Chapter 16
Scout's text came at nine-thirty: Brighton Park. Chop shop on Kedzie. Kev plus three. Celebrating.
Union read it twice, then grabbed his cut.
"Fang. Stockyard. We ride."
The chop shop looked the same as it had two weeks ago when Union had followed Varga here—windowless building, fenced lot, floodlights turning midnight into noon. But tonight, there was noise. Music. Laughter.
Kev Duda was throwing a party.
Union killed his engine a block away and approached on foot, Fang and Stockyard flanking him. The fence had a gap near the back—sloppy security, the kind of mistake men made when they thought they'd already won.
Through the chain link, Union could see them.
Four men around a stripped Mustang, drinking beer and talking loud. Kev sat in the driver's seat of a gutted Camaro, his feet up on the dashboard, gesturing like he was telling a war story.
Probably was. Probably bragging about the crowbar and the sledgehammer and the spray paint.
Union's hands curled into fists.
"Three on perimeter," he said quietly. "Kev's mine."
Fang nodded once. Stockyard cracked his knuckles.
They moved through the gap in the fence like shadows.
The first man went down before he knew they were there.
Stockyard hit him from behind—one arm around the throat, the other controlling the body as consciousness left. Silent. Efficient. The man slumped to the ground beside a stack of stolen tires.
The second saw Fang coming and opened his mouth to shout.
Fang's fist closed the distance first.
Union didn't watch. He was already moving toward the Camaro, his boots crunching on gravel, his eyes locked on Kev Duda's face.
The young enforcer heard him coming. Turned. And for one beautiful moment, Union watched fear replace arrogance in those dark eyes.
"What the—"
Union grabbed him by the throat and hauled him out of the car.
Kev hit the ground hard, scrambling backward, reaching for a weapon he wasn't going to find. Union kicked his hand away and stomped on his wrist, feeling something crack beneath his boot.
Kev screamed.
"That's for the lifts," Union said.
He grabbed Kev by the collar and dragged him upright, then slammed his face into the Camaro's stripped doorframe. Blood sprayed across bare metal.
"That's for the air hoses."
Another slam. Another spray of blood.
"That's for the sand."
Kev was trying to speak, trying to form words around broken teeth and a shattered nose. Union didn't let him. He spun the enforcer around and pinned him against the car, one hand crushing his throat.
"And that—" Union leaned close, his voice dropping to something cold and final. "That's for her father's sign."
"I was—just following—orders—"
"Wrong answer."
Union's fist connected with Kev's solar plexus. The enforcer doubled over, gasping, and Union grabbed a fistful of his hair and yanked his head back.
"You destroyed her shop. Forty years of honest work.
You poured sand into engines and smashed tools and spray-painted her dead father's name.
" Union's voice was steady. Almost conversational.
"You did that because she kicked you out.
Because she told you no. Because a woman had the backbone to stand up to a piece of shit like you. "
"Eddie—Eddie will—"
"Eddie's next."
Movement behind him. Union glanced back to see Fang and Stockyard finishing with the other two—one unconscious, one trying to crawl away before Stockyard's boot ended that plan.
Union turned back to Kev.
The enforcer was young. Thirty-one, according to Scout's intel. Young enough to think muscle and cruelty made him important. Young enough to believe destroying a woman's shop would make Eddie Bartosz notice him.
He was going to die still believing those things.
"Please." Kev's voice was a wet rasp. "I can give you Eddie. I know where he—"
"We already know where Eddie is."
"Then what do you want?"
Union smiled. It wasn't a nice smile.
"I want you to understand what it feels like when someone tears apart everything you've built."
He dragged Kev back to the stripped Camaro and shoved him into the driver's seat. The same seat where the enforcer had been celebrating thirty minutes ago. The same seat where he'd pretended to be somebody.
"You wanted to be a big man," Union said. "Sit in fancy cars. Run with Eddie's crew. Have people fear your name."
Kev's eyes were wild now, darting around the lot, looking for help that wasn't coming.
"Here's the thing about building something on violence and cruelty." Union's hand found the enforcer's throat again. "Someone stronger always comes along."
He squeezed.
Kev fought. Clawed at Union's wrists. Kicked against the stripped interior. His face turned red, then purple, then a shade of blue that meant things were ending.
Union held on.
He thought about Diane walking through the ruins of her father's shop. Her hand shaking once against the destroyed workbench before going still. The tears tracking down her face while she asked him to make Kev understand.
He was making him understand.
The struggling weakened. Stopped.
Union held on for another thirty seconds, making sure.
Then he let go, and Kev Duda's body slumped forward against the steering wheel of a car he would never drive.
"Done?" Fang's voice, from behind him.
Union stepped back from the Camaro. His hands ached. His knuckles were split and bleeding. He'd been squeezing harder than he realized.
"Done."
Stockyard was already moving through the lot, checking the other men. "Two alive. Want them that way?"
"Let them run." Union wiped his hands on his jeans. "Let them tell Eddie what happened here."
Because that was the message. Not just Kev's body cooling in the driver's seat. The whole picture—his men scattered, his enforcer dead, his chop shop violated by the same Wolves he'd been trying to avoid for eighteen years.
Eddie Bartosz had wanted a war.
Now he had one.
The ride back to the compound was cold.
Late October in Chicago, the kind of night that cut through leather and reminded you that winter was coming. Union barely felt it. His mind was still in Brighton Park, still seeing Kev Duda's face turn purple, still hearing the wet sounds of a man's last breaths.
He'd killed before. Would kill again. That was the life he'd chosen when he'd traded union halls for motorcycle cuts.
But this one felt different.
This one had been personal.
He pulled into the compound lot and killed his engine, sitting on his bike in the darkness while Fang and Stockyard headed inside. His hand found his pocket, fingers closing around his grandfather's union pin.
The metal was cold against his palm.
What would the old man say about tonight's work?
His grandfather had been a hard man. Had broken scabs on picket lines. Had done things during strikes that never made it into the history books. He'd believed in collective action and solidarity, but he'd also believed that some fights required fists instead of words.
He'd understand, Union decided. A man threatened your people. You eliminated the threat. That's not murder—that's protection.
The compound door opened, spilling light across the lot.
Diane stood in the doorway.
Union pocketed the pin and walked toward her. She didn't move, just watched him approach with those gray eyes that saw too much.
"Is it done?" she asked.
"It's done."
She studied his face, his hands, the blood he hadn't quite managed to wipe away.
"Good."
No hesitation. No horror. Just acceptance of what he'd done and why he'd done it.
Union pulled her into his arms.
"Eddie's next," he said against her hair. "Alpha's planning the final assault. We'll hit his main operation before he can regroup."
"How long?"
"Days. Maybe less."
Diane pressed closer, her arms wrapping around his waist. "And then?"
"And then we rebuild your shop." He pulled back to look at her face. "Together."
She rose on her toes and kissed him—soft, brief, a promise for later.
"Come inside," she said. "You need to clean those hands."
Union let her lead him into the compound, the warmth of the clubhouse replacing the October cold. Brothers looked up as they entered, saw his bloody knuckles, understood without asking.
Kev Duda was dead.
Eddie Bartosz was running out of men.
And the Wolves were just getting started.