Chapter 185 Let's Just get in and get Out
The SUV hummed, the sound of the tires on the asphalt the only thing breaking the heavy silence of the cabin. Outside, the lush, guarded greenery of the Blackwood was beginning to thin, replaced by the jagged, unkempt scrub of the borderlands.
Fennigan gripped the steering wheel, his knuckles white. He let out a deep, ragged breath that sounded more like a growl. "Are you sure this guy is trustworthy, Jax?" he asked, his voice low and vibrating with the tension he’d been holding since they left the porch. "We’re handing over the keys to our kingdom to a man who lives in a basement."
Jax didn't look away from the window, his eyes scanning the dark treeline for any sign of a tail. "As sure as I can be in this situation, Fenn," he replied, his tone clinical and sharp. "Which is to say, I trust his greed and his paranoia more than I trust anyone’s loyalty right now. He doesn't care about the Council, and he doesn't care about the Blackwood. He just wants the challenge—and the payout."
Jax shifted in his seat, checking the holster at his side. "We have to find out what’s on those drives, and we need that bunker’s blueprints. If Vane was building a fortress on our doorstep, he didn't do it alone."
Fennigan nodded, his jaw tight. "And the perimeter? I don't like leaving the girls and the twins with a question mark hanging over the East Ridge."
"I already handled it," Jax said, a flicker of his usual confidence returning. "I sent the elite team—the ones who weren't on the East Ridge rotation last month—out to keep an eye on the bunker from a distance. I gave them strict orders: observe only. No one goes in, and no one comes out until we get back with the codes. If a blade of grass moves near that concrete, we’ll know about it."
Fennigan grunted in approval. It was the right move. Keep the target in sight, but don't spring the trap until they knew exactly what kind of beast was hiding inside.
As they crossed the final invisible line into the Neutral Territory, the atmosphere shifted. The air felt thinner, grittier, and the distant, flickering neon of a roadside outpost appeared on the horizon like a taunt. This was a place where names were traded for numbers and the law of the pack was replaced by the law of the gun.
"He’s waiting at the 'Iron Sump,'" Jax muttered, checking an encrypted message on his burner phone. "The basement of an old industrial laundry mat. Atmospheric, right?"
"Let's just get in, get the data, and get out," Fennigan said, his eyes darkening. "I want to be home before the sun hits the Great Room floor."
The transition from the relative safety of the SUV to the open air of the Neutral Territory felt like stepping into a cold, stagnant pond. Following the Weaver's paranoid instructions, Fennigan killed the engine nearly half a mile from the meeting point. The silence that followed was heavy, broken only by the rhythmic, metallic ticking of the cooling manifold.
As they pulled on their tactical vests and adjusted the weight of the backpacks containing the encrypted drives, the shadows around the derelict industrial lot began to stretch and detach themselves from the rusted walls.
Four men—scavengers by the look of them—stepped into the yellow pool of light cast by a flickering streetlamp. They smelled of cheap synthetic silver, stale tobacco, and the kind of desperation that makes a man stupid. To them, the two figures by the SUV looked like high-end couriers: soft, wealthy, and ripe for the picking. They didn't recognize the predatory stillness of the Blackwood bloodline until the air around the brothers began to vibrate with a low-frequency warning.
The lead scavenger, a hulking man with a jagged scar across his throat, leveled a serrated combat knife. "Leave the bags and the keys, and maybe you walk out with your—"
He never finished the sentence.
Fennigan didn't even shift. He didn't need the claws to be a monster. He moved with the blurring, explosive speed of a True Alpha, a dark streak against the gray concrete. Before the scavenger could blink, Fennigan was inside his guard. His fist, backed by the sheer kinetic force of a three-hundred-pound predator, connected with the man’s jaw. The sound—a wet, sickening crack—echoed off the brickwork like a pistol shot. The scavenger was airborne for a fraction of a second before his head bounced off the pavement, out cold before he even hit the ground.
To Fennigan’s left, Jax was a whirlwind of lethal precision. The second scavenger swung a heavy iron pipe, but Jax moved like water, flowing under the strike. He caught the man’s lead wrist in a grip that could crush granite, twisting the arm until the radius snapped. As the man let out a strangled cry, Jax drove a knee into his solar plexus, followed by a swift, calculated joint lock that sent the scavenger screaming to his knees, his shoulder popping out of its socket with a dull thud.
"Wrong night, boys," Jax hissed, his eyes bleeding into a dangerous, rhythmic amber that cut through the dark.
The third scavenger lunged at Fennigan from behind, swinging a length of rusted chain. Without looking, Fennigan caught the chain mid-air, the metal links biting into his palm. He didn't flinch. With a savage jerk, he hauled the man forward, meeting him halfway with a devastating elbow to the temple. The man crumpled like a puppet with cut strings.
The fourth scavenger, a younger man who had stayed back to watch the "easy score," stood frozen. He looked at his three companions—one unconscious, one sobbing over a ruined arm, and the third a heap of dead weight—and then he looked at Fennigan. The Alpha’s eyes weren't just glowing; they were burning with a white-hot intensity that promised a slow, agonizing end.
The kid didn't wait for a second invitation. He dropped his weapon—a pathetic, dull shiv—and turned, his boots slapping frantically against the wet pavement as he vanished into the labyrinth of shipping containers.
Fennigan didn't give him a second glance. He simply wiped a smudge of the lead scavenger's blood off his knuckle onto his tactical pants.
"Amateurs," Fennigan grunted, his voice a low, gravelly rumble. He adjusted the strap of the pack containing the drives, his gaze already shifting toward the "Iron Sump." "Let's move. We're late, and the air in this place is starting to make my skin crawl."