Chapter 10
Hatchet was in the armory running his pre-dawn check—inventory, maintenance, the ritual that had kept him sane since he'd stopped being a shooter and started being a mechanic—when the motion alert pinged on his laptop.
He pulled up the feed.
Headlights on the access road. Not one vehicle. Not two.
Eight.
Trucks and SUVs rolling in convoy formation, their lights cutting through the predawn darkness like a slow-moving invasion. He counted bodies through the windshields—two per vehicle minimum, some with three. Rifle barrels visible in the back seats.
Fifteen men. Maybe more.
This wasn't a probe. This was an assault.
Hatchet slammed his palm against the compound alarm and grabbed his radio.
"All hands! Breach incoming, access road, eight vehicles, fifteen-plus hostiles armed with long guns. Three minutes to contact!"
The compound erupted.
Brothers spilled from quarters, pulling on cuts, grabbing weapons. Tornado's voice cut through the chaos, barking orders. Shadow sprinted toward the main gate with Striker on his heels. Ridge took position on the garage roof with a scoped rifle.
Hatchet ran for the armory's weapon lockers.
He had three minutes to arm a defensive line. Three minutes to get enough firepower to the fence to stop fifteen men with ranch rifles from overrunning the compound.
He could do it. He had to do it.
"Hatchet!"
He spun.
Caroline stood in the armory doorway, her hair wild, still wearing his shirt from last night. But her eyes were clear and hard, and in her hand she gripped her forge hammer—three pounds of steel on an eighteen-inch handle.
"Where do you need me?"
"Garage bay. Sierra's holding there—she'll show you the position." He grabbed a shotgun from the rack, pressed it into her free hand. "Twelve gauge, pump action. Four rounds in the magazine, one in the chamber. Safety's here."
She checked the weapon with the same quick competence she'd shown field-stripping his .45. "Got it."
"Stay low. Don't shoot unless they breach the bay. And Caroline—" He caught her arm, pulled her close. One second. One heartbeat. "If they get through, you run. You don't fight, you don't wait for me. You run."
"Like hell."
"Caroline—"
"I'm not leaving you." Her eyes blazed. "We fight together or we die together. Those are your options."
No time to argue. No time to make her understand.
He kissed her once—hard, fast, desperate—and pushed her toward the door.
"Go. Garage bay. Now."
She went.
Hatchet grabbed two more rifles, three boxes of ammunition, and ran for the fence line.
The assault hit ninety seconds later.
The convoy split at the access road—four trucks peeling left toward the main gate, four curving right toward the garage bay. Classic pincer, designed to overwhelm a single defensive position.
They didn't know the compound had more than one.
"Contact front!" Shadow's voice crackled through the radio. "Four vehicles at the main gate, engaging!"
Gunfire exploded across the predawn silence. Muzzle flashes lit the darkness like lightning, the sharp crack of rifles overlapping with the deeper boom of shotguns.
Hatchet reached the fence line as the first truck hit the gate.
The impact was brutal—two tons of steel slamming into chain-link, the gate buckling but holding. Men spilled from the truck bed, rifles up, spreading out in a ragged line.
Hatchet dropped the first one before his boots hit the ground.
The shot took him center mass, spinning him into the dirt. The second man dove for cover behind the truck's engine block. The third raised his rifle toward the armory—
Ridge's scoped round caught him in the shoulder, dropping him screaming.
"East fence!" Striker's voice, tight with adrenaline. "They're flanking through the scrubland!"
Hatchet pivoted. Three shapes moving through the brush, using the predawn gray as cover.
His right hand trembled on the rifle stock. Useless at range. He needed to be closer.
He vaulted the fence.
The scrubland was chaos.
Hatchet moved through the brush in a low crouch, pistol drawn, listening for movement. The rifle fire from the main gate was constant now—Shadow and Striker holding the line, trading shots with the remaining attackers.
But the flankers were his problem.
He found the first one behind a mesquite bush, reloading a hunting rifle with shaking hands. Ranch hand, not soldier—young face, panicked eyes, probably promised good money for what he thought would be easy work.
Hatchet shot him in the chest and kept moving.
The second flanker heard the shot and spun. His rifle came up—
Too slow.
Hatchet was inside his reach before the barrel cleared, grabbing the weapon, twisting, driving his knee into the man's gut. The flanker went down gasping, and Hatchet put a round through his skull.
The third one ran.
Hatchet let him go. One panicked ranch hand fleeing into the scrubland wasn't worth chasing. Not when the real fight was still at the gate.
He ran back toward the compound.
The garage bay was holding.
Caroline crouched behind a stack of tires, her shotgun braced against her shoulder, her forge hammer within reach. Sierra was beside her, a pistol in each hand, watching the bay door with the focused intensity of a woman who'd seen violence before.
Two bodies lay in the dirt outside—attackers who'd tried to breach the bay and paid for it.
Hatchet felt something crack in his chest. Pride. Fear. The overwhelming need to get to her, to stand between her and anything that might hurt her.
But there was another problem.
A truck was rolling toward the main gate. Not one of the assault vehicles—this one was cleaner, newer, with tinted windows and county plates. It had hung back during the initial assault, watching from the access road.
Coordination vehicle. Command and control.
Schaefer.
"Shadow!" Hatchet keyed his radio. "Incoming truck at the main gate—that's the coordinator. We take him now!"
"On it!"
The truck was trying to turn around. The driver had seen the assault failing, seen his men dying in the dirt, and decided to cut his losses.
Too late.
Hatchet sprinted for the gate.
Shadow reached the truck first, firing into the front tire. The vehicle slewed sideways, slamming into the damaged gate, metal screaming against metal.
Hatchet caught up as the driver's door swung open.
Glenn Schaefer—fifty years old, former county assessor, the man who'd architected Pryce's dumping corridor—tumbled out with a pistol in his hand and panic in his eyes.
"Wait!" He held up the gun like a shield. "I can give you information! Files, records, everything on Pryce's operation—"
"We already have your files." Hatchet advanced on him. "Found them in your truck last week. Property acquisitions. Forged environmental reports. Every dirty contract you've ever written."
Schaefer's face went white. "Then you know I'm valuable! I know things, people, the money trail—"
"You're valuable dead." Hatchet raised his pistol. "The farrier you helped hunt. The ranchers you helped ruin. The land you helped poison. That's what you're valuable for."
"Please—"
Hatchet pressed the barrel against the driver's window glass. Schaefer was trapped against the damaged door, nowhere to run.
"I'm just the paperwork," Schaefer babbled. "Munn was the muscle, Lander does the dirty work—I just manage the files!"
"And you manage them well." Hatchet's voice was flat. Cold. "Clean hands, dirty conscience. You never visited the dump sites because you didn't want to see what you were building. Didn't want to know the cattle dying from contaminated water or the ranchers losing everything."
"I had to! Pryce would have—"
"Pryce isn't here." Hatchet leaned closer, his mouth a breath from Schaefer's ear. "You are."
He fired through the glass.
The window exploded inward. Schaefer jerked once, twice, then slumped against the steering wheel, blood spreading across the leather interior.
Hatchet lowered his pistol.
Reached through the shattered window and popped the trunk release.
Inside the trunk: a filing cabinet. Metal, fireproof, with three drawers of documents that Schaefer had been trying to evacuate before the assault went wrong.
"Shadow. Help me get this inside."
Shadow was staring at Schaefer's body. "Didn't even hesitate."
"He helped burn ranches. Helped poison wells. Helped hunt Caroline." Hatchet grabbed one end of the filing cabinet. "I'd do it again."
The assault was over.
Four attackers dead—two at the fence, one in the scrubland, one trying to breach the garage bay. Eight more wounded or fled, their vehicles abandoned in the access road. One brother with a buckshot graze to the arm, already being bandaged by Jolene in the mess hall.
Hatchet walked through the compound, counting bodies, assessing damage. The gate would need repair. The east fence had taken hits. One of the garage bay doors was pocked with bullet holes.
But they'd held. Against fifteen armed men, they'd held.
Caroline met him at the armory door.
She was still carrying the forge hammer, blood spattered on the head where she'd used it on someone who got too close. Her face was pale but set, that stubborn jaw he'd come to know so well.
"You're okay," she said. Not a question.
"I'm okay." He pulled her against his chest, not caring who was watching. "You?"
"Sierra and I held the bay. Two of them tried to come through the side door." She held up the hammer. "They didn't make it."
Hatchet looked at the blood on the steel.
His woman. His farrier. Fighting beside his brothers with a forge hammer because that was the weapon she knew.
Something fierce and possessive surged through him.
"Schaefer's dead," he said. "Shot him at the gate."
"Good." No hesitation. No regret. "That's two of Pryce's lieutenants down."
"One more to go. Then Pryce himself."
She pulled back, looked up at him. Her whiskey-gold eyes were hard now, the eyes of a woman who'd killed twice and would do it again.
"When?"
"Soon." He tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. "But first we see what Schaefer was trying to run with. Those files could have everything we need to take down the whole operation."
"Then let's look at them."
They walked to the armory together, her hand in his, her hammer still dripping red.
The sun was rising over the compound, painting the sky orange and gold. Another day. Another battle survived.
But the war wasn't over.
Pryce was still out there. Lander was still out there. And somewhere on Pryce's land, Caroline's horses were still waiting to be found.
Hatchet squeezed her hand.
Soon, he promised silently. We end this soon.
The filing cabinet sat on his workbench, waiting to give up its secrets.
Time to find out what Schaefer had been willing to die to protect.