Chapter 21
Reagan had never been inside the chapel before.
The room was smaller than she'd expected—a reinforced door, a heavy oak table, chairs for the officers and a few along the walls. The Ridgerunner banner hung behind the president's seat, chrome and leather and the open road stitched into fabric.
This was where decisions got made. Where the club planned wars and passed judgments and decided who lived and who died.
And she was sitting at the table.
"Everyone's here." Still's voice cut through the murmur of conversation. The room went quiet instantly—officers straightening in their chairs, brothers along the wall going still. "Let's get to it."
Reagan felt the weight of attention shift around the room.
Cottonmouth sat to Still's right, cold eyes scanning.
Limestone anchored the other side, solid as his namesake.
Current had maps spread across the table.
Spillway, Tailwater, Proof—every officer she'd met over the past weeks, all of them focused on the task at hand.
And Channel, standing at the end of the table, looking like he wanted to be anywhere else.
"Prospect." Still gestured him forward. "You've got the floor."
Channel stepped up to the table. Reagan watched his shoulders square, watched him push down whatever nerves were churning in his gut. When he spoke, his voice was steady.
"Farris is running out of options. We took Culver at the bluff cabin. Bowlin during the compound assault. Groves at the staging house." He pointed to Current's map. "His crew is scattered, his fence network disrupted, his lieutenants dead. He's got maybe six men left who haven't run."
"And he's desperate," Cottonmouth added. "Desperate men do stupid things."
"Or smart things." Limestone crossed his arms. "He could cut his losses. Disappear. Start over somewhere else."
"He won't." Reagan spoke before she could second-guess herself. Every eye in the room turned to her. "Farris doesn't cut losses. He doubles down."
Still's gaze was assessing. "You know him?"
"I know his operation. He tried to recruit my store for three weeks before he sent Culver to threaten me.
" Reagan leaned forward, organizing her thoughts the way she'd organize inventory.
"Farris runs his crew like a business. Routes, schedules, delivery windows.
Everything documented, everything tracked.
That's how he moves stolen merchandise across three states without getting caught. "
"And you know these routes?"
"Some of them. The retail side—when deliveries were supposed to arrive, what kind of merchandise, pickup schedules." She looked at Channel. "He told me Farris runs a warehouse. Storage facility for everything before it ships to buyers."
Channel nodded. "Off the lake highway. We confirmed the location after we hit Groves's staging house. It's where Farris keeps the high-value merchandise—jewelry, electronics, anything worth serious money."
"Security?" Spillway asked.
"Light during the day. Heavier at night when they're moving product." Channel's finger traced the map. "But there's a window. Every Tuesday night, Farris personally inventories the week's take. Counts everything, documents it for his buyers. Skeleton crew—him and two, maybe three others."
"How do you know his schedule?" Cottonmouth's voice was sharp. Skeptical.
"Because I told him." Reagan met the sergeant at arms's cold gaze without flinching.
"Farris kept his patterns consistent. Mondays were property hits.
Tuesdays were inventory and packing. Wednesdays, the trucks shipped out.
He explained it when he was trying to recruit me—showed me how organized he was, how professional.
Like that would make me feel better about fencing stolen goods. "
"And you remember all this?"
"I remember everything about the men who threatened to burn me out." Reagan's voice was flat. "Every pattern, every schedule, every weakness. That's how I survived."
Silence. Then Still nodded slowly.
"Good intel. Current, confirm the warehouse layout. Spillway, I want entry and exit points mapped by tonight." He turned to Channel. "Walk us through the approach."
Channel stepped closer to the map, and Reagan saw his hands shake slightly before he steadied them on the table's edge. Nervous. But he pushed through it, pointing to positions, explaining angles, laying out a plan with the precision of someone who'd trained his whole life for this.
"We hit from three sides. Cottonmouth and Limestone take the front—main loading bay, most likely point of escape. Spillway and Tailwater cover the back, cut off the access road. I take the side entry with Proof, breach while they're focused on the front."
"Where's Farris likely to be?"
"Interior office. That's where he does the inventory counts, according to Reagan's intel." Channel glanced at her, and something warm flickered behind the nerves. "We push him toward Cottonmouth's position at the loading bay. Corner him. End it."
"And if he's not there?" Limestone asked. "If the intel's wrong?"
"Then we adapt." Channel's voice hardened. "But he'll be there. Tuesday night inventory is the one thing he never changes. It's how he controls his operation. Without it, his buyers don't trust the numbers."
"Control freak," Cottonmouth muttered. "Those are the easiest to predict."
"And the most dangerous when cornered." Still leaned back in his chair, studying the map. "This isn't a smash and grab. Farris knows we're coming. He's been waiting for this since we took Groves."
"Then we don't give him time to prepare." Channel's voice was steady now, the nerves burning off as the plan took shape. "Tomorrow's Tuesday. We hit him before he has a chance to adjust."
"Tomorrow." Still's gaze swept the table. "That's fast."
"Every day we wait is a day he recruits more men or disappears entirely." Channel straightened. "I know I'm just a prospect. I know I haven't earned my vote yet. But this plan is solid, and we've got the intel to make it work. If the brothers approve, I'll take point."
Reagan's heart clenched. Take point. Walk into Farris's warehouse first, face whatever was waiting inside before anyone else.
Still studied Channel for a long moment. Then he looked at Reagan.
"You trust this plan?"
The question surprised her. She wasn't a brother. Wasn't an officer. She was a thrift store owner who'd stumbled into a war she never asked for.
But Still was asking her opinion. At the Church table. In front of every officer in the Ozark Ridgerunners.
"I trust the man presenting it," she said. "And I trust the intel, because I lived it."
Something shifted in Still's expression. Respect, maybe. Or recognition that the woman sitting at his table had earned her place.
"Then we vote." He looked around the room. "All in favor of hitting Farris tomorrow night?"
One by one, the officers raised their hands. Cottonmouth. Limestone. Current. Spillway. Tailwater. Proof.
Unanimous.
"Motion carries." Still stood, and the room rose with him. "Gear up tonight. We ride at sunset. And somebody get the prospect a drink—he looks like he's about to pass out."
Laughter rippled through the room, tension breaking as brothers clapped Channel on the shoulder and moved toward the door. Reagan stayed seated, watching him absorb the approval, watching the nervous kid disappear into the warrior who'd planned a war.
He caught her eye across the table and smiled.
She smiled back.
The hours that followed blurred into preparation. Brothers checking weapons, loading gear, running through positions one more time. Reagan helped where she could—packing medical supplies, organizing ammunition, doing the logistics work that came naturally after years of running a store.
But as sunset approached, she found herself standing alone in Channel's cabin, waiting.
He came through the door with his cut in his hands, freshly cleaned, the prospect patches sharp against the leather. His face was focused, intent—the face of a man preparing for battle.
"Hey," he said.
"Hey."
He crossed to the small mirror on the wall and shrugged into the cut, adjusting the shoulders, checking the fit. Reagan watched him, her chest tight with something she couldn't name.
"You don't have to do this," she said.
"Yes, I do."
"Farris threatened me. Burned my store. This is my fight."
"It stopped being just your fight the minute you became mine." He turned to face her, his expression fierce. "This is what I do, Reagan. Protect what matters. Fight for the people I love."
"And if something goes wrong?"
"It won't."
"Channel—"
"It won't." He crossed to her, cupped her face in his hands. "I've trained for this my whole life. First with the Marines, now with the club. I know how to clear a room, how to watch my brothers' backs, how to come home when the fighting's done."
"You'd better." Her voice cracked. "Because I didn't survive all of this just to lose you at the end."
He kissed her. Hard and fast and full of promise.
"You won't lose me."
Reagan pulled back and looked at him—at the cut hanging loose on his shoulders, at the determination in his eyes. This was the man she'd chosen. The man who'd walked into her store looking for a jacket and decided she was worth protecting.
"Wait," she said.
She reached up and straightened his cut, adjusting the collar, smoothing the leather across his shoulders. Her fingers lingered on the prospect patch, the one that would become a full patch if he survived tonight.
"There." She stepped back. "Now you look like you're ready to end a war."
Channel's throat worked. He caught her hand before she could pull away, brought it to his lips, kissed her knuckles.
"Wait for me," he said.
"Always."
Boots on the porch. Cottonmouth's voice through the door: "We're rolling."
Channel held her gaze for one more moment. Then he turned and walked out.
Reagan stood in the empty cabin, her hand still warm where he'd kissed it, and listened to the bikes start. One by one, engines roared to life—the sound of a brotherhood going to war.
She moved to the window and watched them ride out. Channel's bike was near the front, right behind Still and Cottonmouth. Where a prospect who'd earned his place belonged.
The gates closed behind them.
The compound went quiet.
And Reagan sat down to wait for the man she loved to come home.