Page 183 of Joker

Useful work. Deliberate work. The kind that keeps my hands occupied and my head from slipping back into the kitchen every ten minutes.

I reassign two prospects to the south edge where the tree cover’s thickest. I have Cain add another internal rotation to keep eyes on the women and kids without making it obvious enough to feel like a prison guard setup. I coordinate with Dom on check-in intervals for the town eyes and make sure he’s pulling every traffic camera ping he can get without tripping official attention.

Logan takes chapter-level control the way he always does when things start turning from messy into dangerous. He doesn’t bark. Doesn’t posture. He just makes decisions and the whole machine shifts around them.

By early evening, we’ve got extra patrols, wider surveillance, rotating bikes on the roads in and out of town, three new eyes in places nobody would look twice at, and enough contingency routes mapped out to move Raven and Lexi off property inside four minutes if we absolutely have to.

Still doesn’t feel like enough. It never does when the thing you’re protecting has a face.

The sun’s almost fully down by the time I finally circle back inside.

I haven’t seen Raven since the fight. Not properly.

Caught sight of her once through the common room window, sitting with Lexi in her lap while Emma talked to her low and soft enough that I knew better than to interrupt.

That helped. And hurt. And settled nothing.

I tell myself I’ll go to her once I’ve checked the final camera sweep with Dom.

Once I’ve seen the gate myself. Once I’ve confirmed the rotation at the back lot. Once I’ve put one more practical step between me and the fact that I miss her like something got physically cut off my body when I left that kitchen.

Cowardly.

True.

I’m halfway down the back hall when Dom steps out of Logan’s office and says my name in the kind of flat, urgent tone that makes every muscle in my body lock before my brain even catches up.

“What?”

He doesn’t answer right away. Just holds up his phone.

On the screen is a still frame from one of the road cameras. White SUV. Parked at an angle on the shoulder by Miller’s Bend, just outside the range of the main property line but close enough to matter. Driver’s side door open. Two men.

One of them is on the phone. The other is looking through binoculars toward the tree line.

I don’t ask how recent it is.

Dom answers anyway. “Thirty-seven seconds ago.”

Everything in me goes very, very still. Not the hurt now. Not the fear. Not the confusion.

Just the cold. The useful kind. The violent kind.

The kind that strips everything down to instinct and action and makes you grateful for all the pain you shoved into work instead of bleeding it onto the people you love.

“Who’s on the line?” I ask.

Dom’s fingers move over the screen, zooming. “Can’t confirm. But Logan already has Shadow and Blaze moving. Cain’s locking internal positions.”

Good. Perfect.

I look past him toward the common room where I know Raven and Lexi are still somewhere inside the belly of this building, still breathing, still unaware that the impact I’ve been feeling all day just finally showed its face.

Before I can move, my phone vibrates in my cut.

Unknown number.

I already know who it is before I answer. The second I put it to my ear, I go still in that deep, cold way that means whatever happens next is going to end in blood. “Yeah.”