Chapter Seven
The tripwire on the east perimeter went off at two-fourteen a.m.
Blast was on his feet before the noise charge finished echoing, weapon in hand, every nerve singing with the familiar electricity of imminent violence.
Two days of rigging this safehouse, two days of running wire and placing sensors and turning a quiet Back of the Yards street into a killing ground—and now the bastards had finally shown up.
"Contact east," he said into his comm. "Multiple vehicles."
"Copy." Alpha's voice was ice. "Scout and I are three minutes out. Hold the position."
"Holding."
Fang materialized from the shadows of the hallway, his massive frame moving with unsettling silence. "How many?"
Blast checked the camera feed on his phone. Three vehicles—two sedans and a van—pulling to a stop at the end of the block. Men piling out with the casual efficiency of professionals who'd done this a hundred times.
Nine total. And leading them, face illuminated by the streetlight, was Tony Reznik.
"Nine hostiles. Reznik's running point." Blast's jaw tightened. "They've got accelerant. I can see the cans."
"Fire starters."
"Coming to finish what they started on her block."
A door creaked upstairs. Becca's voice drifted down, thick with sleep: "What's happening?"
"Stay in your room," Blast called up. "Lock the door. Don't come out until I tell you."
"Blast—"
"Now, Becca."
He heard her footsteps retreat, heard the click of a lock engaging, and forced himself to focus on the threat outside instead of the woman he was suddenly desperate to protect.
The arson crew was spreading out, moving toward the safehouse with practiced coordination. Two men circled toward the back. Three approached the front. The rest held position at the vehicles, playing lookout.
Reznik headed straight for the back porch, accelerant can in one hand and road flare in the other.
"They're going to light us up," Fang said.
"They're going to try."
Blast moved to the front window, checking sightlines. The crew was good—professional spacing, overlapping coverage—but they were expecting a scared woman and maybe one guard. They weren't expecting a man who'd spent four years learning how to turn hostile terrain into a death trap.
The second tripwire blew when the front team reached the porch steps.
The noise charge was non-lethal—just flash and bang, designed to disorient—but it did its job. Three men stumbled backward, hands over their ears, momentarily blind and deaf. Blast was through the front door before they recovered, his weapon up and firing.
Two dropped in the first three seconds.
The third got his gun raised, but Fang came through the door behind Blast like a freight train, catching the man's arm and twisting until the bone snapped. The scream cut off when Fang's other hand closed around his throat.
"Clear front," Blast reported. "Moving to intercept Reznik."
He rounded the corner of the house at a dead sprint, blood singing with adrenaline and something darker. Reznik was at the back porch, accelerant splashing across the wood, the road flare already sparking to life in his other hand.
"Hey, asshole."
Reznik spun.
Blast hit him before the flare could drop, driving his shoulder into the bigger man's chest and taking them both to the ground. The accelerant can went flying, splashing across the grass. The flare rolled away, hissing and sparking in the darkness.
They grappled in the wet grass, trading blows that would've dropped lesser men. Reznik was strong—stronger than he looked—and he fought with the desperate fury of someone who knew exactly what happened to arsonists who got caught.
But Blast had spent four years defusing bombs while men shot at him.
A fistfight in a Chicago backyard was almost relaxing by comparison.
He caught Reznik's wrist, twisted, and felt the satisfying pop of a dislocated shoulder. Reznik screamed, and Blast used the distraction to drive his knee into the man's ribs—once, twice, until something cracked.
"You like burning things?" Blast grabbed a fistful of Reznik's hair, forcing his head up. "You like watching people lose everything they've built?"
"Fuck you—"
Blast slammed his face into the ground.
"Three buildings on her block. Three businesses, three families, three lives destroyed." He hauled Reznik up again, blood streaming from the man's broken nose. "You did that. You lit the matches. You watched them burn."
"I was just—following orders—"
"Wrong answer."
Gunfire erupted from the front of the house—Alpha and Scout arriving, hitting the lookouts at the vehicles with the coordinated precision of men who'd trained together for years. Blast heard shouts, screams, the sharp crack of weapons doing what weapons did.
But his focus was on the man beneath him.
The man who'd driven past Becca's shop every night. Who'd laughed when he looked at her window. Who'd come here tonight with accelerant and flares, ready to burn her out of hiding like he'd burned everything else.
"You came for her," Blast said quietly. "That was your mistake."
Reznik's eyes went wide.
Blast grabbed the fallen road flare—still burning, still hot—and drove it into the arsonist's chest.
The scream was inhuman. Reznik thrashed beneath him, but Blast held him down, watching the flare burn through fabric and flesh with the same focused attention he'd given to every explosive device he'd ever defused.
"How's it feel?" he asked. "Being on the other end?"
Reznik stopped thrashing.
Blast let the flare drop and stood, breathing hard, his hands steady despite the violence still humming through his veins. The backyard was quiet now—just the hiss of the dying flare and the distant sounds of cleanup from the front of the house.
He walked back around the corner to find Alpha and Scout standing over three bodies near the vehicles. Fang emerged from the house dragging a fourth, dumping the unconscious man on the lawn with the others.
"Status?" Alpha asked.
"Reznik's done." Blast wiped blood from his knuckles. "Back yard."
"The woman?"
"Upstairs. Safe."
Alpha studied him for a long moment—that measuring look that saw everything and judged accordingly. Whatever he found in Blast's expression made him nod once.
"Scout, handle cleanup. Fang, check the perimeter." His eyes stayed on Blast. "Go tell your florist she's moving to the compound."
"She's not going to like that."
"She doesn't have to like it. She just has to survive." Alpha's voice hardened. "Dvorak will know about this by morning. He'll send more men—smarter ones, next time. The safehouse is burned."
Blast looked at the bodies scattered across the lawn, at the accelerant still gleaming on the back porch, at the chaos that had erupted in the space of five minutes.
Nine men had come to burn Becca out of hiding.
Nine men had failed.
But Alpha was right. This was just the opening move. Dvorak had been running his operation for fifteen years—he wouldn't fold because one crew got wiped. He'd regroup, reassess, and come back harder.
The safehouse wasn't safe anymore.
"I'll get her," Blast said.
He found Becca sitting on the edge of the bed, hands clasped in her lap, face pale in the dim light from the window.
She looked up when he walked in, and he saw the moment she registered the blood on his clothes, the cordite smell that clung to his skin, the energy still crackling off him from the violence he'd just committed.
"Is anyone hurt?" she asked.
His mouth curved despite everything. Of course that was her first question. Not what happened or are we safe but is anyone hurt, like she was worried about the men who'd come to kill her.
"Only the people who deserved it."
She exhaled slowly, some of the tension draining from her shoulders. "The ones who came here. The arson crew."
"They won't be bothering anyone else."
She didn't ask for details. Didn't ask what he'd done or how he'd done it. Just sat there, looking at him with those tired eyes that saw too much and judged too little.
"I heard the gunfire," she said quietly. "I was making centerpieces when it started. I just... kept working. Wiring roses while people were dying outside."
"That's called coping."
"That's called crazy."
"Potato, potato." He crossed to the bed and crouched in front of her, his scarred hands finding hers. "You did exactly what you were supposed to do. Stayed safe. Stayed out of the way. Let us handle it."
"I felt useless."
"You're alive. That's the opposite of useless." His grip tightened. "Becca, they came here to burn you out. Nine men with accelerant and flares, ready to light this place up while you slept. If you'd been at your shop, in your apartment—"
"I know." Her voice cracked. "I know."
He wanted to pull her against his chest, hold her until the shaking stopped, promise her that no one would ever threaten her again.
But there wasn't time—the bodies outside needed handling, the scene needed cleaning, and every minute they stayed was another minute Dvorak's people could be regrouping.
"We need to move," he said instead. "The safehouse is compromised. I'm taking you to the compound."
"The compound?"
"Wolf headquarters. Back of the Yards." He stood, pulling her up with him. "It's the safest place in the city right now. Dvorak doesn't have enough men to hit us there, even if he wanted to."
"And my flowers?"
Despite everything—the blood, the bodies, the reality of what had just happened—Blast laughed.
"We'll bring the damn flowers."
She managed a shaky smile. "Promise?"
"Promise."
He led her down the stairs, past the broken front door and the bloodstains on the porch, to where Fang was loading the flower buckets into the back of a van that had definitely not been there an hour ago.
"Figured you'd want these," Fang said, his stone face unchanged.
"Thank you." Becca's voice was small. "For... everything."
Fang just nodded and went back to loading.
Blast helped her into the van, then paused before closing the door.
"Becca."
She looked at him, and the fear in her eyes made his chest ache.
"You're safe now," he said. "I'm not letting anyone else get close to you."
"How can you promise that?"
He leaned in, close enough that his breath ghosted across her cheek.
"Because anyone who tries will end up like Reznik." His voice dropped to a growl. "And I won't be as quick about it next time."
He closed the door before she could respond and climbed into the driver's seat.
The compound was twenty minutes away.
Twenty minutes to get her somewhere truly safe.
Then he was going to find out exactly who'd tailed Fang's bike to the safehouse—and make sure they never made that mistake again.