The lead Wolf flinched, his aim jerking away from my position toward the sound.
"I would listen to him if I were you."
My voice. I was standing now, clear of the shelter, the Desert Eagle aimed at the lead Wolf's face from twelve feet. He hadn't seen me move.
The lead Wolf's gaze traveled from Logan's position to me. To the Desert Eagle. His jaw worked.
"You guys have them aimed?" His voice shook—trying for steadiness and not finding it. "It's four against two. You people lower your weapons inst?—"
He looked to his side. The word died in his throat.
Irish had the last Wolf—the radio man with the sliced palm—in a chokehold, one arm locked around the man's neck, the other pressing a pistol to his temple. The radio man's weapon lay on the ground.
The lead Wolf looked behind him. Two men on the ground. Unconscious. Ghost standing over them with the Glock aimed back at the lead Wolf's head.
Surrounded. Flanked. Outmaneuvered in the dark by people who knew how to use it.
His pistol hit the gravel.
"Logan." I kept the Desert Eagle aimed. "Headlights."
The truck's headlights flared to life. The light swept across the scene in a harsh white flood. The four Wolves. The unconscious men on the ground, blood pooling beneath the one whose nose had hit the road. The lead rider blinking against the brightness, his face drained of color. The radio man sagging in Irish's chokehold. The leather cuts with the snarling wolf patch. The bikes behind them, chrome gleaming.
I approached the lead rider. Kicked his weapon away, the metal skidding across the lit road. Drew the Ka-Bar and placed the blade under his chin. The flat of the steel against his throat, the edge resting against the soft tissue, the point dimpling the skin beneath his jaw. The sweat beading along his hairline. The pulse hammering in his throat above the blade.
"How many more behind you?"
His mouth opened. Nothing came out.
I leaned closer. Switched to Spanish. My mother's accent carrying the weight of everything I'd seen in the bunkhouse and everything I'd carry out of it.
"¿Cuántos más?"
How many more?
The blade pressed harder. Not cutting. Promising.
His eyes blew wider. He'd heard it. The heritage in the accent. This wasn't a rival club enforcing territory. This was a man whose blood came from the same places as the people being trafficked, and the knife at his throat was the most honest thing anyone had said to him all night.
"Four more." Strangled, barely audible past the steel. "With vans. They're coming to take the people."
"When?"
"Dawn."
I held the blade for one more second. Let him feel the edge. Then I stepped back.
"Irish. Zip ties. All four. Wrists and ankles. Ghost, Logan—keep them aimed. Either of the conscious ones moves wrong, put them down."
Irish released the radio man, who crumpled to the gravel gasping, and produced the ties from his vest. Four Wolves, wrists bound behind their backs, ankles cinched. The two unconscious ones wouldn't be going anywhere when they woke. The two conscious ones wouldn't be going anywhere at all.
I walked to the bikes. Four Harleys sitting on the road in a row. I drew the Ka-Bar. Knelt beside the first bike and drove the blade into the front tire. The rubber split with a hiss. I moved to the rear tire. Same. Then the next bike. And the next. And the last. Eight tires, sixteen cuts. A small retribution for the Harley they'd crippled at the bar, but retribution nonetheless. I foundthe throwing knife in the gravel six inches from the shattered radio, wiped both blades on my jeans, and sheathed them.
"Leave them," I ordered. "Take the keys, take their phones, take their weapons. When the other four show up at dawn with their vans, they'll find their advance team tied up on a ranch with no workers, no foreman, and no one to collect."
Ghost gathered the phones. Irish pocketed the keys and the weapons.
Behind the truck, I could hear the workers—the whispered Spanish coming fast and frantic, people who'd heard volley after volley of gunfire and understood that the men who'd branded them had come to take them back. A woman sobbing, the sound muffled by a hand or a shirt pressed against her mouth. Another voice praying, rapid and repetitive, a rosary without beads. Someone hyperventilating.
