Chapter 12
The call came at three in the morning.
Kilgore was out of bed before the first ring finished, muscle memory taking over while his mind caught up. Beside him, Trudy stirred—five nights of waking up together, and she'd already learned what that particular ring tone meant.
"What is it?"
"Stay here." He was already pulling on his jeans, grabbing his cut from the chair. "Lock the door. Don't open it for anyone except me or Hacksaw."
"Kilgore—"
"Stay here." He leaned down, kissed her hard and fast. "I mean it."
The compound was controlled chaos when he hit the yard. Brothers mobilizing, engines firing up, weapons being distributed from the armory. Hacksaw stood at the center of it, phone pressed to his ear, his face carved from stone.
"Moonshine operation," the president said when Kilgore reached him. "Perimeter alarm tripped ten minutes ago. Holler's running recon now."
The moonshine distillery was three miles east, hidden in a holler that had been producing shine since Prohibition. Legal now—technically—but the location was sensitive. Club business ran through that building, the kind of business that didn't need outside attention.
"How many?"
"Holler counts fifteen, maybe twenty. Professional setup—trucks, tactical gear, coordinated movement." Hacksaw's jaw tightened. "This isn't Sizemore's usual crew. He hired muscle for this one."
"Slone?"
"Leading from the back. Got his GPS out like he's mapping our whole operation."
Roy Dean Slone. The surveyor. The man who knew where every body was buried because he'd picked the burial sites himself.
If Slone was here personally, Sizemore was making a statement—the club couldn't protect its business, couldn't protect itself, couldn't protect the woman who'd dared to notice the poison in her backyard.
"I want him," Kilgore said.
Hacksaw studied him for a moment. Something passed between them—understanding, approval. "He's yours. But the operation comes first. We lose that distillery, we lose leverage."
"Understood."
Twenty minutes later, Kilgore crouched in the treeline above the moonshine operation, watching Sizemore's hired guns move through the darkness below.
They were good—ex-military, probably, the kind of contractors companies used when they needed problems solved without paperwork.
They moved in pairs, covering angles, maintaining spacing.
But they didn't know this terrain.
Kilgore did.
He'd been running these hollers since he was a kid, learning the ridges and draws from men who'd hidden moonshine from revenuers for generations. Every creek bed, every game trail, every fold in the land where a man could disappear—he knew them all.
Sizemore's contractors knew tactics. They didn't know Appalachia.
"Ridge, you in position?" Kilgore's voice was barely a whisper into his earpiece.
"Northwest corner. Got eyes on six tangos approaching the main building."
"Timber?"
"South approach. Another eight here, including what looks like the demo team."
Demo team. They weren't just here to send a message—they were here to burn the distillery to the ground.
"Holler, where's Slone?"
"Hanging back by the trucks. He's got two guys with him, plus his GPS. Looks like he's documenting everything."
Of course he was. Slone was meticulous, thorough. The kind of man who kept records because records made him valuable. He'd spent ten years mapping dump sites, poisoning hollers, keeping precise notes about exactly how much death he was putting in the ground.
Tonight, that precision was going to get him killed.
"On my signal," Kilgore said. "Timber, take the demo team first. Ridge, clear the northwest. I'm going for Slone."
"Copy."
"Copy."
Kilgore moved through the trees like a shadow, circling wide around the assault force, using terrain features that wouldn't show on any tactical map. The contractors were focused on the distillery—on the target they'd been paid to destroy. They weren't expecting a counterattack from behind.
They weren't expecting Thunder Ridge to know they were coming.
The first shot cracked through the night—Timber's rifle, dropping the lead man of the demo team before he could place his charge. Everything erupted at once. Muzzle flashes lit the darkness. Men shouted, scattered, dove for cover that wasn't where they expected it to be.
Kilgore didn't slow down.
He came out of the trees behind Slone's position, moving fast and low.
The two guards saw him too late—one went down with a knife in his throat, the other caught three rounds center mass before he could bring his weapon up.
Slone stumbled backward, clutching his GPS like it could save him, his eyes wide with the sudden understanding that all his careful planning hadn't accounted for this.
"Please—" he started.
Kilgore hit him.
The surveyor went down hard, his GPS flying from his grip, skidding across the dirt. Kilgore put a boot on his chest and pressed, watching Slone's face go red as air became difficult.
"Ten years." Kilgore's voice was flat, deadly. "You've been poisoning these hollers for ten years. Picking sites, mapping routes, documenting exactly which families you were killing with your careful little surveys."
"I didn't—I just found the locations—"
"You chose them." Kilgore pressed harder. "You looked at those hollers and saw poor people too beaten down to fight back. People nobody would listen to when their wells went bad and their kids got sick."
"It was just a job—"
"My family drank that water." The words came out rough, scraped from somewhere deep. "My grandfather's people still live in those hollers. Kids I grew up with are dying from cancers nobody can explain because you needed a convenient place to dump your poison."
Slone's hands scrabbled at Kilgore's boot, trying to relieve the pressure. "Sizemore—he's the one you want. I'm just—I'm nobody. I can tell you everything, give you all the sites, all the records—"
"I already have your GPS." Kilgore picked up the fallen device, pocketed it without looking. "Ten years of dump sites, right? Every holler you've poisoned, every stream you've contaminated. That's what this has on it?"
Hope flickered in Slone's eyes. "Yes. Yes, everything. You let me go, I'll show you how to access it all—"
"I don't need you to show me." Kilgore drew his pistol. "I just need the map."
Understanding dawned. The hope died.
"Wait—"
Kilgore put two rounds in Roy Dean Slone's chest.
The surveyor's body jerked, stilled. His eyes stayed open, fixed on the stars he'd never see again, his hands still reaching for a GPS that couldn't save him.
"That's for the mountains," Kilgore said. "And for everyone you helped bury in them."
He stepped over the body and moved toward the main fight.
The battle at the distillery was turning. Thunder Ridge had the high ground, the terrain knowledge, and the fury of men defending their home. Sizemore's contractors were good, but good didn't matter when you were fighting in unfamiliar terrain against an enemy who knew every shadow.
Kilgore worked his way down the ridge, taking shots when he had them, staying mobile when he didn't. He found Timber pinned behind a woodpile, laid down covering fire while his brother repositioned.
He found Ridge bleeding from a graze on his arm, still shooting, still fighting, refusing to give ground.
"Slone?" Ridge asked between bursts.
"Dead."
"Good."
The contractors broke fifteen minutes later.
It happened the way it always happened—one man decided he'd had enough, then another, then the whole line collapsed as survival instinct overrode whatever Sizemore was paying them.
They ran for the trucks, leaving their wounded, leaving their dead, leaving everything except the desperate need to be anywhere else.
Thunder Ridge let them go.
Not out of mercy. Out of mathematics. Chasing runners meant risking brothers, and the message had already been sent. The distillery stood. Slone was dead. Sizemore had just learned that attacking Thunder Ridge territory cost more than it paid.
Kilgore found Hacksaw in the aftermath, standing over a contractor who'd surrendered rather than run. The man was zip-tied and bleeding, but alive.
"Casualty report," Hacksaw said.
"Ridge took a graze. Nothing serious. Saw Hollow limping, but he was still mobile." Kilgore pulled out Slone's GPS, handed it over. "And we got this."
Hacksaw turned the device over in his hands. "This what I think it is?"
"Ten years of dump sites. Every holler Sizemore's operation has poisoned, every route they've used, probably dates and volumes too." Kilgore's jaw tightened. "Slone was meticulous. He kept records of everything."
"And Slone?"
"Won't be keeping records anymore."
The president nodded, slow and satisfied. "Sizemore just lost his eyes. Without Slone, he doesn't know which sites are full, which routes are burned. He's flying blind."
"That's the idea."
Dawn was breaking over the ridges when they finished securing the scene. The distillery had taken damage—bullet holes in the walls, one window shattered—but the equipment was intact, the product untouched. A win, by any measure.
But Kilgore couldn't shake the feeling that it wasn't enough.
Sizemore was still out there. Still running his operation, still poisoning mountains, still thinking he could throw men at Thunder Ridge and eventually win through attrition. Combs was dead. Slone was dead. But the head of the snake was still alive.
His phone buzzed. A text from a number he didn't recognize.
Nice try. I have more where those came from. Does your laundry woman know she's living on borrowed time?
Kilgore stared at the screen, cold fury settling into his bones.
Sizemore. It had to be. Sending a message, proving he was watching, making sure Kilgore knew that tonight's victory hadn't changed anything.
She's still mine to bury. Just a matter of time.
He pocketed the phone without responding. Responding was what Sizemore wanted—a reaction, proof that his threats had landed. Kilgore wouldn't give him the satisfaction.
But he would give him something else.
A bullet, when the time came. Same as Combs. Same as Slone.
The ride back to the compound took twenty minutes.
Kilgore pushed his bike hard, taking curves faster than he should, needing to see Trudy, needing to know she was safe.
The text burned in his pocket like a brand—borrowed time, still mine to bury—and every second away from her felt like a second too long.
The compound gates opened as he approached. Brothers filtered in behind him, wounded and weary and victorious. But Kilgore didn't stop to celebrate.
He went straight to his room.
Trudy was waiting just inside the door—dressed, armed with the shotgun her father had insisted she keep, her face pale but determined. She'd been ready to fight if she had to. Ready to defend herself if the compound fell.
His woman. Standing her ground.
"You're okay." She lowered the shotgun, her voice cracking. "God, Kilgore, I heard the gunfire, I heard—"
He crossed the room in three strides and pulled her against him.
"I'm okay." His mouth found her hair, her forehead, her lips. "I'm okay. It's done. We won."
"The operation?"
"Standing. Damaged but standing." He held her tighter, breathed her in. "Slone's dead. Sizemore's blind now—lost his surveyor, lost his maps, lost his eyes on the territory."
She pulled back enough to look at him. To see whatever was written on his face.
"But?" she said.
He shouldn't tell her about the text. Shouldn't add to her fear, shouldn't put that weight on her shoulders when she was already carrying so much.
But he'd promised himself no more walls. No more distance. If they were doing this—if she was his—then she deserved the truth.
"Sizemore sent a message." He pulled out his phone, showed her the screen. "He knows where you are. Knows you're under my protection. He's not going to stop."
Trudy read the text. Her face went pale, then hard.
"Borrowed time," she said quietly.
"He's trying to scare us."
"Is it working?"
Kilgore looked at her—this woman who'd stood between armed men and her father's stairs, who'd learned to shoot because the world demanded it, who'd woken up every day for four months knowing someone wanted her dead and refused to break.
"No," he said. "It's not."
She nodded. Handed back the phone. Squared her shoulders like she was preparing for another battle.
"Then we stop him," she said. "Whatever it takes. We stop him before he can hurt anyone else."
Kilgore pulled her close again, pressed his mouth to her forehead.
"We will," he promised. "He just doesn't know it yet."
Through the window, the sun crept over the compound walls, painting everything in shades of gold.
Sizemore had sent his best and lost.
Next time, he wouldn't get the chance to send anyone at all.