Chapter 15
The call came on a Tuesday afternoon.
Mandy was in the compound kitchen, helping Kate prep for dinner, when her phone buzzed with an unknown number. She almost didn't answer—unknown numbers meant nothing good these days—but something made her pick up anyway.
"Miss Fitzgerald?" A woman's voice, professionally neutral. "This is Keepsafe Storage on Frankford Avenue. I'm calling about your unit."
Her storage unit. The one holding everything she owned—the furniture from her apartment, her grandmother's hope chest, six years of photographs and keepsakes and proof that she'd built a life from nothing.
"What about it?"
"There's been an incident. The police are here. I think you should come down."
The drive took fifteen minutes. Riot insisted on taking her, his jaw tight and his hands white-knuckled on the handlebars. He didn't say much, but she could feel the tension radiating off him like heat.
The storage facility was a squat concrete building surrounded by chain-link fence. Two police cars sat in the lot, lights flashing, officers standing around looking useless. Mandy swung off the bike before it fully stopped and pushed through the gate.
Her unit was in the back row. She could see it from twenty feet away.
The door had been torn off its hinges. The interior was—
Mandy stopped. Stared. Felt something inside her crack and shatter.
Destroyed. Everything was destroyed.
Her grandmother's hope chest, the only thing she had from before foster care, had been smashed into splinters.
Photographs were scattered across the ground, torn and burned, faces she loved reduced to ash.
The furniture she'd saved for years to buy was slashed and broken, stuffing spilling out like wounds.
Her client records, her business files, the tax returns that proved she'd built something real—shredded and mixed with what looked like motor oil.
Six years. Six years of fighting and saving and building, and it was all just... gone.
"Ma'am?" One of the officers approached, notepad in hand. "Are you the unit owner?"
Mandy couldn't answer. Couldn't move. Couldn't do anything but stare at the wreckage of her life.
Riot was there suddenly, his arm around her waist, holding her up. "She's the owner. What happened?"
"Break-in sometime last night. Security cameras were disabled." The officer looked uncomfortable. "Whoever did this knew what they were doing. Targeted this unit specifically, didn't touch anything else in the row."
"Any witnesses?"
"None. No prints, no evidence, nothing to go on." The officer shrugged helplessly. "I'm sorry, ma'am. We'll file a report, but honestly... whoever did this is long gone."
Mandy barely heard him. She pulled away from Riot and walked into the unit, her feet crunching on broken glass and shredded paper. The devastation was systematic—not random vandalism, but deliberate destruction. Every single thing she owned had been identified and ruined.
They'd even found the box of letters. The ones she'd kept from foster siblings who'd stayed in touch, from clients who'd sent Christmas cards, from anyone who'd ever cared enough to write.
Those letters were her proof that she mattered to someone.
That she'd built connections, relationships, a life worth living.
They were confetti now. Scattered across the floor like trash.
"Mandy." Riot's voice was quiet behind her. "There's something else."
She turned. He was holding a piece of paper—clean and white, conspicuously untouched amid the destruction. Someone had left it on top of the ruins, pinned under a brick so it wouldn't blow away.
Two words, printed in neat black letters:
You're next.
The fear she expected didn't come.
Instead, something else rose up from the depths of her chest—something hot and dark and absolutely furious.
They'd taken her apartment. Her job. Her clients. Her boyfriend had betrayed her, criminals had hunted her, and she'd been running and hiding and fighting for weeks.
And now this. The last pieces of her old life, the physical proof that she'd built something from nothing, destroyed out of pure spite.
Because that's what this was. Trevor Boone sending a message. Vic Stanhope, his cleaner, proving that he could reach her anywhere. That no matter how many of his men she killed, no matter how safe the compound felt, he could still take everything she loved.
"Mandy?" Riot was watching her with worry in his eyes. "Talk to me."
"I'm done." The words came out cold. Steady. Not the trembling fear of a woman in hiding, but the steel resolve of someone who'd finally had enough. "I'm done running. Done hiding. Done being the victim in this story."
"What do you mean?"
She turned to face him, and something in her expression made him go still.
"For weeks, I've been letting Trevor Boone terrorize me.
Letting him take my life apart piece by piece while I cowered behind walls and hoped someone else would fix it.
" She gestured at the destruction around them.
"This is what's left. This is everything I built, and he destroyed it because he could.
Because he wanted me to know that I'm not safe anywhere. "
"We're going to get him." Riot's voice was fierce. "He's running out of resources, running out of time—"
"I know. And I'm going to be there when it happens.
" Mandy stepped closer, grabbing the front of his cut, pulling him down until they were eye to eye.
"I want to see Trevor fall. I want to watch him realize that he picked the wrong woman to threaten.
And I want to be the last thing he sees before he dies. "
Riot's eyes went dark with something that wasn't fear. Pride, maybe. Recognition.
"You mean that."
"Every word." She released his cut but didn't step back. "He tried to make me disappear. Tried to erase everything I am, everything I built. But I'm still here. And I'm not going to stop until he's the one who's gone."
For a long moment, Riot just looked at her. Then a smile spread across his face—sharp and dangerous and full of promise.
"That's my woman."
"Damn right I am." Mandy turned back to survey the wreckage one last time. The hope chest that had survived three decades and twelve foster homes. The photographs of clients who'd become family. The letters that proved she mattered.
All of it gone. All of it stolen.
But not her. Trevor could take her things, but he couldn't take her. Couldn't break her. Couldn't make her into another victim who disappeared quietly into the night.
"Call Patriot," she said. "Tell him I have information. Things I remembered about Trevor's operation—patterns, schedules, habits. Details that might help track him down."
"You've been holding out on us?"
"I've been trying to forget." She met his eyes. "Not anymore. Whatever it takes to end this, I'm in. All the way."
Riot pulled out his phone, already dialing. Around them, the cops continued their useless investigation, taking notes about a crime they'd never solve. They didn't understand. Couldn't understand.
This wasn't a police matter anymore. This was war.
Mandy walked out of the storage unit and didn't look back. The woman who'd walked in—the one who still held onto hope that her old life might somehow be recoverable—was gone. Burned away along with everything she'd owned.
What remained was harder. Sharper. Ready.
Riot finished his call and fell into step beside her. "Brothers are mobilizing. Patriot wants a full briefing when we get back."
"Good."
"You sure about this?" He caught her arm, stopping her at the edge of the lot. "Once you step all the way in, there's no going back. You become part of this. Part of the war."
"I've been part of the war since Kyle Renner showed up at my apartment." Mandy covered his hand with hers. "The only difference now is that I'm done pretending otherwise."
"Then let's go end this."
They climbed back onto the bike, Mandy's arms wrapping around his waist, her body pressing against his back. The engine roared to life, and they pulled out of the lot, leaving the wreckage behind.
She didn't need those things. Not the furniture, not the photographs, not even the letters. They were just objects—physical proof of a life she'd built once before.
She could build again. Would build again. But first, Trevor Boone had to die.
The compound was buzzing when they arrived. Word had spread fast—Patriot met them in the courtyard, Gallows and Turnpike at his flanks, the club already gearing up for retaliation.
"Vic Stanhope," Patriot said grimly. "Trevor's cleaner. He did this."
"To send a message." Mandy's voice was steady. "He wants me to know he can reach me anywhere. That it doesn't matter how many of his men we kill—he'll keep coming until I'm dead."
"Then we kill him too." Patriot's smile was a blade. "And then we kill Trevor. End this once and for all."
"I have information." Mandy stepped forward, refusing to be sidelined. "Things I noticed while I was cleaning clients' houses, before I knew what was happening. Patterns in how Trevor's crew operated. The window they'd use between casing a house and hitting it. The kind of targets they preferred."
Patriot's eyebrows rose. "You remembered all this?"
"I couldn't forget." She felt Riot's hand settle on her lower back—steadying, supportive. "I tried, but it's all still there. Every detail. And if it helps you find them faster, I want to share it."
"Church. Thirty minutes." Patriot nodded at her with something like respect. "You've earned a seat at the table."
He walked away, already barking orders. The compound churned around them—brothers checking weapons, making calls, preparing for the hunt.
Riot turned her to face him, his hands cupping her face. "You okay?"
"No." Mandy managed a smile that felt like broken glass. "But I will be. When this is over. When Trevor's dead and I can finally stop running."
"We'll get there." He kissed her forehead, then her lips—soft and fierce and full of promise. "And we'll do it together."
"Together," she agreed.
They walked into the compound side by side, ready for war.
Trevor Boone had wanted to break her. Wanted to reduce her to a cowering victim, too scared to fight back, too broken to resist.
He'd failed.
And now he was going to learn exactly what happened to men who underestimated Amanda Fitzgerald.