“—then we already don’t have the luxury of pretending this stays contained,” Brutus cut in.
Ghost shot him a look. “That doesn’t make it smart.”
Doc leaned forward, forearms on the table. “Sunshine helped get Ariel out. She sacrificed herself giving Cap and Ariel time to get out.”
“That doesn’t make her family,” someone else said quietly.
“No,” Wrecker said. His voice was even, but there was steel under it. “But it makes her ours to protect.”
That got attention.
Doc nodded. “We don’t leave women behind. Especially ones who already paid the price.”
The room split again. This time down a different line.
Cap lifted a hand. Slowly. Deliberately.
“This is why we vote,” he said.
The room stilled.
“Scout is priority,” Cap continued. “No one’s arguing that. But Sunshine isn’t a distraction. She’s a line. If we leave her, we tell every other woman caught in that pipeline exactly what our patch means.”
He looked around the table. Not just at the loud ones. At everyone.
“Those girls move through our territory,” Cap said. “That ring used our land. Took one of ours. And now they’re testing our home.”
Silence stretched.
“We can hunt Scout,” Cap went on. “And we can burn that lane so it never runs through this town again.” His voice hardened. “But we don’t do it by deciding some lives matter less.”
He nodded once. “Vote.”
Silence filled around us. Then hands lifted.
Some immediately.
Some after a beat.
Some reluctantly.
Ghost didn’t raise his hand at first.
Then he looked at Scout’s empty chair.
Slowly, he lifted it.
Cap counted. Once. Twice.
The decision locked in.
Cap exhaled. “We go back. We find Scout. We find Sunshine. And we tear that ring out at the root so it never touches this place again.”
Brutus cracked his neck. “Good. I was getting bored.”
The room didn’t feel divided anymore.
It felt decided.
