Chapter Eighteen
The chapel smelled like leather and gun oil and the particular tension of men about to go to war.
Becca stood in the corner, back against the reinforced wall, the only woman in a room full of patched Wolves. She shouldn't have been here. Church was sacred — brothers only, chapel doors closed, what happened inside these walls staying inside these walls.
Alpha had made the exception himself.
"She's got intel we need," he'd said when Razor's eyebrow went up. "She stays."
Nobody argued. Not because they agreed, but because Alpha's word was the word, and the word had been spoken.
Blast moved to the head of the table carrying a rolled-up map that he spread across the scarred wood with the energy of a man who'd been waiting for this moment since the first time he walked past a burned-out laundromat in Pilsen.
"Frank's staging warehouse," he said. "Gage Park. Corner of Fifty-First and Artesian. This is where he stores accelerant, meets clients, and plans every burn he's run for the last fifteen years."
The map was hand-drawn. Blast's work — she recognized his handwriting from the notes he left on the compound fridge.
But where those notes said things like touched your leftover pizza, don't be mad, this one showed entry points, sight lines, and structural details rendered with an attention to detail that bordered on obsessive.
"Security?" Alpha asked from the head of the table.
"Minimal since we wiped his crew. He's down to two, maybe three hired guns — freelancers, not professionals.
" Blast tapped the loading dock on the east wall.
"The building's the real problem. Old industrial construction, poured concrete foundation, brick walls, steel roof trusses.
Multiple entry points, interior offices with limited visibility, and enough accelerant stored inside to level half the block if someone gets stupid. "
"Nobody's getting stupid," Razor said. It wasn't a request.
"Which is why we go in controlled." Blast traced the building's perimeter with his finger. "Two breach points. Front entrance here — steel door, commercial hardware, takes about four seconds with the right tool. Loading dock here — roll-up door, chain mechanism, Fang can rip it in two."
Fang didn't react. Didn't need to.
"What about the accelerant?" Stockyard leaned forward, arms crossed. "You said enough to level the block."
"Stored in drums along the east wall. Industrial containers, properly sealed." Blast's mouth curved. "Frank's a professional. He doesn't leave volatile materials unsecured. The drums won't blow unless someone opens them and introduces an ignition source."
"Or shoots one," Lakeshore said quietly.
"Don't shoot the drums." Blast held Lakeshore's gaze. "Shoot the people."
A beat of dark laughter moved through the chapel.
Razor pulled the map closer, studying entry angles. "When do we move?"
"Tuesday night."
"Why Tuesday?"
Every head in the room turned toward Becca.
She pushed off the wall and stepped forward. Her heart was hammering, but her voice came out clean.
"Because that's when his developer contact visits," she said. "Standing meeting, every Tuesday at nine p.m. They review targets, approve contracts, handle payments."
"How do you know this?" Fang's voice was flat. Direct. No hostility — just a man who needed his information verified before he'd stake his life on it.
"Rosa Gutierrez. My neighbor from the block.
Her brother Miguel does overnight maintenance on the building — janitorial contract through a cleaning company that doesn't ask questions about what's stored in the warehouse.
" Becca met Fang's gaze without flinching.
"Miguel's been watching Frank for months.
His cousin owned the restaurant on Damen that Frank burned two years ago.
He's been waiting for someone to do something about it. "
"And he gave you this information freely?" Razor asked.
"He gave it to me because I asked. Because I'm the woman who arranged flowers for his cousin's daughter's baptism and his mother's funeral." She kept her voice steady. "People talk to me because I'm part of the neighborhood. Frank forgot that when he started burning it down."
Silence in the chapel. The kind that weighed and measured and decided.
Alpha nodded once. "Good intel."
"It's accurate intel." Becca let the words settle. "Frank Dvorak destroyed my shop. He burned half my neighborhood. The least I can do is help you end him."
Something shifted in the room. She felt it — a recalibration, the brothers adjusting their assessment of the woman in the corner.
Not just Blast's woman. Not just a civilian under protection.
Someone who brought value. Who'd earned her seat at this table through the same thing that had earned her place in Pilsen.
Showing up. Doing the work. Being part of something bigger than herself.
Blast caught her eye across the table, and the pride in his expression hit her like a physical thing.
"Tuesday night," Alpha said. "We hit the warehouse while Frank's meeting with the developer. Two problems solved at once."
"What about the developer?" Scout asked from his chair by the door. "He's been funding this whole operation. Writing checks for buildings to burn."
"He wanted to torch a neighborhood for condos." Alpha's voice could have frozen Lake Michigan. "He can answer for that standing next to the man he hired."
Razor took over, and the briefing shifted from intelligence to execution. Entry assignments, positioning, contingencies. Becca listened, absorbing what she could, watching the brotherhood operate with the coordination of men who'd done this before.
But her attention kept drifting to Blast.
He stood at the table tracing the warehouse layout with his scarred fingers, reading the building the way she read arrangements — seeing the structure underneath, the weak points, the places where pressure would make everything give.
His energy was focused in a way she'd rarely seen — the manic crackle channeled into something precise and sharp, every bit of restless motion aimed at solving one final problem.
"Blast, Fang — loading dock," Alpha assigned. "Breach on my signal."
"Copy."
"Scout, you're on exits. Nobody leaves that building."
"Understood."
"Razor, you're with me through the front." Alpha surveyed the room. "Questions?"
"One." Stockyard raised a hand. "What happens to the warehouse after?"
Every eye went to Blast.
His grin came back — the sharp one, the one that said someone's evening was about to get dramatically worse.
"It burns," he said. "Fifteen years of arson documentation, accelerant inventory, client records — all of it. Frank built his career making buildings disappear." His voice dropped. "Seems fitting that his goes the same way."
"Poetic," Lakeshore murmured.
"I have my moments."
Alpha stood, and the chapel rose with him. "Tuesday. Nine p.m. Full kit. Nobody talks about this outside these walls."
Brothers filed out. Becca pressed herself against the wall to let them pass — big men in leather, smelling like oil and intent, each one carrying the quiet focus of someone preparing for violence. Stockyard nodded to her as he passed. Lakeshore gave her a look that might have been respect.
Fang walked by without a glance, which from Fang was practically a hug.
Blast was last. He stopped in front of her, filling the chapel doorway, his energy humming at a frequency she felt in her teeth.
"You were good in there," he said.
"I told the truth. That's not hard."
"In a room full of men planning an assault? For most people, it's terrifying."
"I'm not most people."
"No." His hand came up, tucking a curl behind her ear. "You're not."
The garage was controlled chaos.
Brothers moved between bikes and gear lockers, checking weapons, loading magazines, pulling on vests with the practiced rhythm of a pre-game routine. Becca stood at the edge of the space and watched Blast prepare.
He moved through his checklist without hurry. Vest strapped and adjusted. Weapon checked, holstered, checked again. Something small and cylindrical packed into his saddlebag that she didn't ask about because she already knew.
His hands were steady. Rock-solid, not a tremor, the scarred fingers moving through familiar tasks with a certainty that made her chest ache.
She remembered the first night she'd watched those hands — in the garage, wiring a proximity sensor, the focus on his face so different from his usual manic energy. She'd held them still that night. Felt them shake with six years of grief he'd been drowning in noise.
They weren't shaking now.
He crossed to her. The garage noise faded — brothers talking, engines turning over, the clatter of metal on metal — and for a moment it was just the two of them in a pocket of quiet.
"I'll be back in a few hours," he said. "This time tomorrow, it's done. Frank's gone, your neighborhood's safe, and we start building."
"Promise?"
"Promise." He kissed her forehead, his lips warm against her skin. "I've got too many plans to die tonight."
"What kind of plans?"
"The kind that involve mornings that smell like flowers." His eyes softened into something that made her breath catch. "And maybe a ring. If you're open to it."
The world stopped.
"Keith—"
"Not now." He pressed a finger to her lips. "When I get back. We'll talk about it then."
He kissed her. Hard and fast, his hand cupping the back of her neck, pouring everything he couldn't say into three seconds of contact.
She grabbed his cut and held on, feeling the leather creak under her fingers, breathing him in — oil and leather and the sharp clean scent of a man about to go to war.
"Come back," she said against his mouth.
"Wild horses, sweetheart."
He pulled away, and the noise of the garage rushed back in. Brothers mounting bikes, engines roaring to life, the building vibrating with horsepower and purpose.
"Blast." Alpha's voice cut through the chaos. "You're on point. Lead us in."
"Copy that."
Becca watched him swing onto his bike. The leather of his cut stretched across his shoulders, the wolf patch catching the fluorescent light. He looked back at her once — just once — and the intensity in his eyes said everything his words hadn't.
Wait for me. I'm coming back. This isn't over.
This is just beginning.
The bikes rolled out one after another. Alpha behind Blast. Razor flanking. Fang and Scout and Stockyard and Lakeshore, a wall of chrome and leather pouring out of the garage and into the Chicago night.
The sound was enormous. Thunderous. The rumble of V-twins echoing off the compound walls like a war drum.
Then it faded. Distance swallowing the noise, the engines growing quieter, the thunder becoming a hum becoming silence.
The compound went still.
Claire appeared beside her. Then Natalie. Then Molly. The old ladies gathering in the empty lot like they'd done this a hundred times before, standing shoulder to shoulder in the space their men had just vacated.
"Come inside," Claire said. "I'll make coffee."
Becca didn't move. She was staring at the gate where the bikes had disappeared, the silence pressing in around her, the absence of Blast's energy leaving a void that felt physical.
Maybe a ring. If you're open to it.
"Becca." Claire's hand found her arm. Gentle. Knowing. "They come back. They always come back."
She turned from the gate. Followed the women inside. Sat at the bar with coffee she couldn't taste and hands she couldn't steady, surrounded by the particular quiet of women who loved men who rode into violence and came home smelling like gunpowder and gasoline.
Somewhere in Gage Park, Blast was leading the pack toward a warehouse full of accelerant and a man who'd spent fifteen years making buildings disappear.
And Becca sat in the compound, holding onto a promise and a word that hadn't quite been spoken.
Ring.
She pressed her hands flat on the bar and made them stop shaking.
He was coming back.
He had to come back.
There were mornings to build.