Chapter Ten
The cameras caught them at dawn.
Shadow was in the security room when Hatchet's monitors flickered with movement—three vehicles approaching from the south, running without headlights, using the low terrain to mask their approach.
"Contact," Hatchet said, fingers already flying across the keyboard. "Twelve men, minimum. Professional formation. These aren't local boys."
Shadow leaned closer. The vehicles were wrong for Crenshaw's usual muscle—too clean, too coordinated. Hired guns. Outside talent brought in after Boyd's death left a hole in the operation.
And behind the assault vehicles, barely visible in the predawn gray, a sedan idled at the tree line.
Whitfield. The accountant who never got his hands dirty, watching from a safe distance while other men did the bleeding.
Not today.
"Sound the alarm," Shadow said. "Everyone up. Full defense."
The compound erupted.
Brothers poured from the clubhouse in various states of dress, grabbing weapons from the armory, taking positions along the perimeter. Tornado emerged last, fully dressed, calm as stone.
"Report."
"Twelve hired guns, south approach. Whitfield's coordinating from behind the line." Shadow checked the magazine on his pistol, grabbed a rifle from the rack. "They're not here to negotiate."
"Then neither are we."
The first vehicle hit the south fence at forty miles an hour.
Chain-link screamed as it crumpled, posts tearing from concrete, razor wire tangling uselessly around the truck's armored grille. Men spilled out before the vehicle stopped moving—tactical gear, automatic weapons, the smooth movements of professionals who'd done this before.
Shadow was already running.
He hit the first attacker before the man's boots touched compound dirt. The rifle butt caught him in the temple, dropping him cold, and Shadow was past him before the body hit the ground.
Gunfire erupted across the south perimeter. Striker flanked left, drawing fire from the second vehicle while Ridge held the center. Hatchet's suppressive fire from the security station kept the third vehicle pinned behind the ruined fence.
But the hired guns were good. Better than Boyd's ranch muscle. They moved like soldiers, covering each other, advancing in coordinated bursts that pushed the brothers back inch by inch.
"They're flanking east!" Diesel's voice crackled over the radio. "Four men moving toward the garage!"
The garage. Where Ramona's still sat. Where she—
Shadow's blood went cold.
He changed direction, sprinting toward the garage, and skidded to a stop when he saw her.
Ramona was on the roof.
She'd climbed the external ladder, positioned herself behind the ventilation unit, and was sighting down a rifle with the steady calm of someone who'd been shooting her whole life. As he watched, she squeezed the trigger.
One of the flanking attackers dropped.
"Ramona!"
She didn't look at him. Didn't flinch. Just shifted her aim and fired again.
A second man went down, screaming, clutching his leg.
"Focus on your fight," she called down. "I've got mine."
Shadow's chest seized with something that wasn't fear. Pride. Fury. The overwhelming need to get up there and shield her with his body.
But she was right. She had her fight. He had his.
And Whitfield was still out there.
He turned and ran toward the south fence, toward the sedan still idling at the tree line. The assault was breaking down—Striker had rallied the brothers into a countercharge, pushing the hired guns back toward their vehicles. Bodies littered the compound yard. Blood soaked into red dust.
The sedan's engine revved.
Whitfield was running.
Shadow cut through the chaos, vaulting a fallen attacker, ducking under a spray of automatic fire that shattered the window of a parked truck. The sedan was moving now, reversing toward the county road, trying to escape before the battle turned completely.
Not happening.
He reached the fence line as the sedan cleared the ruined gate. Without breaking stride, he grabbed the door handle of a Crenshaw truck—keys still in the ignition, engine still running—and threw himself behind the wheel.
The chase was short and brutal.
Whitfield's sedan wasn't built for speed. Shadow's stolen truck was built for exactly one thing: catching prey. He closed the distance in thirty seconds, rammed the sedan's rear quarter panel, and sent it spinning into a drainage ditch.
The sedan hit the ditch nose-first, airbags deploying, Whitfield's thin frame bouncing off the steering wheel. Shadow was out of the truck before the dust settled.
He wrenched open the driver's door.
Whitfield looked up at him through cracked wire-rimmed glasses, blood streaming from his nose, panic replacing the cold calculation that usually lived behind his eyes.
"Wait—" He raised his hands. "We can negotiate. Ellis will pay. Whatever you want—"
"I want you to stop talking."
Shadow grabbed him by the collar and hauled him out of the sedan, throwing him onto the road. Whitfield scrambled backward, hands scraping on asphalt, legs too weak to stand.
"You coordinated Boyd's attacks on Ramona." Shadow advanced slowly, letting the fear build. "The snake in her mash tank. The fire that killed her whiskey. The assault on the motel."
"I just manage the books—"
"You picked her as a target." Another step. "Identified her grandmother's land, extended the fake debt, set Boyd loose to terrorize her into signing."
"Ellis gave the orders—"
"And you carried them out." Shadow crouched in front of him, close enough to see the sweat beading on Whitfield's upper lip. "You destroyed three years of her work because it was convenient. Because she was vulnerable. Because you thought no one would stop you."
"Please." Whitfield's voice cracked. "I have information. Ellis's other properties, his accounts—I can give you everything—"
"I don't need your information."
Shadow grabbed Whitfield by the throat and stood, lifting the smaller man off the ground. Whitfield's feet kicked uselessly, his hands clawing at Shadow's wrist.
"I need you to stop breathing."
He slammed Whitfield against the sedan, once, twice, feeling vertebrae grind. Whitfield's glasses flew off, his eyes bulging, his mouth working soundlessly.
Shadow adjusted his grip. Found the angle.
Twisted.
The crack of Whitfield's neck breaking echoed across the empty road.
Shadow held him there for a moment—this man who'd weaponized paperwork, who'd destroyed lives from behind a desk, who'd thought distance made him innocent. Then he let the body drop.
Harlan Whitfield crumpled onto Texas asphalt, neck bent at an angle necks weren't meant to bend.
Shadow stood over him, breathing hard, the violence still singing in his blood.
Two down. Ellis and his sadist enforcer left.
He turned and walked back toward the compound.
The battle was over by the time he returned.
Bodies scattered across the yard—hired guns, mostly, though two brothers were down with wounds that would need attention. Ridge had taken a round through the shoulder. Diesel was limping from a knife wound to the thigh.
But they'd held. The compound was secure.
Ramona climbed down from the garage roof, rifle slung across her back, moving with the careful grace of someone coming down from combat adrenaline. When she saw Shadow, something loosened in her expression.
"You're okay."
"I'm okay." He crossed to her, caught her face in his hands, kissed her hard. "You're okay."
"I'm okay." She pulled back, searching his eyes. "Whitfield?"
"Dead."
She nodded once. No horror. No judgment. Just acknowledgment.
"Good."
Tornado appeared at Shadow's shoulder, surveying the damage with cold eyes.
"Casualties?"
"Two wounded, none critical. Hatchet's patching them up." Shadow released Ramona but kept her close, his hand on her back. "Twelve attackers down. A few ran when the tide turned. Whitfield's body is half a mile east."
"Ellis will know by sunset."
"Good." Shadow's jaw tightened. "Let him know. Let him understand what happens when he sends men against us."
"This was an escalation," Tornado said quietly. "Hired guns, coordinated assault. Ellis is getting desperate."
"Desperate men make mistakes."
"Desperate men also burn everything down rather than lose." Tornado's eyes moved to Ramona. "Your distillery. Your land. He'll go after them next."
Ramona's chin came up. "Let him try."
Something flickered in Tornado's expression—approval, maybe, or just recognition.
"Shadow." The President turned back to him. "You're running point on the Crenshaw operation. What's next?"
Shadow thought about Ellis, holed up in his ranch compound, watching his lieutenants fall one by one. Boyd beaten to death in a motel parking lot. Whitfield's neck broken on a country road. The empire he'd built over thirty years crumbling.
Desperate. Dangerous. Inevitable.
"We take the fight to him," Shadow said. "Before he regroups. Before he calls in more outside muscle. We hit his ranch, take out his remaining enforcer, and end this."
"Virgil Teague," Ramona said. "The sadist. He's the one who burned my aging barn."
"Then he dies next." Shadow looked at her. "And after that, Ellis."
Tornado was quiet for a long moment. Around them, brothers moved through the aftermath—checking bodies, securing weapons, cleaning up the evidence of violence.
"Two days," Tornado said finally. "Gather intel, plan the assault. Then we finish this."
He walked away, leaving Shadow and Ramona standing in the ruins of the morning's battle.
"You were on the roof," Shadow said.
"I was."
"With a rifle."
"You said I hit what I aimed at." She met his eyes, unflinching. "I do."
He should have been angry. Should have lectured her about staying safe, about letting the brothers handle the violence.
Instead, he pulled her against him and held on.
"Don't do that again," he muttered into her hair.
"Can't promise that."
"I know."
She wrapped her arms around his waist, her head against his chest. Around them, the compound settled into the quiet that followed violence—the cleanup, the counting, the acknowledgment of what they'd survived.
Two down.
Two to go.
And Shadow would kill every one of them to keep this woman safe.