The fact that they called you directly instead of responding through the legal channel tells me something. What does it tell you? It tells me they're hoping to resolve this without putting anything in writing, Reyes said. Which tells me they know exactly what we found. A beat.
Mr. Carter, I think Apex is going to fold on this. I don't know how fast and I don't know the exact terms yet, but I've seen this pattern before. When they call the person instead of the lawyer, they're looking for a softer exit than the legal route gives them. Ethan absorbed that. How long has this been happening?
He asked. Not his case specifically. The pattern. Reyes was quiet for a moment. Longer than it should have been allowed to, he said.
These outfits target people who are isolated from the kind of help that would let them fight back. Elderly homeowners, people in rural areas, people who have assets, the house, the land, but limited access to legal resources. They've probably run the same structure on dozens of properties in Arizona alone. The cold rage was back, but it had a different shape now than it had the night before. The night before, it had been about Ethan's own situation, his own months of fear and avoidance, and the exhausting arithmetic of a man trying to keep what was his.
Now it was larger than that. "If we send them to court," Ethan said carefully, "and the violation is documented in the record, it becomes public," Reyes said. "Yes, which is why they're going to try very hard to settle privately. And if I don't let them," Ethan said. The silence on the other end lasted long enough that Ethan could hear Rya's breathing.
"Mr. Carter," Rehea said slowly, "that would be a longer process and a harder one. It would mean this doesn't get resolved for you quickly. It might drag out. It might get complicated, and there's no guarantee of how it ends." "I understand that," Ethan said.
"Why be slow?" Fas asked, not skeptically, genuinely wanting to know. Ethan thought about it for a moment. He thought about the stack of unopened envelopes. He thought about the morning walk along the highway.
He thought about what Reyes had said they target people who are isolated from help. And he thought about how many people in outlying Arizona towns were right now sitting at kitchen tables staring at letters from Apex Lending and believing the number in those letters was the true number. Because I'm not the only one they've done this to, Ethan said. And I'm probably the first one who's in a position where fighting it doesn't cost me anything. I can't afford to lose.
Reyes was quiet again. I'll need to talk to Jackson, he said finally. You do that, Ethan said. I'll wait. Jackson called back in 40 minutes.
By that time, Decker had come down off the roof and found Ethan in the kitchen and given him a rundown of what they'd fixed and what they'd caught before it became a problem. And the conversation had been practical and plain in the way that Ethan appreciated two men talking about materials and structural integrity in the particular Arizona weather conditions that shorten the life of certain kinds of roofing seal. When Jackson called, Ethan walked outside to take it. Reyes told me what you're thinking, Jackson said. And and I think Jackson said and there was something in his voice that Ethan hadn't heard before.
Not surprised exactly, but something adjacent to it. Something that might have been the sound of a man revising an estimate upward. That you are not what I expected when I showed up at your house yesterday. I'm exactly what I've always been, Ethan said. I know, Jackson said.
That's what I mean. A pause. If you're going to push this to court, you need more than Reyes. You need someone withstanding to file, and that's a different kind of resource. Do you have that kind of resource?
Ethan asked. The Hell's Angles have been dealing with legal situations for 40 years, Jackson said dryly. We know attorneys the way mechanics know parts suppliers. Then the question is whether you think it's worth it, Ethan said. The question, Jackson said, is whether you understand what you're starting.
Ethan turned that over. He understood it. He thought as well as a man could understand something he decided about 3 minutes into a phone conversation. But some decisions had a quality to them. The same quality he'd felt on the highway shoulder holding the wallet, where the rightness of the thing arrived faster than the reasoning, and the reasoning just had to catch up.
I understand enough, Ethan said. Jackson was quiet for a moment. Decker's still there, he asked. Just finished up, Ethan said. Ask him to stay.
I'm going to come by. He arrived an hour later, this time alone, no motorcycles behind him. He pulled up in a truck that had the particular unself-conscious practicality of a vehicle that was driven hard and maintained carefully. And he climbed out and came to the door and Ethan let him in. And they sat at the same kitchen table where they'd sat the day before.
Jackson looked at the kitchen, at the faucet that no longer dripped, at the door that no longer stuck, at the space where the envelopes had been stacked. Ethan had moved them to the counter. Reyes thinks Apex will settle, Jackson said. I know, Ethan said. I don't want them to.
Jackson studied him. Say that again so I'm sure I heard it. I don't want them to settle privately, Ethan said. I want what they did on record. Not because I need the fight, but because if it's not on record, they move to the next person and the next, and it never stops.
Jackson Morgan looked at Ethan Carter for a long time. Long enough that Ethan felt it the specific weight of being seen by someone who was very good at seeing people who did it professionally and continuously and who was currently performing that function on him with full attention. You know what the funny thing is? Jackson said, "Tell me, I've spent 40 years building something that most people are afraid of." Jackson said, "Most of what we've done, the good things, the things I'm actually proud of, we've had to do quietly because the reputation works against us when we try to do anything openly.
We can't stand up in a courtroom and advocate for somebody without it becoming about us instead of about them." He paused. "You could." Ethan understood what he was saying. "A 72-year-old retired mechanic," Ethan said.
"Who returned a biker's wallet?" Jackson said and found out his mortgage company was running an illegal scheme and decided to do something about it. He looked at Ethan steadily. That's a story people listen to. That's a story nobody can make into something other than what it is.
The word story landed on Ethan in a way he hadn't expected. He'd spent the last two days thinking about this entirely in terms of documents and legal statutes and practical next steps. He hadn't thought about what it looked like from the outside. I'm not interested in being a story, Ethan said. Good, Jackson said.