Chapter 7
He was already awake, already dressed, already running scenarios. Three days since Burch's last drive-by. Three days of radio silence from Trask's operation—too quiet, too patient, the kind of pause that came before violence.
Smugglers hated loose ends. They escalated on predictable schedules. And Paige Kincaid had been a loose end for too long.
He crossed the hallway in three strides and opened her door without knocking. She was sitting up in bed, weapon already in hand, eyes sharp despite the hour.
"How many?" she asked.
"Ten vehicles. Probably ten to twelve men." He tossed her the jacket she'd left draped over a chair. "Burch is done with warnings. This is an elimination run."
Paige was on her feet before he finished speaking, pulling the jacket over her tank top, checking her magazine with movements that were pure muscle memory. No fear. No hesitation. Just cold readiness that made something fierce and possessive surge through Channel's chest.
Mine, he thought, savage and certain. They're not touching what's mine.
"Brothers?" she asked.
"Already positioned." He'd called it in yesterday, gut instinct saying Trask was done waiting.
Hurricane and Riptide were covering the coast road approach.
Compass had the creek side. Trawler was somewhere in the marsh with a rifle and a clear line of sight to the front yard.
"We've got the advantage. They don't know we're ready. "
"Then let's use it."
They moved through the dark inn together, silent as ghosts.
Channel guided her with a hand on her hip—possessive, positioning, keeping her close—and she let him without argument.
The retired couple and the solo traveler had checked out yesterday.
Just the two of them now, and ten men coming to kill them.
The first hint of dawn was bleeding across the horizon when headlights appeared on the access road.
"Basement," Channel said, his voice low and commanding. "The egress point we set up—"
"I'm not hiding in a basement while you fight." Paige's eyes flashed, steel beneath the surface. "Give me a sector."
"Paige—"
"I've held positions under mortar fire, Channel. Give me a goddamn sector."
He wanted to argue. Wanted to throw her over his shoulder and lock her somewhere safe where bullets couldn't find her. But he'd seen her shoot. Seen the calm that came over her when violence was imminent. She wasn't a liability—she was an asset.
And there wasn't time.
"East garden," he said, hating every word. "Behind the stone wall. Covers the approach from the parking area."
"Got it." She rose on her toes and kissed him—hard, fast, a promise and a demand. "Don't die."
"Same to you."
Then she was gone, slipping through the back door into the gray predawn, and Channel forced himself to focus on the job instead of the woman he was already half in love with.
The attack came fast and brutal.
Burch's men poured out of their vehicles with weapons drawn, fanning across the front yard in a formation that spoke to training—ex-military, private security, the kind of muscle Trask paid premium for.
Channel counted eleven, including Burch himself bringing up the rear, the enforcer's dead eyes scanning the property like he could smell blood on the wind.
Hurricane hit them first.
The VP came out of the treeline like a force of nature, his opening shot dropping the lead man before anyone registered the threat. Then Riptide was there, flanking from the opposite side, and suddenly Trask's professional formation was a killing field.
Channel moved.
He came off the porch low and fast, using the chaos as cover. A man turned toward him and Channel put two rounds in his chest before he could raise his weapon. Another tried to run for the vehicles and Channel dropped him with a shot to the spine.
Gunfire erupted from the east garden—Paige's sector—and he heard the distinctive crack of her service weapon. Once. Twice. A scream.
She's holding. The knowledge burned through him like fire. That's my woman, and she's holding.
Burch's crew was good, but they'd walked into an ambush expecting an easy target. Half of them were down in the first thirty seconds. The rest scattered for cover, returning fire with the desperation of men who'd just realized they were the prey instead of the predator.
Channel caught sight of Burch himself, the enforcer crouched behind an SUV and barking orders into a radio. Calling for backup. Calling for extraction. Calling for something that wasn't going to save him.
A bullet tore past Channel's ear—close enough to feel the heat—and he rolled behind a garden planter, adrenaline screaming through his veins. Return fire chewed up the stone inches from his head.
"Channel!" Compass's voice, from somewhere in the chaos. "Burch is trying to flank the east garden!"
Paige's position.
Channel was moving before conscious thought could catch up. He vaulted a low hedge, fired twice at a man who got in his way, and sprinted toward the east side of the property where Burch was circling like a shark.
He found them in the rose garden.
Paige was behind the stone wall, exactly where he'd put her, trading fire with two of Burch's men. One was down, clutching a destroyed knee. The other was using his body as cover, trying to get an angle on her.
And Burch was coming up behind her, dead silent, weapon raised.
"PAIGE!"
She spun at his shout, saw Burch, and moved with a speed that stole Channel's breath. Dropped flat as Burch's shot went over her head. Rolled. Came up firing.
Her first round caught Burch in the shoulder, spinning him. Her second went wide as he stumbled. And then Channel was there, closing the distance in three savage strides, tackling the enforcer into the rose bushes with enough force to splinter the trellis.
They hit the ground hard, Burch's weapon flying. The man was bigger, heavier, with the kind of brute strength that came from years of hurting people. His fist connected with Channel's jaw hard enough to send stars spinning across his vision.
Channel took the hit and answered with an elbow to Burch's throat.
The enforcer gagged, hands flying to his crushed windpipe, and Channel used the opening to pin him.
Fist after fist, driving into Burch's face with a fury that had nothing to do with the club and everything to do with the burned dock, the dead cat, the threats against the woman Channel had claimed as his.
"You burned her dock," Channel snarled, another punch splitting Burch's lip. "Left a dead animal on her doorstep." Another punch, this one cracking bone. "Came to her home and threatened to destroy everything she built."
Burch tried to throw him off, but the shoulder wound was bleeding freely now, his movements weak and uncoordinated. Channel grabbed his head and slammed it into the ground once, twice, feeling something give.
"She's mine," he growled, close enough to see the fear finally registering in Burch's dead eyes. "And nobody threatens what's mine."
The final blow crushed Burch's temple.
The enforcer went limp beneath him, dead eyes staring at nothing, and Channel staggered to his feet with his knuckles bloody and his chest heaving. Around him, the sounds of combat were fading—fewer shots, more screaming, the cleanup phase of an ambush well executed.
"Channel."
He turned to find Paige standing behind the stone wall, weapon still raised, her face pale but her hands steady. She was looking at him like she'd never seen him before—or maybe like she was finally seeing all of him.
"You okay?" she asked.
"Yeah." He crossed to her, stepping over Burch's body without looking down, and pulled her against his chest. Held her so tight he could feel her heart pounding against his. "You?"
"Alive." Her arms came around him, fierce and trembling. "That counts for something."
"Counts for everything."
The aftermath was brutal arithmetic.
Seven of Burch's men dead, scattered across the inn's grounds like fallen leaves.
Two more wounded badly enough that they wouldn't be causing problems anytime soon.
Two had escaped in the chaos—running for the vehicles before Hurricane could cut them off—which meant Trask would know within the hour that his assault had failed.
And that his primary enforcer was dead in a rose garden.
Channel stood over Burch's body while Hurricane coordinated cleanup, the sun finally cresting the horizon and painting everything in shades of gold and red. Fitting colors for a killing ground.
"He'll send more," Paige said, coming to stand beside him. She'd holstered her weapon, but her hand stayed close, ready. "This was just the first wave."
"Yeah." Channel turned to face her, taking in the dirt on her jacket, the scratch across her cheek, the steel in her eyes that hadn't softened even now. "This place is too exposed. Too many approach angles, too hard to defend long-term."
"The compound."
"The compound." He reached out to touch the scratch on her cheek, gentle despite the violence still humming in his blood. "You'll be safe there. Brothers around the clock, real security, no more midnight attacks."
"And my inn?"
"We'll come back for it. But right now, Trask knows where you are. Knows the layout, the approaches, everything. We need to move you somewhere he can't predict."
Paige was quiet for a long moment, staring at the Victorian she'd poured four years of her life into. The peaceful haven she'd built when she'd stopped being a soldier.
Then she nodded.
"Give me five minutes."
She disappeared inside while Channel helped Hurricane drag bodies toward the marsh. Salt Blood didn't leave evidence lying around—what the bay took, they buried, and the tides kept secrets better than any grave.
When Paige emerged, she had a duffel bag over her shoulder that looked like it had seen better decades. Military issue, worn at the seams, packed tight and ready to move.
"Go-bag?" he asked.
"Since Iraq." She slung it into the back of Compass's truck with the ease of long practice. "Never unpacked it. Figured some habits weren't worth breaking."
Channel stared at her—this woman who kept a bug-out bag ready four years into civilian life, who'd just held a combat sector and dropped targets like she'd never left the sandbox, who was walking away from everything she'd built because she trusted him enough to follow.
"You're something else, you know that?"
Paige met his eyes, something fierce and certain in her expression. "So are you."
She climbed into the truck without looking back at the inn, at the body cooling in her rose garden, at the life she was leaving behind.
Channel watched her go, something settling in his chest that felt a lot like inevitability.
Then he mounted his bike and followed her toward the compound, the sun rising bloody over the Chesapeake as Salt Blood territory swallowed them whole.