Chapter Three
The lake was the only thing that shut his head up.
Lakeshore had tried everything else—whiskey, women, long rides down empty highways. None of it worked. The faces followed him everywhere, patient and permanent, waiting for him to sit still long enough to remember their names.
But on the water, with the engine rumbling and the shore shrinking behind him, something in his skull finally went quiet.
He needed that today. Needed it bad enough to ride twenty minutes to a bait shop he'd passed a hundred times and never stopped at, because the rental places closer to the compound were always crawling with weekend warriors and tourist families.
Mahoney's Bait & Tackle sat on a stretch of lakefront that time had forgotten—industrial lots on one side, empty warehouses on the other, and a parking lot that held maybe ten cars on a busy day. The kind of place that survived on regulars and stubbornness, not foot traffic.
The kind of place that shouldn't have half its fleet roped off with OUT OF SERVICE tags.
Lakeshore killed his engine and sat for a moment, reading the dock the way he used to read accident scenes.
Five boat slips, three of them empty or holding vessels that listed wrong in the water.
Fresh fiberglass patches on hulls that shouldn't need them—amateur work, done fast, the kind of repair you made when you couldn't afford to do it right.
Kayaks stacked against the shed wall with their hulls facing out, defensive positioning that said someone was worried about what happened when they weren't watching.
Sabotage. Systematic, patient, professional.
Someone was trying to sink this place.
He swung off his bike and walked toward the shop, curiosity pulling him forward even though the smart move was to find another rental and forget what he'd seen. Not his problem. Not his business. The Wolves had enough enemies without borrowing trouble from civilian operations.
Then the door opened, and his brain stopped working.
She came out wiping her hands on a rag, sun-streaked brown hair pulled back in a ponytail that had given up on neat about three hours ago.
Taller than he'd expected—five-eight, maybe—with shoulders that said she knew how to haul rope and arms that had spent time on the water.
No makeup, no jewelry, nothing soft about her except the curve of her mouth when she spotted him and didn't smile.
"Help you?"
Her voice hit him somewhere below his ribs. Direct, no-nonsense, with an edge that said she'd already dealt with too much bullshit today and wasn't interested in adding to the pile.
Lakeshore heard himself answer from very far away. "Need a boat."
"Rental or charter?"
"Rental. Few hours."
She looked at his cut, his boots, his face. Most people flinched when they registered the patch—Windy City Wolves, one-percenter diamond, all the signals that said dangerous and criminal and stay away. This woman just nodded like she was filing the information for later.
"Got one that runs. Twenty an hour, fifty deposit, you break it you buy it."
"Fair enough."
She led him down to the dock, and Lakeshore followed three steps behind because the view was making it hard to think. Worn jeans that fit like they'd earned every fade. Work boots that had actually seen work. The way she moved—confident, economical, like every step cost money she didn't have.
Jesus Christ, he thought. Get it together.
The rental was a sixteen-foot skiff with an outboard that had seen better decades. Tess—the name was painted on the side of the shed, MAHONEY'S in hand-lettered script that matched the stubborn set of her jaw—ran through the basics without looking at him. Kill switch, fuel gauge, running lights.
"You know the lake?" she asked.
"Yeah."
"Current's tricky past the breakwall. Don't go north of the pier unless you know what you're doing."
"I know what I'm doing."
She looked at him then. Really looked, with eyes the color of lake water in August—gray-green, deep, hiding more than they showed. Something flickered across her face, too fast to name.
"Everybody thinks that," she said. "Most of them are wrong."
He wanted to tell her about the eight years he'd spent on these waters.
The hundreds of rescues, the bodies pulled from currents that most people didn't know existed, the nights spent fighting waves that could flip a Coast Guard cutter like a bathtub toy.
He wanted to show her every scar on his hands and explain what each one had cost him.
Instead, he said: "I'll have it back by dark."
She handed him the keys without another word.
The water gave him what he needed.
Two hours on Lake Michigan, engine cutting through chop that would have sent the weekend crowd running for shore. Lakeshore pushed the skiff harder than he should have, testing limits, reminding his body what it felt like to fight something that couldn't be reasoned with.
The lake didn't care about his nightmares. Didn't care about the faces or the guilt or the darkness that swallowed whole days without warning. It just existed—massive, cold, indifferent—and something about that indifference was the closest thing to peace he'd ever found.
He watched the boat traffic while he ran, old habits kicking in.
Fishing charters working the usual spots.
Cargo vessels on the horizon, following shipping lanes that hadn't changed in a century.
Pleasure boats with more money than sense, their owners drinking beer and pretending Lake Michigan was a swimming pool.
And something else.
Small craft running patterns that didn't match any legitimate operation.
No fishing gear, no passengers, no reason to be making the same loops between the same points unless they were scouting routes or timing runs.
He marked the boats in his head—makes, colors, the way they moved—and filed it away for later.
When the light started going gold, he brought the skiff back to Mahoney's.
Tess was waiting on the dock, arms crossed, watching him approach with an expression he couldn't read. He tied off clean and killed the engine, and she looked at the boat like she was checking for damage she expected to find.
"Still floating," she said.
"Told you I knew what I was doing."
"Uh-huh."
She took the keys and turned toward the shop, and Lakeshore should have let her go. Should have climbed on his bike and ridden back to the compound and forgotten about the woman with lake-water eyes and a fleet that someone was trying to sink.
"Coffee?" The word came out before he could stop it. "Saw a pot inside."
She stopped. Turned. Gave him a look that said she knew exactly what he was doing and hadn't decided yet if she was going to let him do it.
"It's terrible coffee."
"Don't care."
Something shifted in her face. Not a smile—nothing that easy—but a crack in the wall she'd built around herself.
"Your funeral."
The coffee was exactly as bad as advertised.
Lakeshore drank it anyway, standing at the counter while Tess closed out the register and pretended she wasn't watching him watch the parking lot. The dark blue truck was back—same one he'd seen that morning when he pulled in, same tinted windows and same message.
We're still here.
"Friends of yours?" he asked.
Her hands stilled on the cash drawer. Just for a second, just long enough to tell him everything he needed to know.
"No."
"They've been here all day."
"I know."
He waited. Letting silence do the work, because pushing her would just make her push back. She had that look—the set jaw, the squared shoulders, the eyes that said she'd been fighting alone for too long to trust backup she hadn't asked for.
Tess closed the register and finally looked at him.
"You come back tomorrow?"
The question surprised him. Surprised her too, from the way her mouth tightened after she said it.
"Planning on it."
"Same boat. Same rate. Coffee's still terrible."
"Deal."
He came back the next day, and the day after that.
Each morning, Lakeshore told himself this was the last time. He'd rent the boat, spend a few hours on the water, and then forget about Mahoney's Bait & Tackle and the woman who ran it like she was holding back a flood with her bare hands.
Each morning, he showed up anyway.
The damage to her fleet got worse. Day two, he noticed fresh scratches on a hull that had been clean the day before.
Day three, one of the kayaks had a crack that someone had tried to hide with duct tape.
Small wounds, accumulating, the kind of slow bleed that killed businesses just as dead as a single catastrophic hit.
She never mentioned it. Never complained, never asked for help, never showed anything but that steady, stubborn competence that made him want to wrap his hands around whatever throat was doing this to her.
On the third day, he stayed late.
The sun was setting behind the city, throwing orange light across the water, and Lakeshore sat at the counter nursing coffee that had gone cold while Tess restocked shelves she'd restocked twice already.
The truck was back, and she was pretending not to watch it, and he was pretending not to watch her.
"You gonna tell me what's going on?" he asked.
She didn't answer right away. Just kept straightening rods that were already straight, buying time she didn't have.
"Why do you care?"
Good question. He should have a good answer, something that made sense, something that didn't sound like because you look at the water the way I do or because watching you fight alone is making me insane.
"Call it curiosity."
"Curiosity about my business problems?" She finally turned, leaning against the rod rack with her arms crossed. "Or curiosity about the guys in the truck?"
"Both."
"You're a Wolf." She said it flat, statement of fact. "I know what the patch means. I know what your club does."
"And?"
"And I'm wondering why one of the most dangerous MCs in Chicago keeps coming back to my bait shop for terrible coffee."
The front door opened before he could answer.
Two men walked in like they owned the place.
One was thick through the shoulders, barrel chest and anchor tattoos, moving with the casual arrogance of someone who'd never had to worry about consequences.
The other was younger, nervous, eyes flicking between Tess and Lakeshore like he was calculating odds he didn't like.
"Miss Mahoney." The big one smiled, and it didn't reach anywhere near his eyes. "Thought we'd stop by. See if you'd reconsidered Mr. Petrovic's offer."
Tess didn't move. Didn't flinch. Just stood there with her arms still crossed, looking at the two men like they were something unpleasant she'd found on the bottom of her shoe.
"I haven't."
"That's a shame." The big one—Ivan, Lakeshore thought, filing the name away—let his gaze wander around the shop. Taking inventory. Calculating damage. "Mr. Petrovic's being patient, but patience has limits. The offer expires Friday."
"Then I guess I'll see you Friday."
Ivan's smile widened. He looked at Lakeshore for the first time, taking in the cut, the scars, the absolute stillness of a man who was measuring exactly how hard he'd have to hit to put someone through a wall.
"Friend of yours?"
"Customer."
"Uh-huh." Ivan held Lakeshore's stare for a long moment. Whatever he saw there made his smile slip, just a little. "Friday, Miss Mahoney. Think about it."
They left. The door swung shut behind them, and the silence that followed felt like the moment before a storm broke.
Tess let out a breath she'd been holding. Her hands were shaking—just barely, just enough for him to notice—and she shoved them in her pockets before he could comment.
"Gregor Petrovic," she said quietly. "He wants to rent my dock. I said no. That was six weeks ago."
"And your boats started sinking."
"And my boats started sinking."
Lakeshore looked at the door Ivan had walked through. Then at the woman who'd just told two enforcers to go to hell without raising her voice.
Friday was four days away.
He had a call to make.