Chapter 14
The alarm came at dawn.
Wake was out of bed before the compound siren finished its first wail, pulling on jeans and grabbing his gun in one smooth motion. Marley was already awake beside him, eyes sharp despite the early hour.
"Stay in the lodge," he said, moving toward the door. "Bar's defensible. Shotgun's under the counter."
"Wake—"
"I'll come back." He kissed her hard, fast, a promise pressed against her lips. "Stay alive until I do."
Then he was gone, sprinting across the compound toward the chaos.
Brothers were pouring out of cabins, weapons drawn, cuts hastily thrown over bare chests. The siren meant only one thing—perimeter breach. Someone had found them, and they were coming in force.
Cottonmouth met him at the main lodge, his scarred throat tight with controlled fury. "Trucks on the access road. At least two, maybe three. Heavy vehicles."
"Bikes?"
"Flanking through the trees. And—" Cottonmouth's jaw clenched. "Boats on the water. They're hitting us from three sides."
Wake's blood went cold. This wasn't a raid. This was a coordinated assault.
"Who's running it?"
"Haskell." Cottonmouth spat the name like poison. "Maddox's logistics man. The bastard who keeps sixteen nomads fed and armed."
Dane Haskell. Wake had heard the name in intel briefings—former trucker, the closest thing the Razorbacks had to a planner. If Haskell was coordinating this, they were in trouble.
"Where's Maddox?"
"Not here. Sent his muscle to do the dirty work." Cottonmouth checked his weapon, cold and methodical. "Still wants you on the water. You and Tailwater. I'll hold the gate."
Wake nodded and took off toward the dock.
The compound was designed for defense—private cove, single access road, water on three sides. But water cut both ways. If the Razorbacks had boats, they could flank the whole position while the trucks hit the front gate.
Haskell knew that. The bastard was smart.
Wake found Tailwater at the dock, rifle already shouldered, scanning the pre-dawn water. The fishing guide's eyes were steady, patient—the look of a man who knew how to wait for something to surface.
"Three boats," Tailwater said without looking away from the lake. "Coming fast from the east channel. They'll hit the cove in maybe five minutes."
"How many men?"
"Four per boat, looks like. Plus whoever's in the trucks."
Twelve men from the water. Another dozen from the road. Twenty-four Razorbacks against maybe fifteen Ridgerunners, half of them still scrambling to position.
Bad odds. Not impossible.
"We hold the dock," Wake said. "Nothing gets past us to the compound."
"And if they do?"
Wake thought about Marley in the lodge. Shotgun under the bar. The fierce calm she'd shown at the cove cabin when the bullets started flying.
"They won't."
The first truck hit the gate at sixty miles an hour.
The crash echoed across the compound like a bomb going off.
Wake saw the flash from the corner of his eye—a supply truck, heavy and reinforced, plowing through the chain-link fence like it was paper.
Cottonmouth opened fire from his position, and the night erupted in muzzle flashes and screaming engines.
"Here they come," Tailwater said.
The boats roared into the cove.
Wake and Tailwater opened up together, laying down suppressing fire as the first boat cut toward the dock. Razorbacks dove for cover, returning fire, bullets chewing into the wooden planks around Wake's feet.
One of them tried to jump from boat to dock. Tailwater put him down before his boots touched wood.
Another came over the gunwale with a knife, moving fast, too close for rifles. Wake met him with a fist to the throat and a knee to the gut, then threw him into the water where he thrashed and sank.
The second boat circled, looking for another angle. Wake tracked it, waiting for the shot.
"Third boat's heading for the beach!" Tailwater shouted.
Flanking us. The bastards were going around.
"Hold the dock," Wake said. "I'll cut them off."
He ran.
The beach was a hundred yards through the trees—a narrow strip of sand where the compound property met the water. Wake crashed through undergrowth, branches tearing at his arms, and burst onto the shore just as the third boat hit the shallows.
Four men piled out, weapons up, and Wake put two of them down before they found cover. The other two scattered into the trees, firing blind. A bullet scorched past Wake's ear, close enough that he felt the heat.
He dropped behind a fallen log and returned fire. One of the shooters screamed and went quiet. The last one broke cover, running for the compound, and Wake shot him in the back.
No mercy. Not for men who came for his home.
Gunfire still rattled from the main gate. Wake sprinted back toward the compound, lungs burning, and found chaos.
The supply truck had breached the fence completely. Razorbacks were spilling out of the back, engaging brothers across the gravel lot. Cottonmouth had fallen back to the lodge porch, putting down men with the cold efficiency of someone who'd been cutting threats since before Wake was born.
And Haskell—
Wake spotted him by the truck. Mid-thirties, lean and hard, directing his men with sharp gestures. The logistics man. The planner. The bastard who'd turned sixteen nomads into a coordinated assault force.
Wake started toward him.
A body hit him from the side.
He went down hard, rolling, and came up swinging. The Razorback was big and fast, landing a punch that split Wake's lip and sent stars across his vision. Wake tasted blood and drove his elbow into the man's ribs, feeling something crack.
The Razorback stumbled. Wake grabbed his head and slammed it into the gravel. Once, twice, until the struggling stopped.
He pushed to his feet and kept moving.
The lodge bar exploded with gunfire.
Wake's heart stopped. Marley.
He changed direction, running for the lodge, and burst through the side door to find—
Marley behind the bar, shotgun braced against her shoulder, putting buckshot into a Razorback who'd tried to come through the window. The man screamed and fell, and she racked another shell with the calm of someone who'd been handling drunks her whole life.
Two more bodies on the floor. She'd handled them before Wake arrived.
"You okay?" he asked.
"I'm working." She didn't lower the shotgun. "Go kill whoever's in charge."
That's my woman.
Wake went back outside.
The fight was turning. Limestone had appeared from somewhere, that quarry-foreman bulk moving through the chaos like a boulder through water. Spillway and Proof were advancing on the truck, forcing the remaining Razorbacks into a tightening circle.
Haskell saw it too. The logistics man was backing toward the truck, shouting orders that nobody was following anymore.
Wake cut him off.
"Going somewhere?"
Haskell spun, gun coming up. Wake was faster. He grabbed the man's wrist and twisted, bones grinding, and the weapon clattered to the gravel.
"Maddox sent you," Wake said. "Couldn't do his own dirty work."
"You think this is over?" Haskell's face was twisted with pain and fury. "We've got more men. More guns. Maddox will burn this whole compound to the ground—"
Wake hit him. Hard. The logistics man's head snapped back and blood sprayed from his nose.
"Maddox isn't here." Wake hit him again. "You are."
Haskell went down. Wake followed, pinning him the same way he'd pinned Yates at the cove cabin. This was different, though. Yates had been muscle—brutal, simple, easy to break.
Haskell was the brain. The one who'd turned a pack of nomads into an organized threat.
Without him, Maddox had nothing but violence. And violence without planning was just noise.
"Any last words?" Wake asked.
Haskell spat blood in his face.
Wake drew his knife and opened the man's throat.
It was quick. Cleaner than Haskell deserved, probably, but Wake wasn't interested in making a show of it. The logistics man gurgled once, eyes going wide, and then the life drained out of him like water from a cracked pipe.
Wake stood up and wiped his knife on Haskell's shirt.
The compound had gone quiet.
He looked around. Bodies everywhere—Razorbacks mostly, sprawled across the gravel and the grass and the splintered remains of the front gate. Brothers were moving among them, checking for survivors, finishing anyone still breathing.
"Casualties?" Wake called out.
"Three wounded, none critical." Limestone appeared beside him, breathing hard but intact. "Lost the front fence and one of the cabins caught fire, but the structure's holding."
"Tailwater?"
"On the dock. Two down, the rest retreated."
Wake nodded. The water assault had failed. The trucks had failed. And the brain behind all of it was bleeding out on the gravel at his feet.
Cottonmouth walked over and looked down at Haskell's body. His scarred throat worked as he took in the scene.
"Maddox is going to be pissed," he said.
"Good." Wake scanned the compound, looking for the one thing that mattered. "Where's—"
"Right here."
Marley emerged from the lodge, shotgun still in hand, her face spattered with someone else's blood. She walked through the bodies without flinching, her eyes finding Wake's across the carnage.
He crossed the distance between them in three strides and pulled her against his chest.
"You're hurt," she said, touching his split lip.
"I'm fine."
"You're bleeding."
"I'm fine." He held her tighter, breathing her in—smoke and gunpowder and that whiskey-floral scent he'd know anywhere. "Three men came through your window?"
"Four. One went out the back door." She pulled back enough to meet his eyes. "I told you I could handle myself."
"You told me." He kissed her forehead, her cheek, the corner of her mouth. "I believed you."
"Did you?"
"I knew you'd fight." His hands framed her face, thumbs brushing her cheekbones. "I just needed you to survive."
Something softened in her expression. "I survived."
"Yeah." He kissed her properly, tasting blood and gunpowder and victory. "You did."
Around them, the compound began the work of cleaning up. Brothers dragged bodies toward the lake. Others started patching the fence. The wounded were helped to the lodge, where someone would stitch them up.
Still appeared from the direction of church, taking in the damage with those patient, bootlegger eyes. He stopped at Haskell's body and looked at Wake.
"His?"
"Mine."
Still nodded slowly. "That's two of Maddox's lieutenants. First his muscle, now his planner." He looked toward the ruined fence, the burning cabin, the blood soaking into the gravel. "He'll be desperate now. Dangerous."
"Let him come," Wake said. "We'll be ready."
Still's eyes moved to Marley, standing at Wake's side with the shotgun still in her hands. Something flickered across his face—approval, maybe.
"Get some rest," he said. "Both of you. This isn't over."
It wasn't. Maddox was still out there. Ty Samples was still out there. Eight or nine Razorbacks had escaped, and they'd be back.
But for now—
Wake looked at Marley. Blood on her face. Fire in her eyes. A woman who'd defended his home with a shotgun and steady hands.
"Come on," he said. "Let's get cleaned up."
She didn't argue. She just took his hand and followed him toward the cabin, stepping over bodies without looking down.