Page 46 of Shadow's Edge

I had one rule—never shoot a man in the back. But these fuckers had come onto our land. Attacked us in our home. These were different rules forced by their decision, so I lifted my rifle back up and started shooting at them again.

I didn’t call the stand-down until I was damn sure they were all gone.

As the smoke cleared, I stepped outside and took in the damage. Bullet holes pitted the walls, but none had made it through the thick structure. We had held our ground and had survived. But something wasn’t right. My eyes lifted, scanning the rooftop, and that’s when I saw it.

Kyle, perched above, rifle still in hand.

And beneath her position was proof of where they’d concentrated their firepower. The deliberate targeting. They hadn’t just come for us, they had come for her.

A roar ripped through the air, loud and furious. I turned just in time to see Preacher’s face twisted with rage. He had seen it too—they had tried to take out his daughter. That was why they hit us here. They had used the battle as a distraction, long enough to single her out.

Preacher’s voice boomed through the clearing, his fury echoing like thunder. “Get the President of the 412.” His tone left no room for argument. “Find him and bring him here.”

This shit was ending. Now.

Chapter 11

Jagger

The sun was rising, casting long, golden streaks over the Compound, but there was no warmth in it. No relief. Just a grim reminder that we’d barely survived the night. The grounds were secured again, the bodies of our fallen gathered, and the damage being assessed, but it wasn’t over. Not even close.

Exhaustion weighed heavy on my bones, but the rage still pumping through my veins kept me upright. My hands trembled—not from fear, not from exhaustion, but from the sheer fury of it all. They had come for Kyle, right under my fucking nose, and five of my brothers had died because of it. Five men, patrolling the perimeter, doing their job, keeping us safe had been gunned down by a pack of perverted, power-hungry fucks.

I clenched my fists, my jaw aching from grinding my teeth. Someone was going to pay. No, all of them were going to pay.

But first, I had to deal with Preacher. He was barely holding it together. I could see it in the way his shoulders were rigid, in the way he couldn’t stop pacing, the weight of something heavier than guilt pressing down on him. Kyle could have died tonight, and if she had, she never would have known the truth about him.

I had said it a million fucking times already, but I said it again. “You need to tell her.”

Preacher snapped. “Now isn’t the time!” he barked, spinning on his heel, his hands fisting at his sides.

My control slipped. If not now, then when?

Duke exhaled sharply from where he stood nearby. “He’s right.” His voice was steely. Final.

Preacher’s frustration exploded. “Look, I know you fuckers think you know everything, but now isn’t?—”

“It’s never been the time!” I roared, cutting him off as I stepped closer. I’d had it. “You’ve had so many chances to come clean, but instead, here we are, sitting around like assholes while this eats away at us, day after day, waiting for the right moment that never fucking comes.” My chest rose and fell hard, my pulse hammering in my ears. “Just tell Kyle the truth.”

A voice cut through the haze of anger and tension like a gunshot. “What truth?”

Everything stopped as our heads snapped in unison toward the doorway.

Kyle stood just inside the room, her stance deceptively relaxed, and her face an unreadable mask of indifference. But her eyes—her eyes were sharp. Unforgiving.

“What truth?” she repeated slowly.

A deadly quiet settled over the room. Duke and I didn’t answer, this was Preacher’s mess to clean up.

I turned to look at him, and for the first time in my life, I saw the fear in his eyes. He swallowed hard, hesitating. “Kyle, I?—”

I lost my patience. “Preacher hasn’t been honest with you, have you, Preacher?” My voice was sharp as a blade, slicing through the silence.

Kyle’s gaze flicked to me, unblinking.

“The shit your mother told you? It was bullshit.” I let it all spill out because Preacher didn’t look like he was going to do it quickly enough. “When she killed herself, it wasn’t because she was running from him. It was because he’d threatened to make her disappear if she touched you again, because she told him she was going to kill you.”

Kyle’s expression didn’t change, at least, not on the outside. But I saw it—that quick flicker in her eyes, there and gone before she turned her full focus on Preacher. She wasn’t going to ask me for more, she was waiting for him.

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