Chapter 6
Three days of peace. Three days of learning to breathe again, of watching Riot pace the safehouse like a caged tiger, of falling into a rhythm that almost felt like normal.
It ended with a silver pickup truck rolling down the street.
Mandy was at the window—a habit she couldn't break, even here—when she saw it. Moving slow. Too slow. The kind of deliberate crawl that said the driver was looking for something.
Looking for her.
Her blood turned to ice water in her veins.
"Riot."
He was across the room in a heartbeat, close enough that she could feel the heat radiating off his body. "What?"
"That truck." She couldn't make her voice work above a whisper. "Silver pickup. It just passed the house."
Riot leaned past her, one hand bracing against the window frame, and looked out into the gathering dark. The truck had reached the corner, brake lights glowing red. It didn't turn. Just sat there, idling, a predator deciding whether to strike.
"You recognize it?"
"It's Kyle Renner's." The name tasted like ash in her mouth. "He drove it the night he came to my apartment. I'd know it anywhere."
Something changed in Riot. The restless energy that always hummed beneath his skin went still—not calm, but focused. Lethal. Like a fighter in the moment before the bell, every muscle coiled and ready.
"Get away from the window."
Mandy stepped back, her heart hammering so hard she could feel it in her throat. Three days. Three days of safety, of hope, of starting to believe that maybe the Sons could actually protect her. And now Kyle Renner was sitting at the end of the block, and everything was falling apart.
"How did they find us?" Her voice cracked. "You said this place wasn't connected to the club."
"It's not." Riot was already moving, pulling his phone from his pocket, checking the clip on a gun she hadn't even known he was carrying. "Someone talked. Someone saw something. Doesn't matter how—what matters is they're here."
He hit a number on his phone and pressed it to his ear, eyes never leaving the window. "Turnpike. We've got company at the Fishtown house. Kyle Renner, at least one vehicle, probably more incoming." A pause. "Yeah, I know. Get here fast."
He ended the call and turned to Mandy with an expression that made her stomach drop.
"How long?" she asked.
"Twenty minutes. Maybe fifteen if they push it."
"And Kyle?"
Riot glanced out the window again. The silver truck was still there, still idling, and now Mandy could see a second set of headlights approaching from the opposite direction.
"He's not going to wait twenty minutes."
The fear should have paralyzed her. Should have sent her curling into a corner, sobbing and shaking and waiting for someone else to save her. That's what the old Mandy would have done—the one who'd spent three weeks hiding in Jenny's apartment, jumping at shadows.
But something had shifted in those three days with Riot. Something had hardened in the quiet moments and the shared meals and the way he looked at her like she was worth protecting.
She was done being afraid.
"What do we do?" The words came out steady. Strong. "Tell me how to help."
Riot's eyes snapped to hers, and she saw surprise flicker across his face before something fiercer replaced it. Approval. Pride. Heat.
"You ever handle a weapon?"
"No."
"Then you stay out of the line of fire." He moved through the house with purpose, checking locks, pulling the couch away from the wall, creating barriers she didn't fully understand.
"Back bedroom, there's a closet with a false panel.
You get in there and you don't come out until I tell you it's clear. "
"I'm not hiding in a closet while you—"
"You're not hiding." Riot crossed to her in three strides and grabbed her shoulders, fingers digging in hard enough to leave marks. His face was inches from hers, all that lethal focus aimed directly at her. "You're surviving. There's a difference."
"And what about you?" Mandy grabbed his wrists, holding on like he might disappear. "What happens if they get through?"
"They won't."
"You don't know that."
"Yeah." His grip softened, thumbs brushing against her collarbone in a touch that was almost tender. "I do."
Outside, an engine revved. Then another. The headlights at the corner multiplied—three vehicles now, maybe four, surrounding the block like a noose tightening.
"They're not coming in quiet," Riot said, more to himself than to her. "Trevor wants to make a statement. Show us what happens when someone protects his targets."
"How many?"
"Kyle runs with seven, eight guys usually. Could be more if Trevor sent reinforcements."
Eight men. Maybe more. Against one prospect with split knuckles and a woman who'd never held a gun in her life.
The math was impossible. The odds were suicide.
And still, looking at Riot—at the controlled fury in his eyes, the deadly stillness in his body—Mandy found herself believing they might survive.
"Show me where to hide," she said. "And then do what you do."
Riot's mouth curved into something that was almost a smile. "What I do is violence, sunshine."
"Good." She grabbed his hand and squeezed hard enough to feel the tape around his knuckles. "Give them hell."
He pulled her toward the back bedroom, moving fast but not panicked. The closet was small, barely big enough for one person, but he showed her the false panel—a section of wall that swung inward to reveal a space behind the drywall.
"Powder built this for situations like this. You get in, you stay quiet, you don't come out for anything. Not screaming, not gunshots, not my voice calling your name. You wait until I physically pull you out. Understand?"
"What if you don't come back?"
"Then you wait until morning and you call this number." He pressed a scrap of paper into her hand. "Patriot's burner. He'll send someone."
Mandy looked at the paper, then at Riot. The fear was still there—it would probably always be there—but underneath it, burning hotter, was something else entirely.
Rage.
At Trevor Boone for thinking he could threaten her into silence. At Kyle Renner for tracking her down like prey. At herself for ever trusting Derek, for ever being naive enough to miss the pattern until it was almost too late.
She was so goddamn tired of running.
"Come back," she said fiercely. "I mean it. You don't get to die for me. Not tonight. Not ever."
"Wasn't planning on it." Riot's hand came up to cup her jaw, rough palm against her cheek, and for a moment he just looked at her. Like he was memorizing her face. Like he needed something to fight for. "You're mine to protect. I don't let go of what's mine."
The words hit her like a physical blow—possessive and fierce and exactly what she needed to hear. She wasn't property. She wasn't a prize. But in that moment, being claimed by this dangerous, chaotic, beautiful man felt like the only thing keeping her standing.
"Then protect me," she whispered. "And when this is over, we're going to talk about that 'mine' thing."
His laugh was low and rough. "Deal."
Then he was gone, moving back toward the front of the house with purpose in every step. Mandy climbed into the space behind the false panel and pulled it closed, plunging herself into darkness.
Through the thin walls, she could hear movement. The scrape of furniture being repositioned. The metallic click of a weapon being checked. And underneath it all, the growing rumble of engines outside—Trevor's men gathering for the assault.
Eight against one. Maybe more.
The old Mandy would have been paralyzed with terror. Would have curled into a ball and prayed for salvation.
But the old Mandy hadn't spent three days with a man who looked at her like she was worth dying for. Hadn't felt the shift from victim to survivor, from scared to furious, from running to ready.
She pressed her hand against the wall that separated her from the front room and thought about Kyle Renner's dead eyes, Trevor Boone's methodical cruelty, all the people who had disappeared because they'd noticed too much.
Mrs. Hartley. The others whose names she'd never know.
Mandy was done being afraid of these men. She was done letting them take everything she'd built.
If Riot was going to fight for her, then she was going to survive for him. And when this was over—when Trevor's crew learned what happened to people who threatened the Sons of Liberty—she was going to rebuild her life on the ashes of everything they'd tried to destroy.
Through the walls, she heard Riot's voice—low, controlled, making one final call for backup. Then silence.
Then the crash of a door being kicked in.
Mandy pressed her fist against her mouth to keep from screaming and listened to chaos erupt.
In the front room, Riot watched headlights converge on the safehouse and felt the last of his restraint burn away.
Eight men. Maybe ten. Professional thieves who'd spent six years making people disappear.
They had no idea what they were walking into.
He positioned himself behind the overturned couch, gun in one hand, knife in the other. The backup wouldn't arrive in time—he'd known that the moment he saw the second set of headlights. This was going to be close and ugly and exactly the kind of fight he'd been built for.
The restless energy that never stopped was finally, perfectly focused. Not on noise, not on chaos, but on her. On the woman hiding in the back room, counting on him to keep her alive.
She'd told him to give them hell.
He intended to.
Boots on the porch. Voices conferring. The creak of weight against the front door.
Riot cracked his knuckles and smiled.
Let them come.