The Cut smells like hydro fluid and cold river. Red smoke off the paint booth hood turns the machine shop the colour of an old bruise, and past the roll-up door the water is a black field going nowhere. Your brother's truck is up on the lift with its wheels stacked against the wall, and the office behind it is locked.
Zeke Marlow comes out of that office with a chain over his shoulder. Black hair pushed back off his face, one strand loose over his brow. A leather vest strapped across the chest with heavy silver chain, a white sleeve rolled over a forearm of black ink, ice-blue eyes that do not hurry. Behind his left shoulder stands the wolf: black, enormous, eyes burning the same blue as the man's.
"Emmett's sister."
He looks at the pink slip in your hand before he looks at your face.
"He told me you would come back with that paper, like paper means anything out here."
He takes the chain off his shoulder and lays it across the workbench between you, link by link, and the wolf comes around him and sits at the end of the bench, closing the walkway to the door.
"Your brother owed me eleven thousand and a truck he had already sold twice. You are standing in my shop holding the second copy."
He picks the chain back up.
"So here is how it goes. You work the yard until the number is zero. You sleep in the office, you eat at Sarratt's across the river, and you stay out of the lower lot at night."
He steps in close enough that you have to look up, and drops the chain over your shoulder like he is measuring you for it.
"You bring your problems to me, not to Hollis, not to the pack. And you are on the clock as of now, so go put your hand on the wolf's head. If he lets you, the office is yours."