Chapter 3
Permafrost knew something was wrong the second he walked through the Pickaxe's door.
It wasn't the thin Thursday crowd or the plywood where a mirror used to hang. It wasn't even the way Maren Halvorsen went rigid behind the bar, her hands freezing mid-pour like she'd seen a ghost.
It was the bruise.
Purple and green and spreading across her cheekbone like a storm front, visible for half a second before she turned away, angling her face toward the back wall like she could hide it if she moved fast enough.
She couldn't.
Something hot and violent uncoiled in Permafrost's chest—a fury so sudden and so complete that he had to stop three steps inside the door and breathe through it.
His hands curled into fists at his sides.
His vision narrowed to that glimpse of damaged skin, to the rigid line of her shoulders, to the careful way she was not looking at him.
Someone had put their hands on her.
Someone had hurt her.
"Permafrost." Her voice was steady, professional, the same tone she used on every customer.
But he'd been drinking at this bar for fifteen years, watching her grow from the fierce teenager who helped her father behind the counter to the fiercer woman who'd kept this place alive through sheer stubborn will.
He knew what her voice sounded like when she was scared.
She was terrified.
"Maren." He crossed to the bar with measured steps, fighting the urge to vault over the counter and turn her face toward the light, to catalog every inch of damage and start planning retribution. "Look at me."
"What can I get you? The usual?"
"Look at me."
She didn't. Her hands moved with mechanical precision—grabbing a glass, reaching for the tap, pulling his usual lager with her eyes fixed on the pour. When she set it in front of him, she still wouldn't meet his gaze.
"On the house tonight," she said. "Slow crowd."
Permafrost didn't touch the beer. "Who did that to your face?"
"Nobody. I fell."
"Bullshit."
Her jaw tightened. For a moment, he saw the flash of Norwegian steel that had always drawn his attention—that stubborn backbone that made her the only woman in the Iron Range who'd never once flinched when a Savage walked through her door.
"It's none of your business," she said quietly. "Drink your beer, Permafrost."
The hell it isn't.
But he didn't say it. Not yet. Not here.
Because he'd noticed the two men in the corner booth—strangers with flat eyes and the particular stillness of predators waiting for prey.
They'd been watching Maren since he walked in, and now they were watching him, assessing the cut on his back and the way he stood at the bar like he had every right to be there.
They weren't from here. Wrong clothes, wrong posture, wrong everything. These were men who'd learned their violence somewhere warmer, somewhere that didn't require layers and preparation and the particular toughness that Minnesota winters bred into anyone who survived them.
And they were looking at Maren like she belonged to them.
Permafrost's fury crystallized into something colder. More dangerous. The kind of rage that didn't burn hot but froze solid, patient enough to wait for the right moment to shatter.
He picked up his beer. Took a long drink. Set it back down with perfect control.
"How long have those two been coming around?" He kept his voice casual, just a regular asking about unfamiliar faces. But his eyes never left Maren's profile, watching the way her shoulders hitched at the question.
"Few weeks." She wiped down a section of bar that was already clean. "They're just passing through."
"They're not."
"Permafrost—"
"They're not passing through, and you know it.
" He leaned closer, lowering his voice so it wouldn't carry.
This close, he could see the shadows under her eyes, the fine tremor in her hands, the way exhaustion had carved new lines around her mouth.
"Whatever's happening here, Maren, you don't have to handle it alone. "
For just a moment, her mask cracked. He saw the fear underneath—raw and desperate—and something else that looked almost like hope before she shuttered it away.
"Yes," she said quietly. "I do."
She moved down the bar to serve another customer, and Permafrost understood he'd been dismissed. Any other night, he might have pushed. Might have planted himself on this barstool until she talked to him, until he'd dragged every detail out of her stubborn Norwegian silence.
But those two men were still watching. Still waiting. And the smartest thing he could do right now was leave before they understood exactly how much he'd noticed.
He finished his beer in three long swallows. Left his usual tip—plus extra, because something told him she'd need the money soon. And when he walked out the front door without looking back, he felt those flat eyes follow him all the way to his bike.
The ride to the compound took twenty minutes, and Permafrost spent every one of them cataloging what he knew and what he suspected. The bruise on her face. The plywood where the mirror used to be. The way she flinched when the door opened. The strangers who watched her like they owned her.
Someone was making a move on the Pickaxe. On his territory. On a woman whose father had served Savages for thirty years, who'd poured Permafrost's beer every Thursday night since she inherited the place.
On Maren.
His grip tightened on the handlebars until his knuckles ached.
The compound was lit up when he arrived—brothers gathered in the main building, bikes lined up outside like chrome soldiers. Permafrost killed his engine and was off the bike before it stopped rocking, his boots eating ground as he pushed through the clubhouse doors.
"Church," he said. "Now."
The word cut through the usual noise like a blade. Brothers looked up from their drinks, from their conversations, from the pool table where Whiteout had been running the table against a prospect. They saw their president's face, saw whatever was burning in his eyes, and they moved.
Two minutes later, the chapel doors closed behind the last man, and Permafrost stood at the head of the table with his palms flat on the scarred wood.
"Someone want to tell me what the hell is happening in Hibbing?"
Silence. Then Tundra shifted in his seat, his Finnish features giving nothing away but his voice carrying that flatness that meant trouble.
"McBride. Dale McBride. Ran meth through the Dakotas for fifteen years, decided Minnesota looked like easy territory about six months ago.
" Tundra's scarred hands curled around his beer.
"We've been tracking his people for weeks.
They've been testing borders, asking questions, setting up operations in towns we don't patrol regularly. "
"And nobody thought to bring this to church?"
"We were gathering intel." This from Ironside, his Swedish accent thickening the way it did when he was defensive. "Wanted to know what we were dealing with before we raised alarms. These men—they're not amateurs, Prez. They've got muscle, money, and a reputation for making problems disappear."
"How many?"
"Twelve that we've counted. Maybe more." Tundra pulled a folded paper from his cut, spreading it on the table. "They've been hitting businesses along Highway 53. Bars, mostly. Asking owners to cooperate with distribution, making it ugly when they refuse."
"Define ugly."
Tundra's eyes met his. "Three bar owners in the Dakotas. Two bent the knee eventually. The third—nobody's seen her in six months."
The fury that had been simmering in Permafrost's chest roared into something volcanic. He thought about Maren's bruised face, about the plywood where her grandfather's mirror used to hang, about the terror she'd tried so hard to hide.
"They're making a move on the Pickaxe."
"Looks like it." Ironside's missing fingers drummed against the table. "Halvorsen's place is perfectly positioned—highway access, local traffic, no real police presence. If McBride wants to run product through the Iron Range, it's the smart play."
"And Maren?"
"Word is she told them no." Tundra's voice carried something that might have been respect. "Pulled a shotgun on their enforcer three days ago. That's when they started getting rough."
Permafrost closed his eyes. Behind his lids, he saw her face—that flash of stubborn backbone before she'd shuttered it away. She'd stood up to armed drug dealers with nothing but her grandfather's shotgun and Norwegian grit.
And they'd hurt her for it.
"Who's the enforcer?"
"Cody Pruitt. Six-three, prison muscle, did eight years in Sioux Falls for aggravated assault." Tundra's lip curled. "He's been bragging about what he did to her. About what he's going to do when she doesn't meet their deadline."
"When's the deadline?"
"Friday."
Two days. She had two days before these bastards came back to finish what they'd started.
Permafrost opened his eyes. The brothers around the table had gone still, watching their president with the wariness of men who'd seen what happened when his temper slipped its leash.
"This is Savage territory," he said, and his voice was quiet in a way that made Ironside shift in his seat. "The Pickaxe has been Savage territory since my father drank there. Since Nils Halvorsen served our brothers with respect when half the Iron Range treated us like criminals."
He straightened, rolling his shoulders back, feeling the weight of his cut settle across them like armor.
"Maren Halvorsen is under our protection.
As of right now, tonight, anyone who touches her answers to this club.
" His eyes swept the table, meeting each brother's gaze in turn.
"I'm claiming this mission personally. Tundra, Ironside—you're with me.
We ride to the Pickaxe tomorrow night and make sure these flatlanders understand exactly whose territory they've wandered into. "
"And if they don't listen?" Whiteout asked, his sniper's stare already calculating angles and distances.
Permafrost's smile was thin and sharp as a blade.
"Then they learn why we're called Savages."