Chapter Six
They came at dawn.
Foxfire heard the trucks before he saw them—engines growling through the gray morning, tires crunching on the gravel lot. Three vehicles. Eight men, maybe ten. Rios had brought his full escort crew.
"Get behind the bar." He didn't look at Patty. "Stay down until I tell you otherwise."
"Foxfire—"
"Behind the bar. Now."
She moved. He heard her settle into position, the pool cue in her hands, the skillet within reach. Good. She'd hold that ground no matter what came through the door.
The first truck's doors opened.
Foxfire positioned himself near the front entrance, broken bottle in his right hand, nothing in his left. The left hand needed to be free. The left hand was the one that grabbed, redirected, turned an opponent's momentum into a weapon.
Boots on the gravel. Voices—low, confident. Men who expected to find a scared woman and a dead biker, not a fight.
They were about to learn different.
The door exploded inward.
Rios came through first—heavy, aggressive, gun already up. Two men flanked him, weapons drawn, spreading out to cover the room.
Foxfire didn't give them time to aim.
He hit the nearest man before the door stopped swinging, the broken bottle raking across a throat that had been expecting a conversation. Blood sprayed. The body dropped. Foxfire was already moving, pivoting toward the second man, his free hand catching the gun barrel and wrenching it aside.
The shot went wide. The gun went flying. Foxfire's elbow went into the man's face with a crunch that meant broken bones.
Two down. Six seconds.
"Kill him!" Rios's voice, somewhere to the left.
More men poured through the door—too many to count, too fast to track. Foxfire grabbed the nearest bar stool and swung it like a club, driving three of them backward into each other. The tight space was working for him now, the dead bar's cramped interior turning Rios's numbers into a liability.
They couldn't shoot without hitting each other. They couldn't spread out without tripping over furniture. They couldn't fight at range in a room designed for close-quarters drinking.
But Foxfire could fight close. That's where he lived.
A man came at him with a knife. Foxfire caught the arm, twisted, felt the shoulder pop out of its socket. The knife clattered. He picked it up and opened the man's leg before moving to the next target.
Pool cue from the corner—three quick strikes that dropped another attacker. Then the cue broke, and he was using the jagged end, jabbing and slashing, turning a bar game into a weapon that kept changing because the street fighter never used the same thing twice.
"Foxfire!"
Patty's voice. Behind him.
He spun. One of Rios's men had circled around, trying to flank the bar. The man was reaching over the counter toward her—
The pool cue connected with his skull before Foxfire could move. Patty's swing was perfect, the follow-through smooth, the impact devastating. The man crumpled without a sound.
"I told you to stay down!"
"I am down!" She was crouching behind the bar, the cue ready for another swing. "I'm just hitting from here!"
No time to argue. More men coming.
Foxfire grabbed a bottle from the shelf—whiskey, full, heavy enough to crack a skull—and threw it at the door. It shattered against the first man through, glass and liquor spraying. The man screamed, clawing at his eyes, and Foxfire was on him before the scream finished.
The room was chaos now. Bodies on the floor. Blood on the boards. The smell of whiskey and copper filling the dead bar's air like ghosts coming back to life.
Foxfire fought through it like a man possessed.
He'd spent his whole life learning to move fast, hit hard, use whatever was within reach.
The bar was his element—familiar terrain, cramped quarters, improvised weapons.
Every surface was a tool. Every angle was an opportunity.
Every exchange lasted three seconds or less because Foxfire didn't do long fights.
He did fast ones. And he won them.
A man grabbed him from behind. Foxfire threw his head back—felt the satisfying crunch of breaking cartilage—then spun and drove his knee into the man's gut. The grip released. Foxfire grabbed a bar stool leg and swung it into the man's temple.
Down.
Another man. Another weapon. A broken bottle this time, the glass finding soft places.
Down.
The room was thinning. Bodies everywhere. The survivors were backing toward the door, their confidence shattered by the wiry man who fought like a demon in the close quarters where their guns meant nothing.
And then there was Rios.
The escort chief stood near the entrance, his gun up, his face twisted with fury. Three of his men were still standing—bloody, battered, but armed.
"You're dead." Rios's voice was thick with rage. "You're fucking dead."
"You keep saying that." Foxfire's grin spread across his face—the one that showed up right before the worst part. "Nobody's managed to make it stick."
Rios fired.
Foxfire was already moving. The bullet went past his ear—close enough to feel the heat—and he was closing the distance, crossing the room in three strides, his hand closing around Rios's gun arm before the second shot could chamber.
They crashed into the wall together.
Rios was bigger, stronger, trained for convoy security and highway intimidation. In an open fight, on neutral ground, he might have had a chance.
But this wasn't an open fight. This was a bar. Foxfire's bar now.
He slammed Rios's gun hand against the wall until the weapon dropped. Then he hit him—once, twice, three times, each blow landing with the precise violence of a man who'd learned to fight when fighting was the only way to survive.
Rios swung back. Foxfire ducked, took the hit on his shoulder instead of his jaw, and answered with an uppercut that snapped Rios's head back.
"My woman's diner." The words came out between blows. "My highway." Another hit. "You put a brick through her window." Another. "You flipped her pie case." Another. "You threatened to burn her out."
Rios tried to grab him. Foxfire broke his grip and drove his knee into the bigger man's gut.
"Big mistake." He grabbed Rios by the collar, holding him up against the wall. "Coming after what's mine."
"Garza will—"
"Garza's next."
Foxfire's hand found the broken bottle he'd dropped earlier. Still sharp. Still ready.
"You wanted to drag a woman out of a dead building." He brought the glass up, letting Rios see it. "You found something else instead."
The bottle opened Rios's throat before he could answer.
The escort chief slid down the wall, blood painting the boards, his eyes going glassy as the fight drained out of him. Foxfire stood over him and watched him die.
No satisfaction. No pleasure. Just the cold certainty of a man eliminating a threat to something he was starting to realize he couldn't live without.
The remaining three men ran. Foxfire let them go.
They'd carry the message back to Garza: the corridor's escort chief was dead, killed in a shuttered bar by a wiry man with knife scars who fought like the devil himself. The smuggling operation had just lost its muscle.
The door burst open again.
Foxfire spun, bottle ready—but it was Crossroad, Hollow behind him, three more brothers flooding into the bar with weapons drawn.
"We're late," Crossroad said, surveying the carnage.
"Fashionably." Foxfire dropped the bottle. "Help me with the bodies."
"How many?"
"Enough." He was already moving toward the bar. "Patty?"
She rose from behind the counter, the pool cue still in her hands, flour still dusted on her apron from three nights ago. There was blood on her shoes—not hers—and her eyes were wide but steady.
"I'm okay." Her voice was calm. "I hit two of them."
"I saw."
The brothers were spreading through the room, checking bodies, securing weapons. Hollow moved with his particular silence, identifying the dead and the dying with the detached efficiency of a man intimate with endings.
Crossroad appeared at Foxfire's shoulder. "Rios?"
"Against the wall." Foxfire jerked his chin toward the body. "He won't be running convoys anymore."
"Good." Crossroad studied the destruction—the blood, the bodies, the improvised weapons scattered across the floor. "Hell of a fight."
"Hell of a bar." Foxfire crossed to Patty, his hand finding her arm, pulling her close. "You okay? Really?"
"I hit a man in the head with a pool cue and watched you kill six people." She met his eyes. "I should probably be screaming. But I'm not."
"That's shock. It'll hit later."
"Maybe." Her hand came up to cover his. "Or maybe I'm just glad you're alive."
Something cracked in his chest. The same something that had cracked when she'd memorized his breakfast order, when she'd swung at Rios with a skillet, when she'd said the fact that it's working like she'd caught him at something he didn't know he was showing.
"We're moving to the compound." He pulled her toward the door, away from the bodies and the blood. "You're under full club protection until this is over."
"My diner—"
"Will still be there. Hollow's people will watch it." He guided her past the wreckage, past the brothers handling cleanup. "Right now, you're not safe anywhere except where I can see you."
"That's very possessive."
"Yeah." He didn't let go of her arm. "It is."
Outside, the dawn had broken fully. Delta sun hammering down on the gravel lot, the trucks Rios had arrived in sitting empty, the chrome of Destroyer bikes gleaming in the early light.
Foxfire helped Patty onto his bike and swung on in front of her.
"Compound's an hour," he said. "Hold tight."
Her arms wrapped around his waist. Tighter than necessary. Like she wasn't letting go until he made her.
"What happens now?" she asked.
"Now we regroup. Figure out how to hit Garza's warehouse and shut down the corridor for good." He kicked the engine to life, feeling the familiar rumble settle into his bones. "Rios was the muscle. Without him, Garza's got no escort crews, no highway security. He's vulnerable."
"And then?"
"Then I keep you safe while I plan the next move."
The bike rolled out of the lot, brothers falling into formation behind them. The dead bar receded in his mirrors—a graveyard now, full of men who'd thought they could drag a woman from her counter and a biker from his highway.
They'd learned different.
Foxfire pushed the throttle and felt Patty hold on tighter, her body pressed against his back, her breath warm against his neck.
One down. Three to go.
He had work to do while he planned the next move.