Chapter Nine
Vice was out of bed before the second tone, years of combat reflexes overriding the warmth of Diana's body tangled with his. He grabbed his piece from the nightstand and was pulling on jeans when Diana sat up, eyes wide, instantly alert.
"What—"
"Perimeter breach. Multiple points." He threw her one of his shirts and shoved his feet into boots. "Safe room. Now."
"The children—"
"Jenna's got them. Protocol's already running." He crossed to her, gripped her face, kissed her hard. "Safe room. Promise me."
Diana's jaw set. "Promise."
They ran.
The compound was already chaos—brothers pouring from buildings with weapons drawn, old ladies herding sleepy children toward the reinforced basement of the main hall.
Vice caught glimpses of faces in the gray dawn: Maverick sprinting toward the east fence, Wraith bellowing orders, Titan's massive form directing traffic like a general preparing for war.
At the main hall entrance, Diana broke away toward the basement stairs where Jenna was ushering the last of the children inside. She paused at the door, looked back at Vice with eyes that held fear and fury and absolute trust.
"Come back to me."
"Always."
Then she was gone, swallowed by the safe room's steel door, and Vice turned toward the sound of the first gunshots.
Twelve men. Maybe more.
They hit the compound from three directions—east, south, and west—professional assault formation designed to overwhelm and divide. Vice sprinted toward the medical building, his position chosen for its sight lines and proximity to supplies he might need if brothers started bleeding.
Anvil was already there, the massive enforcer crouched behind a concrete planter with an assault rifle that looked small in his hands.
"East perimeter's taking the worst of it," Anvil reported, his voice calm despite the gunfire crackling around them. "Counted eight that direction, at least four more split between south and west."
"Who's leading?"
"Big guy, ex-cop look. Rader, maybe—heard Titan mention the name."
Steve Rader. Barron's head of security, the ex-cop who handled "direct action" when Phelps's harassment campaigns failed. The man who'd sent six professionals to kill Diana at the safehouse.
He'd come personally this time.
Good, Vice thought grimly. Saves me the trouble of hunting him down.
"Cover the south approach," Vice ordered. "I'm moving east."
Anvil nodded and shifted position. Vice broke cover and ran.
The east perimeter was a war zone. Brothers had taken positions behind vehicles and outbuildings, trading fire with attackers who'd breached the fence and were advancing in coordinated pairs. Professional. Disciplined. The kind of hired muscle that cost real money.
Barron was throwing everything at them.
Vice dropped behind an overturned truck and assessed the field. Two attackers down, bodies crumpled in the grass. Three brothers wounded—he could see blood, hear the calls for medic—but still fighting. And there, near the breach point, directing the assault with hand signals and shouted commands—
Steve Rader.
The man was built like a linebacker gone to seed, thick through the chest and shoulders, moving with the confident authority of someone who'd worn a badge and never stopped thinking of himself as untouchable.
He had a tactical vest and a rifle that probably cost more than Diana's monthly rent, and he was pointing his men toward the main hall.
Toward the safe room.
Toward Diana and fifteen children.
Vice's vision tunneled.
He moved along the truck's frame, using the chaos as cover, closing the distance between himself and Rader's position. Fifty yards. Forty. Thirty.
A burst of fire from somewhere to his left—Maverick's position, flanking—drew Rader's attention. The ex-cop turned to assess the new threat, exposing his side.
Vice rose and fired.
The first round caught Rader in the shoulder, spinning him. The second hit center mass, staggering him back. Rader's eyes found Vice across the battlefield—recognition, fury, something like disbelief—and he raised his rifle with trembling hands.
Vice put the third round through his throat.
Rader dropped like a puppet with cut strings, blood spraying across the trampled grass. His rifle fell beside him, unfired. His legs kicked once, twice, then went still.
The assault wavered.
"LEADER'S DOWN!" someone shouted—Vice couldn't tell if it was a brother or an attacker—and the coordinated assault began to crumble.
Without Rader directing traffic, the hired muscle lost their nerve.
Two broke for the fence line. Another tried to surrender and caught a round from Wraith before he could drop his weapon.
The compound defenders pressed the advantage.
Vice stayed in motion, dropping another attacker who'd tried to flank Titan's position, then another who'd gotten too close to the main hall. His magazine ran dry; he reloaded without thinking, muscle memory from a thousand drills in a different war.
But this war was almost over.
By the time the sun cleared the horizon, painting the compound in shades of gold and crimson, the last of the attackers was down. Twelve men had hit the compound at dawn. None of them walked away.
The aftermath was controlled chaos.
Brothers called out injuries—three wounded, none critical, thank God—while prospects started the grim work of clearing bodies. Vice made his way through the carnage toward the main hall, stepping over spent casings and blood-soaked grass, his only thought getting to the safe room.
Getting to Diana.
Titan intercepted him at the door. The club president was splattered with blood that wasn't his own, his expression carved from granite.
"Rader?"
"Dead." Vice didn't slow down. "East perimeter."
"Good." Titan fell into step beside him. "Barron's running out of people to send. First Phelps, now his head enforcer. The bastard's getting desperate."
"Desperate men make mistakes."
"That's what I'm counting on." Titan gripped Vice's shoulder, stopping him. "The women and kids—they're all okay. Jenna just radioed. Nobody breached the main hall."
Something in Vice's chest unclenched. "Diana?"
"Held it together the whole time. Jenna said she kept the kids calm while bullets were flying—read them stories, sang songs, turned it into a game." Titan's expression softened into something almost like approval. "She's got steel in her spine, brother. You picked a good one."
Vice didn't have words. He just nodded and kept walking.
The safe room door was reinforced steel, designed to withstand anything short of military-grade explosives. Vice punched in the code with bloody fingers and hauled it open.
Diana was sitting on the floor, surrounded by children.
She had Maya on her lap and Tyler pressed against her side, both kids drowsy but calm.
The other children were scattered around her—some sleeping on makeshift beds, others playing quietly with toys someone had thought to stock.
Jenna and Sophia watched from the edges, their own children close, but the center of gravity was Diana.
The woman who'd kept fifteen terrified kids calm while war raged outside.
She looked up when the door opened, and Vice watched the fear she'd been holding back finally crack through her composure. Her eyes swept over him—the blood on his clothes, the gun still in his hand, the evidence of violence he couldn't hide.
"Colton."
The sound of his real name—the one she only used in the dark, in their bed—hit him like a physical blow.
"It's over." He crossed the room in three strides and dropped to his knees in front of her, heedless of the children watching, the old ladies assessing. His hands found her face, tilting it up so he could see her eyes. "It's over. You're safe. They're all safe."
"I heard the gunfire." Her voice was steady, but her hands trembled when they came up to grip his wrists. "It went on forever. I didn't know if you—"
"I'm here." He pressed his forehead to hers, breathing her in. "I'm right here."
Maya squirmed in Diana's lap, reaching for Vice with small hands. "Mr. Vice got the bad guys?"
"Yeah, sweetheart." Diana's laugh was watery. "Mr. Vice got the bad guys."
The little girl nodded solemnly and settled back against Diana's chest, apparently satisfied with this explanation. Around them, the other children were beginning to stir, responding to the shift in energy, the sense that danger had passed.
"The kids need to get out of here," Diana said quietly. "Back to normal. Breakfast, routine, something to help them process."
Vice nodded and forced himself to stand, to step back, to become the enforcer again instead of the man who'd almost lost everything he cared about.
"Jenna can handle that. You need—"
"I need to help." Diana rose carefully, settling Maya on her hip. "These are my kids too, now. I'm not going to fall apart while they need me."
My kids too.
Vice stared at her—this woman who'd been targeted because of a lease, who'd lost her daycare and her home and nearly her life, who sat in a bunker reading stories while bullets flew and emerged more concerned about the children than herself.
"I love you."
The words came out before he could stop them. Raw and unplanned and completely inappropriate for a bunker full of kids and old ladies and the aftermath of a firefight.
Diana's eyes went wide.
"You—"
"I love you." He said it again because he couldn't stop, because it was true, because he'd spent his whole life looking for something worth protecting and he'd finally found it. "I love you, Diana. I'm sorry, I know the timing is—"
She kissed him.
Right there in the safe room, with Maya on her hip and fifteen witnesses and blood still drying on his clothes. She kissed him like he was the only thing that mattered, like she'd been waiting her whole life for a man who'd say those words and mean them.
"I love you too," she whispered against his lips. "Now go help your brothers. I've got the kids."
Vice laughed—a surprised, relieved sound he barely recognized as his own. "Yes, ma'am."
He kissed her once more, quick and hard, then made himself walk away.
Outside, the compound was already returning to order. Prospects dragged bodies toward the back gate. Brothers compared wounds like trophies. Somewhere, someone was making coffee, the mundane ritual a signal that life continued despite the violence.
Barron had sent twelve men to destroy the Steel Sentinels.
None of them were going home.
First Phelps, the fixer who'd thought sabotage and harassment were enough to take what didn't belong to him. Now Rader, the enforcer who'd believed his badge and his muscle could overwhelm outlaw justice.
Barron was running out of soldiers.
Vice found Titan near the east perimeter, standing over Rader's body with an expression of cold satisfaction.
"Two down," the president said. "One to go."
Vice looked at the man who'd led an assault on compound children—who'd directed his soldiers toward a safe room full of kids because his boss wanted a daycare building for drug distribution.
"One to go," he agreed.
The assault had crumbled. Barron's enforcer was dead. And somewhere across town, a drug dealer was learning the hard way that some things cost more than money could cover.
Vice turned his back on Rader's corpse and walked toward the main hall, where Diana was leading a parade of sleepy children toward breakfast like nothing had happened.
The war wasn't over yet.
But they were winning.