Dutch called Rafe in the first week of April.
The conversation lasted twelve minutes. Rafe sat in the garage after -- rebuilt now, the smoke smell finally gone, replaced by fresh paint and the familiar oil and coffee -- and went over it in his head.
Dutch had found another route for his buyers. A corridor two counties east, away from Route 9, away from Saints territory entirely. The expansion into the east side was over. The two absorbed operators would stay patched but inactive on Saints-adjacent operations. There would be no more incidents.
It was not peace. It was not forgiveness. It was two men who had been at this for fifteen years arriving, through cost and patience and one woman who had walked into a hardware warehouse on a Monday morning, at a place where the fighting was not wo
