Chapter 10
He was out of bed before the sound finished echoing, reaching for the pistol on his nightstand. Beside him, Jolene sat bolt upright, eyes wide in the gray predawn light.
"What—"
"Stay here." He was already pulling on jeans, shoving his feet into boots. "Lock the door behind me. Don't open it for anyone except me or Shadow."
"Tornado—"
"Promise me."
Her jaw tightened, but she nodded. "I promise."
He kissed her once—hard and fast—and ran.
The compound was chaos.
Brothers poured from their rooms in various states of dress, weapons drawn.
Alarms blared from the security system Hatchet had installed last year.
And through the east fence—or what was left of it—three trucks were plowing onto the property, armed men spilling from the beds like ants from a kicked hill.
"Contact east!" Tornado roared. "All hands, contact east!"
He counted as he ran. Ten men, maybe twelve. Professional movement, coordinated fire. This wasn't a raid—it was an assault.
And leading the charge, visible in the headlights of the lead truck, was Luis Ochoa.
Delgado's operations manager. The brains behind the pipeline. The man who scheduled the violence and tracked the bodies.
He'd come himself. That meant Delgado was desperate.
Good.
Gunfire erupted across the yard. Ridge had taken position behind the fire pit, laying down suppressing fire that forced Ochoa's men to scatter. Diesel was dragging a wounded prospect toward the clubhouse. Hatchet was somewhere—Tornado could hear his rifle barking from the direction of the armory.
"Striker!" Tornado grabbed his Warlord's shoulder as he ran past. "Flanking charge through the garage bays. Hit them from the west while they're focused on the main building."
"On it." Striker was already moving, four brothers falling in behind him.
Tornado sprinted for the clubhouse, ducking as bullets chewed into the wall above his head. He needed higher ground. Needed to see the whole battlefield.
He kicked through the side door and nearly collided with Jolene.
She was supposed to be in his room. She was supposed to be locked in, safe, away from the gunfire and the blood and the chaos.
Instead, she was standing in the kitchen doorway with a knife in each hand.
"What the hell are you doing?"
"Helping." Her voice was steady, her grip on the knives sure. "Lily's in the back closet with Carmen. I'm not hiding while your brothers fight."
"This isn't a bar fight—"
"I know what it is." She met his eyes, fierce and unafraid. "Tell me what to do."
He should send her back. Should drag her to the closet with Lily and Carmen and lock her in until this was over.
But there wasn't time. And the look in her eyes said she wouldn't go anyway.
"Hatchet's at the east window," he said. "He's going to run out of magazines. Get to the armory, grab what you can carry, and feed them to him through the kitchen window. Can you do that?"
"I can do that."
"Then go."
She ran.
Tornado pushed through to the main room, grabbed the shotgun mounted above the bar, and headed for the roof access. Behind him, he could hear Jolene's footsteps pounding toward the armory.
Mine, he thought. Brave, stubborn, mine.
The roof gave him the view he needed.
Ochoa's men had spread across the yard, using vehicles and debris for cover. They were laying down fire on the main building, trying to pin the brothers in place. But Striker's flanking team was almost in position—Tornado could see them moving through the garage shadows.
"Shadow!" He keyed his radio. "Where are you?"
"East perimeter. Got eyes on Ochoa—he's directing from behind the lead truck."
"Can you reach him?"
"Not without crossing the kill zone. I need a distraction."
Tornado racked the shotgun.
"You're about to get one."
He stood, making himself visible on the roofline, and fired three rounds in rapid succession. The blasts echoed across the compound, and every enemy head turned toward him.
"Come on, you bastards," he muttered. "Eyes on me."
Bullets peppered the roof edge. Tornado dropped flat, rolled, and came up firing again. Below, he saw Striker's team burst from the garage, hitting Ochoa's flank with devastating force.
The assault line crumbled.
Men went down—some from Striker's charge, others from the crossfire they'd walked into. Tornado watched two of them try to retreat toward the broken fence and get cut down by Ridge's position at the fire pit.
But Ochoa wasn't running.
The operations manager had ducked behind the overturned lead truck, pistol in hand, shouting orders that no one was left to follow. His men were dead or fleeing. His assault had become a slaughter.
And Shadow was closing in.
Tornado scrambled down from the roof, hitting the ground running. He circled wide, coming at the truck from the opposite side as Shadow. Ochoa was trapped—nowhere to go, no men to protect him.
They found him crouched behind the engine block, sweat streaming down his face, pistol shaking in his grip.
"Drop it," Tornado said.
Ochoa spun, bringing the weapon up. Shadow was faster.
The shot echoed across the suddenly quiet compound. Ochoa's head snapped back, a neat hole appearing in his forehead, and he crumpled behind the truck like a puppet with cut strings.
Luis Ochoa—Delgado's logistics coordinator, the man who scheduled terror—died in the dirt of a compound he'd tried to destroy.
"Clear!" Shadow called.
"Clear!" The response came from multiple positions around the yard.
Tornado stood over Ochoa's body, breathing hard. The adrenaline was still pumping, his hands still tight on the shotgun, but the threat was neutralized.
"Headcount!" he shouted. "I need a headcount now!"
Brothers emerged from cover, calling out names. Striker limped toward the clubhouse, blood streaming from a gash on his thigh. Diesel was helping a prospect with a shoulder wound.
"Kitchen window," Hatchet called out. "I've got wounded over here."
Tornado ran.
He found Jolene kneeling beside one of the younger brothers—Tank, barely old enough to have earned his patch. Blood soaked the kid's shirt, spreading from a wound in his side. Jolene had her hands pressed against it, applying pressure with a focus that said she'd done this before.
"Through and through," she said without looking up. "Missed the organs, but he's losing blood fast. We need to get him inside."
"Carmen's setting up the med station in the mess hall," Hatchet said. "I've got supplies from the armory."
"Then move." Tornado helped lift Tank, taking most of the weight. The kid groaned but stayed conscious. "You're going to be fine, brother. Just hang on."
They got him inside, laid him on the table Carmen had cleared. Jolene's hands never stopped moving—directing, organizing, applying pressure while Hatchet cut away Tank's shirt.
"Needle and thread," she said. "And something to bite down on. This is going to hurt."
Tornado watched her work. This woman who'd been running a café a week ago, now stitching a gunshot wound with steady hands while bullets still echoed in memory.
Mine.
"Boss." Shadow appeared at his shoulder. "Final count. Two wounded—Tank and Prospect Davis. No fatalities. We got lucky."
"And them?"
"Eight dead, two wounded and captured. Plus Ochoa."
Tornado nodded slowly. "Delgado sent his operations manager personally. That means he's getting desperate."
"Or he underestimated us."
"Either way, he just lost his brains." Tornado looked around the compound—the broken fence, the shell casings littering the yard, the bodies being dragged toward the trucks for disposal.
"Get the fence patched. Double the patrols.
And find out everything our prisoners know about Delgado's next move. "
"On it."
Shadow disappeared into the chaos. Tornado turned back to the mess hall, where Jolene was finishing Tank's stitches with hands that had finally started to tremble.
He crossed to her, ignoring the blood on her shirt, the exhaustion in her eyes. Took her face in his hands and made her look at him.
"You okay?"
"I'm fine." Her voice cracked. "Is it over?"
"For now."
"Tank?"
"Going to make it. Because of you."
She shook her head. "Because of everyone. I just—I couldn't sit in a closet while—"
"I know." He pulled her against his chest, held her tight while the compound bustled around them. "I know."
She pressed her face into his shoulder, and he felt her body shake—not fear, not tears, just the release of tension that came after violence.
"Delgado's going to come back," she said against his shirt.
"Yes."
"Harder than before."
"Yes."
"What do we do?"
Tornado pulled back, looked into her eyes. This woman who'd grabbed knives when the shooting started. Who'd fed magazines to his armorer. Who'd stitched a gunshot wound with hands steadier than some of his brothers.
"We hit him first," he said. "Before he can regroup. Before he can rebuild. We take the fight to him and we end this."
Jolene nodded slowly. "Okay."
"Okay?"
"I told you I wasn't going to hide in a corner." She managed a smile, small but real. "That includes when the corners are shooting back."
God, he loved her.
The thought hit him like a punch—sudden, undeniable, terrifying. He'd known he wanted her. Known he needed her. But this was something else. Something that went beyond the physical, beyond the possessive heat that flared every time she walked into a room.
He loved her.
And he was going to keep her safe if he had to burn down every cartel operation from here to the border.
"Come on," he said, taking her hand. "Let's get you cleaned up. Then we plan our next move."
They walked through the compound together, past brothers patching the fence and dragging bodies and cleaning weapons for the next fight.
Two wounded. None dead.
Ochoa was gone. Delgado's operation was crippled.
But the war wasn't over yet.