I didn't have time to argue. And I didn't want to.
"Stay with me."
"Always."
I led the ride to war.
The borrowed Harley screamed down the hill road at a speed the terrain wasn't built for, the suspension bottoming out on every rut, Logan's arms locked around my waist, his body leaning with mine through the turns.
Ghost rode alongside us, low over his bike. Behind us, Tank drove the same van that had carried Logan and the workers, with Axel riding shotgun. The van's rear doors were closed, the interior packed with every patched Phoenix who'd made the trip for a stealth operation and were now heading to war.
Vasquez's voice crackled through the comms. "Blade, we're almost at your position. ETA two minutes at our speed."
"Copy. Form up behind the van when you arrive."
The compound grew in my vision. The collapsed watchtower smoking. The walls intact except where the tower had fallen and punched a ragged gap in the eastern fence. The front gate still standing—heavy steel, designed to stop vehicles.
But not designed to stop rockets.
I keyed the comms. "Irish, fire!"
"With pleasure."
A beat of silence. Nothing but the engines and the wind and the road disappearing beneath my wheels. One second. Two. The quiet between order and chaos stretching wide.
Then the sky ripped open behind us.
The RPG flew past overhead in a white streak—a high, sustained whistle that cut through the engine noise. The missile crossed the distance to the front gate in just over a second.
The explosion blew the gates inward. Both panels—eight feet of steel—tore from their hinges and flew into the compound yard, trailing fire and fragments. A fireball climbed skyward, black smoke rolling upward in a column that caught the morning sun and turned it amber. The shockwave hit us at sixty yards—a wall of hot air and sound that pushed against my chest. Through the smoke and debris, I saw a body pinned beneath one of the fallen gate panels, the steel pressing it into the dirt.
Declan's rifle cracked from the hill. A Wolf who'd been running toward the breach spun sideways and dropped.
The hunt had started.
"Tank, go!"
Ghost and I split to either side of the road, opening the center lane. Tank's van surged through the gap between us, engine roaring, the heavy vehicle accelerating through the blown-open gateway.
Two Wolves waited inside, weapons up, firing at the approaching van. The rounds sparked off the hood. Tank didn't slow down.
The van hit them at forty miles an hour and sent them flying—one into the compound wall, the other underneath the wheels. The crunch of the body under the tires was audible over the engine.
Tank braked hard just inside the gate, swinging the van broadside. A wall of steel between the compound interior andthe road behind us. The rear doors flew open. Phoenixes poured out—six men in two teams of three and Tyler, running to either side of the van, taking cover behind concrete planters, overturned barrels, the base of the collapsed tower. Tank and Axel followed fast. Gunfire erupted from both sides.
Muzzle flashes flared in the compound's shadows. The Wolves firing from windows, from behind vehicles, from the rooftop of a low outbuilding.
I pulled the throttle hard and rode through the torn opening, the heat from the burning gate panels pressing against my legs as we passed. I braked before the van—already open, Phoenixes already deployed. Logan swung off behind me. We crouched together behind the van's engine block.
I looked at him. He looked at me. The rifle braced on his right shoulder. No words. Just understanding. We were fighting together.
We turned outward from the van. I went left. Logan went right. The Desert Eagle came up in both hands.
The first Wolf was behind a concrete barrier twenty yards into the compound, firing a rifle toward the Phoenix teams flanking from the south. I aimed. Squeezed.
The brutal caliber round punched through the barrier's edge and hit him in the chest, sending him off his feet backwards.
The Desert Eagle's announcement was enormous—deeper and louder than the rifle fire, a concussive crack that echoed off the compound walls and announced exactly what it was: a weapon designed to end arguments.
