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I am not going to cry.

I am not going to go somewhere inside my own head that is not useful.

They did not shoot me in the parking lot. They put me in a vehicle and they are transporting me somewhere, which means I am worth more alive than dead, which means I am leverage, which means the goal is to apply pressure rather than inflict permanent damage.

It means Grave will come for me.

It means the Wolves will burn Deadwood down to find me.

The van stops and the doors open into air that is colder than outside and smells damp. I am dragged out, but I stay upright, my feet finding the ground and planting, and I let them think I am cooperating while my eyes move fast.

Concrete pillars, widely spaced. High ceiling, sparse lights that leave long pockets of shadow. A row of windows near the roofline, all dark. Two visible exits and probably one more behind the far wall. Four men including the two from the van.

They push me toward a metal chair positioned in the center of the floor.

I sit.

I keep my back straight and my breathing even and I do not look at any of them in a way that communicates fear, because fear is only useful information if I give it to them.

The Night Wolves will come for me.

Chapter 3 — Hansen

I scan the room without turning my head, I count the bodies I recognize, and I do not find her.

Grave is three feet to my left, and he reaches the same conclusion at almost the same moment I do, because I watch his eyes go straight to the door. His jaw sets in a way that tells me he is fighting the instinct to run toward it rather than move strategically.

I put a hand on his arm before he takes a step.

"Lockdown," I say to the room. Not loudly. I do not need volume for the word to carry. "Secure the side exits. Perimeter sweep now. Every vehicle in the lot, accounted for and checked."

Men move before the second sentence is finished.

I go downstairs to the back door and push it fully open. The parking area beyond is cold and still under the flat yellow glow of the overhead lights, and it tells me everything immediately: gravel disturbed at the far end of the lot in a pattern that suggests a vehicle turned and exited quickly, and on the ground near the third row, a phone face down in the snow.

I crouch and pick it up without touching more of the scene than necessary.

Grave is behind me. I hear his breathing.

"She said she was making a call," he says, and the tightness in his voice is trying to be controlled and not fully managing it. "She said two minutes."

I stand and look at the tire marks at the lot's exit. Wide-base, heavy vehicle. A van, probably, from the track width. They moved fast and they were positioned before she came outside, which means they were watching the compound, which means Deadwood sent people here tonight not just to hit the depot but to establish a secondary objective.

Her.

She is leverage because she is Grave's sister, which means Deadwood did their research, which means they planned this as a pressure tactic rather than random escalation.

She is alive.

I hold onto that like a calculation rather than a comfort and turn back toward the clubhouse.

"Get Luke and Cole," I say to Grave. "Now."

He does not move for a half-second, which is Grave fighting himself. Then he moves.

Inside, the room reorganizes around the new information with the particular efficiency that happens when men who operate outside normal systems need results faster than normal systems can produce them.

Luke is already at his laptop with a focused expression that means he is three steps ahead of the conversation. Cole is pulling up a secondary screen alongside him, fingers moving in a way that has nothing to do with authorized access and everything to do with getting where he needs to be quickly.