Chapter 14
They hit the construction trailer at midnight.
Tourniquet rode with Tundra and Ironside through frozen back roads, cutting through forest that swallowed the sound of their engines. Whiteout had been surveilling the location for three hours—a portable office outside Biwabik where Janney staged between jobs.
Three targets inside. Janney plus two Duluth men.
Greer's last line of defense.
The trailer sat in a clearing surrounded by heavy equipment—excavators, bulldozers, the machinery of a construction project that would never be completed. Temporary lighting cast harsh shadows across frozen mud. A single truck parked beside the entrance.
Tourniquet killed his engine fifty yards out.
"Positions," Tundra murmured into his earpiece.
"West exit covered," Ironside's voice came back. "Ready."
"East clear," Whiteout confirmed. "Three heat signatures, no movement. They're not expecting company."
"Then let's introduce ourselves."
Tourniquet moved through the darkness, weapon drawn. The cold bit at exposed skin, but he barely noticed. Four years in combat zones had taught him to ignore discomfort when violence was imminent.
The trailer's main door was flimsy—construction-grade, meant to keep out weather, not determined men. He positioned himself beside the frame while Tundra stacked behind him.
Three seconds. Two.
One.
He hit the door with his shoulder. The lock shattered. He was inside before the debris finished falling.
The first Duluth man was reaching for a weapon on the table. Tourniquet put two rounds in his chest before his fingers touched the grip. The body hit the floor, gone before the brain registered death.
Tundra flowed past him, engaging the second target—a man scrambling from a cot, still tangled in blankets. One shot, center mass. The man dropped.
Karl Janney stood at the back of the trailer.
Lean build. Assault record in his posture. The look of a professional who'd hurt people for money his entire adult life. He had a knife in his hand—not reaching for a gun, smart enough to know he'd never make it.
"North Star Savages," Janney said. His voice was calm. Resigned. "Took you long enough."
"Your boss burned three buildings today." Tourniquet advanced, weapon steady. "Killed a woman's livelihood. Nearly killed civilians."
"That's the job." Janney shifted his grip on the knife. "Greer says torch, I torch. Nothing personal."
"It's personal now."
"Is it?" Something that might have been amusement flickered in Janney's eyes. "Because some florist got her shop burned? That's why the whole Savage MC rolls out?"
"Because a contractor thinks he can operate in our territory without consequences." Tourniquet stopped ten feet from Janney. "You're the consequence."
"Greer won't stop. You know that, right? You kill me, he'll find someone else. Men like him always do."
"Let us worry about Greer."
Janney lunged.
The knife came fast—a professional strike, aimed at the throat. But Tourniquet had spent four deployments learning exactly how bodies moved, how muscles telegraphed intention, how to read an attack before it fully formed.
He sidestepped the blade. Caught Janney's wrist. Twisted.
The knife clattered to the floor.
Janney swung with his free hand—a desperate hook that might have landed on someone slower. Tourniquet ducked under it and drove his knee into Janney's midsection. The enforcer doubled over, breath exploding from his lungs.
"Where's Greer?"
"Go to hell."
Tourniquet's hand found Janney's throat. He slammed the man against the trailer wall, pinning him with a grip that knew exactly how much pressure to apply before the windpipe collapsed.
"Where's Greer?"
"Virginia." The word came out strangled. "Project office. He never—" Janney gasped for air. "He never leaves Virginia. Always sends someone else."
"Like you."
"Like me."
Tourniquet studied the man pinned against the wall. The professional enforcer. The escalation weapon. The man who'd burned Paige's shop in broad daylight, smiled at witnesses, thought consequences were for other people.
"You should have stayed in Duluth."
"Probably." Janney's lips twisted into something that might have been a smile. "But the money was good."
"Was it worth it?"
"Guess we'll find out."
Tourniquet released the throat and stepped back.
Janney sagged against the wall, rubbing his neck. For a moment, hope flickered in his eyes—the desperate calculation of a man who thought he might survive this.
Then he saw Tourniquet's face.
The hope died.
"The florist," Janney said quietly. "She's yours?"
"She's mine."
"Then make it quick. Professional courtesy."
Tourniquet considered the request. The enforcer had burned three businesses, endangered lives, terrorized a community. He deserved worse than quick.
But the man hadn't begged. Hadn't pleaded. Had accepted his fate with the resignation of someone who'd always known how this story ended.
"Quick," Tourniquet agreed.
He drew his sidearm.
One shot. Clean. Final.
Karl Janney dropped, and the last wall between Greer and accountability crumbled with him.
The cleanup took twenty minutes.
Bodies loaded into the truck they'd burn later. Trailer wiped down, evidence scattered. The construction site would look like a robbery gone wrong—equipment missing, workers vanished, nothing to connect it to the Savages.
Tourniquet stood outside while the brothers finished, staring at the frozen mud, processing what came next.
Shale was dead. Beale was dead. Janney was dead.
Greer had no one left to hide behind.
"You good?" Tundra appeared beside him, breath fogging in the cold air.
"I'm good."
"That was clean work in there. Fast."
"He burned her shop." Tourniquet's voice was flat. "Her livelihood. Four years of proof that she survived what Helmand did to her."
"I know."
"So yeah. It was fast." He turned to face Tundra. "What's the plan for Greer?"
"Permafrost wants church tomorrow. Full strategy session." Tundra's eyes were cold, calculating. "Greer's holed up in Virginia. He'll know about Janney within hours—construction network works both ways. He's going to be desperate."
"Desperate men make mistakes."
"That's what we're counting on."
Ironside emerged from the trailer, wiping his hands on a rag. "Site's clean. Ready to roll."
Tourniquet nodded. "Let's move. I want to be back at compound before dawn."
The ride back was quiet. Just engines and cold air and the particular silence that followed violence. Tourniquet let his mind drift to Paige—safe at the compound, waiting for news, probably reorganizing something because she couldn't sit still any more than he could.
His woman. His to protect.
And now, no one standing between her and the man who'd tried to destroy her.
Greer was next.
They reached the compound as the first gray light touched the horizon.
Paige was waiting on the porch, arms crossed against the cold, watching the bikes pull in. Her face was unreadable, but her eyes tracked Tourniquet as he dismounted and crossed the yard toward her.
"Janney?" she asked.
"Done."
She nodded once. No celebration. No relief. Just acknowledgment.
"And Greer?"
"Virginia. His project office. He's been running everything from behind a desk." Tourniquet stopped in front of her, close enough to feel her warmth. "Church tomorrow. We plan the final move."
"I want to be there."
"I know."
"I mean it, Tourniquet. This isn't just your fight anymore. It stopped being just your fight when he burned my shop."
He studied her—the set of her jaw, the steel in her eyes, the determination that had survived two deployments and a madman's vendetta. She wasn't asking permission. She was stating fact.
"You'll be there," he said. "Permafrost already asked for you."
Something shifted in her expression. Surprise, maybe. Or gratification.
"He did?"
"Your intel. Your knowledge of Greer's operations. Your tactical perspective." Tourniquet's mouth curved slightly. "Plus, I told him you'd be impossible to deal with if he tried to exclude you."
"Damn right I would be."
He pulled her close, and she came willingly—pressing against him, her arms wrapping around his waist, her face buried in his chest. He felt the tension in her body slowly release.
"It's almost over," she said quietly.
"Almost."
"And when it is?"
He tilted her chin up, met her eyes.
"When it's over, we rebuild. Your shop. Your life. Whatever you want." His thumb traced her cheekbone. "And I'll be there for all of it."
"Promise?"
"Promise."
She kissed him—soft, brief, a seal on words that mattered.
Behind them, the brothers finished securing the bikes. The compound stirred to life as night shift ended and day shift began. The machinery of survival grinding forward.
But for this moment, there was just the two of them.
A medic and a florist.
A man who knew how bodies failed and a woman who knew how to make things grow.
Tomorrow, they'd plan the final strike.
Tonight, they'd rest.
And Mitchell Greer, alone in his Virginia office, would wake to the news that his last enforcer was dead and the Savages were coming.
The message had been delivered.
His infrastructure was being dismantled with surgical precision.
And the man doing the cutting knew anatomy.