Chapter 13
Paige was in the compound's main building, finishing the last arrangement for the Henderson wedding—white roses and pine sprigs, Minnesota flowers for a Minnesota bride—when her cell buzzed on the table beside her.
Unknown number. Ely area code.
She answered.
"Ms. Kirkland? This is Chief Halverson with the Ely Volunteer Fire Department." The voice was strained, professional. "I'm sorry to inform you that there's been a fire at your property on Main Street."
The world narrowed to a single point.
"How bad?"
"The building is fully involved, ma'am. We're working to contain it, but—" A pause. Sirens in the background. Shouting. "The adjacent structures have been impacted. The hardware store is gone. The laundromat is partially collapsed."
Paige's hands stopped shaking.
That was the first thing she noticed. The tremor that had plagued her since the assault, the physical evidence of adrenaline and fear—it vanished. Replaced by something cold. Something quiet.
"Was anyone inside?"
"We don't believe so. The hardware store was closed for renovation. The laundromat owner evacuated when she saw smoke." Another pause. "Ms. Kirkland, there are witnesses saying they saw men with accelerants. This wasn't accidental."
"I know."
"The sheriff will want to—"
"I'll be there in twenty minutes."
She hung up.
The compound had gone quiet around her. Brothers who'd been moving through the space had stopped, reading her posture, her face, the stillness that had replaced motion.
Tourniquet appeared from the hallway. He took one look at her and crossed the room in three strides.
"What happened?"
"Greer burned my shop." The words came out flat. Controlled. "The hardware store too. Half the laundromat."
His jaw tightened. "Casualties?"
"None reported."
"Where's Janney now?"
"Gone. Witnesses saw men with accelerants, but they're not there anymore.
" She set down the arrangement she'd been working on—carefully, precisely, like it mattered.
Like anything mattered except the cold fury building in her chest. "They did it in broad daylight.
In front of witnesses. They don't care anymore. "
Tourniquet's hand found her elbow. The grip was firm, grounding.
"We're rolling to Ely. Now."
"I know."
She grabbed her jacket and followed him out.
The ride to Ely took eighteen minutes.
Paige spent it in the passenger seat of Tourniquet's truck, watching the pine trees blur past, feeling nothing. The grief was there—she could sense it lurking at the edges—but she'd learned in Helmand how to compartmentalize. How to compress emotion into a box and schedule it for later.
Later could be a long time from now.
Tourniquet drove in silence, one hand on the wheel, the other resting on her thigh. Claiming. Anchoring. She wasn't sure if the contact was for her benefit or his.
Behind them, bikes rumbled. Permafrost, Tundra, Ironside—the club rolling in force. A show of strength that Greer would hear about within the hour.
Too late to matter.
The smoke was visible from a mile out.
It rose in a thick black column against the November sky, marking the location of everything she'd built since Helmand. Four years of work. Four years of proving she could be something other than a convoy driver.
Gone.
They pulled onto Main Street, and Paige stepped out of the truck into chaos.
Fire trucks blocked the road. Hoses snaked across the pavement, pouring water onto buildings that were already beyond saving. The volunteer firefighters moved with grim efficiency, focused on containment rather than rescue.
Her shop was a skeleton.
The walls still stood—barely—but the interior was gutted. Flames licked through the windows she'd picked out herself, devouring the counter she'd refinished, the cooler she'd installed, the space where she'd built arrangements for weddings and funerals and everything in between.
The hardware store next door was worse. The roof had collapsed, taking the second floor with it. Decades of inventory, generations of family business—reduced to smoking rubble.
The laundromat on the corner was partially standing, but the shared wall had buckled. Water and fire damage extended through half the structure.
Three businesses. One block. One man's ambition.
"Ms. Kirkland?"
She turned. A woman in her sixties stood nearby—gray hair, soot-streaked face, the dazed expression of someone whose world had just collapsed.
"I'm Edith Morrow. I own the laundromat." The woman's voice shook. "I saw them. Four men, maybe five. They had cans—gasoline, I think. They started at your shop and worked down the block."
"Did you recognize any of them?"
"One. The leader. Lean guy, mean-looking. I've seen him around town the past few weeks, watching buildings, taking notes." Edith's hands twisted together. "He looked right at me when they were leaving. Smiled. Like he wanted me to see."
Karl Janney.
Greer's escalation weapon. The professional enforcer brought in when property damage and coordination failed.
Now he'd graduated to arson.
"Thank you," Paige said. "I'm sorry about your building."
"I'm sorry about yours." Edith glanced toward the smoking ruins of the flower shop. "You were always nice. Brought me flowers on my birthday. Didn't charge."
The detail hit harder than it should have.
Paige walked away before her composure cracked.
Tourniquet was waiting beside the fire line, talking to one of the volunteer firefighters. When he saw her approaching, he broke off the conversation and moved to meet her.
"Chief says the fire started in your building. Multiple ignition points—professional work. They wanted to make sure it burned hot and fast."
"Janney."
"Has to be." His hand found the small of her back. "Greer's done playing games. This is scorched earth."
She looked at the ruins of her shop. At the smoke still rising. At the block that had been her home for four years, now reduced to charred framework and broken dreams.
"He burned occupied adjacent buildings," she said quietly. "The laundromat owner was inside when it started. She could have died."
"I know."
"He doesn't care anymore. About witnesses. About collateral. About consequences."
"I know."
She turned to face him. His eyes were hard, but beneath the anger she saw something else—concern. For her. For what this was doing to her.
"I'm okay," she said, though she wasn't sure if it was true.
"You're not okay." His voice was gentle. "You're functioning. There's a difference."
"Functioning is what I do."
"I know that too." He pulled her close, wrapping his arms around her in full view of the firefighters, the brothers, the gathering crowd of Ely residents who'd come to watch their neighborhood burn. "But you don't have to do it alone anymore."
She let herself lean into him. Just for a moment. Just long enough to feel his heartbeat against her cheek, steady and strong.
Then she straightened and stepped back.
"Janney did this in broad daylight. He wanted witnesses. He wanted me to know exactly who was responsible."
"Greer's making a statement."
"He's making a mistake." Her voice hardened. "He just burned three businesses in a town that doesn't forget. He turned this into a community problem, not just mine."
Permafrost appeared beside them, his cold eyes surveying the damage.
"The landlord's on his way. Frank Dalton—owns the whole block." The president's voice was ice. "He's not going to be happy."
"Nobody's happy," Paige said. "But at least now it's not just me against Greer. It's everyone he's hurt."
She looked at the cluster of Ely residents gathering behind the fire line. Business owners. Neighbors. People who'd bought flowers from her shop and hardware from the store next door and done their laundry at the corner. People who'd watched Greer's crew intimidate and threaten and finally burn.
People who were done being afraid.
"He wanted to destroy me," she said. "Instead, he created witnesses. Allies. A whole block of people who are going to remember what he did."
Tourniquet's arm settled around her shoulders, and she felt the tension in his body—the barely leashed violence waiting for a target.
"He also created a deadline," Tourniquet said. "Greer's out of subtle options. He's burned his foreman, his coordinator, and now he's let Janney off the leash. When we hit back, he won't have anyone left to hide behind."
"Then we hit back."
"Soon." His voice dropped. "But first, we need to deal with Janney. He's the last wall between us and Greer."
Paige nodded, her eyes still on the smoking ruins.
Four years of work. Gone.
But the woman who'd built it—the veteran who'd driven through Taliban territory and pulled soldiers from burning vehicles—she was still standing.
And she wasn't done fighting.
Tourniquet stood beside her, reading the damage the way he read everything—categorizing, assessing, triaging.
"What's lost is lost," he said finally. "The building. The inventory. The space." His gaze moved across the destruction. "But the insurance will pay. The landlord will rebuild. And Greer—"
"Greer will pay a different price."
"Yeah." His arm tightened around her. "He will."
His assessment was clinical, the medic in him unable to stop diagnosing even now: a man who burns occupied adjacent buildings has stopped calculating collateral.
Which makes him more dangerous.
And more reckless.