Chapter 7
Twelve bikes. Maybe more.
Wake counted engines as they roared up the gravel road, the sound bouncing off limestone bluffs and rolling across the water like thunder. The Razorbacks weren't trying to be subtle—they were coming loud, coming angry, coming to hurt someone.
They just didn't know what was waiting for them.
"Spillway, you in position?" Wake spoke low into his phone, watching the tree line where the road curved between the bluff and the lake.
"Bottleneck's covered." Spillway's voice was calm. The dam operator's patience—hold everything back until it was time to release. "Cottonmouth's got the high ground. They hit that curve, they're not getting through."
"Don't let any of them past. Except one."
"Which one?"
"The big bastard leading the pack." Wake's grip tightened on his gun. "He's mine."
He'd called the compound the moment he heard engines.
Spillway and Cottonmouth had been close—running patrol on the back roads, watching for exactly this kind of move.
They'd reached the bottleneck ten minutes ahead of the Razorbacks, positioning themselves where the gravel road narrowed to a single lane between rock and water.
Twelve nomads riding into a kill box.
Wake moved to the edge of the cabin lot, positioning himself where he could see the road and the dock and the woman standing in the doorway behind him.
Marley hadn't moved. She stood at the threshold with that whiskey bottle in one hand and the .38 he'd pressed into her palm in the other. He'd told her to stay inside, to lock the door, to hide if things went sideways.
She'd told him to go to hell.
Stubborn woman. He should have been angry. Should have been worried about protecting her while fighting twelve men. Instead, all he felt was a fierce, possessive pride that made his blood run hot.
That's my woman, some primal part of his brain whispered. Standing her ground. Ready to fight.
The first bikes crested the hill.
Headlights cut through the dusk, engines screaming as the Razorbacks pushed hard down the gravel. Wake counted—one, two, five, eight, twelve—and saw Brock Yates at the front, that roadhouse-fighter bulk unmistakable even in silhouette.
They hit the bottleneck at full speed.
Spillway came out of the trees like a freight train.
His bike slammed into the lead Razorback from the left, sending the nomad flying into the limestone bluff with a crunch that echoed across the water.
Cottonmouth opened up from the high ground—not shooting to kill, not yet, but close enough that the Razorbacks scattered like roaches when the lights came on.
Chaos erupted on the narrow road. Bikes going down, men shouting, the crack of gunfire and the scream of metal on gravel. The Ridgerunners had turned the bottleneck into a slaughterhouse, and the Razorbacks were trapped in the middle of it.
But Yates didn't stop.
The big man gunned his engine and blew through the chaos, ducking low over his handlebars as bullets sparked off the road around him. One of his men went down behind him—Cottonmouth's work—but Yates kept coming, fury and momentum carrying him through the kill zone and out the other side.
Straight toward the cabin.
Straight toward Wake.
Wake stepped into the middle of the lot and raised his gun.
Yates saw him too late. He tried to swerve, tried to bring his own weapon up, but he was moving too fast and the gravel was too loose. His front tire caught a rut and the bike bucked, sending him over the handlebars in a graceless arc.
He hit the ground hard and rolled, coming up bloody but still fighting. Still dangerous.
Wake was on him before he could stand.
The first punch caught Yates in the jaw, snapping his head back. The second drove into his ribs, right where the body armor didn't cover. Yates roared and swung wild, and Wake ducked under it and came up with an elbow to the throat that dropped the bigger man to his knees.
"You came to my cabin," Wake said, breathing hard. "You came for my woman."
Yates looked up at him with blood streaming from his nose and murder in his eyes. "She's not—"
Wake kicked him in the face.
The impact sent Yates sprawling backward, his head bouncing off the gravel. Wake followed, straddling him, pinning his arms with his knees. The gun was in his hand but he didn't want the gun. Didn't want it quick.
He wanted Yates to know exactly who was ending him.
"Three days ago, you broke a man's arm with a pool cue." Wake's voice was flat, calm, the voice of a man who'd made a decision and was simply carrying it out. "You terrorized a woman in her own bar. You thought you could take what you wanted because nobody was going to stop you."
Yates struggled beneath him, but Wake had the leverage and the position and eight years of cramped engine compartments had made his grip iron-strong.
"You were wrong."
He drove his fist into Yates's throat.
Not a punch—a strike. Targeted, brutal, the kind of blow that crushed windpipes and ended fights permanently. Yates's eyes went wide, his mouth opening and closing like a fish, his hands clawing uselessly at his own neck as he tried to breathe through a trachea that wasn't working anymore.
Wake stood up and watched him die.
It took maybe thirty seconds. Yates thrashing on the gravel, making wet choking sounds, his face going purple and then gray. When he finally went still, Wake felt nothing but cold satisfaction.
One down. Fifteen to go.
The gunfire at the bottleneck had stopped. Wake turned to see Spillway and Cottonmouth walking up the road, stepping over bodies, their weapons still drawn. Behind them, the narrow stretch of gravel looked like a war zone—bikes down, men groaning, at least four bodies that weren't moving at all.
"Six down," Spillway reported, stopping at the edge of the lot. His eyes went to Yates's corpse. "Seven, counting yours. The rest scattered into the trees."
"They'll be back," Cottonmouth said. His throat scar caught the fading light, a reminder that he knew exactly how dangerous cornered men could be. "Maddox isn't going to let this go."
"No." Wake looked toward the cabin door. "He's not."
Marley was still standing there. Still holding the bottle and the gun. But something had changed in her expression—a rawness, a recognition of what she'd just witnessed.
He'd killed a man in front of her. Beaten him down and crushed his throat and watched him choke to death on his own blood. Most women would be horrified. Would be backing away, looking at him like the monster he probably was.
Marley didn't move.
Wake crossed the lot and stopped at the bottom of the porch steps. "You okay?"
"I'm fine." Her voice was steady, but he could see the pulse hammering in her throat. "Is he—"
"Dead."
She nodded. Looked past him to where Yates lay cooling on the gravel, then back to his face. "Good."
Something fierce and hot surged through Wake's chest. Good. Not horror, not judgment—just cold acknowledgment that a man who'd hurt people deserved what he got.
"We need to move," Cottonmouth said, joining them. His eyes swept over Marley with professional assessment—checking for injuries, for shock, for anything that might slow them down. "Maddox will have heard about this within the hour. This cabin's burned."
"Compound?" Wake asked.
"Only place that's safe now." Cottonmouth turned to Marley. "You good to drive?"
"I've been driving since I was fourteen."
A ghost of a smile crossed Cottonmouth's scarred face. "She's got fire. I like that."
Wake didn't like the way Cottonmouth was looking at her. Didn't like any man looking at her, if he was being honest. He stepped closer to Marley, positioning himself between her and the Sergeant at Arms without thinking about it.
Cottonmouth noticed. His smile widened, but he didn't comment.
"Get her truck," Wake said. "I'll ride escort. Spillway, you and Cottonmouth clean this up."
"Bodies?"
"Lake's deep. Current's fast." Wake's voice was hard. "The Razorbacks wanted to play in Ridgerunner water. Now they can stay in it."
Spillway nodded and headed back toward the bottleneck, where the surviving Razorbacks were still groaning in the dirt. Cottonmouth lingered for a moment, studying Wake with those cold, patient eyes.
"You did good, prospect," he said finally. "Still's gonna want a full report."
"He'll get one."
"And the woman?"
Wake looked at Marley. She was watching him with those dark eyes, the gun still in her hand, her knuckles white around the bottle she hadn't dropped even when the fighting started.
"She's with me," he said.
Cottonmouth didn't argue.
They moved fast after that. Marley grabbed her bag and her lockbox from the cabin while Wake checked the perimeter one last time.
Seven dead Razorbacks, five more wounded, and the rest scattered into the Ozark night like the cowards they were.
It wasn't a victory—Maddox was still out there, and he'd come back harder than before.
But it was a start.
Marley's truck rumbled to life, and Wake pulled his bike alongside her driver's window. She looked tired, shaken, but her hands were steady on the wheel.
"Stay close," he said. "We've got about an hour to the compound. Don't stop for anything."
"Wake." She said his name like she was testing it. "What you did to that man—"
"Needed doing."
"I know." She held his gaze. "I'm not judging. I'm just—" She shook her head. "Thank you. For coming back. For not leaving me alone in this."
Something cracked open in Wake's chest. Something he'd been keeping locked down since the moment he first saw her across that bar, pouring drinks for men who wanted to destroy her.
"I'm not leaving you alone in anything," he said. "Not now. Not ever."
The words hung between them, heavier than he'd meant them to be. Marley's lips parted, her eyes searching his face for something he wasn't sure he was ready to show her.
Then Cottonmouth's bike roared past, breaking the moment.
"Move out!" the Sergeant at Arms called over his shoulder. "We've got company coming!"
Wake looked toward the main road and saw headlights in the distance. More bikes. More Razorbacks.
"Go," he told Marley. "Now."
She didn't argue. The truck lurched forward, tires spitting gravel, and Wake fell in behind her with his gun drawn and his blood still singing from the kill.
The compound was an hour away. Maddox was somewhere behind them, coming for blood.
But Marley was in front of him, alive and safe and driving toward the only place that could protect her.
For now, that was enough.