Chapter Six
They came at dawn.
Levee heard them before he saw them—the crunch of tires on gravel, the low rumble of engines cutting off one by one. He counted six vehicles through the gap in the boarded window. Maybe eight men per truck.
Sutter wasn't messing around.
"Positions," he said, his voice carrying through the fortified space.
The brothers moved like shadows. Hollow took the east corner, shotgun braced against a welding tank.
Crossroad covered the back entrance. Three more Destroyers spread through the kill zones Levee had designed, each one positioned exactly where the structure would protect them and expose anyone coming through.
Megan was in the back room, barricaded behind the heaviest equipment they could move. She'd fought him on it—of course she had—but he'd won that argument with one sentence: I can't focus if I'm worried about you.
She'd gone. Furious, but she'd gone.
Now Levee stood at the center of his creation, the building he'd spent twenty-four hours transforming from a safehouse into a fortress.
Every entry point channeled into narrow approaches.
Every sight line calculated. The heavy welding equipment turned into barriers that would force any assault team into spaces where numbers meant nothing.
Sutter's boys were about to learn what happened when former MPs went up against a man who thought in structures.
The first breach came at the main door.
They hit it with a ram, the impact shuddering through the building. The door held—Levee had reinforced it with steel plate from the shop's scrap pile—and the second of confusion as they recoiled was all Hollow needed.
The shotgun blast caught the point man in the chest, throwing him back into the men stacked behind him. Screaming. Chaos. The second man tried to push through and Crossroad's rifle cracked twice from the back corner, dropping him where he stood.
"Breach team down," Levee said into his radio. "They'll try the windows next."
They did.
Two windows shattered simultaneously—east and west walls, coordinated entry.
But the welding tanks Levee had positioned blocked the sight lines, forcing the contractors to climb through blind.
The first man through the east window took three rounds before his feet hit the floor.
The second hesitated, and Hollow finished him with a slug that painted the wall red.
The west window was worse. Four men made it through before the brothers could respond, their military training kicking in as they spread for cover.
Levee stepped into the fight.
He moved through the space he'd designed, using the equipment as cover, his rifle barking in controlled bursts.
One contractor went down clutching his throat.
Another tried to flank and walked straight into a choke point Levee had created with stacked metal sheeting—nowhere to go, nowhere to hide.
The armorer's shot took him through the eye.
"Southeast corner!" Crossroad's voice crackled through the radio. "They're cutting through the wall!"
Levee spun. Sure enough, sparks were flying from the exterior wall—someone with a cutting torch, trying to create a new entry point where he hadn't planned for one.
Sutter, he thought. The head of security was smart enough to recognize a fortified position and try to bypass it entirely.
"Cover me," Levee barked, and moved.
The wall section was thin—corrugated metal, not the reinforced concrete of the main structure. Levee had known it was a weak point but hadn't had time to shore it up. Now Sutter was exploiting it, cutting a man-sized hole through the one spot the defenses didn't cover.
The cutting stopped. The metal panel fell inward.
Craig Sutter came through the hole like a man who'd done this a hundred times—weapon up, eyes scanning, every movement precise and military. Behind him, three more contractors poured through the breach.
"Contact!" Levee fired as he moved, dropping one contractor but missing Sutter as the man rolled behind a lathe. "Northwest corner, four hostiles!"
The welding shop erupted into chaos.
Gunfire echoed off metal walls. Brothers shouted positions and targets. Contractors who'd expected an easy extraction found themselves trapped in a building that fought against them—every move channeled, every advance exposed.
Levee worked his way toward Sutter's position, using the equipment he'd arranged as stepping stones through the firefight. A contractor stepped into his path and Levee put him down with two shots to the chest. Another tried to flank and caught Hollow's shotgun blast for his trouble.
The bodies were piling up. Sutter's assault team was being systematically dismantled.
But the head of security was still alive, still fighting, still dangerous.
Levee found him behind the industrial lathe, reloading his rifle with the calm efficiency of a man who'd done combat rotations. Their eyes met across the space, and something cold passed between them—recognition. Understanding.
Two men who knew structures. One who built them, one who broke them.
"You're the armorer," Sutter said, his voice carrying over the diminishing gunfire. "The one who's been sniffing around the tattoo shop."
"And you're the man who tried to burn her alive."
Sutter's lips curved into something that wasn't quite a smile. "Just following orders. Brandt wants the block cleared. Nothing personal."
"It is now."
Levee moved.
Sutter was fast—military-trained, combat-tested, the kind of operator who'd survived a dozen deployments. He brought his rifle up and fired, the rounds sparking off the equipment Levee dove behind.
But this wasn't a deployment zone. This was Levee's space—a building he'd spent twenty-four hours learning, reinforcing, turning into an extension of himself.
He knew exactly where the load-bearing supports were. Knew exactly how much stress each section could take. Knew exactly which structural elements, if compromised, would bring everything down.
He'd prepared for this moment.
The support column Sutter was using for cover—the one Levee had weakened hours ago with careful cuts that left it standing but unstable—groaned as Levee put three rounds into its base.
Sutter heard the sound. His eyes went wide.
Too late.
The column collapsed, and the reinforced section above it—fifty pounds of steel plating Levee had positioned precisely for this purpose—came down like the hammer of God.
Sutter tried to move. Almost made it.
The steel caught him across the shoulders, driving him to his knees. His rifle clattered away. Blood sprayed from his mouth as something inside him broke.
Levee walked toward him through the settling dust, his boots crunching on debris. Behind him, the last gunfire stuttered and died. The Destroyers had won.
But this wasn't over yet.
Sutter was still alive, pinned under the steel but breathing. His eyes tracked Levee's approach with the desperate focus of a man who knew what was coming.
"You think this changes anything?" Sutter coughed blood. "Brandt's got more men. He's got Pryor running operations, Tully handling demo. You take me out, two more step up."
"I know." Levee crouched beside him, close enough to see the fear beneath the defiance. "That's why I'm going to take them out too. One by one. Until there's nothing left but Brandt and a development project that'll never get built."
"You can't—"
"I spent nine years building things that held back the Mississippi River." Levee's voice was quiet, conversational. "Structures that protected entire towns. You think I don't know how to tear something down?"
He stood, looking down at the man who'd tried to burn Megan alive in her own shop.
"Here's what's going to happen. I'm going to walk away.
And you're going to spend however long you've got left thinking about the woman whose building you tried to destroy.
" Levee's jaw tightened. "Her name is Megan.
She built something real with her own hands.
And you thought you could just... burn it down. "
"It's just... business..." Sutter's voice was fading.
"No." Levee pulled his sidearm. "It's structural."
The shot echoed through the ruined welding shop—clean, final, merciful in its swiftness.
Craig Sutter, head of security for Brandt Development Group, died on the floor of a building that had been turned into a weapon by a man who understood exactly what holds and what breaks.
The silence afterward was deafening.
Levee stood over Sutter's body, his ears ringing, his hands steady despite the adrenaline flooding his system. Around him, brothers were checking bodies, securing weapons, calling out status reports.
"Clear!"
"Clear here!"
"Two wounded, nothing critical. We're good."
Eight contractors dead. Two wounded and surrendered. Sutter eliminated.
The welding shop had held.
"Levee." Hollow's voice, rough but impressed. "You turned this place into a goddamn meat grinder."
"It's what I do." He holstered his weapon and turned toward the back room. "Secure the perimeter. We move in ten."
The barricade Megan had built was solid—heavy equipment stacked three deep, exactly the way he'd shown her. He knocked twice, their agreed signal.
"It's me. We're clear."
A scraping sound, then the equipment shifted. Megan emerged from behind the barricade with a welding hammer in one hand and fury in her eyes.
"Tell me you got that son of a bitch."
"I got him."
She stared at him—taking in the blood on his clothes, the gun smoke in the air, the absolute stillness of his expression. Then she crossed the space between them in three strides and grabbed the front of his cut.
"Don't ever make me hide in a back room again." Her voice shook. "I mean it, Levee. I'm not a civilian. I'm not going to sit in a corner while you—"
"Next time, you fight with me."
She stopped. "What?"
"You proved yourself last night. The fortifications, the intel, the way you moved when it mattered." He covered her hands with his, holding them against his chest. "I'm not going to ask you to hide again. But I need you to understand something."
"What?"
"This isn't over." He looked into her eyes, needing her to see the truth.
"Sutter was the muscle. Brandt's got an operations man named Pryor who coordinates the whole campaign.
And a demolition specialist named Tully who handles the arson work.
We took out one support—the structure's still standing. "
"So we take out the rest."
"Together."
She held his gaze, and something passed between them—understanding, maybe. Partnership. The beginning of something neither of them was ready to name.
"Where do we go now?" she asked.
"The compound." Levee released her hands and stepped back. "Your shop's a crime scene and this place is compromised. You need somewhere safe while we plan the next move."
"The compound." She laughed—short, sharp. "You're taking me home to meet the family."
"Something like that."
"And what am I supposed to do there? Sit around and wait for you to tell me when I'm allowed to help?"
"No." He allowed himself a small smile. "You're going to tell us everything you know about Brandt's operation.
Every building he owns, every contractor you've seen, every detail you picked up in four years of watching your block get gutted.
" He held out his hand. "You're an asset, Megan.
And we're going to use everything you've got. "
She looked at his hand, then back at his face. The fury had faded, replaced by something warmer. Something that might have been hope.
"Fine." She took his hand. "But I'm riding with you."
"Wouldn't have it any other way."
He led her out of the back room, past the bodies and the blood and the wreckage of Sutter's failed assault. The brothers were already loading up, bikes rumbling in the morning light.
Hollow caught his eye as they passed. "Nice work, brother. That thing with the support column—"
"Structural thinking." Levee didn't slow down. "Everything has a breaking point. You just have to know where to look."
He swung onto his bike, and Megan climbed on behind him without hesitation. Her arms wrapped around his waist, her body pressed against his back, and something in his chest finally unclenched.
The shop had held. Sutter was dead. And the woman he was starting to realize he couldn't live without was safe.
For now.
"Compound's forty minutes out," he said over his shoulder.
"Then let's ride."
The engines roared to life—a chorus of thunder rolling across the Delta morning. Levee pulled out of the lot first, leading the column toward home.
Behind them, the welding shop stood silent, its walls scarred by gunfire, its floor stained with the blood of men who'd thought they could take what didn't belong to them.
Brandt would send more. Pryor, the operations man. Tully, the demolition specialist. The structure wasn't down yet.
But Levee had just proven what happened when you came for something he was protecting.
And he was only getting started.