"We all here?" Judge asks.
"Yeah," I say.
He slides a laptop across the table. Screen already open to a DMV record, a professional headshot, and three news articles.
Derek Sutton.
Thirty-four. Clean-cut. Expensive suit in the photo, the kind of smile that's designed to sell confidence. MBA from Stanford. Works for a private equity firm in San Francisco. Family money going back three generations, old California wealth, the kind that doesn't get touched by economic downturns.
"He's got no record," Judge says. "Not even a speeding ticket. But I ran him through some contacts. Two restraining ordersfiled against him in the past years. Both dropped before they went to court."
"Paid off," Blaze says.
"That's the assumption." Judge looks at me. "Harper tell you anything else?"
"He put his hands on her. Multiple times. Last time was fourteen months ago. She ran. Changed everything. He found her anyway."
The room goes quiet.
Stone shifts his weight. When Stone moves, you notice.
"Is he here?" Stone asks. First words he's said since I walked in.
"Don't know yet," Judge says. "But Blackridge doesn't clear out for no reason. Either he paid them and they're done, or he's coming himself." He closes the laptop. "Either way, we need to be ready."
"Ready how," I say.
Judge looks at me with that expression he gets, the one from before we breached compounds in the dark, the one that says he's already run every scenario and landed on the one that costs the least.
"If he shows up in Copper Ridge," Judge says slowly, "we make it clear she's under Iron Havoc protection. We do it visibly. We do it in a way he can't misunderstand."
"And if he doesn't take the hint?" Blaze asks.
Judge doesn't answer right away. He looks at me instead.
"Then Ronan handles it," he says.
I nod once.
Blaze grins.
I'm back at Patty's by noon.
Harper is on the porch with a mug of something hot and a book open in her lap that she's not reading. She looks up when I pull in, closes the book, and stands.
I don't get off the bike.
"Anything?" she asks.
"Not yet. Judge is running him down." I keep the engine idling. "You're staying here tonight."
"Ronan—"
"Harper." I look at her. "Derek Sutton has money and he's used it before to make problems go away. If he's coming here, I need to know you're somewhere I'm not splitting my focus."
She comes down the steps. Stands close enough to the bike that I can see the exact color of her eyes in the midday light.
"You can't protect me from everything," she says quietly.
