Chapter 22 Ridge
TWENTY-TWO
Ridge
The chatter on the other side of the door cuts off the second I open it. The conference room goes still.
Wells sits at the far end of the table, his laptop casting a muted blue glow across the polished wood. Gabe is angled toward him, broad shoulders turned halfway in his chair, like he was mid-thought and stopped the moment I entered.
Vin’s fingers tap against the table like a hammer. I can tell immediately he’s restless and ready for action, over the talk.
I take my seat. “We need to make some decisions. I want to share everything I’ve learned, and everyone will get to weigh in on where we go from here.”
Wells looks up, the reflection of his screen catching in his glasses. He only wears them when he is buried in numbers or timelines, when precision matters. It lends him an authority he doesn’t need but carries well.
There’s no confusion about why we are all here. But I want to be clear that I’m not making decisions in a vacuum. I may have stepped into the lead, but we are all doing this.
Gabe leans back slightly, his presence filling the space without effort. He isn’t blood, but he is family in every way that counts. He has been in this long enough to know when things shift from management to consequence.
And in a way, he’s here in Reeves’s place, since he hasn’t been able to get leave yet.
This isn’t about appearances. It’s about consequences.
Vin sits closer to my end of the table. His fingers haven’t stopped moving since I walked in.
I let my eyes move around the room once before I speak again. I give a brief rundown and let Wells fill in the gaps.
I walk them through what we have, not every detail, but enough that no one’s guessing. The photos from my father’s desk. Iggy’s identification. Vin’s confirmation. Wells fills in dates and numbers where they matter. By the time I finish, the shape of it is clear.
“The Duvalls have always been small,” I say.
“Not irrelevant, just operating at a different scale. We handled the infrastructure. They rented capacity when they needed it and disappeared when they didn’t.
Our businesses didn’t overlap enough to matter, and as long as that stayed true, the system worked. ”
I watch faces as I talk. Wells stays still, and Gabe’s jaw tightens while Vin’s fingers finally slow.
“That changed Thursday, October twelfth.”
I don’t embellish it. The date carries its own weight.
“They were never positioned to challenge us directly before then,” I continue. “I don’t know what made them think this would hold, but they must have believed the misdirection would buy them time. For a while, it did.”
I let the silence sit long enough to register.
“They assumed there’d be hesitation while we recalibrated after our father’s death. Or, maybe we’d stay focused on the Boudreauxs and miss what was moving through our own channels.”
“Fuck them,” Rhodes mutters.
I don’t respond. Revenge is part of it, but that’s not all this is. It’s about making sure the ports and everything that depends on them keep functioning the way they should.
“We didn’t move without confirmation,” I continue. “The man responsible for our father’s death claimed Laurent Boudreaux ordered it. Under the circumstances, that was enough to make it plausible.”
I pause.
“But Laurent lived long enough to clear his name. We’re not allies. We never will be. The evidence holds, and I know he didn’t order it.”
The image comes anyway. Dark hair against white sheets. The weight of her hand on my chest. The way that first mistake folded her into all of this before I understood what it would cost.
I clear my throat and keep my eyes on the table until the moment passes.
“I don’t think anyone would have lost sleep if you’d put him down anyway,” Beau says, drawing a few quiet nods around the table.
I slam my hand down once. Hard enough to stop it. That isn’t why we’re here.
“What were they running before this?” Rhodes asks. He’s still orienting himself, still learning where the weight actually sits. It’s a fair question.
“Small contracts,” Vin says before I do. “Import-export, mostly. Inexpensive electronics and short runs out of China and Southeast Asia. Low margins, low scrutiny. They took whatever business would clear and didn’t ask many questions.”
The kind of freight no one flags. The kind no one remembers.
Wells turns his laptop toward the table. A map fills the screen, shipping lanes threaded with red markers.
“They ramped up fast,” he says. “Usage quadrupled in under a month as their volume spiked. Frequency increased, and they stopped bothering to spread it out. They definitely found a supplier that was willing to use them to bring their products to the US.”
I study the map. The overlap is obvious now, even if it wouldn’t have been at first. I’ve gone over it enough times to know exactly where it breaks.
“They needed ingress they didn’t have,” I say. “Lanes. Space. Throughput. When Dad shut that door, they ran out of options.”
The room stays quiet.
“This was the only way they could keep it moving.”
Wells nods. “Every one of these routes ties back to a shipment since he was killed. Several were previously under Stone control.”
“They didn’t ease in,” Gabe says quietly. “They took.”
“Ambition made them sloppy,” I say. “They assumed our father’s death would leave enough chaos to create a gap.”
“And they assumed our attention would stay fixed on the Boudreauxs,” Vin adds, leaning forward, his hands clasped on top of the table.
“Alton’s directing it, but his son’s handling the docks.
Colin’s loud and brings hired muscle to make a point.
Roman LeClair and Denny Mays follow money, not loyalty. ”
“And Alton?” I ask.
“Stays back,” Wells answers. “Calculated and patient. He’s been underestimated for years, and now he’s testing how far he can go.”
“Takes nerve to think you can remove Robert Stone and step into his place,” Gabe says.
“They believed if they could put the Stones and Boudreauxs at war with each other, no one would bother policing the channels, and then they would continue to grow and consolidate their power,” Wells adds.
“Exactly,” I say.
“They built something quietly, and the plan almost worked.” I lean forward, forearms resting on the table. “Almost.”
The room holds that.
“Dad would’ve probably assigned this out,” I continue. “He’d keep distance and protect the structure. But this isn’t that. I want to be the face of it. I don’t want distance.”
I twirl the pen once, then set it down. “We intercepted one of their shipments and waited. They didn’t respond.”
“So do you think they realize they’ve been caught?” Rhodes asks.
“Wells doesn’t think so,” I say. “But we’re about to find out.”
I straighten. “I’m done waiting.”
My gaze moves deliberately from face to face. No one interrupts.
“So, in light of all this, are we aligned?”
No one argues.
“Good. Then I’ll see this through.”
Rhodes runs a hand through his hair, still watching me. A slow grin tugs at his mouth.
“Wells,” I say, “lock down location and timing.”
“On it.”
“Vin and Rhodes will monitor dock activity and lane movement. Rocky, you’ll handle the pickup once Wells confirms.”
“Understood,” they say.
I turn to Rocky. “When Wells gives the word, you move. Call me as soon as you have him.”
“Roger.”
Chairs scrape back. The room clears without conversation, but I stay where I am for a few moments longer, letting the silence settle around me.
The chair across from me sits empty. The wood is marked where my father used to rest his hands, worn smooth by years of habit. The overhead lights hum, loud now that no one is speaking.
I set my pen down and lean back, lacing my fingers behind my head. We’re doing this.
The smell hits first.
Blood and sweat hang in the air, sharp and metallic, thick enough that I register it before I register the room. It clings to the walls, the floor, the chair. Whatever happened here before I arrived has already been absorbed and cataloged, filed away as inevitable.
Alton Duvall is barely upright. His wrists are bound to the arms of the chair, shoulders slumped forward, head tipped at an angle that tells me he’s past pain and somewhere closer to the edge of endurance.
One eye is swollen shut. The other tracks me when I move, unfocused but alert enough to understand what this moment is.
Colin sits a few feet away beneath the same flickering bulb. He’s upright and awake, breathing too fast. He keeps looking at his father, like he’s waiting for him to fix this, like authority might still mean something if he believes hard enough.
Outside, laughter drifts in through cracked concrete. There’s music and someone shouting over a bad costume. Halloween in the city. Life continues on schedule while this finishes in the margins.
Alton lifts his head with effort. Blood slides from his lip and lands on his shirt.
“Ridge,” he rasps. “This doesn’t need to happen.”
I crouch in front of him, lowering myself until we’re eye level. I don’t rush it. I don’t raise my voice.
“You don’t get to decide what needs to happen,” I say. “You crossed a line, and now you will reap the consequences.”
His eye flicks briefly toward Colin.
“You and Stone Intermodal worked together for years. My father graciously rented a warehouse and opened his lanes to you,” I continue. “You moved product, you made money, he made money. The city was big enough for both of you.”
Alton swallows. His breathing is uneven now.
“But you wanted more, a faster route with less oversight.”
“We talked,” Alton says hoarsely. “That’s all it was. Talks.”
“You tried to buy him,” I reply. “You tried to pressure him. When that didn’t work, you assumed he’d eventually look the other way. He didn’t.”
Colin shifts, the chair scraping faintly. “He wasn’t clean,” he snaps. “Don’t pretend he was. Stone Intermodal didn’t ask too many questions when the money cleared.”
My gaze shifts to him.