Page 18 of Kane's Kingdom

Dekker looks like a man who spent money trying not to look cheap, with polished boots, a gold watch and a white shirt open at the throat. He has no code, only ambition. He smiles when I walk up.

"President."

"Dekker."

"I was starting to think you didn't want to talk."

"I didn't."

His smile holds, but it takes work.

The river moves brown and slow behind him. Barges run this corridor north. Product, money, guns. Whatever pays. King taxed traffic when it suited him and ignored it when it didn't. Dekker saw the funeral and decided the river was now unclaimed. He picked the wrong town.

"I've got no interest in your club business," he says.

"You put a rock through Bella Rourke's window."

"Did I?"

"You had her run off River Road."

"That sounds very dangerous," he says with more than a little sarcasm.

My hands stay loose at my sides, despite the fury building inside me. Judge is silent beside me. He knows I don't need help speaking.

"She's off-limits," I say.

Dekker's gaze sharpens. "That right?"

"Touch her again and what you think we won't do is exactly what we'll do."

His smile disappears, not from fear, but calculation. He looks past me toward Tank, then back to the PRESIDENT patch on my cut. "Your old man would've asked what the route was worth."

"My old man's dead."

"He understood business."

"He understood fear."

"And you don't?"

I take one step closer.

"I understand it just fine." My voice stays low. "That's why I'm giving you a chance to feel it before it costs you more."

His eyes hold mine. The yard goes quiet except for the river and the soft tick of cooling engines.

Then Dekker nods once. "Message received.” His jaw tightens.

"You don't collect in Ransom. You don't move product through my town. You don't send Fenn near her again."

"That's a lot of territory for a man three weeks in the chair."

"I'm just getting started, and things are gonna be different around here.”

Judge's head turns slightly. Dekker doesn't understand the difference yet, but he will.

"Stay away from her," I say. "There won't be another warning."