Chapter 13
The call came three days after the funeral.
Elise was in the compound garage, helping Coldstart inventory the damaged equipment from the assault, when her phone buzzed in her pocket. She almost ignored it—the blacklist meant no booking calls, and anyone who mattered knew to reach her through the compound's landline.
But the number on the screen was her mother's.
"Mom?"
The voice that answered wasn't her mother's.
"Miss Torvik." Male. Calm. The particular kind of calm that came from having all the power in a conversation. "Your mother is right here with me. She's fine. For now."
The garage disappeared. The world narrowed to the phone in her hand and the blood roaring in her ears.
"Who is this?"
"My name is Luca Bremer. I work for Mr. Wennberg." A pause. Calculated. "Your mother was shopping for groceries in Hibbing when we ran into her. Funny coincidence, don't you think?"
"If you touch her—"
"I haven't touched her. Yet." Movement on the other end. A whimper that Elise recognized in her bones—her mother's voice, scared and small. "But that could change. Depending on how this conversation goes."
Elise's hand was shaking. Her whole body was shaking.
"What do you want?"
"I want you to understand something." Bremer's voice stayed level. Pleasant, even. "Mr. Wennberg has been very patient. He gave you chances to come back into the fold, to apologize, to make things right. Instead, you ran to a motorcycle club and started a war that's cost him three good men."
"Your men attacked us—"
"Your men attacked us," Bremer continued as if she hadn't spoken. "Kovich. Sandoval. Soldiers who'd been with Mr. Wennberg for years. Gone now. Because of you."
The words landed like blows. Not because they were true—Kovich and Sandoval had come to kill, had chosen violence first—but because Bremer believed them. Because Wennberg had convinced himself he was the victim here.
"What do you want?" she repeated.
"I want you to know that there's nowhere you can hide.
No one you can protect." Bremer's voice dropped lower.
Colder. "The Savages think they can keep you safe in their little compound.
But your mother doesn't live in a compound, does she?
She lives in a house in Hibbing with a bad lock on the back door and neighbors who mind their own business. "
"Please—"
"The next visit won't be a conversation." Movement again. Her mother's voice, clearer now—"Elise, I'm okay, don't—" and then silence. "Think about that. Think about what you're willing to sacrifice for a music career that was never going to happen anyway."
The line went dead.
Elise stood frozen, phone pressed against her ear, the world tilting around her.
Coldstart was staring at her. "Elise? What's—"
She was already running.
She found Roughcut in the yard, working on perimeter repairs with two other prospects. He took one look at her face and dropped everything, crossing the distance between them in three strides.
"What happened?"
The story came out in fragments. Bremer. Her mother. The grocery store in Hibbing. The threat that wasn't a threat—it was a promise, a declaration of war that had moved past property and territory and into something far more personal.
Roughcut's expression went cold. Colder than she'd ever seen it.
"Where's your mother now?"
"I don't know. The call ended. He said she was fine, that they didn't hurt her, but—" Her voice cracked. "Sam, if anything happens to her—"
"Nothing's going to happen to her." His hands gripped her shoulders, steadying her. "We're going to get her. Right now."
The next hour was controlled chaos.
Tundra mobilized a retrieval team—four brothers on bikes, moving fast. Ice coordinated with contacts in Hibbing, confirming that Bremer's crew had been spotted leaving the area after making their point. Permafrost made calls that Elise didn't hear, arranging things she didn't want to know about.
Roughcut stayed with her. Held her hand. Kept himself between her and the world like he could shield her from the violence that was coming whether she wanted it or not.
They brought her mother to the compound within the hour.
Helen Torvik was sixty-three years old, a retired millworker with arthritis in her hands and a stubborn streak that Elise had inherited wholesale. She walked into the compound with her chin up and her shoulders back, refusing to let anyone see how scared she'd been.
But Elise saw.
She saw the tremor in her mother's hands. The redness around her eyes. The way she flinched when someone moved too fast behind her.
"Mom." Elise pulled her into a hug, holding on tight. "I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry, this is all my fault—"
"This is not your fault." Helen's voice was fierce despite the trembling. "Don't you dare apologize for some bully who thinks he can scare people into doing what he wants."
"He threatened you because of me—"
"He threatened me because he's a coward.
" Helen pulled back, holding Elise's face in her hands.
"The same kind of coward who's been pushing musicians around for years.
The same kind who broke Tommy Garza's windows and ran Linda Oster's bartender into the hospital.
" Her eyes were hard. "I've been watching men like him my whole life.
They only have power as long as people are afraid. "
"Mom—"
"Are you afraid?"
Elise hesitated. Thought about the last week—the gunfights, the deaths, the violence that had become as familiar as her guitar. Thought about the man standing behind her, the one who'd killed with his bare hands to protect her.
"No," she said. "I'm not afraid."
"Good." Helen's mouth curved into a grim smile. "Then neither am I."
They set her mother up in one of the guest rooms—comfortable, secure, guarded by brothers who looked like they could tear a building apart with their hands. Maren brought food and blankets. Astrid brought tea and sympathy.
Elise sat with her mother until the older woman finally stopped shaking.
"These men," Helen said quietly, looking around the room. "They're not what I expected."
"What did you expect?"
"Criminals. Thugs." Helen shrugged. "That's what everyone says about motorcycle clubs."
"They're that too," Elise admitted. "But they're also... something else."
"I noticed." Helen's eyes found Roughcut, who stood in the doorway like a sentinel. "That one especially. He looks at you like you're the only thing in the world that matters."
Elise felt heat creep up her neck. "Mom—"
"I'm not blind, sweetheart. And I'm not stupid." Helen reached out and took her hand. "Is he good to you?"
"Yes."
"Does he make you happy?"
"Yes."
"Then I don't need to know anything else." Helen squeezed her fingers. "Your father would have liked him. Big, quiet, steady. The kind of man who doesn't talk about protecting people—he just does it."
The mention of her father—gone eight years now—made Elise's chest tight.
"I miss him," she said quietly.
"Me too." Helen's eyes were wet. "Every day. But he'd be proud of you, Ellie. Standing up to that Wennberg character. Not backing down even when it got hard."
"I haven't done anything. The club—"
"The club is doing what they do. You're doing what you do." Helen smiled. "You've been fighting your whole life, sweetheart. For your music, for your independence, for the right to be more than what people expected. This is just another fight."
"This fight has guns."
"So does this club." Helen's smile widened. "And they seem very motivated to use them on your behalf."
Elise laughed despite everything. Her mother had always known how to make her laugh.
"Get some rest," she said. "You're safe here."
"I know." Helen lay back against the pillows, exhaustion finally showing through. "I know I am."
Elise waited until her mother's breathing evened out before she slipped into the hallway.
Roughcut was waiting.
He didn't say anything. Just opened his arms, and she walked into them, pressing her face against his chest and letting the shaking finally take her.
"They went after my mother," she said, her voice muffled against his shirt. "They cornered a sixty-three-year-old woman in a grocery store to make a point."
"I know."
"She could have been hurt. She could have been—"
"I know." His arms tightened around her. "She wasn't. She's here. She's safe."
"Because they chose not to hurt her. Because they were making a point." Elise pulled back, and the fury that had been building since the phone call finally broke through. "But next time they might not choose that. Next time they might decide the point requires blood."
"There won't be a next time."
"You can't promise that."
"Watch me." Roughcut's voice was quiet. Cold. The voice of a man who'd made a decision. "Wennberg crossed a line. Not just against you—against the club. He reached past our protection and touched a civilian. Touched your family."
"What does that mean?"
"It means this stops being defense." His jaw tightened. "It means we stop waiting for him to hit us and we hit first."
Through the door, Elise could hear her mother's breathing—slow and steady now, the sleep of exhaustion.
The woman who'd raised her alone after her father died.
The woman who'd taught her three chords and told her to write the rest. The woman who'd just been terrorized in a grocery store because her daughter had the audacity to want a music career outside someone else's control.
Elise's hands curled into fists at her sides.
"Good," she said.
Roughcut studied her face. "Good?"
"Good." She met his eyes, and whatever he saw there made something shift in his expression. "I'm done being scared. I'm done waiting for them to hurt the people I love. If this is war, then let's fight it."
He reached out and cupped her face in his hands. Gentle, like always. But his eyes were anything but gentle.
"I love you," he said.
The words landed like a thunderclap.
"Sam—"
"You don't have to say it back. I just needed you to know." His thumb traced her cheekbone. "Whatever comes next, whatever we have to do—I love you. And I will burn Wennberg's entire world to ash before I let him touch you or anyone you care about again."
Elise's throat was too tight to speak.
So she kissed him instead.
When she finally pulled back, the fury and the fear and the love were all tangled up together, inseparable.
"What happens now?" she asked.
Roughcut looked through the doorway at her sleeping mother. At the woman who'd been terrorized because of a choice Elise had made.
"Now," he said, "we stop being gentle."
The man who'd spent two years learning to hold everything carefully had made a decision.
And it wasn't a gentle one.