Marcus looked at Emma. Emma looked at Derek. " I want you to leave," she said. And I want you to understand that every person Pinnacle has collected money from illegally is going to get a call from a legal-aid organization that's been gathering that documentation for the past three months. And I want you to understand that the footage from this shop, everything that happened this afternoon, both visits, has already been sent somewhere.
Derek stared at her. " You had a camera," he said. " I have three," Emma said. I'm a woman who runs a shop alone most days. I installed them the first month I was open.
The younger associate said something under his breath. The thick-necked man turned and looked at the back of the shop where the service door he'd kicked open still stood slightly ajar. " That's also on camera," Emma said. " The forced entry." Derek said nothing. "
Go," Emma said. Derek Holloway stood in the center of Golden Rose tattoo for a long silent moment. He was a man who had spent years being the person who decided when conversations ended, who decided who left and who stayed and on what terms. He had never in his professional life been handed the door by someone who genuinely held it. He looked at Marcus one final time.
Marcus said nothing. He simply waited. Derek turned and walked out. His two men followed. The bell above the door rang.
Nobody in the shop said anything for a moment. Kayla let out a long breath that sounded like she'd been storing it since mid-afternoon. Teresa sat down in her tattoo chair and pressed her hand flat against her collarbone, not in distress, just in the manner of someone physically locating themselves after being displaced. William Walker made his way across the room to Emma. He put his hand on her shoulder briefly.
He was not a demonstrative man by nature, and neither was she, and the gesture lasted exactly as long as it needed to, and not a second longer. " Your father," he said quietly, "would have been proud." Emma pressed her lips together. She nodded once. Marcus had turned to look at the street where his people were receiving some kind of update through phones and personal exchanges. "
He'd had people watching the block since before he arrived, and information had been moving through the group constantly." He turned back to Emma. " There are a few things we need to talk about," he said. Emma nodded. She gestured toward the back room, but before they reached it, the door opened again.
Not Derek. This time a police cruiser had pulled up outside, two of them actually, and two officers came through the door looking at the street at the motorcycles at the sheer volume of it and then looking at the inside of the shop with the particular expression of law enforcement personnel who have arrived at a situation and immediately understand they do not yet have all the information they need. The senior officer, a woman in her 40s, hair pulled back a face that had the experienced flatness of someone who had stopped being surprised by what Phoenix offered, on a given afternoon looked from Marcus to Emma, to William to the overturned portfolio rack that nobody had writed yet, and to Kayla still in the tattoo chair, and to Teresa sitting with her hand on her collarbone. " I'm Officer Sandra Reyes," she said. " We received multiple calls about a disturbance."
Her eyes found the back of the shop, the broken service door. Is everyone safe? Everyone is safe, Emma said. Can you tell me what happened? Yes, Emma said.
I'd like to report a forced entry criminal intimidation and extortion. She paused. And I have the footage if you need it. Officer Sandra looked at her for a moment, then at Marcus, then back at Emma. Okay, she said.
Let's start at the beginning. What followed was not the kind of police interaction Emma had been conditioned by general life experience to expect the skepticism, the gentle implication that there might be multiple valid perspectives on the situation, the slow institutional reluctance that sometimes met people who came in without the right credentials or the right presentation. Sandra Reyes listened. She asked direct questions. She wrote things down.
When Emma mentioned the camera footage, Sandra said she'd needed a copy for the investigation and asked Emma to make sure it was preserved. When Sandra asked about the motorcycles outside, Marcus answered, "We were in the area," he said. " We heard there was a situation. We came to make sure everything was okay." Sandra Reyes looked at him with the expression of a person who has heard many things in her professional life and has developed a sophisticated relationship with all of them. "
Three hundred of you?" she said. " We're a social organization," Marcus said. Sandra looked at him for another moment. Then she went back to writing.
It took nearly an hour. The second officer photographed the broken service door, the interior of the shop, the counter where Derek had stood. Emma walked them through this footage on her laptop. Both visits captured in clear, unambiguous detail. Derek's hand on her arm, the threats to her equipment, the deliberate dropping of her portfolio.
Kayla, who had never in her 19 years been in the middle of something like this, gave her own account with a composure that surprised even her. Teresa gave hers with the quiet directness of a woman who had spent two years learning to speak up for herself and wasn't going to stop. Now, William declined to provide a statement on the advice of nobody in particular. He simply said he wasn't ready to do so at this time in the mild and unassailable tone of a man who has been around enough legal situations to know exactly what he was and wasn't required to do. Sandra accepted this without argument.
When the officers finally stepped outside to begin working through the logistics of the report, Emma stood at her counter alone for a moment. The shop was quiet again. Different quiet than before. Not the lived-in hum of an ordinary afternoon, but the larger quiet that settles after something that matters has happened and the air hasn't quite decided what to do with itself yet. Marcus came to stand beside her.
He didn't say anything right away. Emma said, "How much trouble is this going to cause your chapter?" Marcus looked at her. What kind of question is that? An honest one.
300 people left a memorial ride and came to Phoenix because I called. That's I know what that is. I know what it eats. " The ride was for Bobby Decker," Marcus said. He would have been the first one on his bike.
Emma looked at the window. I know your father also would have been the first one on his bike. I know that too. A long quiet. " Emma," Marcus said, "I need to ask you something and I need you to tell me the truth.