“My pen,” Senior says, holding out a hand to Reyes, who dutifully pulls one from the inside of his cut and hands it to Senior.
Senior flips to the signing page.
For exactly thirty seconds, I feel the rarest emotion of my life: pure, unadulterated relief. The land we never wanted anything to do with on some mountain in Idaho is Senior’s, and Bruiser is safe.
We can all go home.
Except right as pen touches paper, Senior pauses.
He sets the pen down carefully.
Deliberately.
And that smile comes back—the cruel one, therealone.
“Ms. Tucker,” he says, and his voice is still pleasant and warm in contrast to his smile. “I don’t think you understand the position you’re in.”
My stomach drops.
This was always coming.
Of course it was.
“I understand it perfectly,” Harper says, but I can hear the thread of uncertainty now. Alarm bells sound like sirens in my head.
Is this just Senior sadistically wanting to make us linger in panic while he tells more brutal stories of the past before signing the damn papers?
“You want my son off the trust because his existence complicates your succession planning,” Harper continues, voicefar cooler than I think I could’ve managed. “I want him off because I want him safe. We have the same goal.”
“You’re assuming,” Senior says quietly, “that you’re in a position to dictate terms.”
The temperature in the room changes the way air pressure drops before a storm.
I feel it in my spine before I consciously process it—the infinitesimal shift of weight as the Kings at the bar straighten slightly. The way Isaak’s men recalibrate their positions without appearing to move and the sudden awareness that the exits we mapped are no longer as clear as they were eleven minutes ago.
My pulse hits one-sixty.
Torres’s hand moves to her briefcase. Very slightly. The way you touch something that might need to become a weapon or a shield.
“I’m assuming,” Harper says, and her voice is still level and dry, “that you’re a businessman. And businessmen understand cost-benefit analysis.”
Senior studies her.
Then he picks up his whiskey glass and takes a slow drink. He sets it down again with a softthunkagainst the scarred wood.
“You’re right,” he says. “Iama businessman. And I’ve been in business long enough to know that sometimes the cost of doing business includes... insurance.”
He gestures, very slightly.
Reyes opens the briefcase and produces a phone. Then sets it on the table between them. “Your father sends his regards. He was sorry he couldn’t be here himself, but as you can see—he’s a little tied up.”
Reyes presses play.
Audio crackles through the bar’s stale air. Background noise—vehicles, voices, the specific acoustics of somewhere outdoors and industrial.
And then the jostling phone comes into focus on an image of Silas, hogtied and gagged in the backseat of a truck. He’s shouting, but you can’t understand anything he’s saying through the gag.
Almost as soon as the video begins, it snaps off.