Chapter Ten
Forge was out of bed before the first siren finished, muscle memory overriding consciousness. Caroline stirred beside him—four nights of sharing the same mattress had done nothing to dull his awareness of her—and he pressed a hand to her shoulder.
"Stay here. Lock the door."
"Like hell."
He didn't have time to argue. The alarm pattern was wrong—multiple breach points, coordinated timing. This wasn't Stroud's amateur hour. This was someone who knew what they were doing.
"Then stay behind me." He grabbed his rifle, checked the magazine, chambered a round. "And for God's sake, don't get shot."
They moved through the corridor together, Caroline keeping pace despite her lack of tactical training. Gunfire erupted from the east wing—sustained bursts, professional rhythm. More from the south. The north.
Three simultaneous assault vectors. Someone had studied the compound layout.
"Forge." Legion's voice crackled through his earpiece. "Report."
"Moving to the armory. What are we looking at?"
"Twelve to fifteen hostiles, hitting us from three directions. Coordinated breach, suppressive fire covering their advance. This isn't random—someone planned this."
Renfro. The logistics man Caroline had identified. The one who ran Pittman's operations like a military campaign.
"He's thinking in patterns," Forge said. "Systematic approach, multiple entry points, covering fire. He expects us to fall back to defensive positions."
"Then we don't fall back." Legion's voice hardened. "We break his pattern. Ghost, take Static and flank east. Trooper, hold the south. Forge—"
"I know." He was already calculating. "I'll give him something to pattern against."
The armory was secure when they reached it—Cargo inside, distributing weapons with efficient speed. He tossed a vest to Caroline without comment.
"Put it on," Forge ordered.
"I'm not—"
"You're staying. You're helping. So you're wearing armor." He grabbed extra magazines, stuffing them into his tactical vest. "Cargo, what do we have?"
"Enough. Ammunition's good, explosives are prepped if we need them." Cargo's eyes flicked to Caroline. "She knows how to reload?"
"I've been handling firearms since I was twelve," Caroline said, strapping on the vest. "Point me where I'm useful."
Forge wanted to lock her in the safe room. Wanted to station her somewhere underground where bullets couldn't reach. But he'd learned something in four days of sharing his bed with this woman: telling her to hide only made her more determined to fight.
"Resupply," he said. "Stay behind the barricades. When someone calls for ammunition, you move—fast, low, and straight back to cover. Do not engage unless you have no other choice."
"And medical?"
"If someone goes down, you assess while someone else provides cover. You don't expose yourself to treat a wound." He gripped her shoulders, fierce and fast. "Promise me."
Her eyes held his. Steady. Resolved.
"I promise."
He kissed her—hard, desperate, tasting like fear and fury—and then he was moving.
The compound had become a war zone. Muzzle flashes lit the pre-dawn darkness, bullets chewing through walls and barricades. Forge navigated by instinct, reading the firefight like a language he'd spoken for seventeen years.
Renfro's assault was textbook. Suppressive fire from one team while another advanced. Rotate, leapfrog, maintain pressure. Exactly what someone who thought in logistics would design.
Which meant Forge knew exactly where the assault would flow next.
"Ghost, Static—hold position at the east breach. Let them think they're winning." He moved through a service corridor, rifle up. "Trooper, fall back from south. Make it look like a retreat."
"Copy."
"What are you planning?" Legion's voice.
"He's thinking in patterns. I'm giving him a pattern to follow—one that leads exactly where I want him."
The south defenders pulled back. The eastern assault stalled against Ghost and Static's position. And just as Forge predicted, the main force shifted—converging on what looked like a weakness in the compound's center.
Directly into the kill zone he'd prepared.
"Now."
The crossfire was devastating. Trooper's team opened up from concealed positions in the south wing. Cargo emerged from the armory with a belt-fed weapon that turned the corridor into a meat grinder. Forge added his rifle to the chaos, controlled bursts dropping targets with mechanical precision.
The attackers had expected a retreating defense. They'd walked into an ambush.
Through the smoke and chaos, Forge spotted him—wiry build, methodical movements, directing his men even as they died around him. Earl Renfro, trying to adapt to a situation his patterns hadn't predicted.
Too late.
Forge moved through the firefight like a predator, closing the distance. Renfro saw him coming—raised his weapon, tried to acquire a target. But he was a logistics man, not a soldier. His reactions were seconds too slow.
Forge's first round took him in the chest. The second caught his throat. The third—unnecessary but satisfying—went through his forehead.
Renfro crumpled.
The assault collapsed with him. Without their coordinator, the remaining attackers lost cohesion. Some tried to retreat. Others panicked, firing wild. None of them made it to the compound's gates.
"Clear east," Ghost reported.
"Clear south," Trooper added.
"Center's secure." Forge stood over Renfro's body, rifle still smoking. "Their leader's down. Pittman's going to need a new operations man."
The gunfire faded. Silence settled over the compound—heavy, ringing, the aftermath of violence that had lasted minutes but felt like hours.
"Casualties?" Legion's voice.
"Cargo took a round. Through-and-through, upper arm." Forge was already moving, scanning for threats that no longer existed. "Static's got glass fragments. Nothing life-threatening."
"And Caroline?"
Forge's heart stopped.
He'd been so focused on the assault, on Renfro, on the tactical puzzle of dismantling a coordinated attack—he'd lost track of her. She should have been in the armory, behind barricades, safe.
"Caroline." He keyed her frequency. "Report."
Static. Nothing.
"Caroline!"
Then he heard it—her voice, distant, coming from the south wing.
"I'm here. I'm okay. Cargo needs—he's bleeding badly, I'm applying pressure—"
Forge ran.
He found her in the south corridor, kneeling over Cargo's prone form. Blood soaked her hands, her arms, the floor around them. But her grip on the wound was professional, her pressure steady despite the chaos.
"Through-and-through," she said without looking up. "Missed the artery, but he's lost significant blood. I need bandages, a tourniquet if you have one, and someone to help me move him."
"I said stay behind the barricades."
"He was dying." Now she looked up, and her eyes blazed with fury and fear and the same stubborn fire that had drawn him from the first moment. "I wasn't going to let him bleed out because you told me to stay put."
He wanted to argue. Wanted to shake her for risking herself. Wanted to pull her into his arms and never let go.
Instead, he grabbed a first aid kit from the nearest supply cache and knelt beside her.
"Tell me what you need."
They worked together—her directing, him following—and Cargo's bleeding slowed under their combined efforts. By the time Trooper arrived to help carry the wounded man to the medical bay, the immediate crisis had passed.
Caroline sat back on her heels, blood drying on her hands, adrenaline visibly crashing through her system.
"How many?" she asked.
"Hostiles? Fourteen confirmed. Maybe more who didn't make it off the property."
"Ours?"
"Cargo's the worst. Static's got minor wounds. Everyone else is intact."
She closed her eyes. Breathed.
"Renfro?"
"Dead." Forge reached out, tilted her chin up so she met his gaze. "I put three rounds in him. He's not coordinating anything ever again."
Something shifted in her expression. Not relief—it was more complicated than that. The understanding that violence had been done in her name, for her safety, and she'd been part of it.
"I helped," she said quietly. "Not just with Cargo. During the fight—I ran ammunition to Trooper's position when he called for it. I was out there. Exposed."
"I know."
"You're not angry?"
He was furious. Terrified. Prouder than he knew how to express.
"I'm everything," he said. "All at once. And we're going to talk about 'staying behind the barricades' later. But right now—" He pulled her against him, heedless of the blood and the chaos and the bodies being cleared around them. "Right now I'm just glad you're alive."
She pressed her face into his chest. Her shoulders shook—silent sobs or hysterical laughter, he couldn't tell. Maybe both.
"Pittman's going to send more," she said against his shirt.
"Yes."
"This isn't over."
"No." He held her tighter. "But Stroud's dead. Renfro's dead. His operation is bleeding people faster than he can replace them. We're winning, Caroline. And we're going to finish this."
She pulled back enough to look at him. Her face was pale, streaked with blood that wasn't hers, but her eyes were steady.
"Together?"
"Together." He kissed her forehead. "Always."
Around them, the compound settled into cleanup mode. Brothers checking bodies, securing weapons, erasing evidence of the assault. The eastern sky was lightening—another Carolina dawn breaking over the aftermath of violence.
Forge helped Caroline to her feet and kept his arm around her as they walked toward the medical bay. She'd defied his orders, risked her life, and proven herself essential in the same brutal morning.
His woman. His partner. His.
Pittman had sent his best coordinator and fourteen men.
All of them were dead.
And the message was clear: Black Ops Brotherhood didn't just defend their territory.
They annihilated anyone who threatened it.