STRYKER
The eastern track narrowed between the quarry wall and a scrub-choked drainage cut, forcing Hawkeye and me into single file as we closed on the service shed Jacqueline had remembered. Rusted conveyor frames and abandoned crushers threw broken shadows across the gravel while Nomad confirmed the county wash was blocked and Zero reported movement near the warehouse’s southern bay.
Hawkeye’s cheek still carried a narrow streak of blood from the truck window, but his weapon remained steady as he covered the rear corner and murmured, “He’s boxed. Unless the bastard grew wings while we came around.”
“Wade would make somebody else flap them.” A scrape inside the shed was followed by hurried whispering and the metallic click of a weapon being handled by someone whose hands had started shaking. I counted two men from the uneven footsteps, one dragging his left leg, then stepped away from the door an instant before a round tore through the warped wood at chest height.
Hawkeye broke the rear window and drove his pistol through the opening. “Drop it. Next shot goes through your wrist.”
A gun struck concrete inside before Wade started cursing at his escort to hold his nerve. I kicked the door inward and cleared the room, finding the wounded man against the rear wall with both hands raised while Wade crouched behind an overturned cabinet. Wade lifted his weapon toward me, but Hawkeye put a round into the floor beside his fingers, spraying fragments across his knuckles and knocking the pistol loose before he fired.
I crossed the room, kicked the weapon away, and caught Wade by the jacket when he scrambled toward a side door. “Done running.”
His back struck the wall hard enough to empty his lungs, leaving his face gray beneath the grime while his gaze jumped between Hawkeye and the exits. “You don’t understand what you’re stepping into. There are men above me who won’t let this go.”
“You’re hiding in your dead father’s quarry after running a local theft ring.” I pressed my forearm across his throat until his hands stopped clawing at me. “Don’t embarrass yourself by inventing a bigger bastard now.”
Zero and Breach entered from the warehouse side while reports came through my earpiece that the final runners had been caught at the eastern wash and western exit. Wade heard every update, and the last of his confidence drained when he realized no one remained between him and the consequences he’d spent years forcing onto weaker people.
“I never meant for anybody to get hurt,” he insisted, changing tactics so fast the lie nearly collided with his earlier threat. “The boys got carried away. Trent was only supposed to make the girl understand that ranch wasn’t safe for her.”
“The girl has a name.”
“Jacqueline,” he corrected, licking his dry lips while his pulse hammered beneath my arm. “She should’ve listened. None ofthis would’ve happened if she’d taken the money and left like a sensible person.”
The urge to crush his windpipe was immediate, but rage didn’t get to choose while my brothers were still clearing the quarry and Raines remained on his way. I turned Wade, cuffed his wrists, and forced him through the side door into the warehouse, where the Black Crowns had already secured the final members of his crew.
Wade had filled the abandoned building with everything he couldn’t risk leaving at the public yard. Stripped tractors and a skid steer sat among replacement plates, boxed tracking units, stolen tools, forged bills of sale, and red fuel cans matching the ones recovered from Jacqueline’s burned barn. Judge stood beside an open ledger recording machines, owners, buyers, cash splits, and subcontractors, while Cipher held a drive loaded with messages and account records tying Wade directly to the operation.
“Those books don’t prove I knew anything,” Wade snapped, though the panic in his stare ruined the denial. “My employees used this place without permission. Same as the Rutledge barn.”
Cipher shoved his hair away from his eyes. “Then they forged your signature, used your accounts, recorded your cut, and sent orders from your phone. Must be exhausting getting framed this often.”
Wade’s gaze moved from the ledger to the accelerant before settling on me with the cruelty he’d used to silence frightened ranchers and witnesses. “The fire was a warning. A lesson she should’ve learned the first time. That little bitch kept sticking her nose into business she didn’t understand, and everything afterward was her fault.”
My rage narrowed instead of exploding. Wade’s breathing, posture, and every efficient way I could end him became separate pieces of information. But killing him would satisfyme for seconds and cost Raines the living defendant his case needed. More importantly, it would let Wade influence the decision, and no man who had hurt Jacqueline would ever control me that way.
I caught his shirt and dragged him close enough to see the certainty in my face. “You burned her grandfather’s barn, fired into our home, and sent your son to drag her through a door because she wouldn’t crawl away from land you wanted. You’re going to give us the last cache and name every man who took part in the fire. Then you’ll learn what happens when somebody mistakes restraint for weakness.”
Wade tried to smile. “You need my confession.”
“No,” Judge replied, closing the ledger inside an evidence sleeve. “Raines has stolen equipment, financial records, messages, arson materials, and living witnesses. We don’t need you to confess to shit.”
“What we need,” Hawkeye added, “is the cache before another idiot moves it and the names of everyone who poured fuel around a sleeping woman.”
Wade finally understood that cooperation wouldn’t buy freedom, but he still offered information like a bargain. He gave us the location of a storage shed near the county line containing two recent machines and stripped parts, then identified the men who carried fuel onto the ranch, fired into the house, and rammed the fence. Cipher sent the cache coordinates through the secure channel while Ghost checked the names against what the prisoners had already admitted.
“See?” Wade said, hope turning his face greasy with sweat. “I helped. We can settle this.”
“I never offered a deal.”
The men whose crimes ended at moving stolen equipment had already earned bruises during the intercept, and our code demanded nothing more merely because they were helplessnow. Trigger and Breach restrained them beside the recovered machinery, leaving them capable of standing when deputies arrived. The men who had burned an occupied ranch, fired into a home, or helped Trent take Jacqueline had chosen differently, and the judgment waiting for them reflected those choices.
Wade began fighting the cuffs when Hawkeye cleared a heavy workbench near the center of the warehouse. I forced him against the scarred steel and took the short quarry hammer from the rack, its solid head designed for controlled breaks instead of wild swings.
“You don’t get to do this,” Wade shouted. “You think you’re better than me because you wear a patch and pretend you have rules?”
“I know exactly who I am.” I trapped his dominant hand against the bench while Hawkeye held his shoulder. “I don’t hunt people weaker than me and call it business.”
