned two buildings and put a woman in the hospital, and you're making sympathy arrangements like it's a Tuesday."
"It is Tuesday." She didn't look up from the flowers. "And I spent two years driving through territory where any road might be mined and any checkpoint might be hostile. I learned to function because the alternative was freezing up and dying."
"That's not the same thing."
"Isn't it?" Now she did look up, and her eyes held something he couldn't quite name. "Threat's a threat. You either let it paralyze you or you keep moving. I keep moving."
"And when you stop?"
"Then I shake. Later. Alone." Her hands paused on a stem. "You know how it works."
He did. Intimately.
"The tremor in my hands." He held one up, steady now but he knew the potential that lived in his fingers. "It shows up when I'm not busy. When I stop moving, stop preparing, stop doing. The only way I keep it under control is constant readiness."
"Med kits at two in the morning."
"Med kits at two in the morning."
She finished the arrangement and set it aside, reaching for the next cluster of salvageable stems. "We're both pretty fucked up, aren't we?"
"Probably."
"At least we're fucked up together."
The words shouldn't have meant anything. Shouldn't have settled into his chest like something warm taking root.
But they did.
Movement outside.
Tourniquet's attention snapped to the window. A second vehicle was turning onto the access road—dark SUV, no markings, parking behind Shale's truck.
"Company," he said.
Paige was beside him in seconds, flowers forgotten. They watched as the SUV's doors opened and three men climbed out. Not construction workers—these moved differently. Sharper. Professional.
Duluth muscle. Greer's phase-three escalation.
"That's not a recon team," Paige said quietly. "That's an assault team."
"Yeah." Tourniquet pulled out his phone, already dialing. "It is."
Permafrost answered on the first ring.
"We've got four men on the access road. Shale plus three from a Duluth SUV. They're not here to watch anymore."
"Tundra and Ironside are on the south ridge. Whiteout's moving to the east tree line."
"Tell them to hold. I want Shale to commit before we spring this."
"Copy. You good?"
Tourniquet looked at Paige. She'd pulled her hair back tighter, jaw set, hands steady at her sides. Ready to move. Ready to fight if it came to that.
His to protect. Whether she liked the phrasing or not.
"We're good," he said. "But Shale's about to find out he picked the wrong safehouse."
He hung up and turned to Paige.
"Grab your bag. We're going out the back, through the tree line. My brothers are already in position."
"And the flowers?"
"Leave them. We'll come back for what survives."
She hesitated for just a moment—all that work, all those salvaged blooms—then nodded sharply and moved for her duffel.
Outside, the four men were gathering at Shale's truck. Pointing toward the cabin. Planning their approach.
A man who'd burned two buildings didn't need long to set up a third.
But they weren't going to get the chance.
Tourniquet grabbed his cut, checked his weapon, and followed Paige toward the back door.
The hunt was on.
And the hunters were about to become prey.