LAYLA'S POV
The Vanessa shadow has been sitting in my chest for three days when Colt shuts down a fight at the monthly event and the adrenaline that follows rewrites everything.
The event is in the back lot – bikes, string lights, members drinking and talking under a sky that's getting colder by the week. I've been doing what I do now – moving through conversations, remembering names, building the slow tilt of neutral members toward cautious alignment. It's working. I can feel it in the way Elder Morris's wife touches my arm when she talks to me. In the way two prospects who used to avoid eye contact now nod when I pass.
Megan is watching it work too. Which is why, at 9 PM, a mid-ranking loyalist picks a provocation with a neutral member who's been spending time near me. Not random. Tim
