CROSSROADS OF FIRE
The Whiskey Files - Book 7
Empires don't fall when they're weak.
They fall when they're forced to choose.
By the time the smoke clears from the last war, Joker knows one truth with absolute certainty: survival has a cost-and the bill is coming due.
The Fuse was built to endure what governments couldn't. Brotherhood over bureaucracy. Loyalty over law. Silence where the world demanded noise. For years, it worked. Too well. The network spread. The power consolidated. The myth grew louder than the men who carried it.
And myths attract hunters.
In Crossroads of Fire, the pressure shifts from violence to inevitability. No more open battles. No more easy enemies. The war moves into boardrooms, courtrooms, intelligence channels, and political back halls where power wears suits instead of scars-and mistakes don't bleed until it's too late.
Project Sparkplug is no longer a rumor. It's a machine. A quiet federal shadow program designed to dismantle threats that can't be arrested, voted out, or publicly acknowledged. And for the first time, the Fuse isn't reacting-they're being studied.
Every move Joker makes now closes one door and opens another. Every alliance costs him something he can't replace. Old loyalties fracture under scrutiny. New players emerge with cleaner hands and colder intentions. And the question that haunts every command decision becomes impossible to avoid:
How do you protect a brotherhood without becoming the very thing you were built to destroy?
As lines blur between friend and liability, Joker is forced into the most dangerous position of all-leadership without cover. The rules he taught his people are now being used against them. Restraint becomes leverage. Transparency becomes a weapon. And silence, once the Fuse's greatest strength, starts to feel like a noose.
From Gulf Coast backroads to federal corridors of power, Crossroads of Fire is the moment the series pivots-from survival to consequence. It's where the past catches up, the future demands payment, and standing still becomes the fastest way to die.
This isn't a book about choosing the right side.
It's about choosing what survives the fire.
Because at the crossroads, there's no turning back.
Only flame.
