Chapter Five
Lakeshore waited until Tess locked up and headed for the stairs to her apartment before he moved.
"Where are you going?" She paused on the second step, keys in hand, watching him walk toward the dock instead of his bike.
"Nowhere. Get some sleep."
"That's not an answer."
"It's the only one you're getting."
She stood there for a long moment, backlit by the security light above the shop door. He could see the argument building in her jaw, the stubborn set of her shoulders that said she didn't take orders from anyone.
Christ, she was something.
"You're staying," she said. Not a question.
"Yeah."
"On my dock. In the cold. All night."
"Wouldn't be the first time I've spent a night on the water."
Her eyes narrowed, but she didn't push. Smart woman. She knew when to pick her battles, even if she didn't like losing this one.
"There's a space heater in the storage shed," she said finally. "And a thermos in the shop—cabinet above the coffee maker. Try not to freeze to death on my property. The paperwork would be annoying."
She disappeared up the stairs before he could answer. The door to her apartment opened, closed, and he heard the deadbolt slide home.
Good girl.
Lakeshore found the thermos where she'd said it would be and filled it with the terrible coffee that was somehow starting to taste like something he wanted.
He grabbed the space heater from the shed—useless for what he was planning, but the fact that she'd offered it settled somewhere warm in his chest.
Then he disappeared into the shadows at the end of her dock and waited.
The boat came at eleven.
No running lights, just a dark shape sliding through darker water.
Lakeshore pressed himself against the pilings and watched it pass—twenty-footer, center console, moving slow and quiet toward the decommissioned marina two hundred yards south.
He'd noticed that marina his first day on the water.
Empty slips, rusted equipment, the kind of place that screamed abandoned to anyone who didn't know what to look for.
He knew what to look for.
Twenty minutes later, headlights swept across the marina's broken fence.
A truck—dark, heavy, the same model he'd seen in Tess's parking lot—pulled up to the dock where the boat had tied off.
Two figures moved between vehicle and vessel, transferring cargo with the efficient rhythm of men who'd done this a hundred times.
Lakeshore pulled out his phone and started taking pictures.
The camera was shit in low light, but he got what he needed.
The boat's registration numbers. The truck's plates.
And the face of the man directing the operation—barrel chest, anchor tattoos visible even from this distance, moving with the arrogance of someone who'd never been challenged on his own turf.
Ivan.
The same bastard who'd walked into Tess's shop and told her she had until Friday. The same bastard who'd been putting holes in her boats for six weeks, bleeding her dry one inch at a time.
Lakeshore's hands wanted to curl into fists. He wanted to walk down that pier and show Ivan exactly what happened to men who threatened things that belonged to the Wolves.
But that wasn't the play. Not yet.
He stayed in the shadows and watched the operation unfold.
Cargo moved from boat to truck in under fifteen minutes—smaller packages, nothing that required heavy equipment, which meant high-value goods rather than bulk product.
Drugs, probably. Maybe weapons. The kind of merchandise that justified running boats across state lines in the middle of the night.
The truck pulled away at eleven-forty. The boat cast off and headed back toward the breakwall, running dark, disappearing into the black water like it had never existed.
Lakeshore waited another hour before he moved. Patience was the only discipline that had ever come naturally to him—the ability to sit still, watch, and wait for the right moment. It had made him good at rescue work. It made him better at this.
At one a.m., he climbed the stairs to Tess's apartment and knocked.
The door opened on a chain, one gray-green eye visible in the gap.
"You're still here."
"Told you I would be."
The chain rattled. The door swung wider, and Tess stood there in sweatpants and an oversized flannel that looked like it had belonged to someone twice her size. Her father's, probably. The thought made something twist in Lakeshore's chest.
"You look frozen," she said.
"I've been colder."
"That's not reassuring." She stepped back from the doorway. "Come in before you turn into a statue on my landing."
The apartment was small—living room and kitchen in one space, a hallway that probably led to a bedroom and bath. But it was warm, and it smelled like her, and Lakeshore had to stop himself from breathing deep like some kind of animal marking territory.
Jesus. Get a grip.
"Did you see something?" Tess asked, moving to the kitchen. He heard water running, the click of a kettle being set on the stove. "Or did you just enjoy freezing your ass off for six hours?"
"Saw plenty." He stayed by the door, keeping distance between them because getting closer felt dangerous in ways he didn't want to examine. "Boat came in around eleven. Tied up at the abandoned marina south of here. Truck met it, loaded cargo, both were gone in under twenty minutes."
She turned to face him, kettle forgotten. "You saw them."
"Got pictures. Boat registration, truck plates." He paused. "And Ivan. He was running the operation."
Something flickered across her face. Fear, maybe. Or relief that she finally had proof she wasn't imagining the threat.
"That's... that's good, right? Evidence?"
"Good for us. Bad for Gregor."
"Us." She repeated the word like she was testing its weight. "There's an us now?"
Lakeshore met her eyes and didn't look away.
"You're on Wolf waterfront. Someone's running an operation on Wolf waterfront without permission, using it to pressure a business owner who turned them down. Yeah, there's an us. There's been an us since you told Ivan to go to hell in front of me."
The kettle started to whistle. Tess didn't move to take it off.
"I didn't ask to be part of your territory."
"Didn't ask you. Just told you how it is."
"That's not—" She stopped, shook her head, and turned to deal with the kettle before it screamed the neighborhood awake. "You're impossible."
"Been told."
She made tea with sharp, angry movements—mug slammed on the counter, tea bag dropped like a weapon, hot water poured with more force than necessary. Lakeshore watched her work through her frustration and felt something that might have been amusement, if he remembered how to feel that.
"Here." She shoved the mug at him. "Drink this. You're not dying of hypothermia on my watch."
He took the tea. Their fingers brushed in the transfer, and Tess pulled back like she'd touched a live wire.
Yeah, he thought. Me too.
"I'm driving you home," he said.
"I am home."
"You're sleeping above a shop that Gregor Petrovic wants badly enough to run a six-week sabotage campaign. You're alone, you have no security beyond a deadbolt, and Ivan knows exactly where you are."
"I've been fine for six weeks."
"Six weeks ago, you hadn't pissed off Ivan in front of a Wolf. Stakes are different now."
Tess's chin came up. That stubborn set to her jaw that made him want to kiss her until she forgot how to argue.
"I'm not leaving my shop. I'm not hiding. I already told you—"
"You don't run. I heard you." Lakeshore set the tea down and stepped closer, watching her eyes widen but her feet stay planted.
"I'm not asking you to run. I'm asking you to let me drive you home tonight—not tomorrow, not Friday, tonight—and then come back with me so we can figure out how to end this before Gregor decides property damage isn't working. "
"Come back with you where?"
"The compound. Wolf territory. Safest place in the city for someone Gregor Petrovic wants to hurt."
She laughed—sharp, incredulous. "You want me to go to a biker compound. With a man I've known for three days. Because that's safer than my own apartment."
"Yes."
"That's insane."
"Probably."
"I don't even know your real name."
The words landed harder than she probably intended. Lakeshore looked at her—really looked, taking in the exhaustion under her eyes and the fear she was trying so hard not to show and the stubborn, unbreakable spine that kept her standing when anyone else would have crumbled.
"Tonight," he said. "Just tonight. Let me take you somewhere safe while I figure out the next move. If you hate it, if you don't feel right, I'll bring you back here myself. But I'm not leaving you alone in this apartment knowing what I know."
"Why do you care so much?"
It was the same question she'd asked on the dock, and he still didn't have a good answer. The truth was too big, too complicated, too tangled up in the way she looked at the water and the way she'd told him her father couldn't remember her name.
"Because you're mine to protect now," he said. "Whether you like it or not."
The words fell between them like stones into still water. Tess stared at him, lips parted, and Lakeshore watched the fight drain out of her.
"One night," she said finally.
"One night."
She disappeared into the bedroom to pack a bag, and Lakeshore stood in her kitchen drinking tea that was too hot and thinking about a woman who didn't know how to quit.
He drove her to the compound on his bike, her arms wrapped around his waist and her body pressed against his back. The ride took twenty minutes through empty streets, and Lakeshore felt every second of it—her warmth, her grip, the way she held on like she trusted him not to let her fall.
Dangerous, he thought. This is dangerous.
He left her with Fang's old lady, Andrea, who looked at Lakeshore with knowing eyes and didn't ask questions. Then he found a quiet corner and called Alpha.
"It's late." Alpha's voice was rough with sleep, but alert. The president of the Windy City Wolves didn't get soft, even at two in the morning.
"Gregor Petrovic. Runs a smuggling operation across the lake. Been using a marina on our waterfront as a landing point."
Silence on the other end. Then: "Our waterfront."
"31st Street corridor. He's been pressuring a business owner there to rent her dock. She said no. He's been sinking her boats for six weeks."
"She?"
Lakeshore heard the question underneath the question and ignored it.
"His operation runs through Wolf territory. Has been for years, from what she says. We never noticed because he kept it quiet and didn't push on anyone we protected. But he's pushing now."
"And you want to push back."
"I want to put him in the lake where he belongs."
Another pause. When Alpha spoke again, his voice had an edge that meant the president was gone and the predator was awake.
"Bring me what you've got. Pictures, plates, everything. Church tomorrow night—we'll figure out how to handle Mr. Petrovic and his operation."
"Done."
"And Lakeshore?"
"Yeah?"
"This business owner. She important?"
Lakeshore looked through the clubhouse window at the loading dock, where the city lights blurred into the distance and the lake waited somewhere beyond.
"Yeah," he said. "She's important."
He ended the call and went to find a bed, knowing sleep wouldn't come easy.
It never did when the water was calling.