My hand goes to his throat. Not choking. Just holding. Just enough pressure to make breathing a conscious effort.
His back hits the doorframe.
His hands come up to grab my wrist but they might as well be grabbing steel. I don't move. I don't blink.
"Listen very carefully," I say. Quiet. The voice I used in Kandahar when I needed someone to understand I wasn't negotiating. "Your lawyers aren't here. Your family isn't here. Your money doesn't mean shit on this mountain." I tighten my grip just slightly. His eyes go wide. "What's here is me. And if you ever contact Harper again, if you ever come within a hundred miles of Copper Ridge, if you so much as think her name too loud, I will find you. And your lawyers won't find enough of you to file a complaint about."
I let go.
He stumbles back, gasping, one hand to his throat.
I don't move. Just stand there in his doorway and watch him process it—the size of me, the scar, the absolute certainty in my voice that I mean every word.
"You're insane," he rasps.
"Probably." I step back into the walkway. "You've got one hour to check out. After that, I stop being polite."
I turn and walk away.
Behind me, I hear him slam the door.
I take the stairs down steady and even, the same pace I came up. When I reach the parking lot, I pull out my phone.
One text to Judge:Done. Give him thirty minutes. If he's still here, we escalate.
The reply comes back immediately:Copy.
I walk back through the pines, steady breathing, steady hands. The cold, tactical part of my brain has already filed this under: mission complete.
But underneath that, a different realization settles in. A door I kept closed for years just opened, and Harper Collins is standing on the other side of it.
I start the bike and head back to tell her it’s done.
Chapter 15 – Harper
The waiting is the worst part.
I sit on Patty’s couch with a mug of tea I’m not drinking and a book I’m not reading, my body tightening every time I hear an engine on the street.
Patty sits across from me in her armchair, knitting with the steady rhythm of someone who’s been doing it for years without looking down.
"He'll be fine," she says without looking up.
"I know."
"Do you?"
I set the book down. "No. Not really."
She nods, like that's the answer she expected. "Ronan's been handling worse than entitled ex-boyfriends since before you met him. He'll be fine."
"It's not Ronan I'm worried about."
That makes her look up. "You're worried about Derek?"
"I'm worried about what Ronan might do to him." I wrap both hands around the mug even though the tea's gone cold. "Derek will press charges. He'll call his lawyers. He'll make this into something that follows Ronan for years."
"Only if there's evidence," Patty says mildly. "And Ronan's smarter than that."
