"Clear," the room says. Every voice. One word.
Ruger turns to me. "Coin. You're on comms from here. I need eyes on everything—the police scanner, the protection details, and our frequency. If something goes sideways, you're the one who reroutes us."
"Understood."
"Bloodhound, you and Maddox are point. First through the door. Bracken's got the perimeter. Ounce, you're with me."
Ounce nods. Those dark eyes are fully open tonight—no half-closed processing, no leaned-back calm.
He's present. Sharp.
The man who used to move product looking at the men who are currently moving product, and the look on his face says he knows exactly how they think, because he used to think the same way.
"One more thing," Ruger says. He stands. The room goes still. "This isn't just about drugs. This is about our town. This is about kids dying in school bathrooms and mothers sitting in hospital waiting rooms and poison running through Morgantown's veins like it's got a right to be there." His voice drops. "It doesn't. Not in our town. Not while we're breathing. Mount up."
The gavel comes down and the room moves.
I watch them go. Every brother, every patch, filing out of Church and into the main room, collecting weapons, pulling on gloves, checking bikes.
The rumble of engines starts in the parking lot—one by one, then building, then all of them at once, and the sound shakes the walls the way thunder shakes a mountain.
Bloodhound stops in the doorway and turns back to me.
"Take care of my sister," he says.
"I will."
He nods and walks out.
The front door closes and the engines roar to life and my club rides out into the West Virginia dark.
I'm left standing in an empty clubhouse with three phones, a laptop, and the weight of being the man who stays behind.
The radio crackles at 8:58.
"Eyes on the property." Bracken's voice, low and steady. "Four vehicles. Lights on in the barn. Movement—at least five, maybe six."
"Copy," I say into the burner. "Scanner's clear. No police activity within twenty miles."
"Primary approach is clear. We're moving in."
I close my eyes. Just for a second. Not prayer—I'm not the praying type. Just a breath. A pause before the chaos starts. Then I open them and I do my job.
The next twelve minutes come in fragments through the radio.
Bracken: "Perimeter set. No runners."
Bloodhound: "Breaching."
The sound of a door being hit—not kicked, hit.
Maddox's door.
That man doesn't kick doors, he removes them from the frame.
Shouting. Not our men—theirs.
The panicked, scrambling sounds of people who thought they were comfortable and just found out they were wrong.
