Chapter 12
The call came at four in the afternoon, and Union knew before he answered that the war had escalated.
"Three targets." Scout's voice was clipped, urgent. "Bridgeport Auto Glass on Halsted. Dempsey's Tire on Thirty-Fifth. And Kowalski's."
Union was already moving, grabbing his cut from the back of the chair and shrugging it on. "Diane's shop is closed."
"Doesn't matter. There's a crew heading for it right now—four men in a white panel van, turned off Archer two minutes ago."
"What about the other two?"
"Bridgeport Auto Glass has a crew inside already. Dempsey heard something and locked his doors, but they're working on the bay entrance." Scout paused. "This is coordinated, Union. Someone's running these crews from a central location. They're hitting all three at the same time."
Novotny.
Paul Novotny—Eddie's network coordinator, the man who managed the flow of stolen vehicles between chop shops and kept the entire operation invisible.
If Eddie was the muscle, Novotny was the brain.
The logistics man. The one who knew how to coordinate multiple crews across multiple targets with the precision of a fleet dispatcher.
Union had been waiting for this move.
"Where's Novotny?"
"Silver Lexus, eastbound on Halsted. He's running the operation from his car, phone in hand, tracking all three crews." Scout's voice carried a hunter's satisfaction. "I've had eyes on him for twenty minutes."
"Keep them on him. I'm calling Razor."
Union punched Razor's number as he crossed the common room. Brothers looked up from whatever they were doing, reading the energy in his stride the way animals read weather.
"Razor. Novotny's hitting three shops in Bridgeport. Coordinated assault."
"I heard." Razor was already outside—Union could hear wind and engines. "Alpha's sending Stockyard and two prospects to Dempsey's. Lakeshore's rolling to the auto glass shop. That leaves Novotny."
"That leaves Novotny for us."
"Halsted and what?"
"Scout's tracking him. Silver Lexus. I'll get the cross street en route." Union paused at the clubhouse door. "Razor. Diane's shop is one of the targets."
Silence. Then: "She's at the compound."
"She won't be for long." Union looked across the lot to where Diane was walking out of the garage, wiping her hands on a rag, her head coming up as she registered the sudden movement around her. "She heard the bikes."
"Keep her at the compound."
"You ever tried keeping that woman anywhere she didn't want to be?"
Razor's laugh was short and humorless. "Meet me on Halsted. We'll handle Novotny first, then mop up whatever's left."
Union pocketed his phone and intercepted Diane halfway across the lot.
"What's happening?" She'd already read his face. Already knew.
"Novotny's hitting three businesses in Bridgeport. Shops that service the club's fleet." He grabbed her shoulders, holding her steady. "Your shop is one of the targets."
Her expression didn't change. No shock, no fear—just the flat calculation of a woman who'd been expecting the next blow for months.
"I'm coming."
"Diane—"
"My shop. My fight." She pulled free of his grip and walked toward his bike. "Are we going or not?"
He should have argued. Should have locked her in the compound and posted Fang at the door and dealt with her fury later.
But the look on her face was the same one she'd worn in her destroyed garage, touching her father's spray-painted name with a hand that shook once and then stopped.
She wasn't asking.
"Stay behind me," he said. "Whatever happens, you stay behind me until I tell you otherwise."
"Fine."
"I mean it."
"I said fine." She swung onto the back of his Harley with the ease of a woman who'd been riding with him for days. "Go."
Union fired the engine and tore out of the compound lot.
They hit Bridgeport in twelve minutes.
Scout's updates came through the earpiece in rapid bursts—Novotny's Lexus had stopped on Halsted near Thirty-First, parked in a loading zone, the coordinator watching his phone while his crews did the dirty work.
Stockyard had reached Dempsey's Tire and was engaging four men at the bay entrance.
Lakeshore was thirty seconds from Bridgeport Auto Glass.
"What about Kowalski's?" Union shouted over the engine.
"Van's in the lot. Four men inside. They've got sledgehammers."
Again. They were destroying her shop again.
Union felt Diane's grip tighten on his waist. She'd heard it through the wind.
"Novotny first," she said against his ear. "Cut the head off."
She was right. As long as Novotny was coordinating, the crews had direction. Take out the coordinator and the operation collapsed into confusion.
His kind of woman. Thinking like an organizer even with a sledgehammer crew in her garage.
Union leaned into the turn onto Halsted and spotted the silver Lexus immediately—parked on the east side, hazards flashing, a man in the driver's seat hunched over a phone.
Paul Novotny. Forty-five years old. Former auto auction manager who'd turned his knowledge of vehicle identification and title fraud into a career managing Eddie Bartosz's empire.
Razor's bike appeared from a side street, falling into formation.
"I see him," Razor said through the earpiece. "Pull up alongside. I'll block the front."
Union cut across traffic and brought the Harley to a skidding stop beside the Lexus's driver door. Razor angled his bike across the front bumper, boxing the car in.
Novotny looked up from his phone.
The expression on his face was almost satisfying—the slow-motion realization of a man who'd been running an operation from a safe distance and suddenly understood that distance was an illusion.
Union was off the bike before the coordinator could react.
"Stay here," he told Diane.
He didn't wait for her answer. He grabbed the Lexus's door handle and ripped it open, hauling Novotny out by the collar of his jacket. The man's phone clattered to the asphalt, the screen still showing a group text thread with three active conversations.
Three crews. Three targets. All coordinated from this phone.
Razor was there in seconds, his tactical efficiency clicking into place. He grabbed the phone and started reading while Union slammed Novotny against the side of his own car.
"Call them off," Union said.
Novotny's face was bleeding where it had hit the doorframe. His eyes darted between Union and Razor, calculating odds, looking for an angle.
"I don't know what you're—"
Union drove his fist into Novotny's solar plexus. The coordinator doubled over, gasping.
"Three shops. Three crews. You're running them from this phone." Union hauled him upright by the hair. "Call them off."
"Eddie will—"
"Eddie's not here." Union slammed him against the car again. "Eddie sent you to do his dirty work while he sits in Gage Park counting stolen parts. You're the one standing on Halsted with Wolf hands around your throat."
Novotny's eyes widened. The calculation shifted—from angles to survival.
"I can't call them off. They have their orders. Once a crew starts—"
"Then they're on their own." Union's grip tightened. "And so are you."
"Wait—wait." Novotny raised his hands. "I can give you Eddie. His schedule. His contacts. The whole network—buyers, junkyards, parts distribution across three states. I know everything."
"I know you do." Union leaned closer. "That's why you're dangerous."
"I'm not dangerous! I'm a coordinator! I manage logistics—I don't—"
"You manage the logistics of destroying honest businesses." Union's voice dropped to something flat and final. "You tracked shops that service our fleet. You identified targets. You sent crews to smash lifts and slash hoses and pour sand into engines."
"That was Kev—"
"Kev followed your target list." Union pulled him off the car and shoved him into the street. Novotny stumbled, caught himself, turned to run.
Razor was already there.
The VP caught Novotny with a precision strike to the knee—not flashy, not brutal, just a single calculated blow that dropped the coordinator to the asphalt. Novotny screamed, clutching his leg, and Razor stepped over him with the patient efficiency of a man who'd spent years clearing rooms.
"Scout," Razor said into his earpiece. "Status on the three crews."
"Stockyard handled Dempsey's. Four down. Lakeshore's finishing at the auto glass shop." A pause. "Kowalski's crew is still inside. They've barricaded the bay doors."
Union looked at Diane.
She was off the bike. Standing on the sidewalk, her eyes locked on the direction of her shop—six blocks south, close enough that she could probably hear the sledgehammers if the wind was right.
"Go," she said.
"Not without finishing this."
"Finish it and go." Her voice was steady. Hard. "I'll handle the shop."
"Diane—"
"Six blocks. I can run six blocks." She was already moving. "Handle Novotny. Then come find me."
She took off south on Halsted before he could stop her.
Union turned back to Novotny, who was still on the ground, still clutching his knee, still trying to negotiate his way out of a situation that had no exit.
"Please," the coordinator said. "I'm not a fighter. I'm not muscle. I just run the logistics—"
"I know exactly what you are." Union crouched beside him. "You're the man who makes it all work. Without you, Eddie's network is a bunch of disconnected chop shops with no coordination and no customers."
"Then I'm valuable! I'm worth more alive—"
"You're worth nothing." Union grabbed Novotny's collar and dragged him to his feet.
The coordinator screamed as weight hit his shattered knee.
"You're worth less than nothing, because every shop you coordinated against was someone's livelihood.
Someone's father's legacy. Someone's forty years of honest work. "
"I didn't—I just managed the data—"
Union slammed him against the Lexus one final time. The rear window spiderwebbed from the impact.
"You managed the destruction of everything she built." Union's hand found Novotny's throat. "And you did it from a leather seat with a phone in your hand like it was an auction you were running."