Chapter 16
Scout found Jamie Polk at a bar in Brighton Park.
The call came at nine p.m.—twenty-four hours after the laundromat burned, twenty-four hours of Stockton watching Trish hold herself together through sheer force of will.
She'd refused to cry. Refused to break. Just sat in the compound common room with that piece of broken table in her hands, waiting.
Now the wait was over.
"He's at the Eight Ball on Archer," Scout said. "Running his mouth about the laundromat job. Buying drinks. Acting like he just won a war."
"How many with him?"
"Three. Warren's last crew. The rest scattered after Morris died."
Stockton looked at Fang and Lakeshore, already gearing up in the garage. "We move in twenty minutes."
"Copy."
He found Trish in the hallway outside his room. She was dressed, jacket on, her jaw set in a way that said she wasn't staying behind.
"Scout found him," Stockton said.
"I know. I heard." She met his eyes. "I'm coming."
"You stay in the car. Outside the building. You don't go in."
"I know the rules."
"And when it's done, I bring him out. You see his face. Then we finish it." He stepped closer, his hand coming up to cup her jaw. "This is for you. What he did to your place—that doesn't go unanswered. But I need you safe while I handle it."
She leaned into his touch. "I trust you."
"I know." He kissed her—hard, brief, a promise of what came after. "Let's go."
The Eight Ball was a dive on Archer Avenue—neon beer signs, cracked vinyl booths, the kind of place where cash changed hands and nobody asked questions. Stockton had been here before, years ago, cleaning out a crew that thought Brighton Park was free territory.
It wasn't then. It wasn't now.
He parked Trish in a car across the street with Lakeshore at the wheel. She didn't argue—just nodded, her eyes fixed on the bar's entrance, that piece of broken table still clutched in her hand.
"Twenty minutes," he told her. "Then I bring him to you."
He didn't wait for a response.
Fang was already at the back entrance. Scout had the front covered from a position down the block. Three targets inside, plus Jamie—four men total, all of them armed, all of them prison-hard.
Stockton went through the front door.
The bar was half-empty—a few regulars at the counter, a couple playing pool in the back, and Jamie Polk holding court in a corner booth. Thirty years old, mean eyes, the swagger of a man who'd just burned down a woman's livelihood and thought it made him powerful.
He looked up when Stockton walked in. His smile died.
"Evening, Jamie."
The regulars scattered. They knew trouble when it walked through the door, and Stockton in his cut with that look in his eyes was trouble incarnate.
Jamie's three men reached for their weapons.
Fang came through the back.
The first man went down before he cleared leather—Fang's bullet catching him center mass, dropping him like a puppet with cut strings. The second tried to run and made it three steps before Fang put him down too.
The third got his gun up.
Stockton shot him in the knee.
The man screamed, crumpling, his weapon clattering across the floor. Stockton kicked it away and kept moving, closing the distance to Jamie's booth with the steady purpose of a man who'd been doing this for twenty years.
Jamie scrambled backward, his hand fumbling for the gun at his waist.
Stockton was faster.
He grabbed Jamie by the throat and slammed him face-first into the table. The impact cracked the wood. Jamie's gun flew from his grip. Blood sprayed from his nose.
"That laundromat," Stockton said, his voice calm. Conversational. "You remember it?"
"I don't—"
Stockton slammed his face into the table again.
"Try again."
"Warren told me to—it was just a job—"
"Just a job." Stockton hauled him up by the collar, dragging him toward the door. "That building was a woman's life. Her aunt's legacy. The one thing that mattered to her after her husband died."
"I didn't know—"
"You didn't care." Stockton kicked open the front door and threw Jamie onto the sidewalk.
The night air was cold. The street was empty. And across the road, parked in the shadows, a car waited with its engine running.
Stockton dragged Jamie to his feet and marched him across the street. Blood streamed from the younger man's broken nose. His eyes were wild, desperate, finally understanding that the swagger and the violence and the prison connections weren't going to save him.
The car door opened.
Trish stepped out.
She looked at Jamie Polk—this man who'd destroyed her machines, smashed her aunt's table, spray-painted his message on her windows. Her face was calm. Cold. The face of a woman who'd made peace with what was about to happen.
"Do you know who I am?" she asked.
Jamie's eyes darted between her and Stockton. "The laundromat lady—"
"My name is Trish Callahan." She stepped closer, and Stockton felt something fierce and proud swell in his chest. "My aunt built that laundromat in 1987.
She ran it for twenty-three years. When she died, I kept it running for ten more.
Thirty-three years of keeping the lights on.
Thirty-three years of giving this neighborhood somewhere safe to go. "
"Lady, I was just following orders—"
"And you destroyed it in one night." Her voice didn't waver. "Because Warren Zielinski told you to. Because you thought it would prove something."
Jamie's mouth worked. No sound came out.
Trish held up the piece of broken wood—the fragment of Mae's folding table she'd been carrying since the destruction.
"This is all that's left," she said. "This piece of wood. Everything else you turned to rubble."
"I'm sorry—"
"No, you're not." She looked at Stockton. "I've seen what I needed to see."
She got back in the car.
Stockton turned to Jamie.
"You heard the lady." He drew his knife. "Time to answer for what you did."
Jamie broke.
He tried to run—a desperate, scrambling lunge toward the darkness—but Stockton caught him before he'd made it three steps. His hand closed on Jamie's collar, spinning him around, slamming him against the nearest wall.
"Warren sent you," Stockton said. "Sent you to destroy something that mattered. To prove he could still hurt us."
"Please—"
"Tell him—" Stockton leaned close, his knife pressing against Jamie's ribs. "Tell him the founding member of the Windy City Wolves is coming for him. Tell him his crew is dead, his operation is finished, and there's nowhere in this city he can hide."
"I'll tell him—I swear—"
"No." Stockton drove the blade home. "You won't."
Jamie's eyes went wide. His mouth opened, but only blood came out. He slid down the wall, his hands clutching at the wound, his body crumpling onto the cold concrete.
Stockton watched him die.
It didn't take long. Jamie Polk was young, but a knife in the right place didn't care about age. Within a minute, his eyes were glassy, his chest still, his blood pooling on the sidewalk like a message.
Warren's last enforcer. Dead.
The war wasn't over. But the sides were finally even.
Fang emerged from the bar, wiping his hands on a rag. "Inside's clear. Two bodies. One injured—he'll live long enough to talk."
"Good." Stockton sheathed his knife. "Let him run back to Warren. Let him tell his boss what happened."
"You want Warren to know we're coming."
"I want Warren to know he's already dead. He just hasn't stopped breathing yet."
They cleaned the scene fast—bodies loaded, brass collected, the bar left looking like nothing had happened except for the blood stains nobody would ask about. Stockton sent Scout and Fang ahead with the cargo, then walked back to the car where Trish waited.
She was in the passenger seat, her hands still wrapped around the piece of broken table. When he opened the door, she looked at him with eyes that held no horror, no judgment. Just understanding.
"It's done," he said.
"I know."
He slid behind the wheel and started the engine. The street fell away behind them as he pulled onto Archer, heading back toward the compound.
"How do you feel?" he asked.
She was quiet for a long moment.
"Like something broke loose," she said finally. "Something I've been carrying for a long time."
"Revenge does that."
"Is that what this was?"
"Part of it." He glanced at her. "The rest was sending a message. Jamie wasn't just Warren's muscle—he was Warren's statement. His proof that fighting back doesn't work."
"And now?"
"Now Warren knows different. His crew is gone. His enforcers are dead. He's got nothing left but money and desperation." Stockton's hands tightened on the wheel. "When we find him—and we will—there won't be anyone left to protect him."
Trish looked out the window at the passing streets. Back of the Yards. Her neighborhood. The blocks she'd known her whole life.
"The laundromat," she said. "When this is over—"
"We rebuild. I told you that."
"I know." She turned to face him. "But I want to be part of it. Not just the rebuilding. All of it. The club. The work. This life."
Stockton met her eyes. In them, he saw the woman who'd survived loss and siege and the destruction of everything she'd built. Who'd watched a man die for what he'd done to her and hadn't flinched.
"You're already part of it," he said. "You have been since the night I walked into your laundromat."
She smiled—small, fierce, the smile of a woman who'd found her place and wasn't letting go.
They drove the rest of the way in silence, the city lights sliding past, the night settling around them like a blanket.
The compound gates opened as they approached. Home.
Stockton parked and killed the engine. Through the windshield, he could see brothers moving in the lot, the lights of the clubhouse burning, the flag with the wolf sigil snapping in the wind.
Twenty years. He'd spent twenty years protecting these streets.
And now he had someone worth protecting them for.
He got out of the car and walked toward the clubhouse, Trish at his side, thinking about five signatures on a wall and the promise they'd made.
Warren Zielinski was still out there. Still breathing. Still thinking he could win.
But the Wolves were coming.
And the founding member who'd started all of this was going to end it.