Chapter 7 — Diesel
I leave her room at nineteen-thirty with the taste of her still on my mouth and the feeling of her body imprinted on mine in ways I can still feel hours later.
Downstairs, brothers are gathered in the common room, all of them geared up and ready.
Black tactical clothing, weapons checked and holstered, faces set in the expression that comes before violence.
The energy in the room is controlled but intense, like a wire pulled taut and waiting to snap.
Clint looks up when I come down the stairs. His eyes track my face and I know he's reading me, assessing whether I'm solid enough for this or if what just happened upstairs compromised my judgment.
"You good?" he asks.
"Yeah."
He studies me for two more seconds, then nods. "Gear up. We leave in fifteen."
I head to the armory and the ritual of preparation helps focus everything that's been churning since this morning.
Black cargo pants. Black long-sleeve shirt.
Tactical vest with plates that'll stop most rounds.
I check my Glock, chamber a round, holster it on my right hip.
Grab the backup piece for my left ankle.
Check the knife on my belt. Everything deliberate and methodical, the routine I've done a hundred times before raids.
But this time is different.
This time it's not about territory or strategy or club business in the abstract. This time it's about Ray in a hospital bed with his face destroyed. This time it's about Dutch thinking he can beat a civilian as a message and walk away from it.
This time it's personal in ways that make my hands shake slightly as I check the magazine one more time.
I force myself to breathe. To focus. To channel the rage into something useful instead of letting it make me sloppy.
I finish gearing up and head back to the common room.
Tate's by the door checking his weapon with the same methodical precision he brings to everything.
Cain's got his laptop open doing final checks on the warehouse location, eyes scanning screens filled with data I can't read from here.
Holt and Knox are already outside by the vehicles, loading equipment into the truck beds.
The air smells like gun oil and the tension that comes before violence, sharp and metallic and familiar.
Clint crosses to me and his voice drops low enough that only I can hear. "Intel says Dutch is still there. Two prospects with him, both young, probably inexperienced. They're moving product, not expecting us to hit back this fast. We're going to use that."
"Good."
"You stay controlled in there." His eyes are flat and serious. "We extract intel about what Crane's planning, then you get your shot at Dutch. But you don't go rogue. You don't take unnecessary risks. You don't compromise the team because you want revenge. You understand?"
"I understand."
"I mean it, Diesel. Ray being in the hospital doesn't give you a free pass to get yourself killed. You go in smart or I pull you out before you can fuck this up."
I meet his eyes and keep my voice level. "I'll be smart. But Dutch is mine."
"He's yours. Just make sure you come back to tell Sienna about it."
The mention of her name makes tension coil in my gut. She's upstairs right now waiting. Scared probably, even though she's too controlled to show it. Worrying about me coming back even though I promised her I would.
I need to make sure that promise holds.
"Let's move," Clint says.
We head outside where two trucks are waiting, engines already running, exhaust visible in the cooling night air.
Clint, Tate, and I take the first truck. Cain, Holt, and Knox take the second. The drive to the warehouse is going to take forty minutes, and we'll approach from different directions to box them in, cut off any escape routes before they even know we're there.
I climb into the passenger seat and Tate takes the wheel. Clint's in the back coordinating final details over the radio with the second truck. The gate opens and we pull out onto the county road and the clubhouse disappears behind us.
I think about Sienna in that room. About what we did two hours ago. About the way she looked at me after and said be careful like those two words could protect me.
About the fact that I'm going to tell her I love her when I get back because if tonight goes wrong, if something happens and I don't make it, I want her to know.
The drive passes in silence. Tate knows better than to try to make conversation before a raid. Clint's on the radio giving coordinates and timing to the second truck. I watch the road and the landscape passing and feel the adrenaline starting to build, the sharpness that comes before violence.
We're thirty miles out when Clint's phone rings. He answers, listens, says "Copy that" and hangs up.
"Cain's source confirmed Dutch is still at the warehouse," Clint says. "Two prospects with him, both early twenties. They're loading product into a panel van, probably planning to move it before midnight. We're hitting them mid-operation, which gives us advantage."
"What kind of product?" I ask.
"Heroin. Estimated fifty kilos. Street value around two million."
I process that. Two million dollars in product about to go up in smoke. Marrow's going to feel that for months.
Good.
The rest of the drive passes fast, back roads that Tate navigates without headlights once we're close enough that being seen becomes a risk.
The warehouse comes into view around a bend in the road, squat concrete building with a metal roof and broken windows, two vehicles parked outside under a single floodlight.
Lights on inside, visible through dirt-streaked glass.
One truck. One panel van with the back doors open.
They're here. They're busy. They're not expecting us.
Tate pulls off the road half a mile out and kills the engine. We sit in darkness and I can hear cicadas and the distant hum of highway traffic and my own breathing loud in my ears.
Clint radios the second truck. "Status."
"In position," Cain's voice comes through the speaker. "West approach clear. Visual on two subjects loading product. No sign of additional personnel. Ready on your signal."
"Copy. Wait for my mark." Clint looks at me and Tate. "Same as we planned. Front and bay door. They come out or we go in. Non-lethal on the prospects if they surrender. Dutch doesn't leave vertical."
"Understood," I say, and my voice sounds different to my own ears, flatter, colder, the voice that comes when violence is imminent and everything else falls away.
We exit the truck quietly. Move through scrub brush and scattered trees toward the warehouse, keeping low, weapons drawn, and I'm aware of everything with the clarity that comes from adrenaline and training: the smell of dry earth and creosote, the sound of our breathing synchronized, the weight of the vest and weapons and the knowledge that what happens next is going to be fast and brutal and permanent.
We reach our position at the bay door on the south side of the building. Metal door, rusted hinges, closed but not locked from what I can see. Tate takes point. I'm behind him. Clint covers our six.
My heart is racing now, blood pounding in my ears, and I'm thinking about Ray's face in that hospital bed, about the blood in his driveway, about Dutch smiling while he did it.
Clint radios Cain. "Go."
Thirty seconds of silence.
Then shouting from inside the warehouse, muffled but clear. "Hands up! Guns down! Do it now!"
Cain's team hitting the front entrance.
Tate kicks the bay door and it crashes inward with a shriek of metal on metal and we're through, weapons up, moving fast into a large open space stacked with wooden crates and pallets wrapped in plastic.
Two prospects near the front door spin around at our entrance, hands going for weapons tucked in their waistbands but not fast enough, not nearly fast enough.
"Guns down," Tate barks, and his voice has the authority of someone who's done this in combat zones where the stakes were higher than this. "Hands up. Now. Don't fucking think about it."
The prospects freeze. Young, maybe early twenties like Clint said, wearing Marrow cuts but looking like they've never actually been in a real firefight. Scared eyes. Hands trembling as they slowly raise them.
"Do it," Tate says again, and there's no room for negotiation in his tone.
They drop their weapons. Cheap nine-millimeters that clatter on concrete. Hands go higher.
Near the front entrance, visible through the maze of stacked crates, Cain and Holt have their weapons trained on Dutch.
Dutch is everything I remember from the intel photos and more.
Six-three, maybe two-fifty, broad shoulders that strain his cut, arms covered in ink and scars.
The scar across his throat is prominent even from here, thick and ropey, whatever gave it to him years ago should have killed him but didn't. He's not scared. He's not even tense.
He's smiling.
"Vigil," he says, and his voice is rough, damaged from whatever cut his throat, gravelly and wrong-sounding. "Didn't expect you boys so soon. Thought you'd take a few days to work up the courage after seeing what I did to your friend."
The rage that's been simmering since this morning flares white-hot and immediate, flooding through me like ignition, and I have to consciously force myself not to move, not to react, not to give him the satisfaction of seeing it land.
"Secure the prospects," Clint says.
Knox moves in with zip-ties and yanks the first prospect's arms down, binds his wrists behind his back with quick efficient movements. The kid doesn't resist, doesn't speak, just lets it happen with wide eyes that keep darting to Dutch like he's waiting for orders.
Knox shoves him toward the wall and does the same to the second prospect. Both of them end up sitting against the concrete with their hands bound, and they're not going anywhere.
I walk toward Dutch and his eyes track to me, that smile widening like he's been waiting for this moment.