Page 1 of Torgash

Chapter One

Ash

Icount exits on instinct. Two doors, one window—boarded over, but the nails are rusted. Three potential weapons are within reach if this goes sideways. The bartender's got a Louisville Slugger behind the register and hands that shake when he pours.

This dive sits twenty miles outside Shadow Ridge, where nobody knows my cut or my record. Out here, there's no Crow watching for cracks, no Diesel making jokes. Just stale air and humans drowning whatever failures brought them here.

The beer tastes like piss, but it's cold and the bartender doesn't ask questions when a three-hundred-fifty-pound orc claims the corner table. I take it out of habit—back to the wall, clear sight lines. Conversations pause, then resume quieter. Eyes flick my way—some curious, some hostile, most just wary. The table's built for smaller bodies, all sharp edges digging into my thighs. I don't adjust. Let it creak.

Everyone here's running from something. That makes us even.

It's been six months since we buried Victor Hargrove's legacy in Shadow Ridge. It has been half a year since Crow found redemption in Maya's healing hands and Vargan won his freedom. The town's rebuilding, Hammer says. They’re learning to trust us instead of fear us.

But that respect feels hollow when Victor's nephew, Royce Carvello, is still breathing and plotting his comeback from whatever hole he's crawled into. Every legal brief that enters our war room reeks of his influence, every zoning variance and property dispute bears his fingerprints. He's playing chess with our entire territory.

No, I needed to get the fuck out tonight. The clubhouse walls were closing in. Vargan stalking the common room, distracted with thoughts of Savvy. Even Crow, once as cold as I am, now goes soft-eyed whenever Maya calls. These women have got my brothers pussy-whipped when what we need is focus. The old Crow would've cracked skulls, not compromise.

And now there's another woman, this one with a badge. Sheriff Nova Reyes has been in town for barely three weeks. Her file has been eating at me since she arrived, her name typed across official letterhead that won't leave me alone.

Never met her. Don't need to. I've memorized every line of her record. Top of her class at the Georgia Police Academy. Criminal justice degree with honors. She climbed through Atlanta PD ranks clean— patrol to sergeant then detective in record time. The kind of trajectory that ends with a federal badge or a mayor's office.

Instead, she's here. In my town. Cleaning up Sheriff Dawson's mess after we ran his corrupt ass out along with his puppet master, Victor.

And I don't buy her story. Not for a goddamn second.

People with records like Nova's don't throw away golden careers for backwater sheriff jobs unless they're running fromsomething or someone's forcing their hand. The timing is too convenient. Royce loses his bought-and-paid-for sheriff, and suddenly, the state sends us a squeaky-clean replacement with an impeccable record and no obvious ties to our enemies.

Nobody's that clean—especially not cops.

Why is she here? What's she hiding? And why does her name keep returning to my thoughts when I should focus on the real threats circling our territory? It's not curiosity driving this fixation. It's caution. The same instinct that's kept me breathing through camp riots and club wars and every betrayal in between.

Nova Reyes feels wrong. Polished on the outside, coiled like barbed wire underneath. Too perfect. Too convenient. Too fucking dangerous.

I drain my beer, the bitter aftertaste coating my tongue. Three empties sit before me, but I'm stone sober. Orc metabolism burns through alcohol like it's water. Takes a lot more than cheap beer to quiet the noise in my head.

Last week's conversation with Hammer replays in my head. He'd pulled me aside, voice dropping to that tone he uses when he knows I will fight his orders.

"You need to play nice with the new sheriff. We're rebuilding trust here, not ruling through fear."

Trust. Fucking joke.

"We're not the monsters they think we are," he'd added, amber eyes steady on mine.

Maybe we're not. Maybe Crow and Maya proved redemption can grow from blood-soaked ground. Maybe Vargan and Savvy are writing some fairy tale about love conquering all.

But I know what I am. The camps forged me. Survival demanded I become the kind of predator they'd never forget.

The club calls me their lawyer, their strategist. They see the loopholes I find, the legal traps I set. They don't know how manynights I spent teaching myself human law just to fuck them with their own rules.

They don't see the scars. Don't know about the ten-year-old orc who learned that being smart just makes you a target unless you're willing to spill blood to stay on top. They ignore the mark bisecting my face, courtesy of an orc twice my size who wanted my food ration and figured the smart kid wouldn't fight back.

He learned the hard way.

I made sure he choked on his own fucking teeth.

Intelligence guides me now. The law protects me. But underneath the legal briefs, I'm still the predator who clawed his way out of hell with teeth and fury.

And if Sheriff Reyes thinks she can waltz into my territory and threaten what we've built...

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