Chapter 5
Roughcut was rebuilding Elise's gear list on a legal pad when Coldstart walked into the garage with news that changed everything.
"Wennberg's made his calls," the mechanic said, grease-stained hands shoved into his pockets. "Every independent bar owner on the Range got the same message this morning. Book Elise Torvik and your venue has problems."
Roughcut set down the pen. "Every owner?"
"Every single one." Coldstart leaned against a workbench cluttered with carburetor parts. "Ice has been working the phones for the last two hours. The blacklist is total. Nobody's touching her."
The legal pad sat on the table between them. Roughcut had been making lists—replacement equipment, estimated costs, venues that might still book her if the club applied enough pressure. All of it was useless now.
Wennberg wasn't just punishing Elise. He was erasing her.
"Where is she?" Roughcut asked.
"Bunkhouse. Maren and Astrid are with her."
He found her twenty minutes later, sitting cross-legged on a cot with her acoustic guitar in her lap and a legal pad of her own balanced on her knee.
Maren and Astrid had left—he could see coffee cups on the side table, evidence of the old ladies doing what old ladies did: assessing the new woman, deciding if she had what it took.
Elise didn't look up when he entered. Her pen moved across the paper in sharp, angry strokes.
"I heard about the blacklist," Roughcut said.
"Fourteen venues." Her voice was flat. Controlled. The voice of a woman holding fury in check through sheer will. "Fourteen independent bars that would have booked me yesterday. Now none of them will return my calls."
"Elise—"
"Don't." She finally looked at him, and her eyes were blazing.
"Don't tell me it's going to be okay. Don't tell me the club will handle it.
I've spent ten years building relationships with those owners.
Ten years of showing up on time, playing clean sets, not causing trouble.
And one phone call from Wennberg and I'm radioactive. "
Roughcut stood in the doorway, filling the frame without entering. Giving her space she hadn't asked for but clearly needed.
"What's on the pad?" he asked.
She hesitated. Then: "Venue map. Every bar on the Range, who owns it, how long they've been paying into Wennberg's network.
" She turned the legal pad so he could see.
Lines and boxes and arrows, a spider web of connections drawn from memory.
"The ones in red are his outright. The ones in blue pay the fee.
The ones in green used to be independent before he squeezed them out. "
There was no green left on the map.
"You did this from memory?"
"I've been playing these rooms for a decade.
I know which owners are scared and which ones are secretly waiting for permission to fight back.
" She set the pad aside and wrapped her arms around the guitar like it was the only solid thing in the world.
"Not that it matters now. Scared or resentful, they're all blacklisting me the same. "
Roughcut stepped into the room. Slowly, carefully, the way he moved through everything—like the space itself might break if he wasn't gentle.
"Show me," he said.
Elise blinked. "What?"
"Show me which owners are resentful. Which ones are paying Wennberg because they have to, not because they want to.
" He pulled a chair from the corner and sat down across from her, close enough to see the map but not close enough to crowd.
"You said some of them are waiting for permission to fight back. What does that look like?"
She stared at him for a long moment. Then something shifted in her expression—the anger making room for something sharper. More focused.
"There's a place in Hibbing," she said slowly. "Owner named Garza. He's been paying Wennberg's fee for six years, ever since his brother-in-law's bar got torched for refusing. He hates it. I've seen him after Wennberg's collectors leave—he looks like he wants to put his fist through a wall."
"Would he book you if Wennberg wasn't a threat?"
"In a heartbeat. I pack his room every time I play.
" She pulled the legal pad back into her lap, pen moving again.
"There's another one in Virginia. Woman named Oster, runs a roadhouse on the edge of town.
She used to be independent—held out longer than anyone.
Only folded when Wennberg's guys put her bartender in the hospital. "
Roughcut watched her work. The anger was still there, but it was channeling now, turning into something useful. This was what she'd been doing for ten years—reading rooms, understanding the politics, knowing which way the wind blew before she stepped on stage.
"What about Wennberg's owned venues?" he asked. "The three he controls directly?"
"His flagship is in Virginia. Wednesday nights he's there counting receipts—it's the only consistent schedule he keeps." Her pen tapped against the paper. "The other two are smaller. One in Eveleth, one in Mountain Iron. He rotates managers, but the bouncers stay consistent."
"Same crew at each location?"
"Different crews, but they know each other. Wennberg moves them around to keep owners from getting too comfortable with any one enforcer." She looked up, and something sparked in her eyes. "You're building a target list."
"I'm learning the terrain." Roughcut kept his voice even. "Can't protect you if I don't understand what we're up against."
"Protect me." She said it like she was testing the words. "Is that what this is?"
"That's what Permafrost ordered."
"And what would you call it?"
The question landed heavier than it should have. Roughcut felt something shift in his chest—the same feeling he'd had in the bar when he first heard her voice through the wall. Recognition of something he couldn't name.
"I'd call it doing what needs doing," he said finally.
Elise studied him. The anger in her eyes hadn't faded, but there was something else there now. Assessment. Interest.
"You're not like the other bikers I've met," she said.
"You've met a lot of bikers?"
"Bar circuit. They come through, order whiskey, sometimes tip well." A ghost of a smile crossed her face. "They're usually louder. More... obvious about what they want."
Roughcut's hands rested on his knees. Steady. Still. "What do you think I want?"
"I don't know." She held his gaze. "That's what's interesting."
The moment stretched. Something electric in the air between them, a tension that had nothing to do with blacklists or burning vans.
A knock at the bunkhouse door shattered it.
Whiteout stood in the doorway, face expressionless as always. "Roughcut. We've got movement."
Roughcut was on his feet immediately. "What kind?"
"Truck. Black Ford, crew cab. Idling on the highway about a mile from the gate." Whiteout's thousand-yard stare flicked to Elise, then back. "Driver matches Kovich's description."
Elise went pale.
Roughcut moved to the window, angling his body to block her view of the treeline like instinct. The compound's single road approach was visible from here—a long stretch of gravel cutting through pine forest, designed to give defenders clear sightlines.
And a mile out, barely visible through the trees, a black truck sat on the shoulder of the highway.
Not approaching. Not leaving.
Just watching.
"He's not making a move," Whiteout said. "Just letting us know he's there."
"Letting her know," Roughcut corrected. His jaw tightened. "Wennberg wants her scared. Wants her to know there's nowhere she can go that he can't find."
Elise appeared at his shoulder. He hadn't heard her move—she was quieter than she should be, bar circuit survival skills showing through.
"He found me," she said. Her voice was steady, but he could hear the tremor underneath. "He found me in one day."
Roughcut turned to look at her. She was close—closer than she'd been before. Close enough that he could see the pulse jumping in her throat, the fear she was trying to bury under anger.
"He found where you are," Roughcut said. "That's not the same as getting to you."
"What's the difference?"
He held her gaze. "The difference is he has to go through me first."
The words came out harder than he intended. More possessive. More like a claim than a promise.
Elise's breath caught.
Out on the highway, the black truck sat motionless. A reminder. A threat. A declaration that Wennberg knew exactly where his lost booking had run, and he wasn't going to let her forget it.
Roughcut watched the treeline and felt something settle into place in his chest.
The careful man. The gentle man. The man who'd spent two years learning to hold everything like it might break.
That man was still there.
But underneath him, something older was waking up. Something that understood threats in a language that didn't require words.
Kovich could watch all he wanted.
The moment he moved, Roughcut would be ready.