Page 36 of Preacher

Chapter Ten

Preacher

Moe had cracked around three in the morning, according to Reaper’s text. Took less persuasion than I’d expected from a man whose whole reputation hinged on keeping his mouth shut. Turns out silence was easy when you weren’t zip-tied to a chair with a wolf’s teeth marks still bruising your forearm.

The intel was clean. Royce operated out of a warehouse off Route 9, the old textile building that had been “under renovation” for the past four years. Two guards on rotation at the front. One at the loading dock in back. Royce himself kept irregular hours, but Moe confirmed he’d be there tonight for a shipment. Hammer was stable at Temptation Memorial—broken jaw, shattered kneecap, three cracked ribs from the beating I’d delivered before he’d been dumped him at the ER doors.

According to Dr. Haaz, Hammer wasn’t walking out of there anytime soon. But Royce was the head. Cut that off and Hammer became nothing more than a broken man in a hospital bed with no one left to answer to.

I stood at the workbench in the garage bay, spreading the hand-drawn map Moe had scratched out with a shaking hand. My rings were back where they belonged, the silver warm against my knuckles. Contrary to popular belief, silver wasn’t lethal to wolves and the moon had no effect on them. I shook my head at humans and their vivid imaginations.

The cut on my shoulder pulled when I leaned forward, but the stitches held. Trent’s work was solid.

My mate was inside, asleep on the couch with some action movie still playing on the TV. I’d covered him with a blanket before slipping out. He didn’t need to know about this part. Not yet. Maybe not ever, if I could help it.

Crowbar appeared at my shoulder, his swollen hand wrapped in gauze and his toothpick back in place. The man looked murderous and not just because of the poison oak.

“Route’s clear,” he said, tapping the map where the access road met the highway. “Riot did a drive-by an hour ago. Two vehicles in the lot. Sedan and a panel van.”

“Matches what Moe gave us.” I traced the entry points with my finger. “Loading dock’s the quietest way in. Mayhem takes the front guards, keeps them occupied. You and I go through the back. Ghost handles the perimeter in case anyone tries to rabbit like last night.”

“And Royce?”

“Mine.” My wolf pressed close to the surface. This man had loaned money to a junkie then pointed that junkie at my mate like a loaded weapon. He’d sent Silent Moe to shoot up my clubhouse with Trent inside. Whether he knew Trent was there or not didn’t matter. The bullets hadn’t cared.

Crowbar nodded, rolling his toothpick to the other side of his mouth. “Reaper and Deadeye?”

“Staying here. Someone’s gotta hold the fort.” I straightened, folding the map and tucking it into my back pocket. “My mate doesn’t leave this building. He wakes up, he stays inside, and nobody tells him where we went.”

“He’s gonna be pissed.”

“He’s gonna be alive.” I met Crowbar’s eyes. “That’s what matters.”

The night air was cold when we rolled out, four bikes in a tight formation down County Road 21. No headlights until we hit the main road. The engines were barely above idle, a low rumble that blended with the wind moving through the trees. My wolf was awake and prowling behind my ribs, hungry for the hunt.

We split at the junction. Drift peeled off toward the front approach, his bike disappearing around the curve. Ghost killed his engine a quarter-mile out and vanished into the tree line on foot, rifle slung across his back. That left Crowbar and me rolling silent toward the loading dock, cutting our engines two hundred yards from the building and walking the bikes into the tall grass off the access road.

The warehouse loomed against the sky, a dark rectangle with two lit windows on the second floor. The loading dock’s floodlight was burned out—or had been busted deliberately. Either way, it worked in our favor. Shadows pooled thick around the concrete platform, and I could smell the single guard before I saw him. Cigarette smoke, cheap cologne, the metallic tang of a holstered weapon.

Crowbar moved first. He was silent for a man his size, years of practice making his boots soundless on gravel. I watched him close the distance in my peripheral vision while I stayed pressed against the cold brick wall, counting heartbeats.

The guard never heard him coming. One arm around the throat, a controlled squeeze, and the man’s legs gave out without a sound. Crowbar lowered him to the concrete, zip-tied his wrists and ankles, then gave me the signal.

I moved up the loading dock steps, testing the rolling door. Locked from the inside, but the personnel door beside it had a deadbolt that was older than my mother. Crowbar’s lockpick set made quick work of it, the click barely audible over the ambient noise of the building’s ancient HVAC system.

Inside, the warehouse smelled like dust and chemicals. Not the sharp burn of meth—Royce wasn’t that stupid—but the sweet, cloying scent of packaged product.

Pallets stacked in rows created a maze of narrow corridors, and the overhead fluorescents were off on the ground floor, leaving only the emergency lights casting everything in a sickly green glow.

My wolf mapped the space by scent. Two men on the ground floor, one near the far wall by the stairs, another somewhere in the maze of pallets to our left. Royce was upstairs. His scent was distinct, expensive aftershave layered over nervous sweat. The man knew something was coming. Maybe not tonight, maybe not from me specifically, but he’d been looking over his shoulder since Moe hadn’t reported back.

Crowbar tapped my shoulder twice. He’d caught the same layout I had. I pointed left then up. He nodded and split off, moving between the pallets toward the man on the ground floor with the kind of quiet intent that made my sergeant at arms worth every ounce of trust I’d given him.

I took the right side, heading for the stairs. The man by the wall was leaning against a support beam, phone in hand, face lit blue by the screen. He was scrolling, completely absorbed. Sloppy. Royce’s operation ran on fear and debt, not discipline. These weren’t trained soldiers. They were thugs with guns who’d never faced anything that pushed back.

Tonight, something was pushing back.

I closed the distance in four strides. My hand found the back of his skull before his thumb finished swiping. His face met the support beam with a wet crunch that told me his nose was done. The phone clattered. He slid down the metal like his strings had been cut, and I caught him before he hit the ground loud enough to alert anyone upstairs.