"I want to know everything about him," I say. "Where he lives, what he does, how he found out she's here. Everything."
Cole's eyes sharpen. "I should be the one doing that."
"You should be with your sister." I keep my voice level. "She needs someone she trusts right now, and that's you. Let me handle the digging."
He wants to argue. I can see it in the set of his jaw, the tension across his shoulders. Cole has never been good at standing down when someone he loves is in danger, and Gemma is the only family he has left.
"She won't talk to me," he says finally, and the frustration in his voice cuts deeper than anger would. "Three weeks, and she still won't tell me what happened. I know it's bad. I can see it every time she looks at me, but she shuts down the second I push."
"Then don't push." I stand, move around the desk to lean against the front of it. "Be there. Be patient. She'll talk when she's ready."
"And if she's never ready?"
"Then we protect her anyway."
The words come out before I can weigh them, and Cole's gaze sharpens. He's known me too long. Fought beside me too many times. He can read what I'm not saying almost as well as I can.
"Will." His voice goes measured, deliberate. "What's going on with you and my sister?"
"Nothing." It's the truth. It has to be the truth. "She's your family, which makes her mine. That's all this is."
Cole studies me for a long moment. Whatever he sees makes him nod slowly. "Alright. But I want to know everything you find. The second you find it. Don't try to spare me."
"Wouldn't dream of it."
He heads out to open the shop, and I make calls. Tate first, then Shaw. By noon the four of us are gathered in the backroom we use for Brotherhood business—not the Forge, just a converted storage area with a heavy table and enough chairs for the core members.
Tate arrives first, the way he always does. Fifty-two, former Navy corpsman, fifteen years patching up wounded Marines before he traded his medical kit for a mechanic's wrench. His hair is more silver than black these days, and his hands bear the scars of both careers, but his eyes miss nothing.
Shaw comes in right behind him, still in uniform from his shift at the fire station. Early thirties, with restless energy that comes from a job where waiting and adrenaline trade places without warning.
"Cole's sister," Shaw says once I've laid out what we know. "The one who just came back to town. She was married to this guy?"
"Four years." Cole's jaw tightens. "She met him in Seattle right after she finished her MBA. I only met him twice, and both times something felt off, but she seemed happy, so I told myself I was being paranoid."
"You weren't." Tate leans forward, elbows on the table. "I saw her the other night at the bar. The way she carries herself, the way she reacts when someone gets too close. That's trauma response. Textbook."
Nobody asks how he knows. We've all seen it. In the women who come to the Forge looking for something they can't name. In the men too, sometimes. In ourselves, when we let ourselves look.
"What's the husband's full name?" Shaw asks.
"Craig Burns." Cole's voice goes flat on the name. "She took his name when they married, but she’s changing it back when she files for divorce."
"He already knows where she is," I say. "Her parents' house is public record. So is Cole's address. All he had to do was wait for her to run home."
"How do you want to handle this?" Shaw glances between me and Cole. "We bringing in the whole Brotherhood, or keeping it tight?"
"Tight for now." I catch Cole's eye, make sure he agrees before I continue. "We don't know what we're dealing with yet. Could be he's just a controlling asshole who doesn't want to let go. Could be something worse. Until we know which, we keep it in this room."
"I can run backgrounds," Tate offers. "Still have contacts who can dig without raising flags. I want to know where he works, where he lives, whether he's still in Seattle or already headed this way." He pauses. "And I want to know if there's a history. Restraining orders, assault charges, anything that got swept under the rug."
Cole's fist hits the table. "You think there's a record?"
"I think men like him don't usually stop at one victim. And I think your sister has been carrying something heavy for a long time. Whatever we find, it won't be pretty."
The meeting breaks up an hour later. Tate heads back to the shop. Shaw returns to the station with a promise to check in tonight. Cole lingers by the door, hand on the frame.
"She's not going to like this," he says. "Finding out we're digging into her business without asking."
