The bikes fan out. Engines cut. The silence that follows is louder than the noise.
Phantom dismounts, pulls his gloves off, and walks toward Lockhart with the measured stride of a man who has all the time in the world and none of the patience.
Lee dismounts and walks to me first.
Not to Lockhart, not to the formation, not to the strategic position—to me.
His eyes go to my arm. The bruise.
His jaw tightens but his hands are steady when he touches my shoulder.
Brief. Grounding.
The touch that says I'm here and then the pivot back to the man he came for.
Lockhart has recovered.
The smile is still there, but I can see the machinery behind it working harder now—the recalculations, the adjusted risk assessments, the dawning understanding that the variables have changed in a direction his playbook didn't anticipate.
"Phantom, isn't it?" Lockhart extends a hand. "I don't believe we've had the pleasure."
Phantom doesn't take the hand, doesn't break stride.
Just stops at a distance that puts him inside Lockhart's space without touching him—close enough to be a statement, far enough to be deniable.
"You sent a man to put his hands on a woman under our protection." Phantom's voice is level. Conversational. The tone of a man discussing the weather while standing on a lit fuse. "That's a problem."
"I don't know what you're?—"
"Banshee." Phantom doesn't raise his voice. Doesn't need to.
Lee steps forward.
He's holding a folder.
He doesn't open it. Just holds it at his side like a weapon he hasn't drawn yet.
"Fourteen properties in twenty years." Lee's voice is the Road Captain voice—flat, controlled, each word placed with precision. "Seven from ranchers over sixty. Three during medical crises. Every one preceded by the same pattern—inflated tax assessments, water rights disputes, zoning challenges, code violations. Then a lowball offer when the owner couldn't fight anymore."
Lockhart's smile thins.
"The county inspector who came to our compound—his wife's brother is your ranch manager. The zoning complaint about the farrier operation was filed by a shell company registered to your family trust. The easement dispute on Earl's south boundary was revived through a filing made by a lawyer your family has retained for eleven years."
Lee lifts the folder. Doesn't offer it. Just holds it where Lockhart can see it.
"Every connection. Every filing. Every dirty handshake going back two decades. Documented, dated, and ready to go to the county commissioner, the state attorney general, and every news outlet between here and Austin."
Lockhart is quiet. His men are quiet.
The yard is very still.
Twelve Harleys, six Dodges, two dozen men, one dying rancher on a porch, and a folder full of paper that represents the slow, patient dismantling of a man's reputation.
"This ismyland." Earl's voice from the porch. Thin but carrying. Every head turns. He's standing straight—straighter than I've seen him in weeks. His hands aren't on the railing anymore. They're at his sides. "My father's land. My daughter is buried half a mile from where you're standing. And you will not take it from me. Not with money. Not with lawyers. Not with men who put their hands on my girls."
My girls. Plural. Me and Rose. His girls.
Lockhart looks at the folder. At the bikes. At the brothers standing in a loose semicircle.
