Chapter 3
The chapel fell silent when Legion walked in.
Seven men around a scarred wooden table, cigarette smoke curling toward exposed rafters, the weight of decades of combined combat experience filling the room. His brothers. His responsibility. The family he'd built from operators the Army had used up and thrown away.
"Church is in session." Legion took his seat at the head of the table. "We've got a situation."
Ghost leaned back in his chair, Delta-quiet and watchful. "The bodies Forge just made disappear?"
"Those were symptoms." Legion pulled out his phone, brought up the photos he'd taken at Hannah's clinic. "This is the disease."
He passed the phone around, letting them see the destruction. The smashed equipment. The scattered files. Hannah's black eye, captured in a shot she didn't know he'd taken.
Forge's jaw tightened when he saw it. "Someone did that to a woman?"
"Someone did that to our woman." The words came out harder than Legion intended.
He saw the looks exchanged around the table—curiosity, surprise, the beginning of something like amusement.
He ignored all of it. "She runs a PT clinic near Liberty.
Specializes in veterans. Three of her patients have overdosed in the past three months. "
"Overdoses happen." Static's voice was careful. "Lot of brothers come home broken. Pills are easy."
"These weren't accidents." Legion laid out what Hannah had told him—the phone calls, the pattern, the targeted approach. "Someone's using her patient records to identify marks. Veterans with chronic pain conditions who are already in the system."
"Hunting ground." Ghost's flat affect didn't change, but his eyes went cold. "They're using her clinic as a target list."
"And when she started asking questions, they sent muscle to shut her up."
Silence around the table. These men had seen worse—had done worse, in places that didn't appear on official maps. But this was different. This was home. This was their people being hunted on ground they'd bled for.
"I've heard rumors." Ghost pulled a cigarette from his pack, lit it with steady hands. "New pipeline running product through the veteran community. High-quality stuff, pharmaceutical grade. Word is there's a pain clinic involved—legit front, dirty operation."
"Which clinic?"
"Still working on that." Ghost exhaled smoke toward the ceiling. "But the overdose pattern matches. Someone's targeting vets who are already managing chronic conditions. Offering them alternatives that turn out to be death sentences."
Cargo spoke up from the far end of the table. "My cousin's boy. Philip. Twenty-two, Ranger tab, fucked his back on a training jump." His voice went rough. "Overdosed six weeks ago. His mama said he was doing better. Said some doctor called him about a new treatment."
The temperature in the room dropped ten degrees.
"Same thing happened to Trooper's neighbor," Forge added. "Old Airborne sergeant, been managing pain since Vietnam. Someone got to him with promises of cheaper meds. He's dead now too."
Legion let the anger build around the table. These weren't statistics. These were their brothers, their families, their community. Someone was hunting in their territory, and they'd been too slow to see it.
Not anymore.
"Here's what we know." He kept his voice controlled, the way he'd learned to in briefings where the stakes were measured in body counts.
"Professional operation, possibly connected to larger distribution networks.
They've got medical access—either a crooked clinic or someone inside the system feeding them patient data.
They've got muscle, at least enough to send two contractors after a civilian PT. "
"Had muscle," Trooper corrected. "Past tense now."
"They'll send more. And they'll be looking for whoever made their boys disappear."
"Let them look." Forge's scarred hands curled into fists on the table. "We'll be waiting."
"That's not how we're playing this." Legion shook his head. "We're not sitting defensive while they pick off more veterans. We're going hunting."
He laid out the situation—Hannah's knowledge of patient patterns, the destroyed clinic, the need to protect her while they dismantled whatever operation was targeting their people.
Around the table, heads nodded. This was what they did.
What they'd always done, from the mountains of Afghanistan to the streets of Fayetteville.
"The woman." Ghost's voice cut through the planning. "She's at the compound now?"
"Guest quarters."
"And she's cooperating?"
Legion thought about Hannah—the fury in her eyes, the stubborn set of her jaw, the way she'd argued with him even standing in the ruins of everything she'd built. Cooperating wasn't exactly the word he'd use.
"She understands the situation."
Recon snorted. "That's not what I asked."
"She's under my protection." Legion's tone left no room for debate. "She stays at the compound until this is handled. Anyone has a problem with that, speak now."
Silence.
"Good." He looked around the table, meeting each brother's eyes.
"Ghost, I need everything you can find on pain clinics operating in the Fayetteville area.
Legal, illegal, anything that might be connected to pharmaceutical distribution.
Trooper, pull the files on every overdose death in the veteran community over the past year. I want patterns."
"And the muscle that's coming?" Forge asked. "Because they will come. Someone's going to want answers about their missing contractors."
"Let them come." Legion's voice went flat. "We'll give them the same answers we gave the last two."
The meeting continued—assignments handed out, resources allocated, the machinery of war grinding into motion. His brothers knew their jobs. They'd been doing this since long before the club existed, in uniforms instead of cuts.
When the last assignment was given, Legion stood. "One more thing. This operation—whatever it is—has been running for months. Maybe longer. They've gotten comfortable, gotten sloppy. That ends now."
"What's the endgame?" Static asked. "We shutting them down or sending a message?"
"Both." Legion's eyes swept the room. "Whoever's running this is going to learn what happens when you hunt in Black Ops territory. And when we find them—"
"When we find them," Forge finished, cracking his knuckles, "we're going to remind them why Special Forces doesn't play nice with drug dealers."
Murmurs of agreement around the table. Legion felt the familiar weight settling over him—command, responsibility, the knowledge that these men would follow him into any fight he led them toward.
"Church is closed. Get to work."
The brothers filed out, already pulling phones and making calls. Legion stayed at the table, staring at the photo of Hannah's destroyed clinic on his phone. Her black eye stared back at him, accusation and challenge wrapped in purple bruising.
He'd seen a lot of damaged things in his career.
Broken operators, shattered villages, the wreckage of wars that never officially happened.
But something about Hannah's defiance—the way she'd stood in the ruins of her life's work and still found the spine to argue with him—had gotten under his skin.
She wasn't just a civilian caught in crossfire.
She was his civilian now. His to protect. His to keep safe.
And whoever had put that bruise on her face was going to die screaming.
"You're taking point personally?"
Legion looked up. Recon stood in the doorway, arms crossed, expression unreadable. The warlord had known him longest—they'd served together before the club existed, back when they were both wearing green and pretending the things they did served a purpose larger than survival.
"Someone has to."
"Someone." Recon's eyebrow rose. "Not one of the brothers. You. The president. Running protection detail on a civilian PT."
"She's got intel we need."
"She's got something." The words hung in the air, heavy with implication. "Haven't seen you this wound up since... hell, I don't think I've ever seen you this wound up."
Legion stood, pushing back from the table. "She's under my protection. That's all that matters right now."
"If you say so."
"I do."
Recon studied him for a long moment, that flat operator's gaze that saw everything and gave nothing away.
Then he nodded once and turned to leave.
"Be careful, brother." His voice drifted back from the hallway. "Getting attached makes you sloppy. And these people have already proven they're willing to kill."
Legion didn't answer.
He was already heading for the guest quarters, where a stubborn woman with a black eye was probably plotting her escape.
She could plot all she wanted.
She wasn't going anywhere.