Page 19 of Property of the Bikers

Two cancellations in two hours. Both standing orders. Both cite the same vague internal reason.

I call the first supplier back on a different number and ask to speak to someone in accounts. The woman I reach is confused when I ask about the cancellation. She has no record of an internal policy review affecting our account. She puts me on hold for four minutes and comes back more confused. Someone above her pay grade authorized the cancellation yesterday afternoon, and the paperwork is clean, but she can’t tell me who initiated it.

I hang up and call Reeve.

He picks up before the second ring. “I know,” he says.

“You’ve seen it.”

“The third one came in twenty minutes ago. Insurance company. Audit notification, our liability coverage on the shop and the main building. Triggered by what they’re describing as an anonymous tip regarding business practices.” A pause. “It’s not random.”

“No,” I say. “It’s not.”

“I’m running the coordination pattern now. Give me an hour.”

He hangs up before I do.

I lean back in the chair and look at the ceiling.

Viktor Sokolov sent a polite message last night and got an answer. This is what comes after. Not loud. Not direct. Nothing that traces back to him through any channel that would hold up to examination. Just a series of phone calls made by people following instructions, and behind those people a set of instructions generated by a man sitting somewhere clean and comfortable who has done this before and knows exactly how much pressure to apply and where.

He isn’t trying to hurt anyone yet.

He’s showing us what hurt looks like before he does it.

I find Cade in the yard talking to Ghost about the gate rotation. I wait until Ghost finishes his point, and then I pull Cade aside and run through the three cancellations, the insurance audit, and what Reeve said about the coordination pattern. Cade listens without interrupting, which is how he always listens, and when I finish, he stands there for a moment looking at the fence line.

“Church tonight,” he says.

“Some of the men aren’t going to love this.”

He looks at me. “No,” he says. “They’re not.”

He walks back toward Ghost, and I walk back toward the main building, and we both have a long day between now and tonight.

* * *

Church assembles at eight.

The room fills faster than usual, which tells me word has moved through the compound the way word always moves through a compound, sideways and faster than anyone officially sanctioned it to travel. Men coming in know why they’re here. Or they know enough of it to have opinions already forming, which is its own kind of problem.

I take my seat at Cade’s right and look at the table.

Hayes is two seats down with his arms crossed and his jaw set. Priest is at the far end, hands folded, face giving nothing. Cutter is beside Hayes, watching the table surface, and I can’t read him yet.

Reeve opens without being asked.

“The three supplier cancellations and the insurance audit are connected,” he says. “The cancellation orders were all authorized yesterday afternoon within a four-hour window. Two of them trace back to a single consulting firm registered in Nevada that has no other identifiable clients. The insurance audit was triggered by an anonymous complaint filed through a regulatory portal at eleven in the morning, which is two hours after Cade sent his response to Viktor’s message.”

The room is quiet.

“He’s not attacking the club,” Reeve continues. “He’s demonstrating capability. These are probe actions. He wants us to understand the range of what he can reach before he decides how far to extend it.”

“So what’s next?” Hayes says.

“If we don’t return her, the pressure increases. More suppliers. Regulatory attention. Potentially banking disruption. He’ll escalate in stages and keep each stage below the threshold that would justify a direct response.”

Hayes puts both hands flat on the table. He’s a solid man and a good patch, and he’s been riding with Ruthless for eleven years, and he has a family on the edge of this compound, and a stake in how this club runs that is as real as anyone’s at this table.