Chapter 15
Wendy was in the compound's common room, reorganizing the reading corner she'd built, when her phone buzzed with an unfamiliar number. She almost didn't answer—too many telemarketers, too many scam calls—but something made her swipe accept.
"Ms. Callahan?" An older woman's voice, breathless with panic. "This is Mrs. Kowalski from the dry cleaner next door. You need to come to your store. Right now."
Her stomach dropped. "What happened?"
"They—I don't—there were men. With bats. I heard the glass breaking and I called the police, but by the time—" Mrs. Kowalski's voice cracked. "I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry."
The line went dead.
Wendy stood frozen, phone pressed to her ear, listening to silence.
"Wendy?" Blizzard appeared in the doorway, reading her expression with those flat gray eyes. "What's wrong?"
"The store." Her voice came out strange, distant. "Someone hit the store."
The drive to Bridgeport took twelve minutes.
Twelve minutes of staring through the windshield, watching familiar streets blur past, imagining every possible scenario. Break-in. Vandalism. Fire.
Nothing prepared her for reality.
Blizzard parked across the street from Callahan's Books, and Wendy's breath caught in her throat.
The front window was shattered, glass scattered across the sidewalk like diamonds in the afternoon light. The door hung crooked on its hinges. Through the gap, she could see chaos—shelves overturned, books everywhere, destruction spreading across two floors of everything she'd built.
She was out of the car before Blizzard could stop her.
"Wendy—"
"I need to see."
She crossed the street on unsteady legs, glass crunching beneath her boots. The door gave way when she pushed, swinging inward with a groan of damaged wood.
And then she stopped. Stared. Tried to process what she was seeing.
Books.
Thousands of them, scattered across the floor like fallen soldiers. Paperbacks with spines cracked, hardcovers with pages torn out, vintage editions she'd spent months collecting ripped and ruined. The shelves that had held them lay toppled in every direction, wood splintered, displays destroyed.
She took a step forward. Another. Her feet sank into piles of damaged paper, ankle-deep in the wreckage of her life's work.
"No," she whispered. "No, no, no—"
Her reading chair. The one she'd positioned in the corner, the one where customers sat for hours lost in stories. Someone had taken a knife to it—slashed the cushions, pulled out the stuffing, left it gutted and ruined.
Her counter. Gouged with something sharp, deep scratches spelling words she couldn't bring herself to read.
Her mystery section. Where Hemingway had held court for three years. Empty now, the shelves torn from the wall, her cat's kingdom reduced to rubble.
Wendy sank to her knees in the middle of the destruction, a torn paperback in her hands. The cover was barely recognizable—a romance she'd sold a dozen copies of, its pages now scattered across the floor like confetti.
She'd built this place from nothing. Poured every cent she had into inventory, into repairs, into creating something that mattered. And someone had destroyed it in an afternoon.
Arthur Dante.
The rage hit her like a wave, sweeping away the grief. Her hands curled into fists, her jaw clenched so hard her teeth ached.
"Wendy."
Blizzard stood behind her, silent as always, but she could feel his presence like a shield.
"I'm okay," she said, though they both knew it was a lie.
"There's something on the counter."
She looked up. Through the chaos, she could see a sheet of paper sitting on the damaged wood, weighted down by a brick. Clean. White. Untouched by the destruction around it.
Wendy stood and picked her way across the wreckage, boots sliding on torn pages. When she reached the counter, she saw what he'd seen.
A price list.
Arthur Dante's fencing rates, printed in neat columns. Storage fees. Commission percentages. Terms of partnership.
And across the top, in heavy black marker: LAST OFFER.
Wendy stared at the paper for a long moment.
Then she picked it up, folded it carefully into a rectangle, and slid it into her back pocket.
"What are you doing?" Blizzard asked.
"Keeping a bookmark." She turned to face him, and whatever he saw in her expression made him go still. "I want Danny Straka to understand something."
"What?"
Her voice came out cold. Harder than she'd ever heard it.
"Books survive things their destroyers don't."
They stayed until the police came.
Wendy gave her statement in a voice that sounded like someone else's—calm, detached, reciting facts without emotion. Yes, she'd been receiving threats. Yes, she knew who was responsible. No, she couldn't prove it.
The officers took notes, made sympathetic noises, promised to investigate. Wendy watched them the way she'd watch background characters in a story she didn't care about.
When they left, Blizzard touched her shoulder.
"We should go back to the compound."
"Not yet." She looked around at the devastation—her devastation. "Help me find what's salvageable."
They worked in silence for an hour.
Most of the inventory was destroyed beyond repair—pages torn, spines cracked, water damage from where someone had smashed the pipes in the back room. But some books had survived, knocked to the floor before the worst of the destruction reached them.
Wendy collected them one by one. A first edition mystery. Three romance paperbacks. The western that Stockyard pretended not to read. A military history that reminded her of Blizzard.
Forty-seven books. Out of thousands.
She put them in a box Blizzard found in the alley, handling each one like it was precious. Because it was. Every surviving book was proof that Arthur Dante hadn't won. That destruction couldn't erase everything.
"This one's special," Blizzard said quietly.
She looked up to see him holding a battered paperback with a creased spine. Mountain Warfare: Lessons from the Hindu Kush.
The book he'd bought the first day he walked into her store.
"You left it here," she said.
"Forgot it on the counter. The day Dante first threatened you." He turned it over in his hands. "Thought it was gone."
"It survived."
"Yeah." He looked at her, something warm breaking through his usual flatness. "Some things do."
The compound was quiet when they returned.
Word had spread—it always did, in the pack. Brothers nodded as they passed, silent solidarity that spoke louder than words. The old ladies appeared one by one, offering food, comfort, the practical support of women who understood what it meant to have your sanctuary violated.
Wendy sat in the reading corner she'd built, surrounded by books she'd rescued from other people's discards, and tried to feel something besides cold rage.
She couldn't.
"He's escalating." Alpha's voice carried from the chapel doorway. He'd been watching her for several minutes, arms crossed, expression grim. "Dante. This is desperation."
"Good." The word came out harder than she intended. "Desperate men make mistakes."
"They also burn brighter before they flame out." Alpha stepped into the common room, Razor and Fang flanking him. "We need to move on him before he does something we can't predict."
"Danny Straka first." Blizzard's voice, from somewhere behind her. "He's the one who led the crew. He needs to answer."
"Agreed." Alpha's eyes shifted to Wendy. "You want in on that conversation?"
She should have said no. Should have let the Wolves handle their business while she stayed safe at the compound.
Instead, she stood and faced the president of the club that had become her family.
"Danny Straka destroyed my store. Tore apart everything I built. Left a price list on my counter like my life's work was just another negotiation." Her voice was steady, cold, unrecognizable. "I don't want in on the conversation. I want to watch it end."
Alpha studied her for a long moment.
Then he nodded.
"Tomorrow night. Scout's got a location. We move fast, clean, and permanent." His gaze shifted to Blizzard. "Keep your woman close. Dante might try something before then."
"She's not leaving my sight."
"Good." Alpha turned and walked back toward the chapel, Razor and Fang falling in behind him.
Wendy stood in the reading corner, surrounded by rescued books and crude furniture and the particular warmth of a place that had accepted her completely.
Arthur Dante had destroyed her store.
Tomorrow, she'd watch his empire start to crumble.
And she'd be holding a bookmark made from his last offer when it did.