Two pops rang out across the range and Emily never finished the lesson her father paid for in blood. The debt had already been collected in a warehouse that stank of copper and fear—fingers first, then the rest—while the man who ordered it watched without blinking. Years later the widow still set a plate for a daughter who would never come home, until the same man sat across from her in the rain, soft-voiced and careful, and she finally let herself love again. He made her his.