Chapter Sixteen
They found Trent Maggard hiding among the fakes.
The warehouse sat on the edge of Harlan, a corrugated metal building that looked abandoned from the outside but hummed with activity within.
Intel from Hammond's laptop had given them the location.
Surveillance from Switchback had confirmed the target.
And the burning rage in Pitfall's chest had demanded they move tonight.
"Six guards on the perimeter." Grit's voice was low, barely audible in the pre-dawn darkness. "Another four inside. Trent's in the back office, probably counting his uncle's money."
"Basement access?"
"Loading dock on the east side. Leads down to storage."
Pitfall studied the building's layout, already mapping the approach in his mind. The basement would be dark, cramped, full of corners and blind spots that would terrify most men.
He wasn't most men.
"I'll go through the basement, come up behind them." He checked his weapon, racked the slide. "You hit the front when you hear shooting. Timber takes the loading dock. Switchback covers the exits."
"And the nephew?"
"He's mine."
Grit's eyes narrowed, but he didn't argue. They'd all heard what Trent had done. They'd all seen Mabel Hensley's face when she'd arrived at the compound, hollow-eyed and clutching the three tools she'd managed to salvage from sixty years of work.
Some debts could only be paid in blood.
"Go," Grit said. "We move in five."
The basement was exactly what Pitfall had expected.
Dark. Damp. Stacked floor to ceiling with boxes of counterfeit garbage—fake handbags, knockoff electronics, bootleg everything. The kind of product that poisoned legitimate businesses and destroyed the livelihoods of people who actually made things worth buying.
Pitfall moved through the darkness like he'd been born in it.
The guards didn't hear him coming. They were clustered near the stairs, playing cards under a single flickering bulb, confident that the basement was secure because who would be crazy enough to approach through here?
Someone who'd spent three days climbing out of a mine shaft. Someone who'd learned that darkness wasn't the enemy—it was just another tool.
He took the first one from behind, knife across the throat, catching the body before it could hit the ground. The second turned at the wet sound, eyes going wide in the half-second before Pitfall's blade found his chest.
The third managed to shout.
Gunfire erupted upstairs.
Pitfall abandoned stealth and sprinted for the stairs, taking them three at a time. The warehouse had become chaos—brothers pouring through the front entrance, guards scrambling for weapons, boxes of counterfeit goods scattering as bodies crashed through carefully stacked displays.
"Office!" Timber's voice cut through the noise. "Back of the building!"
Pitfall ran.
The office door was reinforced, but it wasn't built for a man with fury in his heart and a woman's grief driving every step. Two kicks splintered the frame. A third sent it crashing inward.
Trent Maggard stood behind a desk covered in cash and paperwork, a pistol in his shaking hands.
"Stay back!" His voice cracked. "My uncle will burn this entire town if you—"
"Your uncle sent you here to die." Pitfall kept moving forward, watching the gun barrel waver. "He's cutting his losses. Sizemore's dead. Hammond's dead. You're next."
"You don't know—"
"I know exactly what you did." Pitfall stopped just out of arm's reach, close enough to see the sweat beading on Trent's forehead. "Mabel Hensley. Eighty-three years old. Sixty years of work. You burned it all because your pride couldn't handle losing to people you thought were beneath you."
"She was just—"
"Finish that sentence." Pitfall's voice dropped to something barely human. "Tell me she was just an old woman. Tell me her life's work was just property. Give me one more reason to make this hurt."
Trent's finger tightened on the trigger.
Pitfall moved.
The gun fired, but he was already past it, inside the arc of the shot. His hand closed on Trent's wrist, twisted, felt bone snap beneath his grip. The pistol clattered to the floor, and then Pitfall had him by the throat, slamming him back against the wall hard enough to crack plaster.
"You want to know what you destroyed?" He pressed his forearm against Trent's windpipe, watched the man's face go purple.
"Those patterns—the ones that burned in Mabel's workshop—they were passed down through four generations.
Her grandmother survived the Depression selling those baskets.
Her great-grandmother made them during the Civil War. "
Trent's mouth opened and closed, no air getting through.
"When you burned that workshop, you didn't just destroy property." Pitfall's voice was ice. "You erased history. You took something that could never be replaced, and you did it because your ego got bruised."
He released the pressure just enough for Trent to gasp a breath.
"Please—" The word came out strangled. "I was just following orders. My uncle—"
"Your uncle isn't here." Pitfall smiled, and there was nothing human in it. "It's just you and me and the darkness."
"I'll give you information. I know where Boyd keeps—"
"We already have everything we need." Pitfall pulled him away from the wall, dragged him toward the basement stairs. "But you still owe a debt. And the woman you owe it to wants you to understand exactly what you're paying for."
The basement was darker now, the single bulb shattered during the initial assault.
Pitfall threw Trent down the stairs, listened to him tumble and crash against boxes of counterfeit goods. By the time he reached the bottom, the younger man was crawling, whimpering, his broken wrist cradled against his chest.
"You know what I learned when I was sixteen?" Pitfall followed him into the darkness, letting his eyes adjust. "I fell into a mine shaft. Fifty feet down. No rope, no light, no one coming to help."
Trent scrambled backward, knocking over boxes that spilled fake purses across the concrete floor.
"I spent three days climbing out." Pitfall's voice echoed off the walls. "Three days in the dark, with nothing but bloody fingers and the refusal to die. You know what that taught me?"
"Please—"
"It taught me that darkness isn't scary." He found Trent by sound alone, grabbed him by the hair, hauled him up. "It taught me that the things people fear about the dark—the uncertainty, the disorientation, the feeling of being lost—those are just stories we tell ourselves."
"I'll do anything. I'll tell you—"
"There's nothing you can tell me that I don't already know.
" Pitfall's knife pressed against Trent's throat.
"Your uncle's operation is finished. His men are dead or running.
And you—the nephew who was supposed to inherit everything—you're going to die in a basement full of the garbage you tried to force down honest people's throats. "
"Please." Trent was sobbing now, snot and tears mixing on his face. "I didn't mean—I was just trying to prove—"
"Prove what? That you were tough? That you could burn an old woman's workshop and call yourself a man?" Pitfall's grip tightened. "You're not a man. You're a coward who hurts people who can't fight back because it makes you feel powerful."
"I'm sorry—"
"Tell Mabel Hensley you're sorry. Tell the four generations of women whose legacy you destroyed." The knife pressed harder. "Tell them, Trent. They're listening."
Trent opened his mouth, but no words came out. Just a wet, strangled sound that might have been an apology if terror hadn't stolen his voice.
"That's what I thought."
The knife moved. Trent stopped.
Pitfall let the body fall among the knockoffs and counterfeits, surrounded by the garbage that represented everything his operation had stood for. A fitting end for a man who'd never created anything worth a damn.
He climbed out of the basement into the dim warehouse light, found Grit waiting with a lighter in his hand.
"Done?"
"Done."
"Survivors?"
"None that matter." Timber appeared from the loading dock, wiping his hands on his jeans. "Building's clear. Got the cash, the records, everything we can use."
"Then burn it." Pitfall headed for the exit. "All of it. Let Maggard see what happens to his empire."
Grit flicked the lighter, touched it to a box of counterfeit handbags. The fake leather caught fast, flames spreading with a hunger that matched the rage still burning in Pitfall's chest.
They walked out as the warehouse started to scream.
The ride back was quiet.
Pitfall led the formation, Nadine's face in his mind with every mile. She'd wanted Trent to understand what he'd destroyed. He hoped the message had been received before the end—hoped the fear in Trent's eyes had contained at least a moment of comprehension.
But even if it hadn't, the debt was paid.
The compound gates opened as they approached, and he saw her waiting on the front steps. She'd wanted to come—had argued for it, actually—but he'd convinced her to stay. This wasn't about her witnessing the violence. It was about him delivering justice on her behalf.
He pulled up, killed the engine, and she was in his arms before he could dismount properly.
"It's done?" she asked against his chest.
"It's done." He held her tight, breathing in her scent, letting it wash away the smell of smoke and blood. "He knew. Before the end, he knew exactly what he was dying for."
She pulled back enough to look at his face. Whatever she saw there made her nod slowly.
"Good."
"Nadine—"
"I don't need details." She cupped his jaw, her eyes steady. "I just need to know it's over."
"This part is." He turned his head, pressed a kiss to her palm. "Maggard's still out there. He'll know by morning that his nephew's dead, his operation's burned, his whole empire's crumbling."
"What happens then?"
"Then he gets desperate." Grit had joined them, the other brothers filtering past toward the clubhouse. "Desperate men make mistakes. We'll be ready when he makes his."
Nadine's jaw tightened. "I want to be there. For the end."
"We'll talk about it."
"No." Her voice hardened. "We won't talk about it. I'll be there. This started with my shop, my artisans, my life. I'm not sitting on the sidelines while you finish it."
Pitfall exchanged a glance with Grit. The enforcer's expression was unreadable, but something in his eyes suggested respect.
"We'll discuss it in church," Grit said finally. "But for now—go rest. Both of you. Tomorrow's going to be long."
He walked away, leaving them alone on the steps.
Nadine sagged against Pitfall, the adrenaline finally draining from her posture.
"Mabel's settled?"
"In the workshop building. Already weaving." Nadine's smile was tired but genuine. "She said the patterns live in her hands. The fire took the tools, but it couldn't take the knowledge."
"Tough woman."
"The toughest." She looked toward the compound, toward the life they were building in the middle of chaos. "What happens now?"
"Now we plan." Pitfall guided her inside, his arm around her shoulders. "Maggard's going to come for us with everything he's got left. We need to be ready."
"And we will be?"
"Yeah." He kissed her forehead. "We will be."
Behind them, somewhere in the distance, the warehouse was still burning. Trent Maggard's body was becoming ash along with the counterfeit garbage he'd died protecting.
And Boyd Maggard—alone now, without his enforcers, without his nephew, without the operation he'd spent years building—was waking up to find his world on fire.
The endgame was coming.
Pitfall intended to win it.