Ruger planned it based on intel.
Intel about Striker's movements.
Intel about security weaknesses and patrol gaps and which nights the compound ran a skeleton crew.
Intel someone fed to Striker in the first place.
The whisper gets louder.
Kinsey's voice in bed, two weeks ago, fingers tracing lazy patterns on my chest.“So how does security work when the officers ride out? Who stays behind?”
She'd asked it the way she asked everything—curious, easy, like she was making conversation.
And I'd answered because she was warm against me and her hair smelled like vanilla, and I was too fucking stupid to hear the interview underneath the intimacy.
Four prospects. That's who stays behind. I told her four.
A distant rumble rolls through the trees. Not thunder. Engines. Too many to count, coming from beyond the ridge.
"Get inside." Bloodhound's voice drops into something I've never heard from him. Command stripped of everything butsurvival. "Rookie, rally the rest of the prospects. Sarah, get the women to safety."
My mouth moves before my brain can stop it. "There's only four of us. Not enough to hold them off if it's a full crew coming."
Four prospects. The exact number I gave her. The exact number she gave Striker. The exact number Marco is counting on.
Bloodhound doesn't answer. He doesn't have to. We both know four prospects aren't a defense. We're a speed bump.
Sarah takes over with the women.
I catch a glimpse of her guiding them back inside, toward the hallway where the storage room is, toward the tunnels.
My hands go numb.
"Rookie!" Bloodhound's bark snaps my head up. "Move!"
I move.
Shots, Beats, Lock—the other three prospects.
I find them scrambling out of the bunkroom, half-dressed, wide-eyed.
Shots has a shotgun. Beats is empty-handed. Lock is pulling on boots without socks.
None of them are ready for what's coming.
None of us are. We're prospects.
We wash bikes, run errands, and take shit from brothers who've earned the right to give it.
We’re not soldiers.
We’re not equipped for a full tactical assault on a compound we're barely trusted to guard.
But the women are in the tunnels now, and they need time to disappear, and time is what we're here to buy.
I grab a pistol from the lockbox behind the bar and check the magazine.
It’s full.