He looks at the two men on the floor. At Stone, who is still holding the third against the wall with one hand, casually, the way you'd hold a door open.
"Get them up," Judge says.
Stone peels his man off the wall. I haul the broad one up by his cut. His eyes are glassy but open, good enough.
I get close to his face.
"You’ve been in this town long enough," I say. Low. Even. "Asking about businesses. Asking about people." His jaw tightens. I hold his gaze. "You tell whoever sent you that Copper Ridge is Iron Havoc territory. What's here is protected. What's protected doesn't get touched." I release his cut. "Don't come back."
He spits blood on the floor.
But he goes.
All three of them go.
The debrief takes ten minutes. Judge, Blaze, Stone, Gear, me, around the bar while Tommy holds a rag to his forehead and pretends he's not listening.
"They knew your name," Judge says.
"They knew the club," I say.
"They knew the clinic." He sets his glass down. "By name. By street."
The room sits with that for a moment.
Gear leans against the bar, bad hand wrapped, eyes on the floor with the expression he gets when he's running numbers. "Someone fed them that from outside," he says.
"Denton crew?" Blaze asks. His ear is swelling badly now, the cheerfulness mostly gone.
"Denton doesn't operate this way," Judge says. "This is personal." He looks at me. "Anyone in your orbit with enemies we don't know about?"
I think about the call outside the bar. Her shaking hands pressed against her thigh.Old problem… said with the particular weight of someone who'd learned what that problem felt like against their skin.
"Maybe," I say.
Judge reads my face the way he always does. Doesn't push further. "Find out," he says. "Before they come back with more than three men."
I pick up my helmet and go.
The cabin light is still on.
She’s sitting on the edge of the bed when I come in—on it, not in it—still dressed, like sleep wasn’t an option. Her eyes go straight to my jaw, the fresh swelling beside the old scar.
She crosses the room without a word. Her hands come up to my face, both of them, tilting it toward the light. Her thumbs trace the bone carefully—assessing, automatic, the physical therapist who can’t switch it off, even here, at midnight in a mountain cabin.
"Sit," she says.
I sit.
She goes to the bathroom, comes back with a cold cloth. Presses it to the swelling with the calm efficiency of someone who has managed pain professionally for years and doesn't need to make it dramatic. I let her work. Her hands are steady. Her face is focused.
We stay like that for a moment, her standing between my knees, both hands on my face, the lamp throwing everything amber and low.
"The men at the bar," I say. "They knew about the clinic. The name, the exact street."
Her hands still.
"That kind of information doesn't come from passing through town," I continue. "Someone gave it to them."
