Chapter Twelve
They hit the shop at midnight.
Pitfall had been expecting it. Three days of quiet after the safehouse massacre meant Maggard was regrouping, planning, choosing his next target.
The compound was too fortified, too defended.
But the cooperative—Nadine's heart, her purpose, everything she'd built—sat in town like a gift-wrapped invitation.
So he'd spent those three days preparing.
Studying the building's layout until he knew its bones. Mapping sight lines, entry points, defensive positions. Working with Grit, Timber, and Switchback to establish overlapping fields of fire. Staging weapons, ammunition, supplies. Turning a craft shop into a kill zone.
When the first window shattered, he was already moving.
"Contact!" Timber's voice crackled through the radio. "Eight, maybe ten. Coming from the south."
"I've got four more from the east." Switchback's response was calm despite the gunfire erupting around his position. "They're trying to flank."
Pitfall grabbed his rifle and sprinted toward the back room where Nadine was supposed to be hiding. He'd argued with her for an hour about staying at the compound, about letting the brothers handle this without risking her life.
She'd told him this was her shop, her fight, and she wasn't sitting this one out.
Stubborn woman. His stubborn woman.
"Nadine!" He burst through the stockroom door, weapon up.
She was crouched behind a barricade of crates, the shotgun he'd taught her to use three days ago braced against her shoulder. Her face was pale but steady, her eyes tracking the darkness beyond the windows.
"I'm fine." She didn't look at him, kept her focus on the threat. "They're trying the back door."
"I know. Stay down until I—"
The door exploded inward.
Two men rushed through, guns blazing, spraying bullets into shelves of pottery and baskets that shattered under the assault. Pitfall dropped the first one with a double-tap to the chest. The second swung toward Nadine—
Her shotgun roared.
The man went down in a spray of red, his weapon clattering across the floor. Nadine racked another shell, hands steady, jaw set.
"Told you I could shoot."
"Never doubted it." Pitfall grabbed her arm, pulled her toward a better position. "We need to move. They're hitting all sides."
The shop had become a war zone. Glass crunched under their boots. Smoke curled from somewhere in the front room—a fire, maybe, or just the aftermath of a flashbang. The sounds of combat rolled through the building: gunshots, shouting, the distinctive crack of Timber's rifle picking off targets.
"Pitfall!" Grit's voice in his ear. "We've got a problem. Guy in the gray sedan—he's directing traffic. Coordinating the assault."
"Description?"
"Thin, precise movements. Staying back from the fight."
Hammond. The logistics brain Sizemore had given up during interrogation. The man who knew which shops carried what product and when, who understood pressure points and timing.
"I see him." Pitfall positioned himself at a shattered window, scanning the street. There—a silver sedan parked a block away, a figure visible in the glow of a laptop screen. Directing his men like chess pieces, confident in his position of safety.
"Keep them busy," Pitfall said. "I'm going for the head."
"Copy."
He turned to Nadine. "Stay with Grit. Don't leave this building."
"Where are you going?"
"To end this."
Her hand caught his before he could move. In the chaos, with bullets flying and her shop being destroyed around them, she pulled him close and kissed him hard.
"Come back," she said against his lips.
"Always."
Then he was gone, slipping through the shadows he'd learned to navigate in places darker than this.
Hammond never saw him coming.
The logistics man was too focused on his screen, on the tactical display showing his men's positions, on the carefully planned assault that was supposed to overwhelm the shop's defenders through superior numbers and coordination.
He didn't account for the prospect who'd spent three days memorizing every approach, every blind spot, every shadow that could hide a man with murder in his heart.
Pitfall came through the sedan's passenger window like a nightmare.
The glass shattered inward, and before Hammond could react, Pitfall had him by the throat, dragging him out of the vehicle and onto the cold asphalt. The laptop clattered away, its tactical display forgotten.
"Wait—" Hammond's voice was a strangled wheeze. "I'm just coordinating. I don't even carry a gun—"
"You coordinate men who kill." Pitfall's knee pressed into the man's chest, pinning him down. "You pick which shops get pressured and which get burned. You drew up the plan that put Nadine in your crosshairs."
"Maggard ordered it! I just—"
"Followed orders." Pitfall drew his knife. "Sizemore said the same thing."
Hammond's eyes went wide at the blade. "I can help you. I know everything—the network, the money, where Maggard keeps his records. I'm more valuable alive than—"
"No." The word was flat, final. "You're not."
The knife moved. Hammond didn't.
Pitfall cleaned the blade on the dead man's shirt, same as he'd done with Sizemore. Then he grabbed the laptop, tucked it under his arm, and headed back toward the shop.
The gunfire was dying down. Without their coordinator, the attackers had lost cohesion, their carefully planned assault falling apart into scattered chaos.
Some were fleeing. Others were dying. A few had surrendered and were being secured by brothers who showed no mercy but offered the chance to talk.
By the time Pitfall reached the shop, it was over.
The damage was bad.
Nadine stood in what had been her main showroom, surrounded by destruction. Shattered pottery. Torn baskets. Display cases reduced to splinters and broken glass. Three weeks of inventory destroyed in less than fifteen minutes.
But the walls were standing. The structure was intact. And no one on their side was dead.
"Hey." Pitfall approached her carefully, reading the devastation in her face. "Hey. Look at me."
She turned, and the tears streaming down her cheeks nearly broke him.
"They destroyed everything." Her voice cracked. "Mabel's baskets. Clara's pottery. Douglas's walking sticks. Everything I was protecting—"
"Not everything." He pulled her into his arms, held her tight against him. "The building's still here. The artisans are still alive. You're still alive."
"But the work—"
"Can be remade." He tilted her chin up, forced her to meet his eyes. "Listen to me. Those pieces weren't your artisans' last work. They weren't the end of anything. They were inventory. Replaceable."
"They were irreplaceable. Each one was—"
"Unique. Beautiful. Worth protecting." He wiped the tears from her cheeks with his thumb. "I know. But the hands that made them are still here. The skills are still here. The traditions are still here." He gestured at the ruined shop. "This is just a building. You're what makes it matter."
She buried her face in his chest, shoulders shaking. He held her through it, letting her grieve while the brothers secured the perimeter and began the grim work of cleanup.
"Hammond?" Grit appeared in the doorway, eyes taking in the scene without comment.
"Handled."
"Good. We got three alive. They're talking."
"Anything useful?"
"Maggard's getting desperate. Losing Sizemore and Hammond back to back—his operation's bleeding out." Grit's expression was grim but satisfied. "He's going to make a mistake soon. And we'll be there when he does."
Pitfall nodded, still holding Nadine. "What about the shop?"
"Structural damage is minimal. Mostly cosmetic, inventory loss." Grit surveyed the wreckage. "We can have crews here tomorrow. Get the windows replaced, walls patched. Won't be pretty, but it'll be functional."
"Do it."
Grit left to coordinate. Pitfall stayed, arms wrapped around the woman who'd become his reason for everything.
"I want to help rebuild." Nadine's voice was muffled against his shirt. "Not just watch. Actually help."
"We will. Together."
She pulled back, looked up at him. The tears had stopped, replaced by something harder. More determined.
"They're not going to stop, are they? Maggard, whoever else is out there. They're going to keep coming until one side breaks."
"Yeah." No point lying about it. "They are."
"Then we break them first." Her jaw set, the same stubborn line he'd fallen for the first day he walked into this shop. "Whatever it takes. I'm done being the target. I want to be the weapon."
Pride surged through him, hot and fierce. This woman. This incredible, stubborn, brave woman who'd gone from shop owner to warrior in the span of a week.
"You already are." He kissed her forehead. "You always were."
The night was cold around them, the shop a ruin of broken dreams and shattered inventory. But standing in the wreckage with Nadine in his arms, Pitfall felt something that surprised him.
Hope.
They'd won tonight. Not clean, not without cost, but won. Maggard had sent his best and his best had died. The message was clear: Mountain Crafts Cooperative was under Reaper protection, and anyone who came for it would pay in blood.
"Come on." He took her hand, guided her toward the door. "Nothing more we can do tonight. Let's get you home."
"The compound?"
"Home," he repeated. "Same thing now."
She managed a small smile at that—fragile, but real.
Outside, brothers were loading bodies into trucks, securing prisoners, erasing evidence with the efficiency of men who'd done this too many times to count. Timber nodded at them as they passed. Switchback was already on his bike, ready to escort them back.
Pitfall helped Nadine onto his motorcycle, felt her arms wrap around his waist, her body pressed against his back.
"The shop survives," she whispered into his shoulder. "That's what matters."
He started the engine, let the rumble vibrate through them both.
"That's what matters," he agreed.
They rode into the darkness, leaving the battlefield behind, heading toward whatever came next.