Page 18 of Property of the Bikers

Another pause. Longer this time. “I’ll start tonight.”

I hang up and stand at the desk for a moment, looking at the window. Outside the perimeter, the lights are still running, the two men on the north fence still moving through their circuit, the compound sitting quiet and secured under a Montana sky that has gone fully dark.

She’s in the main house right now. Guest wing. Asleep maybe, or trying to be, or lying in the dark running the same calculations she’s been running since she found that folder.

She came here because she needed a wall between herself and Viktor.

What she doesn’t know yet is that Viktor doesn’t stop at walls. He goes around them, through the systems and structures and institutional frameworks that most people trust without examining. The medical directive was already written. The administrator was already paid. He had her inside a private ambulance before she ever went into labor, not through force but through paperwork, through the specific violence of official documentation carried out by people following procedures.

That’s what I’m dealing with.

I close the laptop.

I pick up my coat from the back of the door, pull it on, and walk out of the office, across the yard, into the cold and yellow light of the perimeter, and into the main house.

I find the prospect on night duty in the front hall and tell him about the room change. He goes immediately to wake whoever needs waking to make it happen. I walk down the corridor to the guest wing and knock twice on the door.

Thirty seconds of silence. Then her voice, not groggy, fully awake. “Yes.”

She was awake. Of course she was.

“Room change,” I say through the door. “Someone’s going to come take you to the new room in a few minutes. Take your bag.”

A pause. “Is something wrong?”

“Protocol,” I say. “Go with them when they knock.”

I walk back down the corridor without waiting for a response.

Viktor sent a courtesy notice tonight because that’s how he operates. Clean, professional, and patient, a man who has never needed to raise his voice because his methods don’t require it.

Tomorrow, or the day after, or the day after that, the complications he mentioned will begin to present themselves.

We won’t be waiting for them to arrive.

Chapter Nine

JAX

The first call comes in while I’m eating breakfast.

I’m at the long table in the main building with a plate of eggs and a mug of coffee that’s actually hot for once, because the prospect on kitchen duty this morning figured out that the burner runs hotter on the left side and adjusted accordingly. Small thing. I noticed it. I notice most things, which is either a gift or an affliction depending on the day.

My phone buzzes beside the plate. I look at the screen. Hendricks Supply, which is the company that runs our parts and materials delivery for the auto shop. I answer it and keep eating.

The man on the other end is apologetic in the specific way people are apologetic when they’ve been told to make a call they don’t want to make. Too many pauses. Too much throat clearing. The upshot is that they’re canceling our standing order effective immediately, citing an internal policy review, and they’re sorry for the inconvenience, and they hope we can work something out in the future.

I thank him and hang up.

I finish my eggs.

Standing orders don’t get canceled over the phone on a Friday morning without warning because of an internal policy review. That’s not how suppliers operate. You get a letter, or a meeting, or at minimum an email chain that gives you thirty days to find an alternative. A phone call at eight in the morning with apologies and no specifics is from a supplier who was told to make the call and given a script to do it with.

I file it and pour more coffee.

The second call comes two hours later. Different supplier, same register. Apologetic. Policy review. Sorry for the inconvenience. This one handles the raw materials we move through the legitimate side of the business, the lumber and hardware that goes through the construction arm. Also a standing order. Also canceled effective immediately.

I hang up and sit for a moment in the office I use when I need a desk, which isn’t often because I think better on my feet.