Chapter Five
Megan had been pacing for two hours.
Levee watched her from his position by the window, tracking her movement the way he tracked everything—assessing stress points, calculating when something would break. She moved like a caged animal, all coiled energy and barely contained fury, her boots wearing a path in the concrete dust.
"If you don't stop moving," he said, "you're going to wear a hole in the floor."
"If I stop moving, I'm going to lose my mind." She spun on her heel, hands jammed in her back pockets. "I don't do sitting still. I don't do waiting. I do working. And right now I can't work because my shop is a crime scene and there's a bunch of military assholes driving around looking for me."
"They're searching the east side of town. Crossroad's tracking their movement."
"Great. Fantastic. So we just sit here while they—" She stopped mid-stride, her eyes landing on the duffel bag in the corner. "What's in that?"
Levee considered deflecting. Decided against it.
"Armory kit. Maintenance supplies, cleaning equipment, spare parts." He shrugged. "Habit. I don't go anywhere without it."
She crossed to the bag and crouched down, unzipping it with the same focused intensity she brought to everything.
He expected fear, maybe—the average civilian seeing gun oil and ammunition components tended to get nervous.
Or fascination, the kind that came from people who'd watched too many movies and thought they understood what they were looking at.
What he got was neither.
"This is a cleaning kit for a 1911." She held up the leather case, examining it with narrowed eyes.
"My stepdad had one. Used to make me clean it when he was too drunk to do it himself.
" She set it aside and pulled out the next item.
"Bore snake. Solvent. And this is... some kind of trigger assembly? "
"Spare parts for a Glock 19. In case anything jams in the field."
"Huh." She turned the components over in her hands, examining them with the same attention she'd give a tattoo machine. "You carry all this everywhere?"
"I'm the armorer. Keeping the weapons functional is my job."
"No, I get that." She looked up at him, dark eyes curious. "I mean—you carry it. Like it's part of you. Like you'd feel naked without it."
He was quiet for a moment, turning the observation over. Most people didn't notice the way he held onto his tools. Most people didn't pay that kind of attention.
"When I worked the river," he said slowly, "I always had a kit. Emergency repair supplies for the levee equipment. Sandbags, cables, patching materials. Because when something fails in flood conditions, you don't have time to go back for what you need."
"So you learned to bring it with you."
"I learned that preparation is the difference between holding and breaking." He watched her examine the trigger assembly, her ink-stained fingers moving with surprising precision. "Most people look at a crisis and react. I look at a crisis and think about what I should have done before it started."
"Hm." She set the parts back in the bag, but didn't zip it closed. "That's either really smart or really paranoid."
"Probably both."
The ghost of a smile crossed her face. "Yeah. I'm starting to notice a pattern with you."
She stood and resumed pacing, but slower now—less frantic energy, more focused thought. Levee found himself watching the way she moved, the unconscious grace of a woman who'd spent years controlling her body for precise work.
"Tell me about the block," he said.
She stopped. "What about it?"
"You've been on that street for four years. You know every building, every business that closed, every owner who left." He pulled out his notebook, the same one he'd used to map Brandt's operation. "Walk me through it. From the beginning."
"From the—" She stared at him. "You want me to give you a history of Clarksdale's main street?"
"I want you to give me Brandt's demolition timeline." He flipped to a fresh page. "You're the only person who's watched his operation from the inside. You know things I can't learn from observation. So talk."
She was quiet for a long moment, studying him with an expression he couldn't quite read. Then she crossed to the workbench where he'd set up his maps and leaned over them, her shoulder almost brushing his.
"Fine. The first building Brandt bought was the old hardware store on the corner." She tapped the map. "That was... two and a half years ago? Old man Rawlings had owned it for thirty years. His kids didn't want it, so when Brandt came around with cash, he took the deal."
"Clean sale. No pressure?"
"Not at first. Brandt was smart—he bought the easy ones first. Buildings where the owners were ready to leave anyway." She traced a line down the map. "Then there was the dry cleaner. Then the photography studio. All voluntary sales, all above-board."
"When did it change?"
Her jaw tightened. "About eighteen months ago. The lunch counter on the far end of the block. Doris Finch ran it for twenty years—best pie in the Delta, I'm not even joking. She didn't want to sell. Said that counter was her husband's dream and she'd run it until she died."
"What happened?"
"Kitchen fire. 'Faulty wiring.'" Megan's voice dripped acid. "Except Doris had her electrical inspected six months earlier and it passed fine. But by the time the insurance company finished dragging their feet, she didn't have the money to rebuild. Brandt bought the lot for pennies."
Levee wrote it down, his mind building a timeline. "That was the first one?"
"First fire. Then Danny's place—the appliance repair shop.
Then the building next to me, the one that's been empty for eight months.
" She leaned closer, pointing to each location in turn.
"And in between the fires, there were the other ones.
Terrence, with the slashed tires. A woman named Gloria who ran a consignment shop—someone put a dead rat in her mail slot every day for three weeks until she left. "
"Escalating pressure campaign."
"Exactly." She looked up at him, and their faces were close enough that he could see the flecks of gold in her dark eyes.
"He starts soft. Reasonable offers, professional paperwork.
Then when you say no, he starts applying pressure.
Vandalism, harassment, things that are hard to prove. And if that doesn't work—"
"He burns you out."
"And makes it look like an accident." She straightened up, running a hand through her tangled hair. "I've been watching it happen for two years. Watching my neighbors disappear one by one. And I kept telling myself it wouldn't happen to me, that I was too stubborn, that he'd give up eventually."
"But he didn't."
"No. He just got to me last."
Levee looked at the map, at the pattern Megan had traced. It was exactly what he'd suspected—a systematic demolition of the block, target by target, each pressure point carefully calculated.
But now he had something he hadn't had before: the sequence. The timing. The specific methods Brandt's crew used at each stage.
"You just gave me his playbook," he said quietly.
"What?"
"The demolition timeline. The escalation pattern.
The way he targets properties and the methods he uses at each stage.
" Levee looked at her, and something warm expanded in his chest. "You've been cataloging his operation for two years without even knowing it.
Every detail you noticed, every neighbor who disappeared—it's all data.
And data tells you where the structure is weakest."
She blinked. "You're saying my trauma is tactically useful?"
"I'm saying you're not just a target. You're an asset." He held her gaze, willing her to understand. "You know things about Brandt's operation that my scouts couldn't learn in six months. And now I can use that knowledge to take him apart."
"Together," she said. The word was pointed.
"Together."
The moment stretched between them—charged, electric, full of things neither of them was ready to say. Levee found himself leaning toward her, drawn by some force he didn't understand and wasn't sure he wanted to fight.
His phone buzzed.
He grabbed it, the spell breaking. Crossroad's name flashed on the screen.
"Talk to me."
"Sutter found you." Crossroad's voice was tight. "His crew was canvassing the industrial district. One of them spotted your bike behind the fence."
Levee's jaw tightened. "How long?"
"Twenty minutes, maybe thirty. They're assembling a crew. Looks like they're planning to breach."
"How many?"
"Eight, maybe ten. Sutter's calling in everyone he's got."
Levee looked at Megan, who was watching him with sharp, alert eyes. She'd heard enough to understand.
"Get brothers here," he said into the phone. "Everyone you can reach in the next twenty minutes. Full loadout."
"On it. Cottonmouth's already mobilizing."
He hung up and turned to Megan.
"Sutter's coming."
"I heard." Her voice was steady, but he could see her pulse jumping at her throat. "What do we do?"
"We hold this position." Levee was already moving, his mind shifting into the mode he'd lived in for nine years on the river.
Assess the structure. Identify the weak points.
Reinforce what needs reinforcing. "This building is solid.
Good walls, limited entry points. If I can fortify it properly, we can turn their numbers into a liability. "
"How?"
He grabbed the duffel bag, pulling out tools he'd brought for exactly this kind of situation. "Sutter's crew will expect a quick breach. They'll stack up at the door, come in hard and fast. But if I can channel their approach—force them through specific entry points—"
"You can control where they go."
He looked at her, surprised. "Exactly."
"I'm not stupid, Levee. I've been listening." She grabbed a heavy piece of equipment from a nearby rack—a welding tank, probably fifty pounds. "Tell me where you want this."
He should tell her to stay back. Should put her somewhere safe while he did the dangerous work.
But she was already moving, already dragging equipment toward the door like she'd been fortifying buildings her whole life. And the look in her eyes—fierce, determined, absolutely unwilling to be sidelined—told him that arguing would be a waste of time they didn't have.
"There." He pointed to the main entrance. "Block the sight line from the door. Anyone who breaches will have to go around it."
She moved the tank into position. "What else?"
For the next fifteen minutes, they worked in tandem—Levee directing, Megan executing.
He showed her how to position equipment to channel movement, how to create choke points that turned a large space into a series of kill zones.
She absorbed it all without question, her artist's eye understanding instinctively how space and obstruction worked together.
By the time they heard the rumble of motorcycles approaching—friendly, from the distinctive sound of Destroyer V-twins—the welding shop had been transformed.
"Brothers are here," Levee said.
Megan stood beside him, breathing hard, her hands dirty from equipment she'd never touched before. She looked at the fortified space they'd built together and something flickered across her face.
"Not bad," she said. "For tactical support."
"Not bad yourself." He met her eyes, and the pride he felt was almost overwhelming. "For a tattoo artist."
She grinned—fierce and wild and absolutely fearless.
"Brandt's boys are going to regret the day they threw that brick through my window."
"Yeah," Levee said, and heard the bikes pull into the lot behind them. "They really are."