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CHAPTER 232 PART 2
Uriah Wells turned to his men and gave the signal to leave with a single gesture. They moved to their vehicles with the urgent efficiency of people who understood that proximity to this situation was a liability that increased with every second.Pierce looked at his boss. Looked at Buck Tanner. Looked at the blood on the pavement that had come from his own face. Then he followed Uriah Wells to the sedan without speaking.The convoy disappeared from the street within ninety seconds.Buck Tanner turned back to Hendrix Ridge, who had been standing at the entrance of his building watching the entire sequence with the expression of someone observing events that belonged to a different version of reality."Pay the money back," Buck said. His voice was simple, direct, carrying no threat beyond the statement itself. "The terms are clear. The timeline is clear."Pierce Ridge appeared at his father's side. His face was swollen, his earlier confidence replaced by the specific humility of someone
CHAPTER 232 PART 1
Pierce Ridge slipped away from the circle with the controlled casualness of someone who didn't want the movement to look like retreat. He pulled his phone from his jacket and dialed Uriah Wells with his back turned to Buck Tanner, his voice dropped to the register people used when they were sharing information they didn't want overheard."Boss," Pierce said. "I'm at my father's place. There's a man here claiming to be Buck Tanner. One of Aron Jackson's five tiger generals."The silence on the other end lasted three seconds."Claiming to be Buck Tanner," Uriah Wells repeated. His voice was careful. "I saw Buck Tanner at Aron Jackson's meeting less than an hour ago. He was assigned a specific task. A task that should take him to the eastern district for the rest of the afternoon.""You're sure?" Pierce pressed."I watched Jackson give him the assignment personally," Uriah replied. "There's no way he finished it this quickly. And men of his rank don't show up on residential streets to co
CHAPTER 231 PART 2
"I will not step back," Nadine replied firmly. "This man came to my brother's home. He threatened banners. He discussed our family's finances in the street like they were public entertainment."She pointed at Buck Tanner with the specific gesture of someone who believed the pointing itself communicated authority."Apologize properly," Nadine told him. "Apologize for the disruption. Apologize for the threat to my brother's dignity. And maybe, if I'm satisfied with the sincerity of it, I'll still be willing to discuss repayment terms.""Aunt Nadine, please," Pierce's voice was urgent. "You don't understand who you're talking to.""I understand perfectly," Nadine replied. "I'm talking to a debt collector who forgot his manners."She turned back to Pierce. "Handle this. You have men. You have resources. Hit them if they won't listen. That's what family does. That's what I expect from my nephew."Pierce didn't move. His face showed the particular expression of someone watching a catastroph
CHAPTER 231 PART 1
Pierce Ridge climbed out of the lead van with the specific confidence of a man who had never been on the wrong side of a standoff. He ran the North District under Uriah Wells, and since Aron Jackson's operation absorbed what the Three Blade Group left behind in this part of the city, Pierce's name carried the kind of weight that made conversations shorter and negotiations faster.He sized up the debt collectors in approximately four seconds. Professional. Well-dressed. The kind of people who operated inside legal boundaries but understood how to make those boundaries feel like walls closing in.He dismissed them in the next five."You're done here," Pierce told the lead collector. His voice carried the particular authority of someone who was accustomed to giving instructions that were followed without discussion. "Whatever business you have with my father, bring it to my office. Through proper channels. You don't show up at someone's home and threaten them with banners."The lead coll
CHAPTER 230 PART 2
Nadine's hands started shaking before she finished the first page. The numbers on the statement were arranged with the clinical precision of a financial document that had been prepared for exactly this purpose.She read it once. Then she read it again, more slowly, her eyes moving across each line as if checking whether the numbers might rearrange themselves into something less devastating."Hendrix," Nadine's voice was stripped of its usual authority. "Read this. Tell me I'm seeing it wrong."She handed the statement to her brother with the movement of someone passing something they didn't want to hold anymore.Hendrix took the paper with the faint condescension of an older brother who believed his sister was overreacting to a routine financial document. He shifted his groceries to one arm and held the statement up to the light.His eyes found the account balance."This says," Hendrix started. His voice changed midway through the sentence. "This says the account holds...""Read the n
CHAPTER 230 PART 1
The Ridge family used to carry weight in Grayson City. Not the kind of weight that moved buildings or redirected rivers, but the modest, comfortable kind that came from a leather goods business that produced steady income and the particular confidence of people who had never been poor.Nadine's father built it. A factory. A distribution network. A name that people in the garment district recognized when it was spoken. He arranged Nadine's marriage to Glenn Hartford when the Hartford Group was still a mid-tier operation searching for its footing, believing the connection would lift both families.Then the business failed. The factory closed. The distribution network dissolved. And the Ridge siblings fell from comfortable arrogance into a bitterness they had carried for decades, the specific kind that came from remembering what you used to have and understanding that the remembering was all that remained.Nadine married into the Hartford family and expected it to lift her. It didn't. Gl
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