If Crow Iron confronted them, Harrow could paint the shop as violent.
If Crow Iron hid inside, the intimidation worked.
Ria looked at the dark tree line.
Then she said, "There's another option."
Everyone turned toward her.
"Turn on every light."
Silas frowned.
"Open the bay doors. Start every motorcycle."
"Why?"
"They came here to be invisible."
She looked toward the road.
"We answer with the opposite."
Minutes later, Crow Iron blazed against the night.
Motorcycles roared.
The bay doors opened.
The darkness lost its advantage.
Then Ria's phone rang.
The caller introduced himself.
Daniel Puit.
And what he said next changed the story again.
"I need you to understand," he told her, "that Silas Crowe hasn't been the only person hiding things."
Ten Minutes
Daniel Puit stood at the edge of the tree line with four security men nearby.
He asked for ten minutes.
Ria did not trust him.
Neither did Silas.
But Puit had come in person when he could have remained safely behind lawyers, companies, and anonymous phone calls.
Ria believed that meant something.
Not everything.
But something.
They brought him inside.
Under the bright lights of Crow Iron, Daniel Puit looked less like a villain than Ria expected.
That made her trust him even less.
He admitted that he had invested money in a holding structure connected to Harrow Capital. He claimed he had not understood the full purpose of the acquisitions at first.
By the time he understood, his money was trapped inside the structure.
"So you told yourself you weren't responsible," Ria said.
Puit looked at her.
"Yes."
He did not defend himself.
That was his first useful quality.
The second was what he had brought with him.
Evidence.
Kyle Masson had begun running his own intimidation campaign without authorization from Harrow's senior leadership. Threats, surveillance, hired men, photographs.
Masson had become impatient.
Legal pressure was not moving fast enough.
So he had escalated.
The photographs of Eleanor's house.
The note.
The surveillance.
All of it led back to him.
"The man who took the photograph of the pecan tree?" Ria asked.
"Torrance Webb."
"And Masson wrote the note?"
"Yes."
Puit offered documents, messages, payment records, and testimony.
In return, he wanted the opportunity to cooperate with the investigation.
Silas nearly refused.
Ria watched him struggle.
Puit had hurt May.
He had benefited from the system that had taken Ruth Harmon's home.
No evidence could undo that.
"You can't give us back what people lost," Silas said.
"No."
"But you can help stop the next person from losing theirs."
Puit nodded.
"That's all I have left to offer."
Silas looked at Ria.
She did not tell him what to do.
That was important.
For once, she understood that trust did not mean making someone else's decision.
It meant standing beside them while they made it.
Silas finally said, "Sit down."
For three hours, Crow Iron became something else.
Documents covered the workbench.
Burch questioned Puit over speakerphone.
Decker cross-referenced names and transactions.
Crane and Moss studied property records.
Rex walked the perimeter.
And Ria translated everything into the language she understood.
Load-bearing components.
Points of failure.
Stress applied to weak places.
Masson's intimidation campaign was the weakest part of the machine.
It was also the part most likely to break the entire system open.
By one in the morning, Burch had reached a conclusion.
"This is enough."
Enough for a formal criminal referral.
Enough to begin a federal investigation.
Enough to place Masson directly inside a pattern of threats and coercion.
For the first time, Ria allowed herself to believe they might win.
That was when the lights went out.
Not all at once.
First the far bay.
Then the office.
Then the entire building fell into darkness.
The oxygen concentrator stopped.
Eleanor's television went silent.
Ria's heart stopped with it.
Then emergency lights flickered on.
Rex was already moving.
"Generator's been cut."
Decker checked the back room.
Eleanor was conscious but frightened.
Silas stood beside her.
Ria looked toward the dark windows.
This was no longer a warning.
Masson had crossed the line.
And this time, the people inside Crow Iron were done reacting.
They were going to make him come to them.
The Engine Breaks
The plan came from Burch.