When everyone else is on fire, Ounce goes quiet.
That's when he's the most dangerous—when the room is loud and he's the only one not making noise.
"I got names," he says. The room goes still. "The lending group is run by a man named Victor Solis. Based out of North Las Vegas. He's not mob, not cartel—he's somewhere in between. Independent operation, heavy on gambling debt collection. His guys travel. They're patient. They don't rush, and they don't bluff."
"How big?" Ruger asks.
"Big enough to send muscle across the country and wait weeks for a payout. Small enough that they're not on the feds' radar. That makes them more dangerous, if you ask me ‘cause no one's watching them."
"What do they do when the debt doesn't get paid?" Bloodhound asks. His voice is the quiet kind. The kind that means he already knows the answer and wants to hear someone say it out loud.
Ounce looks at me, then at the photos on the table. "They escalate. Property first—break-ins, vandalism, sending a message that they can get inside your life whenever they want." He pauses. "Then they go after the people."
"Define 'go after,'" Porter says.
"Intimidation. Physical. Sometimes worse. They've been known to grab family members—hold them for a few days, rough them up, send them back as a message. A few cases out west where people didn't come back at all."
The room absorbs that.
I watch it land on each of them differently—Ruger's jaw setting like concrete, Bracken's ring tapping double-time,Decorum's hands pressing flat on the table, Bloodhound's eyes going to a place I recognize because I've been there myself.
The place where you stop thinking about solutions and start thinking about what you're willing to do.
"This is my play," I say. "But I'm asking for more than eyes now. I need bodies. I need someone at my house twenty-four seven—not a prospect, a patch. I need someone on Wrenleigh at school and someone on Sadie Jo at school. Separate locations, separate details. I don't want prospects on my family unless it's Rookie."
"You've got it," Ruger says. "Bloodhound, you and Maddox split the house. Twelve-hour shifts. Bracken, put full patches on the schools — Krypton on Morgantown High, Wraith on Suncrest Middle. Rookie fills the gaps when we need him."
"I want to rotate Daemon and Satyr in too," Bracken says. "Keep the faces changing so nobody gets comfortable."
Ruger nods. "Do it."
"One more thing," Ounce says. He leans forward now, elbows on the table. "Solis doesn't negotiate unless he's in a position of strength. Right now he thinks he is—he's got Coin's address, his kids' schools, and a debt with his name on it. If we push back too hard too fast, he might accelerate. We need to be smart about this. Controlled pressure."
"What are you suggesting?" Ruger asks.
"Let me reach out through back channels. Not to Solis directly—to people in his orbit. Put the word out that Coin's connected. That the Saint's Outlaws are aware. Sometimes just the knowledge that a target has backup is enough to slow the clock."
"And if it's not?"
Ounce's jaw tightens. "Then we stop being polite about it."
Ruger looks at me. "Your call, brother. Ounce's play or something harder?"
I think about it. Two seconds, maybe three.
"Ounce's play," I say. "For now. But I want contingencies. If the clock runs out and they come for my girls, I want a plan that ends this permanently."
Every man at the table nods.
"Unanimous," Ruger says. He slams the gavel down. "Move."
Church breaks and Ounce catches me in the hallway before I make it out.
"Pipeline update. Separate from your situation." He keeps his voice low, even though the hallway is empty. Old habits. "Bloodhound and Maddox found the property I flagged—abandoned farm, twelve miles outside town off County Route 19. Tire tracks, foot traffic, fresh padlocks on a barn that hasn't held cattle in twenty years. It's a stash house."
"Confirmed?"
"Close enough if you ask me. I've got a contact who says the crew running product is out of Ohio. They're using the mining roads to bypass the highway checkpoints and staging everything at rural properties before distributing into Morgantown." He pauses. "There's a lot of product moving through there, Coin. This isn't small-time. Whoever's running this is treating West Virginia like a distribution hub—cook it somewhere else, ship it in, cut it here, push it out."
