Chapter 17
They hit the staging house at midnight.
Float had spent twelve hours mapping Shep Ingle's operation from Delaney's photos. Every camera angle. Every blind spot. Every gap in coverage that Garvey's surveillance network left exposed.
They'd built their security around watching other people. They'd never considered someone might watch back.
The house was forty minutes from the compound—a rented property on a dead-end road, unremarkable except for the van in the driveway and the cameras mounted on every corner.
Ingle had set up shop in plain sight, confident that no one would notice another surveillance installation in a region already dotted with them.
He was wrong.
Float killed his bike's engine a quarter mile out and moved through the trees on foot. Cottonmouth and Limestone flanked him, shadows in the darkness. Current had circled around to cover the back exits, his river guide instincts translating seamlessly to land-based movement.
"Cameras on the north and east corners." Float's voice was barely audible. "Blind spot on the southwest, where the tree line blocks the angle."
Cottonmouth nodded. "Limestone and I breach through the front on your signal. You come in from the blind spot."
"Current's got the back. Nobody leaves."
They moved into position.
Float crouched at the edge of the tree line, studying the house through the darkness. Lights glowed in the front room—the kind of blue glow that meant monitors, screens, someone watching feeds from cameras across the county.
Ingle was in there. The man who'd burned Delaney's studio. Who'd destroyed four years of her work. Who'd left a surveillance camera on her wall so she'd know he was watching while he did it.
Float's hands tightened on his rifle.
This wasn't just club business anymore. This was personal.
The approach took three minutes.
Float moved through the blind spot like he'd been born in it, rifle steady, breathing controlled. The southwest corner of the house had a window that overlooked the tree line—but Ingle's cameras couldn't see the angle, and the curtain was half-drawn.
He reached the wall and pressed his back against the siding, listening.
Voices inside. Two, maybe three. Ingle and whatever crew he had left after the compound assault had decimated Garvey's forces.
Float keyed his radio once. The signal.
Thirty seconds later, Cottonmouth and Limestone hit the front door.
The crash of splintering wood was followed immediately by gunfire—sharp, controlled bursts that lit up the night. Shouting. Scrambling. The chaos of men caught off-guard by violence they hadn't seen coming.
Float moved.
He came through the back window in a shower of glass, rolling to his feet with his rifle already tracking targets. The house was small—front room, kitchen, two bedrooms—and he cleared the hallway in three seconds.
The front room was a war zone.
Cottonmouth had two men down, one dead and one dying. Limestone was wrestling with a third, the fight brutal and efficient. Equipment covered every surface—monitors, recording devices, servers humming in the corner.
And there, backing toward the kitchen with a gun in his hand, was Shep Ingle.
Twenty-eight years old. The youngest of Garvey's crew. The one who took personal pleasure in the stalking, the watching, the violation of privacy that Garvey assigned as business.
He'd taken pleasure in burning Delaney's studio. Float could see it in his eyes—not fear, but excitement. The thrill of someone who'd finally gotten to play with fire.
"Drop it." Float's voice was ice.
Ingle's gun wavered, his gaze darting between Float and the chaos in the front room. "You don't know who you're dealing with. Garvey will—"
"Garvey sent you to die." Float advanced on him, rifle steady. "Just like he sent Ellers. Just like he sent Dunaway. You're not his lieutenant—you're his liability."
Something flickered in Ingle's expression. Doubt, maybe. The first crack in the confidence that had let him burn a woman's life work and call it business.
"I was just following orders—"
"You burned her prints." Float's finger tightened on the trigger. "Her equipment. Four years of work that had nothing to do with Garvey or his operation. You destroyed it because you enjoyed it."
Ingle's face twisted. "She documented our crew. She was a threat—"
"She was a photographer." Float stepped closer, close enough to see the sweat beading on Ingle's forehead. "She took pictures of beautiful things because it was better than taking pictures of corpses. And you turned her studio into ashes because it made you feel powerful."
The gun in Ingle's hand shook. His finger moved toward the trigger.
Float shot him in the knee.
Ingle screamed and collapsed, his weapon clattering across the floor. Float kicked it away and stood over him, rifle pointed at his chest.
"Garvey's not coming for you." Float's voice was calm.
Steady. The voice of a man who'd already made his decision.
"He's sitting in whatever hole he's hidden himself in, watching feeds from cameras just like these.
He's going to watch you die, and then he's going to burn your files like you never existed. "
"Please—" Ingle clutched his shattered knee, blood pooling on the floor. "I can tell you where he is. The server house, the database—I know everything—"
"So do we." Float thought of Delaney's face when she'd walked through her destroyed studio. The grief she'd swallowed. The fury she'd channeled into documentation and planning. "Your boss made a mistake when he sent you after her. Made a bigger mistake when you enjoyed it."
He pulled the surveillance camera from his jacket—the one Ingle had mounted on Delaney's studio wall—and dropped it on the floor beside the dying man.
"She wanted to return this personally. But she decided you weren't worth the trip."
Float pulled the trigger.
The house was clear in fifteen minutes.
Five of Ingle's men were dead. One had escaped through a back window before Current could intercept—a loose end that would carry word back to Garvey.
Good. Float wanted Garvey to know they were coming.
Cottonmouth surveyed the equipment with cold eyes. "This is their operations hub. Feeds from every camera they've installed, plus the database Dunaway was protecting."
"Can Proof pull anything useful?"
"Already called him. He's bringing a truck." Cottonmouth kicked Ingle's body with casual contempt. "This one was the watcher. The one who followed targets, left notes, made them afraid. Garvey's going to feel this loss."
"Good." Float looked around the room—monitors showing empty feeds, equipment that had been used to violate privacy across the Ozarks. "We take what we need and burn the rest."
"The servers—"
"We copy what's useful. Names, locations, anything that ties to Garvey directly." Float's jaw tightened. "Then we destroy everything else. Nobody's watching those feeds anymore."
Limestone appeared in the doorway, blood on his knuckles. "Current caught the runner. He's not talking, but he's not going anywhere either."
"Keep him breathing. We might need leverage."
The brothers worked efficiently, the aftermath of violence as routine as any other job. Float stepped outside and breathed the night air, letting the adrenaline drain from his system.
Three of Garvey's lieutenants, dead. Ellers, Dunaway, Ingle—the men who'd built his surveillance empire, who'd installed cameras and managed databases and taken pleasure in watching people who didn't know they were being seen.
Only Garvey himself was left.
Float pulled out his phone and called the compound.
"It's done." His voice was steady. "Ingle's down. We've got their operations hub and whatever intel Proof can salvage."
Still's voice came back calm, unsurprised. "Casualties?"
"None on our side. Five of theirs dead, one captured."
"Good work." A pause. "Garvey knows we're coming now."
"That's the idea."
"Then we end this soon. Get back to the compound. Church at dawn—we plan the final strike."
The line went dead.
Float walked back into the house, where Cottonmouth was overseeing the equipment extraction. Proof had arrived with a truck and was already disconnecting servers, his scarred hands moving with practiced efficiency.
"Two hours," Proof said without looking up. "I'll have everything useful copied by then. The rest burns."
Float nodded and went to find Limestone.
The captured runner was zip-tied in the back bedroom, bleeding from a cut on his head but conscious. He looked at Float with the desperate eyes of a man who knew he was out of options.
"Garvey's going to kill you all." His voice shook. "You have no idea what you're dealing with—"
"We know exactly what we're dealing with." Float crouched in front of him. "A voyeur with money and cameras who thinks watching people gives him power. He's wrong."
"He's got resources you can't imagine—"
"He had resources." Float gestured toward the front room, where Ingle's body was being wrapped in plastic. "His field crew is dead. His database manager is dead. His enforcer is dead. He's got nothing left but footage and fear."
The runner's face went pale.
"You're going to deliver a message." Float leaned in close. "Tell Garvey the Ridgerunners are coming. Tell him his cameras won't help. Tell him the woman whose studio he burned is going to watch him die."
He stood and walked out of the room.
They reached the compound at three a.m.
Float parked his bike and walked toward his cabin, exhaustion settling into his bones now that the adrenaline had finally burned out. Brothers called out to him as he passed—acknowledgments, congratulations, the quiet respect of men who'd heard what happened.
He didn't stop.
Delaney was waiting on the cabin porch.
She rose when she saw him, taking in the blood on his clothes, the weariness in his face, the way he moved like a man who'd just come from war.
"Ingle?"
"Dead." Float stopped in front of her. "I gave him your message. Dropped the camera on his chest before I pulled the trigger."
Something fierce blazed in her eyes. Not bloodlust—satisfaction. The knowledge that the man who'd destroyed her work had paid for it.
"Garvey?"
"Next." Float reached out and cupped her face in his hands. "Church at dawn. We plan the final strike. And then this ends."
Delaney leaned into his touch, her eyes searching his face.
"Are you okay?"
"I'm tired." He kissed her forehead. "I'm angry. And I'm ready for this to be over so I can give you the life I promised."
She pulled him inside the cabin and closed the door behind them.
The war wasn't finished. Garvey was still breathing, still watching from whatever hole he'd hidden himself in. The final confrontation was coming, and Float knew it would be the most dangerous yet.
But tonight, he had this.
The woman he loved. The cabin they shared. The knowledge that everyone who'd tried to hurt her was dead or running.
It would have to be enough.
For now.