Chapter 7
The attack came at three in the morning.
Union was awake—hadn't really slept since moving Diane to the safehouse two days ago. He'd been sitting in the kitchen, nursing cold coffee and watching the street through a gap in the curtains, when headlights appeared at the end of the block.
Two vehicles. Moving slow. No headlights now—they'd killed them after turning onto the street.
"Fang."
The Sergeant at Arms materialized from the shadows near the back door, already armed. "Saw them. Two SUVs. They stopped four houses down."
"How many?"
"Counting heads now." Fang moved to the window, his massive frame somehow blending into the darkness. "Eight... nine. Plus the driver who stayed with the vehicles."
Ten men. For one mechanic and two guards.
Bartosz wasn't playing anymore.
Union pulled his phone and fired off a text to Alpha: Safehouse compromised. Nine plus. Need backup.
The response came in seconds: Scout and I are ten minutes out. Hold them.
Ten minutes. An eternity when you were outnumbered five to one.
"Diane." Union moved toward the stairs. "Diane, wake up."
She appeared at the top of the landing, already dressed—she'd been sleeping in her clothes since she got here, ready to move at a moment's notice. Smart woman.
"What's happening?"
"Varga found us. Nine men outside." Union kept his voice calm, controlled. "You stay in the bedroom. Lock the door. Don't come out until I tell you it's clear."
"I can help—"
"You can stay alive." He caught her eyes in the darkness, let her see the steel underneath. "That's how you help. By not giving them a target."
She wanted to argue—he could see it in the set of her jaw—but she nodded once and disappeared into the bedroom. The lock clicked behind her.
Union turned back to Fang. "They'll hit both doors. You take the back."
"Front's harder to hold alone."
"I'm not alone." Union cracked his knuckles, feeling the old scars stretch across the bones. "I've got fifteen years of picket line experience and a whole lot of reasons to be angry."
Fang's mouth twitched—the closest he ever came to a smile. "Don't die before backup arrives."
"Wasn't planning on it."
They took their positions.
Union stood in the hallway facing the front door, his body loose, his mind sharp. He could hear them now—footsteps on the porch, the creak of weight on old boards. Someone testing the door handle.
Then the door exploded inward.
The first man through caught Union's fist directly in the throat. He went down choking, and Union was already moving, grabbing the second man's gun arm and slamming him face-first into the wall. Bone crunched. Blood sprayed.
Two down. Seven to go.
They poured through the doorway, and Union met them like a wall of flesh and fury.
He'd held picket lines against company thugs twice this size.
He'd stood between scabs and honest workers when the cops looked the other way.
He'd learned a long time ago that numbers didn't matter when you were fighting for something that mattered.
A fist connected with his ribs. He absorbed the blow and responded with an elbow to the man's temple, dropping him. Another attacker swung a crowbar, and Union caught it on his forearm—pain exploding up to his shoulder—then ripped it from the man's grip and used it to shatter his kneecap.
The hallway was chaos. Blood on the walls. Bodies on the floor. Men screaming and Union silent, methodical, unstoppable.
From the back of the house, he heard Fang engaging—the distinctive sound of the Sergeant at Arms at work, wet and final.
Three more men rushed Union. He put the first one down with the crowbar, caught the second in a chokehold, used him as a shield when the third pulled a knife.
The blade sank into his human shield's shoulder, and Union threw the screaming man into his partner, then stomped on the knife-wielder's ankle until it bent the wrong way.
Gunfire erupted outside.
Alpha and Scout, arriving early. Thank Christ.
The remaining attackers scattered, realizing too late that they'd walked into a trap. Union saw one sprinting for the basement door—stocky, maybe forty, moving with the confidence of a man who knew another way out.
Varga.
Union followed.
The basement stairs were steep and dark, and Varga was already halfway down when Union hit the top step. The saboteur spun, gun raised, and Union threw himself sideways as the shot cracked past his ear.
He hit the stairs rolling, momentum carrying him down, and crashed into Varga before the man could fire again. They tumbled together into the darkness, the gun skittering away across the concrete floor.
Varga was fast—faster than Union expected. He got a knee into Union's gut, scrambled free, lunged for the gun.
Union caught his ankle and yanked.
Varga went down hard, chin cracking against concrete, and Union was on him in an instant. He flipped the saboteur onto his back and drove his fist into the man's face once, twice, three times.
"You cut her brake lines." Another punch. "You sabotaged her customers' cars." Another. "You cornered her in her own garage and put your hands on her."
Varga's face was a ruin of blood and broken bones, but he was still trying to speak, still trying to form words around his shattered teeth.
"Should've... killed her... when I had the chance..."
Union's hands closed around Varga's throat.
"Yeah," he said quietly. "You should have."
He squeezed.
Varga thrashed, his hands clawing at Union's wrists, his legs kicking uselessly against the concrete. Union held on, his scarred knuckles white, his breath steady, his eyes locked on the man who'd been destroying Diane's life one cut brake line at a time.
The thrashing weakened.
Stopped.
Union held on for another thirty seconds, making sure.
Then he let go and stood up, staring down at Rick Varga's lifeless body in the darkness of the basement.
The saboteur's career was over.
The cleanup took an hour.
Alpha and Scout had arrived just as the attackers broke and ran, picking off two more in the street. Fang had handled three at the back door with his usual efficiency. The rest had scattered into the night, but they wouldn't get far—Scout was already tracking them.
Nine men had come to the safehouse expecting a mechanic and one guard.
Six were dead. Three were running scared.
Union stood in the kitchen, washing blood from his hands in the sink, when Diane appeared in the doorway.
"I told you to stay in the bedroom."
"It's been quiet for twenty minutes." She crossed her arms, but he could see the fear underneath the defiance. "Is it over?"
"For tonight."
She looked at his hands—still red-tinged despite the washing, his knuckles split and swelling. Her eyes traveled up to his face, taking in the bruise forming on his cheekbone, the cut above his eyebrow.
"You're hurt."
"I've been hurt worse."
"That's not comforting."
Union dried his hands and turned to face her fully. She was pale in the kitchen light, trembling slightly despite her best efforts to hide it. She'd just listened to a war happen beneath her feet, and she was still standing. Still fighting to look strong.
Stubborn woman. Magnificent woman.
"Varga's dead," he said.
Diane went still. "What?"
"Rick Varga. The man who cut your brake lines. Who sabotaged your customers' cars. Who cornered you in your garage." Union held her eyes. "He tried to escape through the basement. He didn't make it."
She stared at him, processing.
"You killed him."
"Yes."
"For me."
"For you. For your customers. For everyone he ever would have hurt." Union stepped closer, close enough to touch her if he wanted to. "The man who cut your brake lines won't be cutting anything else. Ever."
Diane's composure cracked.
The tears came suddenly, silently, streaming down her face as six months of terror finally found release. Union reached for her without thinking, pulling her against his chest, one hand cradling the back of her head.
"It's okay," he murmured against her hair. "You're safe. I've got you."
She fisted her hands in his cut and sobbed—ugly, gasping sobs that shook her whole body. Union held her through it, steady as a picket line, immovable as stone.
"I was so scared," she choked out. "For so long. Every day, checking every car, waiting for someone to die because of me—"
"Not because of you. Because of them." He tilted her chin up, forcing her to meet his eyes. "You didn't cut those brake lines. You didn't threaten those families. You've been fighting alone against an army, and you never broke. That's not something to be ashamed of."
"I couldn't have done this alone."
"You're not alone anymore."
He meant it as comfort. As reassurance.
But the way Diane was looking at him—tear-streaked and raw, her walls finally down—turned the words into something else. A promise. A claim.
Alpha appeared in the doorway, and Union reluctantly released her.
"Safehouse is compromised," the President said. "We need to move her to the compound."
"Agreed." Union kept one hand on the small of Diane's back, not quite ready to stop touching her. "Tonight?"
"Now. Before Bartosz figures out what happened and sends more men." Alpha's eyes flicked between them, noting the contact, the tear-tracks on Diane's face, the blood still drying on Union's knuckles. "You good to ride?"
"I'm good."
"Then let's move."
Union grabbed Diane's father's toolbox from the kitchen table—she'd notice if he left it, and she'd been through enough tonight without losing that too.
"Come on," he said, guiding her toward the door. "Time to meet the rest of the family."
Diane looked up at him, her gray eyes still wet but something new in them now. Trust. Gratitude.
Something else he wasn't ready to name.
"Okay," she said quietly. "Let's go."