“We’ve got eyes,” he said.
“Where?”
“Perimeter. Road past the tree line. One bike this morning. Two last night.”
I nodded once and kept walking. “They linger?”
“No. Just enough to be seen.”
That tracked.
Rowan didn’t jump straight to violence. He tested first. Let you know he was watching. Let you feel the clock before he started swinging.
Grim was near the garage, tablet in his hands, his jaw set. Slate was beside him, arms crossed.
“How close?” I asked.
Grim looked up. “Close enough that they want us to notice. Far enough that they don’t want trouble yet.”
“Yet,” Slate echoed.
I stopped near the bikes and finally looked at them. “Any approach?”
“No,” Grim said. “No contact. No threats.”
That was the part that mattered.
Rowan never sent threats first. He sent pressure.
“Anyone mention names?” I asked.
“No,” Slate said. “But they’re Reapers. No question.”
I exhaled through my nose. “Alright.”
They went back to work because they trusted me to decide what came next. Rowan had made his move. I knew this was him letting us know he wasn’t about to play fair.
Wraith followed me toward the office. “You want council?”
“I want information first.”
Inside, the air was cooler and quieter. Everything always felt more heightened when trouble was coming.
I didn’t sit. I leaned against the desk and pulled my phone from my pocket.
The message had come in twenty minutes earlier.
Not from Rowan’s phone.
From a neutral number. A burner. Clean.
We need to talk. You know why.
That was it.
Rowan’s first move.
I stared at it for another second, then locked the screen and slipped the phone back into my pocket.
