“You gonna tell me it was because I was jealous?” Warren rasped, spitting mud. “Because you turned your nose up at me?” Jackson braced for that line, for the petty, twisted motive Warren might cling to, but the man kept going, and it got worse.
“It wasn’t about you, Avery,” Warren sneered, eyes flicking to her as if she were nothing more than a piece on a board. “It was about Haver. About what we were doing, what we could’ve done if the likes of you hadn’t tried to stamp us out.”
He spoke as if he believed it, as if the Brotherhood were some holy task force cleaning the filth away.
“We were building something. Protecting schools, supply lines, people fed,” Warren went on. “You think you ever gave a damn about the town? Haver did. He did the hard work. We tried to help.”
Jackson felt the bile rise at the way Warren framed murder as charity. “You call murdering people help?” he snapped, low.
Warren laughed, a dry, humorless sound. “Collateral,” he said flatly. “Evan was collateral. You want to kneel beside him forever, talk about love and memory—fine. But every revolution takes bodies. That’s the math.” He shrugged, as if naming a corpse was no different than listing supplies.
“And Charlotte?” Warren’s voice went cold and small with contempt. “She ratted us. She deserved—” He didn’t finish the sentence; the intent was there like a blade. “She betrayed the Brotherhood. Some things you don’t get to live down.”
Jackson’s hand tightened on his gun until his knuckles whitened. The words were poison, meant to justify, to wound. Warren wanted to twist the story so he could sleep at night. He wanted to make murder into martyrdom.
Avery’s face was a stone beside him. She didn’t answer. She didn’t have to. Jackson could see the old rage pull at her, the thing that made her move without thinking when someone she loved was attacked. He stayed his hand because this wasn’t the place for execution.
Behind them, rain hissed on burning timbers. The clearing smelled of smoke and iron and something harder to name. Judgment, maybe. Or the hollow relief of a fight finally ended. Warren’s words floated in the wet air, grotesque and deliberate.
“Coward,” Jackson said finally, quiet but cutting. “You hide behind doctrine while you kill kids and call it necessary. You call that righteous?”
Warren spat again, then went silent, eyes darting as if listening for sympathy that wouldn’t come. Jackson kept his gun ready anyway. He didn’t trust the man to lie still just because the world around them had shifted.
Movement flashed at the edge of the road, shadows breaking through the drifting smoke. Jackson swung his gun toward it, muscles coiling tight. Through the haze, three figures emerged.
Mick and two Brotherhood men holding him by the arms.
“What the hell,” Jackson muttered. The rain caught on the barrels of their weapons, on Mick’s torn shirt, on the bruises already blooming across his jaw. The bastard didn’t look armed, didn’t look like he’d been in control for a while.
Before Jackson could call out, Warren spotted them.
“Tate! Benny!” he roared, his voice cracking. “Shoot them. Shoot every damn one of ’em. The girls, too.”
Avery flinched beside Jackson, and the whole team moved as one. Jackson, Noah, Isla, and Avery all lifted their guns, sights locked on the new arrivals.
“Don’t,” Jackson barked, his tone a whip in the air.
But one of the Brotherhood men, the taller one, jerked, reaching for the pistol at his hip. His grip on Mick slipped as his hand went for the weapon.
Noah fired before Jackson could react.
The gunshot cracked through the clearing, deafening in the rain. The man went down instantly, hitting the mud hard and unmoving.
The second Brotherhood member froze. His weapon clattered to the ground.
Jackson’s heart was pounding, every nerve still strung tight. The smell of burnt powder lingered heavy in the air, mixing with the stench of smoke and wet earth.
Noah moved in fast, limping but steady, kicking the Brotherhood man’s gun farther out of reach. “Face down,” he ordered. The man obeyed, hitting the mud without protest. Noah holstered his weapon long enough to cuff him with the zip ties Isla tossed over.
Jackson swept his gaze across the scene. Warren was still pinned, howling curses. The dead man lay motionless near the road. The one Noah restrained was shaking, his face buried in the dirt.
And Mick—
He was standing perfectly still, eyes wide, breathing hard. He looked like he didn’t quite believe he was still alive.
Isla moved toward him, gun steady, keeping her distance. “Hands where I can see them,” she ordered. Mick slowly raised his arms. Isla’s movements were precise, professional, one hand keeping her gun steady while the other patted him down for weapons.
Nothing.