After one final review of the intercept, I ordered everyone to keep their heads on a swivel, then we rolled out in two club trucks and a staggered line of bikes, using secondary roads until the quarry ridgeline appeared through heat haze and gathering shadow.
Nomad tracked the vehicles from far enough ahead to stay unseen, feeding us clipped updates through the helmet system until Wade came within three miles of the abandoned warehouse. Zero blocked the narrow bridge with one truck, Ghost closed the road behind the convoy with the other, and the bikes swept down both sides before Wade’s men understood they’d been boxed in. The Kessler truck braked hard enough to send the trailer swaying, but the escort pickup cut toward Hawkeye and Breach instead of stopping, forcing Ghost to swing the reinforced front quarter of his truck across the shoulder and take the hit.
Metal shrieked as the pickup spun into a stone embankment, folding the passenger door inward. Hawkeye dumped his bike clear, came up moving, and shattered the driver’s window with the butt of his pistol while Breach ripped the damaged passenger door open and hauled the second man out by his jacket.
The driver reached beneath the seat instead of killing the engine, so Hawkeye caught his wrist, slammed it against the frame, and dragged him halfway through the broken window. “Wrong fucking choice.”
The doors of Wade’s truck opened before I reached it, spilling three armed men onto the road while Wade jumped from the driver’s side and ran toward the quarry complex without waiting to see whether anyone followed. Cal Rusk, Wade’s yard foreman and favorite enforcer, planted himself between us with a tire iron raised in one fist. I kept Wade at the edge of my vision as I ordered Ghost to secure the trailer and sent Nomad and Falcon toward the western cut, making it clear nobody pursued Wade alone.
Rusk swung for my head, recovered from my first counter faster than most men would have, and caught my shoulder with the iron hard enough to send heat down my arm. The blowburned away the last distance from my control without taking the discipline with it.
I trapped his next swing, drove an elbow through his jaw, and kicked the bar away when it hit the pavement. He lunged anyway and used his weight to slam me against the trailer. I shifted him past my center, put him face-first into the road, and broke his arm when he came up reaching for the pistol under his vest.
His bellow echoed off the quarry walls as I stripped the gun and pinned him with one knee between his shoulders. Every part of me wanted to keep going until he could never raise a hand against another person Wade considered weak, but my brothers were still fighting and Wade was disappearing deeper into the complex. I handed Rusk to Trigger, then swept the road while Zero and Ghost finished the remaining men and Hawkeye and Breach dragged the pickup’s driver through the shattered window.
Nomad reported Wade moving east between the old conveyor structures, while Falcon confirmed the western exit was sealed. The collision had pulled the tarp from the trailer, exposing a compact excavator and skid steer with fresh paint covering the places where identifying decals had been stripped. Cipher checked the visible damage and serial locations from Zero’s truck, then confirmed both machines matched the missing-equipment list.
“Wait twenty minutes, then send Raines the location,” I ordered, watching Wade vanish behind a rusted support. “Tell him to bring enough transport for the prisoners and the equipment.”
Hawkeye came alongside me with blood streaking one cheek from flying glass, but his breathing remained even and his weapon steady. He confirmed Nomad was cutting north, Falcon held the west, and Ghost could secure the road until deputies arrived. I ordered everyone into pairs, left Skyfall with thewounded and recovered equipment, and took Hawkeye with me toward the processing complex because we didn’t know what Wade had stored inside or whether more men were waiting.
The quarry twisted sound against the rock walls until engines and shouted commands seemed to come from every direction. Hawkeye and I moved past abandoned machinery, broken concrete, and rusted belts half-buried in weeds, following Wade’s prints through the dust toward the eastern side. He had abandoned his truck, the stolen machines, and every man who’d protected him without looking back, proving exactly what his version of loyalty was worth once his own skin entered the bargain.
My phone vibratedin my cut’s inner pocket as Hawkeye and I reached the shadow of the main warehouse. Jacqueline’s name showed on the screen, and I answered immediately while keeping my weapon trained on the dark loading bay ahead.
“Talk to me,” I spoke only loud enough to make sure she could hear me.
“I think I found another route.” Her voice carried tension but no panic, and the rustle of paper told me she probably had Otis’s notebook and one of the ranch maps open in front of her. “There’s an abbreviation beside the quarry entries—ES. I kept thinking it meant equipment storage, but Grandpa used to haul stone from there when I was little, and I remember him talking about the east service shed.”
I motioned Hawkeye closer while Jacqueline continued. “There’s a narrow track along the eastern boundary that doesn’t connect to the main quarry road. It comes in behind an old maintenance shed near the drainage cut. Grandpa used it whentrucks blocked the scales, and he wrote that the culvert was still passable the last time he checked.”
With barely a sound, I conveyed the information to Hawkeye who pulled a property map from the pouch inside his cut, found the eastern drainage line, and traced the route with one finger. Then he nodded, affirming her information.
Pride moved through the rage sitting inside me, because Jacqueline had done exactly what a partner should—used what she knew, stayed protected, and handed us information that changed the field without trying to put herself in the middle of the fight. “Thanks, baby. You did good.”
“Be safe.” She paused, and when she spoke again, her tone carried the quiet steadiness that had made me claim her before I knew her name. “Brogan, did you find Wade?”
“Ran into the quarry.” I looked toward the dark interior where a loose sheet of metal moved in the evening wind. “Cutting him off now.” I paused, debating whether to say more. But we were nothing without honesty between us. “Need you to understand something.”
Silence held for one breath on the line, and Hawkeye shifted a few feet away to give me the privacy he could without leaving my flank.
“Okay,” Jacqueline whispered.
“If the Black Crowns reach Wade before Raines does, we’re not holding his hand until deputies arrive.” I kept my voice level because softening the truth would insult the promise I’d made to keep her informed. “He tried to kidnap you, burned your barn, opened fire on our home, and sent men to kill you. The justice waiting inside this quarry won’t be lawful.”
“I understand.” There was no hesitation in her answer, only a quiet sadness that never came close to doubt. “I don’t trust you because I think the Black Crowns are harmless, Brogan. I trustyou because you know exactly where to point the part of you that isn’t.”
My grip tightened around the phone while every violent thing inside me went still. Jacqueline understood the man beneath the suit, the cut, and the control, and she accepted that men like mine existed to make predators regret their choices.
“Fuck, I adore you.” The words came out rough and absolute, my body reacting to her acceptance with the same possessive heat she could ignite in the middle of anything. “When this is done, I’m going to remind you exactly what it means to belong to me.”
Her breath caught softly over the line, but warmth entered her answer. “I’ll be there when you come home.”
“Good girl.” I ended the call then turned to Hawkeye and pointed toward the drainage line. “Get Nomad and Falcon onto the eastern track. Zero and Breach take the warehouse’s south side. We close the service shed before Wade reaches it.”
Hawkeye relayed the orders while I studied the route Jacqueline had found. Wade knew the quarry because his father once owned it, but the Black Crowns hunted predators through territory that had been ours long before Wade decided fear made him untouchable.
21
