Chapter 13
The call came at one in the morning.
Allison was half-asleep, curled into Static's side with her face against his chest, listening to the heartbeat she'd started using as a metronome for rest. Four days since the compound assault.
Four days of something that almost felt like peace — breakfasts made together, perimeter walks at dusk instead of midnight, the slow and terrifying process of building a life inside a fortress.
Then his phone lit up the dark.
She felt him shift before the first ring finished. Awake instantly, combat-ready, the way he'd always be no matter how many nights she spent teaching him to sleep.
"Yeah." His voice was gravel and ice. She couldn't hear the other end, but she could read his body — the way his muscles locked, the way his free hand found her hip and pressed down. Holding her in place. Keeping her close while something bad poured through the phone.
"How many?" he asked.
Pause.
"Families?"
Longer pause. His hand tightened on her hip until it almost hurt.
"I'm on my way."
He was out of bed before the call ended. Allison sat up, pulling the sheet around herself, watching him dress in the dark with movements that were fast and vicious — jerking on jeans, yanking a shirt over his head, grabbing his cut from the chair like it was a weapon.
"What happened?"
"Get dressed."
"Static. What happened?"
He stopped with his hand on the door. She could see his profile in the hallway light — jaw set so hard the muscle jumped, eyes burning with something that went past anger into territory she hadn't seen before.
"Kendrick hit three families tonight. Cars torched in their driveways. Fires set while people were sleeping."
The blood drained from her face. "Which families?"
"Get dressed. I'll tell you on the way."
She was in clothes and boots in ninety seconds, following him down the hallway into the main room where brothers were already gathering. Legion at the center, phone in hand. Ghost by the door, armed and expressionless. Forge checking magazines with hands that wanted to break something.
Trooper met them with a tablet, screen glowing with photos that made Allison's stomach drop through the floor.
Three cars. Three driveways. Three houses in the base-adjacent neighborhoods where military families clustered in rows of matching siding and shared lawns.
All burning.
"Laura Miller," Trooper said, swiping through images. "Sergeant Miller's wife. Minivan torched at two in the morning. She got her kids out through the back door. House caught from the heat — garage is gone."
Allison's hand flew to her mouth. Laura Miller. Wednesday regular. Decaf latte and a breakfast wrap, extra avocado. Two kids under five. Husband deployed to Korea.
"The Hendersons." Trooper swiped again. Blackened metal that used to be a truck, flames still licking the frame. "Staff Sergeant Henderson's in Poland. His wife was home with their daughter. Car went up, caught the front porch. Neighbor pulled them out."
Alexa Henderson. Friday mornings, always running late, always apologizing. Ordered the same thing every time — egg and cheese burrito, hold the salsa, because her daughter was picky and always stole bites.
"Staff Sergeant Ortega's mother." The third image was worse. An older sedan consumed by fire, parked so close to the house that the vinyl siding had melted into something grotesque. "She's seventy-three. Fell trying to get out. Broken hip. She's at Womack."
Se?ora Ortega. She didn't come to the truck — her grandson brought her burritos on Sundays, extra mild, because she said Allison's salsa reminded her of home.
Three families. Three fires. Three women Allison knew by name, by order, by the small details they'd shared through a service window because she'd listened when nobody else did.
"This is my fault."
The words left her mouth before she could stop them.
Static turned on her. "No."
"They targeted these families because of me. Because I fought back, because I have your protection, because Kendrick can't get to me so he's burning everyone I—"
"This is Kendrick's fault." Static's voice cut through her spiral like a blade. "He chose these families. He sent his enforcer. He ordered the fires. You didn't do any of that."
"He did it because of me!"
"He did it because he's a predator who punishes people for existing.
" Static crossed to her in two strides, his hands closing on her shoulders.
Not gentle. Grounding. "Listen to me. Kendrick has been hurting these families for years.
The loans, the interest, the collectors — that's not your fault.
All you did was refuse to be a victim, and he's punishing the community because he can't punish you. "
"That's the same thing—"
"It's not." His grip tightened. "The same thing would be you causing the harm. You didn't. He did. And he's going to answer for it."
She stared at him through eyes that burned with tears she refused to shed. Behind him, the brotherhood waited — silent, armed, watching their tail gunner handle his woman with the same intensity he brought to everything.
"Who did this?" she asked. Not to Static. To the room.
"Lonnie Shaver." Trooper pulled up a photo — heavy build, flat eyes, the look of a man who enjoyed his work. "Kendrick's enforcer. Handles the jobs that go past collections into punishment. Broken bones, burned property, the messages that keep other debtors compliant."
"He burned their homes while they were sleeping." Allison heard her own voice go flat. Hard. A voice she didn't recognize. "Children were in those houses."
"Yes."
"Where is he?"
Static's hands dropped from her shoulders. Something changed in his expression — a recalculation, the same look he'd given her at the safehouse when she'd offered to help with intel instead of hiding.
He was seeing her differently. Again.
"We're working on that," he said carefully.
"Work faster." She turned to the tactical board, the one she'd seen him study a hundred times.
Photos, maps, the web of Kendrick's operation laid out in pins and string like a crime show come to life.
"Laura Miller told me about her loan three months ago.
Through the truck window, while her kids ate burritos in the back seat.
She was crying. Said the payments kept changing and she didn't know how to keep up. "
Brothers shifted. Attention sharpened.
"Alexa Henderson mentioned a man who came to her door," Allison continued. "A month ago. Heavy build, she said. Told her that her husband's deployment schedule meant she was vulnerable and she should think about what that meant. She laughed it off. Told me he was probably selling something."
"Shaver," Ghost said quietly.
"Se?ora Ortega's grandson told me his grandmother was afraid to answer her phone.
That someone kept calling, leaving messages about money she owed and what would happen if she didn't pay.
" Allison's hands were fists at her sides.
"I gave him the number for legal aid on base.
He said they couldn't help with off-post lenders. "
The room was silent.
"I know these people," she said. "I know their faces, their orders, their kids' names, their fears.
Kendrick targeted them because they came to my truck.
Because they're connected to me. And now a seventy-three-year-old woman is in the hospital with a broken hip because I threw coffee in a collector's face. "
"Because Kendrick is a monster," Legion corrected from his position. His voice carried the weight of command and something rarer — respect. "And because his enforcer burns houses with families inside. That's not on you, Ms. Perry. That's on them."
"With respect." Allison met the president's eyes. "It doesn't matter whose fault it is. What matters is what happens next."
Legion's mouth twitched. He looked at Static.
"She's yours, all right."
Static hadn't taken his eyes off her. "Yeah. She is."
"Then tell your woman what happens next, brother. Because I think she's earned it."
Static moved to the tactical board. But instead of the cold, clinical briefing she'd seen him deliver before, he spoke to her. Directly. Like she was the only person in the room who mattered.
"Shaver operates on Kendrick's schedule. He hits targets, reports back, moves to the next assignment. Kendrick doesn't get his hands dirty — he sends Shaver the way he sent Rayburn, the way he sent Poole. Proxies. Deniable distance."
"So Kendrick sits in his office while people burn."
"For now."
"Not good enough."
"No." Static's voice dropped into something cold and absolute. "It's not. Which is why Shaver doesn't see tomorrow night."
The words landed in the room like a grenade with the pin already pulled.
"Kendrick sent a message tonight," Static continued, turning to the brotherhood. "Three families. Cars burned. A woman in the hospital. Children dragged out of beds at two in the morning. That's his statement."
He looked around the table. Every brother. Every face.
"Ours is going to be louder."
Forge racked a round into the chamber of the rifle across his lap. The sound was the only response needed.
"Trooper — everything you have on Shaver's patterns. Where he stays, where he eats, where he goes to ground after a job. Cargo — I need vehicles staged on every road out of Fayetteville. If he runs, he runs into us." Static's eyes found Ghost. "You and me on primary. Recon on overwatch."
"Timeline?" Ghost asked.
"He burned families in their sleep eight hours ago." Static's jaw was granite. "We move tonight."
Legion nodded once. Authorization given.
The brotherhood scattered to their assignments with the quiet urgency of men who'd done this in harder places for worse reasons. Within minutes, the main room was empty except for Allison and Static and the hum of a plan taking shape.
She stood at the tactical board, staring at Shaver's photo. Heavy build. Flat eyes. The man who'd set fires outside houses where children slept.
"I want to be there," she said.
"No."
"Static—"
"No." He crossed to her, took her face in his hands. Close enough that she could see the rage he was holding in check, the fury that had been building since Trooper's phone call. "This isn't a kitchen with a coffee pot. This is the part where men die, and you don't need that in your head."
"It's already in my head. Laura's minivan. Alexa's porch. A seventy-three-year-old woman with a broken hip."
"And I'm going to make sure the man responsible never lights another match.
" His thumbs traced her cheekbones, the same way he'd touched her in bed hours ago — but harder now, more urgent.
"But I need you here. Safe. Whole. Because if something happens to you while I'm hunting him, I won't come back from it. You understand? I won't come back."
She saw it in his eyes. Not a threat. A truth. The absolute, terrifying honesty of a man who'd found his breaking point and was standing on top of it.
"Come back to me," she said.
"Every time."
"Promise."
He kissed her. Hard. Fast. A promise made with his mouth because words weren't enough.
Then he was gone, striding toward the garage where bikes were already warming up, and Allison stood alone in the main room with Shaver's face pinned to the board and the taste of Static on her lips.
She pressed her fingers against the photo.
"You burned the wrong families," she whispered.
Then she turned toward the kitchen.
If the brotherhood was riding tonight, they'd need to eat first.
And Allison Perry fed people. Even when the world was on fire.
Especially then.