Chapter 16
Tyson
T he first seconds were everything.
Training kicked in before thought—muscle memory earned in sand and blood taking control of my body. My hand was already reaching for the Glock at my back as I shoved Lena deeper behind the stairs, using my body to shield her from the initial volley.
"CONTACT LEFT! EVERYONE DOWN!" The command voice erupted from somewhere deep, that bark that had saved lives in Kandahar now trying to save them on a party yacht. Glass exploded overhead as bullets found the string lights, raining sparks and fragments across the deck.
I counted muzzle flashes even as I moved. Six boats minimum, coming in fast from the port side. The way they'd approached—using the yacht's blind spots, coordinating their assault had been carefully planned.
"Kitchen level, NOW!" I roared at the civilians still standing frozen. A bridesmaid in pink just stared at the blood spreading across her dress—not hers, someone else's, but the shock had locked her in place. "Stay low, move fast!"
Like all of us, Duke was already armed. He'd flipped a table for cover, returning fire in measured bursts while using his free hand to shove Mia toward the cabin stairs. Our eyes met across the chaos.
"How many?" Duke shouted over the gunfire.
"Twelve minimum, probably more!" I squeezed off two rounds at a figure trying to board midship. He fell back, his cut visible in the muzzle flash—Serpents. Of course. This wasn't cartel; this was personal. "They're boxing us in!"
The yacht's engine roared to life—someone had made it to the pilot house. But we were too heavy, too slow. The speedboats circled like sharks, their mobility our death sentence.
Movement on the upper deck caught my eye. A shadow where there shouldn't be one, someone who'd rappelled up while we focused on the main assault. "Thor, your six!"
Thor spun with that berserker grace he'd perfected, his dress shirt already torn and bloody. The Serpent had his weapon half-raised when Thor's fist connected with his throat. The man went down hard, gasping, and Thor finished it with a brutal stomp that left no question about survival.
Thor let out a blood-curdling roar, already turning to engage another boarder. Despite everything, he was grinning—that savage joy he found in violence finally given permission to run free.
More Serpents swarmed over the rails. They wore tactical gear over their cuts, came with suppressed weapons and night vision. This wasn't a rival MC having a beef. This was an execution squad.
That's when Rico proved why prospects mattered.
The kid couldn't have been more than twenty—all eager energy and desperate need to prove himself. I saw him notice the two bridesmaids pressed against the bar, frozen with terror as Serpents advanced on their position. No cover, nowhere to run.
Rico didn't hesitate.
He launched himself across the space, arms spread wide like some guardian angel in a prospect cut. "Get down! Stay down!" His body slammed into them just as automatic fire ripped across the bar. Bottles exploded in waterfalls of alcohol and glass.
I watched him jerk as the rounds found him. Once, twice, three times. His back bloomed red, the prospect patch he'd worked so hard for now soaked in blood. But he didn't move. Didn't even flinch. Just kept his body between those women and death.
"Good man," I whispered, putting two center mass in the shooter before he could finish the job. Rico's eyes found mine across the deck, already glazing but somehow still aware. He managed the slightest nod—duty acknowledged, price accepted—before the light faded.
More gunfire, more screams. The deck had become a slaughterhouse.
I processed it all in snapshots: Duke and Tank fighting back-to-back, Wiz calmly directing civilians while bleeding from a luckily-glancing head wound, prospects forming human shields without orders or hesitation.
This was who we were when the metal met the meat—protectors, fighters, brothers.
"Tyson!" Duke's voice cut through my tactical assessment. "Where's your girl?"
Your girl. Not Lena, not the tattoo artist. Your girl.
I turned back to the stairs where I'd left her, ready to grab her and move to better cover. The space was empty.
My blood turned to ice water. The carefully maintained combat calm shattered like those fairy lights still raining down. I scanned the chaos, searching for purple hair, a silver dress, any sign of her.
Nothing.
"Lena?" Her name came out strangled, desperate. The tactical part of my brain screamed at me to maintain noise discipline, to think, to plan. But the rest of me had gone primal. She was gone. In this shitstorm of lead and death, she was gone.
A prospect stumbled past, clutching his shoulder. "Sir! Saw Lena heading port side with Mia! They were—" His words cut off as another volley forced us both to cover.
Port side. Where the heaviest fire was coming from. Where the Serpents had concentrated their assault. Where she'd have no cover, no protection, no chance.
The fear that flooded through me was worse than any combat terror I'd experienced. In war, I'd only had my own life to lose. Here, now, the stakes were infinitely higher. Everything that mattered—that purple-haired brat who'd become my whole world—was somewhere in this floating massacre.
I forced myself to breathe, to think. Panic would get us both killed. I needed to move smart, fast, lethal. The Serpents between me and port side would learn what happened when they stood between a soldier and what he loved.
"Moving port!" I called to Duke, already displacing.
"Go!" Duke's response came with covering fire. "We'll hold here!"
I moved through the chaos with singular purpose. Nothing existed except the next threat, the next obstacle between me and Lena. The yacht had become a maze of overturned furniture and bodies, the pretty party transformed into a war zone.
"LENA!" Her name tore from my throat before I could stop it, shattering every rule about noise discipline I'd ever learned. So much for keeping our relationship secret. So much for professional distance. She was gone, and nothing else mattered.
The main deck had transformed into a vision of hell.
Overturned tables created improvised barricades where guests huddled in formal wear now splattered with blood and champagne.
Broken bottles caught the emergency lighting, glittering like landmines waiting to shred anyone who moved wrong.
The pretty wedding atmosphere had become a killing floor.
I moved through it like Death's own messenger.
Every motion calculated, every decision binary—threat or not-threat, obstacle or opportunity.
A Serpent came around the bar, weapon tracking toward fleeing civilians.
My body moved before conscious thought, twenty years of muscle memory taking over.
Disable the weapon hand, control the head, apply pressure.
The crack of his neck was lost in the larger symphony of violence.
Keep moving. Find her.
Another Serpent tried to flank from behind an overturned table. I let him come, used his momentum against him, introduced his skull to the brass railing with enough force to leave a dent. His weapon clattered across the deck, immediately scooped up by a prospect who'd lost his own.
"Where is she?" The words came out as a growl, directed at no one and everyone.
That's when Tank materialized at my shoulder, moving with that eerie grace big men sometimes possessed. Blood ran from a gash on his temple, painting half his face in crimson war paint. His eyes held the same focused intensity I'd seen in too many firefights—switched on, lethal, ready.
"Silver dress, was by the stairs—" I started, but he was already nodding.
"Saw her heading port side with Mia! Come on!" He didn't question why I cared, didn't waste time on explanations. He understood what mattered when bullets were flying.
We moved as a unit, tank high, me low. Overlapping fields of fire, covering each other's movement. A Serpent appeared in a doorway—Tank's round caught himbefore I'd even registered the threat. Another tried to circle behind—my knife found his kidney before he could line up a shot.
"Just like old times!" Tank called out, almost cheerful despite the blood running down his face.
The yacht listed suddenly, throwing everyone off balance. Hull damage from the heavy rounds—we were taking on water. Not fast enough to sink us immediately, but enough to add another timer to this disaster. Find Lena, end the threat, get everyone off before we went swimming.
"Contact right!" Tank's warning came simultaneously with his weapon firing. Two Serpents had tried to rush us from the kitchen access. They'd barely cleared the doorway before Tank's precise shots dropped them both. "These aren't typical Serpent trash."
He was right. The tactical gear, the coordination, the suppressed weapons—this was a tier above normal MC violence. This was cartel-trained, cartel-funded.
We fought our way across the deck, every foot gained paid for in blood and brass.
I caught glimpses of the wider battle—Duke and Thor had gone full Viking, standing back-to-back in a circle of bodies, their dress clothes torn and bloody but their defense unbreakable.
Wiz had somehow acquired a shotgun, using it to create a safe corridor for civilians to reach the lower decks.
Prospects continued to throw themselves into harm's way, earning their patches in the hardest currency.
But no purple hair. No silver dress. No Lena.
"Where the fuck is she?" The fear was eating me alive, worse than any combat stress I'd experienced.
"Brother." Tank's hand on my shoulder grounded me slightly. "We'll find her. But you need to keep your head on straight or we're both dead."