Chapter Nine
Crash was out of bed and reaching for his weapon before the first siren finished its cycle. Four days at the compound, four days of Grace in his bed and Walsh's shadow hanging over everything—he'd known the attack was coming. Just not when.
Now he knew.
"Stay here," he told Grace, already pulling on his cut. "Common room. The women will—"
"I'm not hiding while you fight for me." She was already dressed, her eyes sharp despite the early hour. The pistol Maverick had given her three days ago was in her hands, her grip steady. "You taught me to shoot. Let me use it."
No time to argue. No time to do anything but trust that the woman he'd claimed could handle what was coming.
"Common room," he said again. "Defensive position. You see anyone who isn't brotherhood, you put them down."
She nodded once, and then he was moving.
The compound had come alive around him—brothers pouring from buildings with weapons ready, old ladies herding children toward the reinforced safe room beneath the main hall.
Titan's voice cut through the chaos, barking orders with the calm authority of a man who'd commanded troops in worse conditions.
"Twelve hostiles, maybe more. Coming from the east and north. Psycho's got eyes on their communications—this is Walsh's full response. He wants us eliminated."
"Thornton?" Crash asked, falling in beside Wraith as they moved toward the main gate.
"Leading the assault." Titan's jaw was granite. "Walsh isn't here. Too smart to put himself in the line of fire. But his operations manager is running the show."
Good. Crash had been hoping for that.
Buckner had been muscle—dangerous but replaceable. Ray Thornton was the brain behind Walsh's logistics, the man who coordinated violence like it was a shipping schedule. Taking him off the board would cripple whatever Walsh had left.
The first gunfire erupted from the east fence.
Crash sprinted toward the sound, Wraith moving like a ghost beside him. The Sergeant at Arms didn't speak—didn't need to. They'd done this dance before, in sandboxes and firefights and a dozen missions that never made any official record.
The east fence was chaos.
Walsh's men had come prepared—cutting tools, suppressed weapons, body armor that said this wasn't a street crew but professional contractors. They were breaching the perimeter in two places, disciplined fire keeping the brothers pinned while others moved to exploit the gaps.
Crash didn't hesitate.
He came through the motor pool at a dead run, using the parked bikes as cover while he closed distance.
The first hostile never saw him coming—Crash put two rounds through the gap between his helmet and vest, dropping him mid-stride.
The second turned at the sound and caught a bullet through the eye socket before his weapon came up.
"Two down east side," he reported into his radio. "Moving to the breach point."
Wraith's voice came back, calm as death. "I've got three on the north approach. Anvil's moving to support."
The assault had become a real fight now—muzzle flashes in the gray dawn, the crack of gunfire echoing off compound buildings, the screams of men who'd underestimated what they were attacking. Walsh had sent professionals, but the Sentinels had something professionals couldn't buy.
Home field advantage. And men who would die before they let this ground fall.
Crash cleared the motor pool and found himself at the east fence breach. Four hostiles had made it through, spreading out in tactical formation as they moved toward the residential buildings. Toward the women. Toward Grace.
Something savage and protective roared through his blood.
Not today. Not ever.
He dropped the first two before they registered the threat—clean shots, center mass, the kind of violence that came as naturally as breathing.
The third returned fire and Crash felt a bullet whip past his ear, close enough to leave his hearing ringing.
He put that man down with a shot through the throat and kept moving.
The fourth hostile was running toward the common room.
Grace was in the common room.
Crash didn't think. Didn't calculate. Just ran, every ounce of speed he possessed pounding across the gravel as the hostile raised his weapon toward the building where his woman was waiting—
The shot came from inside.
The hostile staggered, clutching his chest, and Crash saw Grace in the doorway with her pistol raised. Her face was pale but her hands were rock-steady, and she fired again—a second shot that dropped the man to the ground three feet from the threshold.
Pride and terror and something deeper than either surged through Crash's chest.
That's my woman. That's my goddamn woman.
"Clear?" she called out, her voice steady.
"Clear this side. Stay in position."
He didn't have time to say more. The radio crackled with Titan's voice: "Thornton spotted at the east fence. He's directing the second wave."
Crash turned toward the breach point. Through the chaos of gunfire and shouting, he could see a figure standing back from the fence line—lean and calculating, gesturing commands while his hired muscle did the dying.
Ray Thornton, Walsh's operations manager, running the assault like a logistics problem to be solved.
Time to give him an unsolvable problem.
Crash moved through the battle like a blade through flesh, using cover and speed to close the distance while brothers provided suppressing fire.
Blaster had arrived with three more Sentinels, their coordinated assault turning Thornton's tactical advantage into a crossfire that chewed through the remaining hostiles.
But Thornton was smart. He was already falling back, pulling a radio from his vest to call for extraction—
Crash hit him at full speed.
They went down hard, rolling across the gravel in a tangle of limbs and fury. Thornton was faster than he looked, got his hands up to block the first punch, drove a knee toward Crash's wounded shoulder—
Pain exploded through the healing tissue, but Crash didn't stop. Couldn't stop. This man had coordinated the assault on his compound, threatened his brothers, sent killers toward the woman sleeping in his bed.
He drove his elbow into Thornton's face, felt cartilage crunch beneath the impact. The operations manager's head snapped back, and Crash followed with another blow—then another—raining violence down with the focused fury of a man who'd finally found the perfect target for all that restless energy.
"You came for my home," Crash snarled, his fist connecting with Thornton's jaw. "Sent men to kill my brothers. Threatened what's mine."
Thornton's hand scrabbled for the pistol at his hip. Crash caught his wrist and twisted until bones ground together, until the man screamed.
"Walsh couldn't even show up himself. Sent you to do his dying for him." Another blow, and Thornton's resistance was fading—his movements sluggish, his eyes unfocused. "Tell me—was the bookstore worth this?"
"Go to hell," Thornton spat through bloody teeth.
"After you."
Crash drew his piece and pressed it against Thornton's forehead. The operations manager's eyes went wide with the sudden clarity of a man who'd finally realized he wasn't going to talk his way out of this.
"Wait—Walsh will pay whatever—"
The shot echoed across the compound, and Ray Thornton stopped making promises.
Crash stood over the body, breathing hard, blood splattered across his knuckles and his cut.
Around him, the gunfire was dying down—Walsh's assault breaking apart without Thornton's coordination.
The men who'd been advancing in tactical formations were now running for the fence line, pursued by brothers who didn't believe in letting enemies escape.
"East fence secured," he reported into his radio. "Thornton's down."
Titan's voice came back, grim satisfaction underneath the command tone. "Copy that. North side's clear. We're mopping up stragglers."
Crash turned toward the common room and found Grace standing in the doorway, her pistol still in her hands. She was pale, shaking slightly now that the adrenaline was starting to crash, but she met his eyes without flinching.
He crossed the compound in long strides, not stopping until he was close enough to pull her against his chest. She came willingly, her free hand fisting in his cut while she pressed her face against his shoulder.
"You killed him," she said. It wasn't an accusation.
"He was directing the assault. Sending men toward you." Crash's arms tightened around her. "Nobody threatens what's mine and walks away."
"I shot someone." Her voice was small, almost wondering. "He was coming for the building, and I just... I didn't even think about it."
"You protected yourself. Protected the other women inside." He pulled back just enough to look at her face, to read the shock and the strength warring behind her eyes. "You did good, Grace. You did so damn good."
She nodded slowly, processing. Then her jaw firmed, and he watched her put the shock away—not denying it, but setting it aside for later. The way someone did when there was still work to be done.
"How bad?" she asked.
"We're still counting." He looked around the compound—at the bodies being dragged toward the gate, at the brothers checking each other for wounds, at the old ladies emerging from the safe room to assess the damage. "We held. That's what matters."
Blaster approached, his expression hard despite the victory. "Twelve confirmed hostiles down. Three wounded, one critical—Psycho's working on him, trying to get intel before he bleeds out. We lost nobody, but Maverick took a round in the leg. Jenna's got him."
"Walsh?" Crash asked.
"Wasn't here. Too smart for that." Blaster's gaze moved to Grace, assessing. "Heard you dropped one of them. That true?"
Grace's chin lifted. "He was coming for the building."
Something like respect flickered across Blaster's face. "Good shooting." He turned back to Crash. "Titan wants Church in an hour. We're ending this today."
He walked away, and Crash found himself looking at the woman in his arms—the bookstore owner who'd walked into his world and refused to break. She'd killed to protect herself, protected others without hesitation, stood her ground when trained killers came for her home.
His home now. Their home.
"You should rest," he said.
"So should you." Her hand came up to touch the blood on his face—Thornton's blood, not his own. "But we're not going to, are we?"
"No." He pressed a kiss to her forehead, letting himself have this one moment of tenderness amid the carnage. "We're going to finish what Walsh started. And then we're going to make sure nobody threatens you ever again."
The sun was fully up now, painting the compound in pale gold light. Bodies were being cleared. Weapons collected. The aftermath of war giving way to the preparations for the next battle.
Walsh had sent twelve men to eliminate the Sentinels. He'd lost his operations manager, his assault team, and any illusion that money could buy the kind of violence the brotherhood delivered for free.
Now it was time to take the fight to him.