Chapter Five
She was arguing before they hit the first curve.
"My shop." Her voice came muffled through the helmet, but the steel in it carried just fine. "I can't just leave it. Everything I've built—"
"Is going to be there tomorrow." Pitfall leaned into the turn, felt her arms tighten around his waist as the bike tilted. "You won't be if you go back tonight."
"You don't know that."
"Yeah, I do." The road straightened and he opened the throttle, putting distance between them and whatever mess Grit was cleaning up in that parking lot. "The guy I dropped had friends. They're going to come looking for payback, and they're not going to wait until morning to do it."
"So I should just abandon everything? Let them win?"
"Dead women don't protect anything."
That shut her up. For about thirty seconds.
"I have artisans depending on me. Elderly people who can't get their work to market without my shop. If I disappear—"
"Then they wait a few days until we handle this." He kept his eyes on the road, reading the curves by memory and moonlight. "Few days of waiting beats a lifetime of you being gone."
Her grip loosened slightly. Not pulling away—adjusting. Getting comfortable for the long haul.
"Who are you people?" she asked. "Really?"
"Mountain Reapers. You've heard of us."
"Everyone's heard of you. That's not what I'm asking."
Smart woman. He'd figured that out already, but it kept getting confirmed.
"We're the ones who handle problems the law can't touch.
" He slowed for a switchback, the bike's headlight cutting through darkness that seemed to press in from all sides.
"Someone threatens a business in our territory, we deal with it.
Someone moves product without permission, we deal with that too.
The guys bothering you—they're operating in Reaper territory without Reaper blessing.
That makes them our problem as much as yours. "
"And what do you get out of helping me?"
"Intel. Leverage. A threat eliminated before it spreads." He paused. "Plus I liked that basket."
She made a sound that might have been a laugh, surprised out of her. "You're risking your life over a basket?"
"I'm risking my life because that's what prospects do. The basket's just a bonus."
The road climbed, switchbacks getting tighter as they gained elevation. Pitfall navigated by feel, the bike an extension of his body after years of riding these mountains. Behind him, Nadine had stopped arguing and started thinking. He could practically hear the gears turning.
"They're running counterfeit goods," she said finally. "Designer knockoffs, fake electronics, anything that looks expensive but isn't. They want legitimate storefronts to move the product—shops with good reputations and local trust."
"How many shops they got?"
"I don't know. They mentioned expanding into the area, which means they've already got a network somewhere else." Her arms tightened as they hit a rough patch of road. "They've been pressuring me for almost a month. Started friendly, got less friendly fast."
"The brick through your window."
"That was the escalation. Before that it was just... suggestions. Implications. The kind of threats you can't prove to anyone who wasn't there."
Pitfall's jaw clenched. He knew the type. Men who built empires on fear and plausible deniability, who convinced themselves they were businessmen instead of thugs. They were the worst kind of predator—smart enough to avoid obvious lines, ruthless enough to cross them when it mattered.
"The guy I put down tonight—he got a name?"
"Darrell something. I didn't catch a last name.
" She shifted behind him, and he was suddenly very aware of her thighs pressed against his, her chest against his back, her arms wrapped around him like he was the only solid thing in a world gone sideways.
"There's another one. Smaller, meaner smile. He's the one who does the talking."
"We'll find him."
"And then what?"
"Then we have a conversation about business practices."
She was quiet for a moment. "Is that a euphemism for something violent?"
"Probably."
"Good." The word came out hard, laced with a fury he hadn't heard from her before. "They destroyed three of Mabel's baskets. She's eighty-three years old and she cried when I told her. Whatever you do to them, they deserve worse."
Something shifted in Pitfall's chest. Not just attraction—though that was there, had been there since she'd lifted her chin and told him the window break was an accident. This was something else. Respect, maybe. Recognition.
She wasn't just tough. She was protective. Fierce about the people depending on her in a way that reminded him of what brotherhood meant.
"Tell me about the artisans," he said.
"Why?"
"Because I want to know what we're protecting."
The question seemed to catch her off guard. For a moment she didn't answer, and he thought she might deflect again, keep her walls up the way she'd been doing since he first walked into her shop.
Then she started talking.
She told him about Mabel Hensley, who'd been weaving baskets since the Depression and whose fingers still remembered patterns her grandmother had taught her.
About Clara Osborne, whose pottery wheel had belonged to her grandfather and whose vases caught light like they were made of something more than clay.
About Douglas Fenton, who carved walking sticks with hands that shook from age but never slipped, and who'd been cheated by dealers so many times he'd almost stopped making anything at all.
She told him about building the cooperative from nothing, convincing people who'd been burned by the world to trust someone young and hungry and maybe a little naive.
About fighting for fair prices when everyone else wanted to pay pennies.
About the satisfaction of watching an eighty-year-old woman's face light up when her work sold for what it was actually worth.
Pitfall listened and drove and felt something dangerous taking root in his chest.
This wasn't just a woman who needed protection. This was someone who'd built something worth protecting, who'd dug in and fought for people who couldn't fight for themselves. The kind of person you didn't just rescue and forget.
The kind of person you kept.
He shoved that thought down hard. Too soon. Too much. She was a job right now, a threat to be neutralized and a civilian to keep safe. Anything else was a complication he couldn't afford.
But her arms were still around him. And her voice was still in his ear, passionate and angry and alive. And the twenty-minute ride felt like it ended way too soon when the safehouse lights appeared through the trees.
He pulled up to the cabin and cut the engine. The silence that followed seemed louder than the bike had been.
"This is it?" Nadine pulled off the helmet, looked around at the hollow and the cabin and the darkness pressing in from all sides. "Middle of nowhere."
"That's the point." He swung off the bike, offered her a hand down. Her fingers were cold when they touched his, and he held on longer than necessary. "Nobody finds this place unless we want them to."
"And you're sure about that?"
"I'm sure." He unlocked the cabin door, pushed it open. Warmth spilled out from the woodstove someone had lit earlier—Grit probably, anticipating this exact situation. "Inside's stocked. Food, water, medical supplies. You need anything, it's here."
She stepped past him into the cabin, and he watched her take it in—the small space, the reinforced windows, the simplicity of a place designed for hiding.
Her shoulders were still tense, but something in her posture had changed.
The coiled-spring readiness had faded into something closer to exhaustion.
"How long?" she asked without turning around.
"However long it takes to make sure you're safe."
"That's not an answer."
"It's the only one I've got." He leaned against the doorframe, watching her. "These guys aren't amateurs. They've got a network, resources, muscle. Taking them down isn't going to happen overnight."
She turned then, met his eyes. The fear was still there, buried deep, but it wasn't running the show anymore. What he saw instead was calculation. Assessment. The look of a woman figuring out her next move.
"I want to help," she said.
"You are helping. The intel you gave me on the ride—"
"I mean really help. Not just sit here and wait while other people fight my battles."
Pitfall felt his jaw tighten. Every instinct he had screamed against it—putting a civilian in danger, risking someone who didn't know how to handle the violence that was coming.
But the set of her chin was familiar. He'd seen it in the mirror every day for the last ten months, that stubborn refusal to be sidelined while others did the hard work.
"We'll talk about it," he said. "After you've slept. After the club decides how we're handling this."
"That's not a no."
"It's not a yes either." He straightened, prepared to leave. "Get some rest. I'll be back in the morning."
"Where are you going?"
"Compound. Grit's going to want a full debrief, and there's a guy with a broken arm who's got a lot of questions to answer." He paused at the threshold. "Lock the door behind me. Don't open it for anyone who doesn't give you the code."
"What's the code?"
"Pitfall sent me." His mouth quirked. "Creative, I know."
She almost smiled. Almost.
"Thank you," she said. "For tonight. For... all of it."
"Don't thank me yet." He stepped out into the cold mountain air. "This is just the beginning."
The door closed behind him, and he heard the lock click into place. Good. She listened. That would make keeping her alive a hell of a lot easier.
Pitfall stood on the porch for a long moment, staring at the closed door like it held answers to questions he hadn't figured out how to ask yet. Then he shook his head, climbed back on his bike, and rode toward the compound with the memory of her arms around his waist and her voice in his ear.
She'd stopped looking over her shoulder by the time they'd arrived. Started looking forward instead, toward whatever came next.
He just had to make sure whatever came next didn't get her killed.