"What is it?" Tiffany asks, fear spiking.
"Zone 4," I say, moving to the weapon rack on the wall. I grab the Mossberg 590, the action racking with a sound that echoes violently in the shop. "Someone's on foot. Coming up the goat path."
"Ramon?" she whispers.
"He wouldn't know the goat path," I say, mind racing. That trail is steep, treacherous. Only locals know it. Or professionals. "Stay here. Get behind the anvil. Do not move unless I tell you to."
"Blake—"
"Do not move!" I bark, the command voice of a Sergeant snapping out.
She scrambles behind the massive iron anvil, making herself small. Good girl.
I move to the heavy steel door leading to the rear of the property. I check the monitors mounted above the workbench. Grainy black and white footage shows movement in the trees. Two shadows. Moving fast. Tactical.
Not lawyers. Hired muscle. Professionals.
Ramon didn't just bring a legal team. He brought an extraction team. He thinks he can snatch her back and vanish before the MC even knows what happened. He’s wrong.
I check the load in the shotgun. Slugs.
"Blake?" Tiffany's voice sounds small from behind the anvil.
I look back. Her eyes are terrified, but she grips the steel rose I made her like a talisman.
"I'll be right back," I say, voice eerily calm. "I have to go take out the trash."
I unlock the heavy door and step out into the cold mountain air. The wind bites, cutting across my bare skin, but I don't feel it. I feel only the rage. A cold, white-hot fury that someone dared to step onto my land to take what is mine.
I slip into the shadows of the pines, silent despite my size. I am the hunter now. I know every rock, every root, every shadow on this peak. They are tourists in my world. I move toward Zone 4, shotgun stock pressed against my shoulder. I hear them now. The crunch of boots on gravel. The heavy breathing of men not used to the altitude.
"You sure this is the place?" a voice whispers. Harsh. Urban.
"Tracker says she's here," another replies. "Grab the girl, incapacitate the biker. Boss wants her untouched, but the guy is fair game."
Incapacitate the biker. I almost smile.
I step out from behind the trunk of a massive pine, leveling the shotgun at the lead man, just twenty feet away.
"You took a wrong turn, boys," I say, voice booming through the silent forest.
They spin, weapons raising—silenced pistols. Professional, but too slow. I don't fire. Not yet. I want them to see me. I want them to see the size of the man standing between them and their paycheck. I want them to know they just walked into the den of a beast starving for a fight.
"Drop them," I order. "Or you stay on this mountain forever."
The lead man hesitates. He looks at his partner, then back at me. He sees the patch on my chest—I'm not wearing my cut, but the ink on my skin spells out Broken Halos. He sees the dead look in my eyes.
"We just want the girl," the man says, trying to sound tough.
"The girl," I say softly, stepping forward, leaves silent under my boots, "is the reason you're still breathing. I don't want to upset her with the noise."
I rack the shotgun again, ejecting a live shell just to show them I have plenty to spare. It hits the ground with a definitive clack.
"Turn around," I bark. "Run. Tell Ramon that if he sends anyone else... I send them back in pieces."
The man stares. He weighs his options. He sees the math—a paycheck isn't worth dying in the middle of nowhere against a special forces psycho with a shotgun. Slowly, they lower their weapons.
"Smart," I say.
