“We don’t need to burn him,” Phantom says finally. “We just need him to know we can. Build the file. Every acquisition, every connection, every dirty handshake. When the time comes, we lay it on the table and let him decide how much he wants the world to see.”
A brother across the table—Blaze, the VP—leans back. “Jolene was always good at that kind of research. She could pull a paper trail apart faster than?—”
The room goes quiet.
The specific kind of quiet that happens when someone walks into a wire they didn’t see.
Blaze catches himself and looks at Phantom.
Phantom’s hand tightens on his beer. One squeeze. That’s all.
His face stays neutral—controlled, locked, the expression of a man who has practiced not reacting to that name in front of his brothers.
But I see the squeeze. I see the knuckles whiten and release.
“I’ll handle the research,” I say. Smooth. Redirecting. Giving Phantom the space to let the moment pass without anyone having to acknowledge what just happened. “Got a system. Just need time.”
Phantom nods and the gavel comes down.
The brothers file out.
I take my time with the folder, organizing papers, letting the room clear.
Phantom stays in his chair.
He knows I’m lingering. I know he knows.
When the room is empty, he speaks without looking at me. “How’s the farrier?”
I lean back in my chair. “She’s good. She’s strong.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
I look at him and he looks right back at me.
Two men in an empty chapel, both of them haunted by women—one dead, one gone.
The silence between us isn’t uncomfortable.
It’s the silence of recognition.
We’re built the same way, Phantom and me—load-bearing walls around an empty room that used to hold everything that mattered.
“It’s real,” I say. Because he deserves honesty and because I need to hear myself say it. “It scares the hell out of me. But it’s real.”
Phantom nods once.
He doesn’t smile, but something in his eyes shifts—a loosening, a warmth at the edge of a very controlled expression.
The closest thing to approval a man like Phantom gives.
“Good.” He stands. Puts his hand on my shoulder as he passes. A grip. Brief, firm, the weight of a man who means what he’s saying. “Don’t waste it, brother.”
He walks out.
I sit in the empty chapel and hear what he didn’t say.
Don’t waste it the way I did.
