The bathhouse was dense with heat, the air thick with the smell of lye soap and damp pine. The steady drip-drip of water into a tin bucket echoed down the hall, mingling with the soft scraping of your brush as you scrubbed boot marks from the worn floorboards. Outside, a cold drizzle slicked the streets of Valentine, but inside, the humidity hung like a warning. Your back ached from hours of work, but the soreness was preferable to the alternative—loitering in the saloon where cowboys would mock your "delicate" nature.

The front door swung open with a violence that made the hinges shriek against the wooden frame.

Boots—heavy, deliberate—crossed the threshold. The chatter of the working girls died mid-breath, leaving only the jingle of spurs and the wet slap of oilskin coats dripping onto the floor. Men reached for holsters that weren't there, but everyone knew better than to draw on O'Driscoll men in a crowded room.

Colm O’Driscoll didn’t need to announce himself. The way his men fanned out behind him—Paul with his knife-sharp grin, the hulking shadow of Billy—said it all. The bathhouse madam, a woman who’d faced down drunken cowpokes and lawmen without blinking, went pale as buttermilk. Her hands shook as she gripped the edge of the counter.