Chapter Six
The hunting cabin sat in a clearing surrounded by Carolina pines, exactly where Kristin said it would be.
Ripcord lay in the tree line fifty yards out, watching the access road through night-vision optics. Ghost was positioned on the opposite ridge. Forge and Trooper held the southern approach. Static covered the only exit road with enough firepower to stop a convoy.
The trap was set.
Now they just needed the prey.
"Movement on the access road." Ghost's voice crackled through the earpiece. "Three vehicles. Eight, maybe ten hostiles."
Ripcord keyed his mic twice. Acknowledged.
Beside him, Kristin pressed flat against the forest floor, her breathing controlled despite the fear he could feel radiating off her. She'd insisted on coming—demanded it, actually, with the kind of steel-spined determination that made arguing pointless.
If Danny hid something in that cabin, I'll recognize it faster than anyone else.
He'd agreed on one condition: she stayed behind him, moved when he said move, and hit the ground the second shooting started.
So far, she'd followed orders.
The vehicles came into view—two trucks and an SUV, cutting through the darkness with headlights that painted the trees in sweeping arcs. They pulled into the clearing in formation, professional enough to suggest someone had given basic instructions.
But not professional enough to check the tree line first.
Ripcord watched men pour out of the vehicles. Eight total, armed with a mix of handguns and rifles, spreading out with the loose coordination of smugglers pretending to be soldiers.
And there, stepping out of the lead truck with the particular arrogance of a man who thought he was in charge—
Mitch Garvey.
The bush pilot looked different from their first encounter. Wilder. The easy confidence replaced by something desperate, a man running out of time and options. He barked orders at his crew, gesturing toward the cabin, his voice carrying through the quiet night.
"Tear it apart. Check the floorboards, the walls, everything. Danny was smart—he would have hidden it somewhere obvious enough to access fast."
His men moved toward the cabin.
None of them saw the brotherhood waiting in the darkness.
"On my mark." Ghost's voice was ice. "Three... two..."
Ripcord felt the world narrow to a single point of focus.
"Mark."
The night exploded.
Forge's first shot took down the man nearest the cabin door—center mass, clean, the body crumpling before the sound reached the clearing. Then everyone was firing, muzzle flashes strobing through the darkness like lethal lightning.
Garvey's crew scattered.
Some went for cover behind the vehicles. Others tried to return fire, shooting blindly into the tree line at targets they couldn't see. Two more dropped in the first five seconds—body shots that ended arguments before they started.
"Stay down." Ripcord pressed Kristin lower as a bullet cracked through the branches above them. "Don't move until I tell you."
She nodded, her face pale but her eyes steady.
He rose to a crouch and moved.
The firefight was chaos for Garvey's men.
For the brotherhood, it was methodical execution—years of training applied to targets that didn't deserve the skill being used against them.
Trooper dropped a man trying to flank east. Static's shotgun roared from the exit road, cutting off the only retreat.
Ripcord circled wide, moving through the pines with the particular silence of a man who'd spent a decade infiltrating places that wanted him dead.
His target wasn't the cabin.
His target was the small clearing two hundred yards north where Garvey had landed a Cessna earlier that day.
The bush pilot was running.
Ripcord had expected it. Men like Garvey survived by knowing when to cut their losses. And with his crew being systematically eliminated, the only smart play was to reach the plane and disappear into the night sky.
He intercepted Garvey at the tree line.
The pilot burst from the pines at a dead sprint, handgun clutched in his fist, breath coming in ragged gasps. He was so focused on the plane—so certain salvation waited just fifty more yards away—that he didn't see Ripcord step out of the shadows until it was too late.
"Going somewhere?"
Garvey spun, weapon coming up.
Ripcord was faster.
The first shot took Garvey in the shoulder, spinning him sideways. The second caught him center mass as he tried to raise his gun again.
The pilot went down hard.
Ripcord crossed the distance in three strides, kicking the fallen weapon away before crouching beside the man who'd cornered Kristin in her own hangar. Who'd cut Danny's fuel line and watched him crash. Who'd threatened a woman for information she didn't have.
Garvey was still breathing. Barely.
Blood bubbled on his lips as he tried to speak. His eyes found Ripcord's face, and something like recognition flickered through the pain.
"You're... the jumper." He coughed, more blood. "Should have... killed you at the airfield..."
"Yeah." Ripcord's voice was flat. "You should have."
"Stanton will..." Another cough, weaker this time. "He'll burn... everything you care about..."
"Let him try."
Garvey's hand twitched toward the gun Ripcord had kicked away. A last desperate grab for survival that was never going to work.
Ripcord watched the light fade from his eyes.
The pilot who'd run cocaine through Carolina airstrips for eight years, who'd killed to protect a smuggling empire, who'd thought he could threaten his way to whatever Danny had hidden—
Gone.
Just like that.
Ripcord stood, keying his mic. "Garvey's down. Permanently."
"Copy." Ghost's voice. "Cabin's clear. Three more hostiles eliminated. Two fled into the woods—Static's tracking."
"Let them run. They'll report back to Stanton." A cold smile crossed Ripcord's face. "I want him to know what happened here."
He made his way back through the trees, the adrenaline slowly fading into the familiar calm that followed combat. By the time he reached the clearing, the brotherhood had secured the scene—bodies arranged for easy identification, vehicles disabled, the cabin searched for anything useful.
And there, standing at the edge of the tree line with Trooper beside her, was Kristin.
She looked shell-shocked. Pale, trembling slightly, her eyes moving from body to body with the horrified fascination of someone who'd never seen violence like this up close.
But she was on her feet.
Ripcord crossed to her in four strides.
"You okay?"
"No." Her voice was thin. "But I'm alive, so I guess that counts."
"It counts." He reached up, touched her face. Needed to feel her warmth, her solidity, the proof that she'd survived. "You did good. Stayed down, stayed quiet. Exactly what I needed."
"I watched men die." She met his eyes, and underneath the shock, he saw something else. Steel, forged in fire. "I watched you kill someone."
"I killed someone who was going to kill you." No apology in his voice. No regret. "Given the choice, I'd do it again."
She stared at him for a long moment.
Then, slowly, she nodded.
"Okay."
"Okay?"
"Okay, I understand." She took a shaky breath. "I understand what you are. What this life is. And I'm not running from it."
Something cracked open in Ripcord's chest.
He pulled her against him—rough, possessive, needing the contact more than he'd ever admit. She came willingly, her arms wrapping around his waist, her face pressing into his chest.
"We need to move." Ghost appeared beside them, expression unreadable. "Stanton will have people here within the hour. We extract now, debrief at compound."
"The cabin?" Ripcord asked, not releasing Kristin.
"Empty. If Danny hid something here, someone already found it." Ghost's eyes moved to Kristin. "The storage unit's still our best lead."
"Tomorrow," Ripcord said. "Tonight she needs rest."
Ghost nodded and moved away, organizing the extraction with quiet efficiency.
Ripcord looked down at the woman in his arms.
"You ready to see the compound? Really see it, I mean. Not just the guest quarters."
"Is there a choice?"
"There's always a choice." His hand found her chin, tilting her face up to meet his eyes. "But the choice I'm offering is between staying with me or going somewhere I can't protect you. And I'm not real fond of the second option."
A ghost of a smile crossed her face.
"Then I guess I'm staying with you."
"Good answer."
He kissed her forehead—quick, fierce, a promise more than an affection—and then guided her toward the waiting vehicles.
The brotherhood loaded up in practiced formation. Bodies would be left for Stanton's people to find—a message written in blood. Your operation is bleeding. Your pilots are dying. And we're just getting started.
As they rolled out of the clearing, Ripcord caught a last glimpse of Garvey's body in the side mirror.
The man who'd terrorized rural airstrips for almost a decade. Who'd thought he was untouchable because he worked for someone powerful. Who'd learned too late that power meant nothing when you were outgunned and outmatched.
Boyd Stanton would be getting word soon.
His chief pilot was dead. His recovery operation had been turned into a slaughter. And the woman he was hunting was now under the protection of men who didn't negotiate, didn't hesitate, and didn't stop until the job was done.
The war had just escalated.
And Stanton was losing.
The compound was quiet when they rolled through the gates, but Ripcord could feel the energy beneath the surface. Word had spread. Brothers who hadn't been on the operation were waiting for debriefs, their expressions a mix of concern and anticipation.
This was what they did. What they'd always done.
Protected their own and destroyed anyone who threatened them.
Kristin stepped out of the vehicle on unsteady legs, her eyes moving over the converted tobacco warehouse, the rows of bikes, the hard-faced men who watched her with assessing gazes.
"This is your home," she said quietly.
"This is my family." Ripcord put his hand on the small of her back, a gesture as possessive as it was protective. "And for as long as you need it, it's yours too."
She looked up at him.
"You mean that."
"I don't say things I don't mean."
Something passed between them—understanding, maybe. Or the beginning of something neither of them was ready to name.
Then Ghost appeared, all business.
"Legion wants a full debrief. Garvey's death changes the game—Stanton's going to respond, and we need to be ready."
Ripcord nodded. "Give me five minutes."
Ghost looked between him and Kristin, and something that might have been approval flickered in his flat eyes.
"Five minutes." He walked away.
Ripcord turned to Kristin.
"The old ladies will show you around, get you settled. Rebecca, Allison—they've been through this before. They'll understand what you're feeling."
"What am I feeling?"
"Scared. Angry. Relieved. Guilty because you're relieved." He touched her face again, couldn't seem to stop touching her. "All of it's normal. None of it means you're weak."
She caught his hand, held it against her cheek.
"Come find me," she said. "After your meeting. Whatever time it is."
"That a request or an order?"
"It's a condition." The ghost of a smile returned. "You want me to trust you, you have to actually be there. Non-negotiable."
He almost laughed.
Using his own words against him.
"Deal." He leaned down, pressed his lips to her forehead one more time. "Get some rest. Tomorrow we find what Danny hid, and then we end this."
He watched her walk toward the clubhouse, where Rebecca was waiting with a kind smile and a steadying hand.
Then he turned toward the chapel, where Legion and the brotherhood were waiting to plan the next phase of a war that had just claimed its first major casualty.
Mitch Garvey was dead.
Boyd Stanton was running out of lieutenants.
And Ripcord was just getting started.