Chapter 13
SYVANNAH
The heat hits like a punch to the stomach. One second, the night is quiet, Tiny’s breath still warm on my neck, the next, it’s chaos. The screaming doesn’t stop, it multiplies. Then the crackle and hiss, the roar of something that’s not supposed to burn.
The air changes before I even smell smoke.
It thickens, like the world’s holding its breath.
My lungs seize before my mind can name it.
Then the sound hits, metal warping, glass shattering, the low, animalistic roar of the fire feeding itself.
For half a heartbeat, I’m back in the dark, locked in a room with no clean air and no way out.
“Tiny!” I choke out, already reaching for him as smoke pours through the door.
He’s halfway dressed, eyes blazing in the firelight. “Stay behind me.”
“No!” I refuse to be weak.
Tiny grabs my wrists before I can argue further, his iron grip doesn’t ask for permission, it protects. “Now.”
The smoke crawls down my throat, hot and alive. I yank my shirt over my head, shimmy into my jeans. Every movement is clumsy in the panic. The room screams. Sparks rain from the ceiling.
A high-pitched roar that shreds through the air like metal being torn in half. It fills my ears, my throat, my lungs before the smoke ever does.
One second, Tiny’s body is over mine, shielding me from the blast behind us. Next, the entire garage becomes a living thing made of flame, heat, and fury.
“Move, Syv!” he shouts, grabbing my waist and hauling me upright.
My legs don’t work at first. The floor is hot, and the smoke hits me like a slap, thick and choking. My lungs seize.
“I can’t,” I choke out. The heat steals the tears before they can fall.
“Yes, you can.” Tiny’s voice isn’t gentle now. It’s deadly. Focused. Terrified. “Stay with me, Baby Girl.”
He shoves his sweatshirt over my mouth and nose, then pushes me ahead of him toward the one corner not engulfed in hellfire. Burning metal rains from above. Sizzling bolts, blackened shards of the roof, chunks of melted wiring.
Another explosion rocks the wall where we’d just been. The workbench, the tools, and the place where we’d just been wrapped together are gone. Burning. Devoured.
My heart slams against my ribs.
“Don’t look!” Tiny barks, dragging me forward as the ceiling groans, bending inward like some giant hand is crushing the building. His body stays between me and the flames, shield and shelter and salvation.
I see the entire left side of the garage collapsing, swallowing his tool chest, the bikes, and the memories. The life he built with his own hands.
“TINY!” I scream as a beam crashes down behind him.
He pushes me against the far wall, bracing his arms on either side of me as burning debris slams into his back. The impact jerks his body forward, but he doesn’t make a sound.
“Ethan.” I sob.
“I’m okay,” he lies. His jaw is clenched so tight the muscles jump. “Door’s blocked. We need to go out the side.”
The side door is ten feet away, but it might as well feel like a lifetime. Smoke curls under the beams overhead, thick as tar. My head swims and my throat burns.
Tiny grabs my chin, forcing my eyes to meet his. “Stay awake. Stay with me. You hear me?”
I nod. Or maybe I just think I nod. My body trembles, heat scorching my skin even from yards away.
Tiny lifts me. He literally picks me up like I weigh nothing, and turns his back to the fire as we move. His breath is ragged. His muscles strain. I can feel them shaking under my palms.
“T-Tiny… your back…”
“Worry about breathing,” he grits out.
His boots crunch over broken glass and charred rubber. The side door’s frame is half-melted, jammed by fallen debris. He shoves me behind him again, lowers his shoulder, and slams into it.
The metal doesn’t budge. He hits it again, and again, as fire claws up the walls behind us.
“Come on,” he snarls, voice breaking. “Come on.”
I press my hands to the frame with him, pushing even though I know I’m not helping. My lungs scream for air. Tears burn tracks down my cheeks.
“Please,” I gasp. “Please, Tiny…”
He steps back, wraps an arm around my waist, and with a roar that sounds like it’s ripped from his soul, he throws his entire body into the door.
It bursts open. Cool night air blasts in. We stumble into it like we’re falling through a second birth.
I collapse to my knees outside, coughing so hard I taste blood. Tiny drops beside me, pulling me tight against his chest.
“It’s okay,” he murmurs into my hair, even as the flames behind us devour the rest of the garage in a tidal wave of heat. “You’re okay. I’ve got you.”
But the way his arms tremble tells me we came seconds away from not being okay at all.
The compound erupts. Brothers are everywhere. Trigger and Torch hauling hoses, Dagger shouting for extinguishers, and Red shouting readings from his phone. Bones staggers by, carrying a box of salvaged tools like it’s a wounded brother.
Capone’s silhouette moves through the smoke like a god of war, giving orders in a voice that cuts through the roar. “Derange, get the women clear! Blayze, seal the east gate! Nobody leaves until I say!” Capone’s voice cuts across the chaos like a blade. “GET THAT FIRE CONTAINED! MOVE!”
Tiny pulls me against his chest, pressing my face into his shoulder. His heart pounds against my cheek, steady even now. “Breathe,” he whispers, low enough only I can hear. “Just breathe, Baby Girl.”
I do, or try to. The taste of ash sticks to my tongue. Tiny shifts me into his lap, checking my face, my arms, and my neck for burns. His hands shake so hard I can barely feel the warmth in them.
“Are you hurt?” He demands, eyes searching mine with a kind of fear I’ve never seen in him.
“I’m.” My voice cracks. I try again. “I’m not burned.”
He exhales like someone stabbed him and then pulled the blade out. His forehead drops to mine. His breath is hot and frantic. “I thought I was gonna lose you in there.”
“You didn’t,” I whisper, brushing soot from his cheek. My fingers come away black. “You saved me.”
His eyes close. A broken sound escapes him, half relief, half something darker.
Then Torch shouts, “TINY! YOUR BACK!”
Tiny stiffens. He tries to turn, but a bolt of pain flashes across his features. I scramble behind him, lifting his charred shirt. My stomach drops.
His back is an angry, blistering red. Debris clings to his skin in places where the fire kissed too close.
“Ethan,” I whisper, voice shaking. “Oh my God.”
“I’m fine,” he rasps.
He’s not. But he got me out first.
“Water!” Torch yells, dragging a hose forward. Trigger yanks the valve open, and a jet of water blasts into the inferno. Steam surges back like a monster’s breath.
Torch’s voice cracks with fury. “That was our history in there!”
Red shouts, “Pressure’s dropping, get that line clear!”
Dagger coughs hard enough to double over, then keeps spraying. Bones is muttering prayers between curses. Every man moves on instinct. Chaos organized by loyalty.
Tiny keeps me close. I feel him shake, but pretend not to. That’s what we do. We pretend until pretending becomes real.
The firelight paints everything in shades of orange, red, and gold. I can’t tell where men end and smoke begins. My ears ring with the sound of brothers calling each other’s names, swearing, promising, fighting to keep what’s left.
When I finally look up, I see her. Across the lot, through the haze and flashing lights, Pearl stands still. Her face is illuminated by the fire’s glow. Not afraid. Not surprised. Just watching and waiting.
For a second, I think I’m seeing things, but the cruel calm tilt of her head confirms it. It’s her. The flames flicker in her eyes like they belong to her. My heart stops cold.
Something cold replaces the heat in my stomach. Her mouth curves into a slight smile. Her lips move, too softly for me to hear, but her expression says enough. In this second, I know the fire isn’t the worst part. She wanted me to see her watching.
She did this. She set this. She tried to kill us.
Behind me, Tiny shifts. “Syv?”
“Tiny…” I whisper. I blink hard, forcing myself to breathe. Forcing myself to live.
He follows my gaze, freezes. “Get back,” he says under his breath, voice turning hard as steel. But before he can move, she’s gone, swallowed by the crowd, the smoke, the night.
Red’s voice crackles over comms. “Gas line was cut! Not an accident!”
Capone’s head snaps toward him. “Say that again.”
“Deliberate. Tools were tampered with. Someone did this.”
The words ripple through the crowd like electricity through wet wire. Dagger curses, ripping off his gloves and throwing them into the dirt. Torch slams his fist against the hood of a car. Bones mutters, “Someone set us up inside our own goddamn walls.”
Capone steps forward, boots crunching through the ash. His voice is calm, the kind of calm that means death’s coming for someone. “Lock it down.”
“Prez.” Trigger starts.
“Now.” Capone turns in a slow circle, eyes sweeping every face, his cut streaked with soot. “Nobody in or out until we know who did this. You see a stranger, you ask once. You see them move wrong, you don’t ask again.”
“Yes, Prez,” the brothers echo, in one voice, low and grim.
The silence after that vow is worse than the flames. Dagger’s jaw works, his eyes glassy from smoke and loss. Blayze grabs a shovel, starts smothering embers like he can undo what’s already gone. Red types with shaking hands, muttering coordinates and camera feeds.
Trigger leans against a truck, coughing black smoke, muttering, “We’ll find the bastard. Swear to God, we will.”
Danyella’s suddenly here, Nina clutching her hand, eyes wide. Blayze stands behind them, hand on her shoulder, watching Capone like he’s measuring the distance between fury and heartbreak.
Capone kneels briefly, cups his daughter’s cheek, then stands again, his voice like gravel and smoke. “This isn’t over.”
Tiny’s hand finds mine again, rough and shaking. We stand shoulder to shoulder as the fire eats the last of the garage. The place where we laughed. Where he fixed my bike. Where he kissed me like he meant it. Where we were fixing me.
It’s all gone.
The heat stings my face. It’s impossible to tell if the tears are from smoke or grief.
Tiny’s arm wraps around me again, grounding me, anchoring me in a night determined to take everything we’ve built.
Around us, the fire consumes, but it can’t touch the sound of the brothers rallying behind Capone.
I can feel the weight of their loyalty press into the earth itself.
My throat burns for a new reason now.
Tiny stares at the flames, jaw locked tight, eyes reflecting orange. “He’s making his move.”
“Lattimer,” I whisper.
He nods once. “And Pearl just lit the match.”
Something inside me hardens. The part that used to break now sharpens. I don’t look away from the fire. I want to see what’s left, what’s worth rebuilding, what we’ll burn down next in return.
The fire pops, sending sparks spiraling into the night sky like dying stars. Around us, the club gathers. Soot-streaked, furious, but alive. Brotherhood stands shoulder to shoulder in the smoke, bound by rage and the unspoken vow that someone’s going to pay.
Capone’s voice cuts through the crackle one last time. “You hear me, boys?”
A chorus of voices answers as one. “Yes, Prez.”
He raises his hand, the firelight turning his outline into shadow and command. “Then gear up. War’s come home.”
For a second, nobody moves. Then the brothers do quietly, deliberately, and lethally. Dagger shrugs into his cut and slings it over a smoke-scorched shoulder. Torch wipes his mouth with the back of his hand and mutters a prayer that sounds like a threat.
Trigger snaps a mag home with accountant precision and dead eyes.
Bones shoulders a crate like it’s a wounded friend.
Derange, soot-streaked, jaw set, checks the tail gun and grins like a dare.
Aftermath hauls the long case to Capone without being asked.
Blayze posts at the gate, counting exits and enemies in the same breath.
Red looks up from his screens, eyes burning with purpose, already tracing routes to retribution.
Knight, our prospect, sprints ammo to the line and doesn’t flinch at the heat.
Seth stands beside him, jaw tight, silent until it’s time to strike.
Pretty Playboy cracks his knuckles and wipes ash from his tattooed throat, smiling like a man who’s missed the chaos.
Jax flips his knife once, catches it, and says nothing, the calm before violence. Tiny tightens his gloves, shoulders squaring under the weight of what’s coming. Every single one of them knows what’s next, and not one of them even thinks about stepping back.
Tiny’s thumb brushes my cheek. His voice, low, steady, heartbreak in every syllable. “This time, we don’t run.”
Smoke paints the sky in thick black streaks. The war isn't coming. It’s already burning.