Chapter Ten
The attack came at dawn.
That's when he noticed the pattern.
"Ghost." He keyed his radio, voice low. "Communications check."
Static.
He tried again. "Static. Forge. Anyone copy."
Nothing.
The jamming hit him like cold water. Professional equipment, military-grade, the kind that didn't come from civilian sources. Someone had cut their communications precisely when they'd be most vulnerable.
Trooper moved.
He was at the armory in thirty seconds, pulling weapons, stuffing magazines into his vest. The compound had emergency protocols for exactly this scenario—hand signals, rally points, fallback positions he'd designed himself.
But someone had studied those protocols. Someone who thought the way he thought.
The first explosion ripped through the east gate.
By the time Trooper reached the main courtyard, the battle was already raging.
Twelve men, maybe fifteen, advancing through the breach with coordinated precision. Not the sloppy assault Osborne had led—this was different. Calculated. Each team covering the other, moving in patterns that maximized firepower while minimizing exposure.
Someone had done the math. Someone who understood logistics.
Pryor.
Trooper had studied the personnel files Cargo pulled from their intelligence network. Neil Pryor—former Army transportation specialist, Vance's logistics brain. The man who kept weapons moving on schedule, who treated smuggling like a puzzle that must be solved perfectly.
A planner. Like Trooper.
Which meant Trooper knew exactly how he'd think.
"Forge! West flank, cut off their retreat!" He shouted the order without radio, relying on voice and hand signals. "Ghost, elevated position—they'll funnel toward the chapel!"
The brothers moved without question. Years of working together had built instincts that didn't require communication.
Trooper sprinted toward the main building, already calculating angles. Pryor would expect them to defend in depth—multiple fallback positions, trading space for time. Standard doctrine.
So Trooper wouldn't give him standard doctrine.
He reached the chapel entrance and found Jessica there, pressed against the wall with a pistol in her hands.
"What are you doing here?" He grabbed her arm, pulling her toward the bunker entrance. "I told you to stay in the safe room—"
"The safe room lost power when they jammed communications." Her jaw was set. Stubborn. "And sitting still while other people fight isn't something I do."
"Jessica—"
"Give me something useful or get out of my way."
He stared at her. At the determination in her eyes, the steadiness in her grip despite the chaos exploding around them.
Mine, he thought. Absolutely mine.
"Ammunition." He pointed toward the armory. "The brothers are going to run low. You run resupply between positions—stay low, stay fast, don't engage unless you have to."
"Done."
She was gone before he could second-guess himself.
Trooper turned back to the battle.
Pryor's assault was beautiful in its precision.
Trooper watched it unfold from his position near the chapel, reading the patterns like a language he'd spoken his whole life. The attackers weren't just advancing—they were herding. Pushing the defenders toward specific positions, cutting off retreat routes one by one.
A kill box. Pryor was building a kill box.
Exactly what Trooper would have done.
Which meant Trooper knew exactly where the trap would close.
"Everyone fall back to the chapel!" He shouted the order, watching the confusion ripple through both sides. "Now! Fall back now!"
The brothers trusted him. Moved without understanding, pulling toward the central position while the attackers pressed forward.
Right into the space Trooper had prepared.
The courtyard was designed with defensive positions in mind—elevated shooting platforms, reinforced cover, interlocking fields of fire. Pryor's assault had bypassed those positions, focused on overwhelming the perimeter.
But the perimeter was never the real defense.
"Now!" Trooper raised his weapon. "Light them up!"
The brothers opened fire from positions Pryor hadn't accounted for. Elevated platforms that looked decorative. Reinforced windows that seemed abandoned. Fields of fire that overlapped in ways only Trooper fully understood.
The attackers went down in waves.
Trooper moved through the chaos, weapon up, finding targets with the cold precision of a man who'd spent fourteen years planning exactly this kind of violence. Two men breaching through a side door—dropped. Another trying to flank Ghost's position—eliminated.
And there, in the center of the courtyard, coordinating the assault that was rapidly falling apart—Pryor.
Slight build. Forgettable face. Moving with the frantic energy of a man watching his perfect plan collapse.
Trooper closed the distance.
Pryor saw him coming. Raised his weapon, fired twice—shots going wide as Trooper dove behind cover. The logistics specialist was a planner, not a fighter. Good at calculations, bad at chaos.
"You planned this like a supply route!" Trooper shouted over the gunfire. "Predictable! Efficient! No contingencies for when things go wrong!"
"Vance will—"
"Vance isn't here!" Trooper broke from cover, weapon leveled. "He sent you to die because you're expendable! Just like Osborne was expendable!"
Pryor's face twisted. The truth landing harder than any bullet.
He raised his weapon for a final shot.
Trooper was faster.
Three rounds center mass. Pryor stumbled backward, disbelief spreading across his features as his legs gave out. He collapsed against the courtyard wall, eyes fixed on the sky, breathing in wet gasps that meant punctured lungs.
Trooper stood over him.
"Your plan was good," he said. "But you forgot the most important variable."
"What—" Pryor coughed blood. "What variable?"
"Me."
The light faded from Pryor's eyes.
Trooper didn't look back.
The battle ended in under eight minutes.
Eight minutes of concentrated violence that left twelve of Vance's men dead and the compound still standing. The brotherhood had taken injuries—Forge with a graze across his arm, Static with a through-and-through in his thigh—but no fatalities.
A victory. Unqualified.
But Trooper couldn't shake the cold feeling in his chest as he surveyed the carnage.
"Trooper!"
Jessica emerged from behind the armory, still carrying the ammunition bag she'd been running between positions. Her face was pale, hands shaking with adrenaline, but her eyes—
Her eyes were alive. Fierce. The look of someone who'd walked through fire and come out burning.
"Are you hurt?" She reached him, hands running over his chest, his arms, searching for wounds. "I heard shooting near the chapel—"
"I'm fine." He caught her hands, stilled them. "You?"
"Fine. I mean, terrified, but fine." She laughed, the sound edging toward hysteria. "I ran ammunition while people were shooting at me. That's... that's not something I ever thought I'd do."
"You kept the brothers supplied. Forge would have run dry without you." He pulled her against his chest, holding tight. "You saved lives."
She was shaking. They both were—adrenaline crash hitting hard now that the immediate danger had passed.
"How many?" she asked against his shoulder. "How many of them?"
"Twelve dead. Pryor included."
"The logistics guy?"
"He planned the assault. Studied our defenses, identified weak points, built a strategy around overwhelming force." Trooper's arms tightened around her. "He was good. Just not good enough."
"And Vance?"
"Wasn't here. Sent Pryor to do his dirty work." The cold feeling intensified. "He's testing us. Probing our defenses, learning our responses. This wasn't meant to succeed—it was meant to gather intelligence."
"For the next attack."
"For the attack that will succeed if I don't plan better."
She pulled back, meeting his eyes. "Then plan better. That's what you do."
"Jessica—"
"I'm serious." Her voice steadied. "You just killed twelve men with a defensive plan you modified in real-time. You read their strategy and countered it before they even knew what was happening. If Vance thinks he can out-plan you, he's going to learn the same lesson Pryor did."
Something shifted in his chest. Pride, maybe. Or gratitude for a woman who looked at him covered in blood and saw strength instead of savagery.
"Legion's going to want a debrief," he said. "We need to assess casualties, repair the breach, figure out how they got the jamming equipment."
"I know." She stepped back, but kept hold of his hand. "Do what you need to do. I'll be here when you're done."
"You should rest. Process what happened."
"I'll rest when you rest." Her jaw set. "We're in this together. That means the ugly parts too."
He looked at her—this woman who'd reorganized his supply rooms and run ammunition through a firefight and refused to let him carry any of this alone.
Mine.
The thought wasn't possessive anymore. It was a promise.
"Together," he agreed.
The compound was quiet around them now. Brothers moving through the aftermath, counting bodies, tending wounds. The sun was fully up, Carolina morning light making the violence look almost peaceful.
Trooper looked at the courtyard. At the bodies of men who'd come to kill everything he cared about.
Twelve down. Vance still out there.
But the compound stood. The brotherhood was intact. And Jessica was still at his side.
For now, that was enough.