Chapter Four
Selene
“Selene. I just got a call from a friend.” Joker’s voice had a burr in it, like she’d been chain-smoking razor blades. “Tina. She’s locked down at Jack’s Rabbits. She says they’re holding girls. They took her phone, but she got a call out. It’s real bad.”
“Who’s ‘they’?” I was already swinging my boots off the mattress.
“Bouncers. Zeke’s muscle. Maybe two, maybe five.” I heard shouts in the background, then muffled curses. “Trixie said she saw girls get boxed up and moved. She says it’s not just her. They’re scared, Selene. Like, end-of-the-line scared.”
“Fuck,” I said, already at the closet, reaching for the cut. “Thirty minutes. Get the officers to the clubhouse. Full patches. No hang-arounds.”
Joker exhaled, a low whistle. “You want blood or finesse?”
I shrugged into my cut. “Both.”
The call ended, and the trouble began. I checked the mag on my Glock and felt the cold steel of the blade I kept in my boot. It was time to finally fuck some shit up. Hit before we got hit.
Vegas slept hard between two and four, but I didn’t see another living soul on my run to the clubhouse.
The air had that flat, chemical taste it gets right before dawn, laced with desert rot and electricity.
My pulse raced, but my hands were a steady as a surgeon’s. The Harley started on the first try.
I cut through side streets and empty lots, skidding up to the old lodge on the edge of the red rock. Light glowed in the windows. Joker was already there, pacing the porch. Her helmet dangled from one fist, her lips set in a thin, colorless line.
“You get the others?” I asked, swinging off the bike.
“Spade’s five out. Aces is already here, she’s outside mapping escape routes. Tempest is coming with Nines. Glitz says she’ll be fashionably late. She always is.”
I grunted and pushed through the battered front door. Inside, the air hummed with anxiety. Aces leaned over a city map, her finger tracing the highway east to the brothel. Her hair was still perfect, black bob tucked behind one ear, eyes bright as a dealer’s ring light.
“Selene.” She straightened, rolling her shoulder like she was shaking off sleep. “I’ve got three ways in, two ways out. The north fence is the weakest. They only have one camera on the main lot, but they rotate the angle every hour.”
“Nines can jam it?” I asked.
Aces nodded. “Or she can loop the feed.”
Spade stomped in, dust on her jeans, a duffel in each hand. She looked like she’d slept in her clothes and shot her alarm clock. She didn’t bother with hellos. “You want blunt force, or subtle?”
I shrugged. “It’s a brothel. Nobody expects subtle.”
Joker pulled her helmet on, face closed down to pure ice. “You wanna tell us what we’re doing, or are we just gonna break every law in Nevada for the fuck of it?”
I grabbed a chair, dropped into it. “Here’s the deal. Tina is Joker’s. She’s inside, and she’s scared. Zeke’s people are holding women. We go in, we get them out. We hurt anyone who gets in the way. We don’t ask permission, and we don’t wait for backup.”
Spade cracked her knuckles. “How many?”
“Five, maybe more,” I said. “Could be men, could be girls working for Zeke. Either way, we treat everyone like a threat.”
Nines skated in then, hoodie pulled tight, eyes red from screens or lack of sleep. She had a laptop and a black bag that looked like it belonged in a Bond movie. “WiFi’s a joke. Cameras are on a cheap IP loop. I can fry their system or just ghost us for a while.”
I pointed at her. “Do that.”
Glitz breezed in last, hair twisted up, lips painted Vegas gold, even at three in the goddamn morning. “Somebody better die tonight, or I want my gas money back,” she said, tossing her purse on the table.
I looked at each of them, the way a coyote might look at the only pack it’ll ever trust. “Here’s the play.
Nines, you and Glitz stay in the lot. Run comms. Make sure no one calls it in.
Glitz, you get the cash ready for a bribe if we need it.
Spade, you and Tempest go in first. Check for guards, break them if you have to.
Joker and I will head for the holding rooms. Aces, you run point on the bikes—keep them hot, and block the road if you see cops or anyone else coming. ”
Aces flashed her teeth. “You got it, Prez.”
Spade shrugged her duffels on and headed for the door. “You all coming, or you want me to sweep it solo?”
I checked my piece again, making sure the safety was off. “Let’s ride.”
Out in the lot, the bikes lined up like horses waiting for a gunfight. We each mounted up. Engines thumped to life, one by one, echoing against the broken stone and burnt-out brush. I took the lead. Joker flanked me. Spade and Tempest rode in tight, Aces behind, Glitz and Nines last.
We peeled out, thunder on tarmac, wheels clawing for grip in the chill night. Lights blurred as we blitzed the Strip, then cut east toward the dark, unlit miles where only the desperate or the damned kept business hours.
We rode tight, the way Dad taught me. Never leave enough space for a car to split you, always keep your shadow in the other’s mirrors. The closer you rode, the less likely you’d get picked off by some idiot or a sniper with a grudge.
We didn’t talk. We didn’t need to. Each of us knew the rhythm, the feel of a rescue turning into a raid.
Jack’s Rabbits was a lurid wound in the middle of nowhere, all neon and cheap promises, flickering against the black. As we approached, I felt the tension coil up my back, tight and ready to strike.
We circled once, checked the lot, then cut engines in perfect sequence. No words, just hand signals. Spade and Tempest dismounted, boots hitting gravel. Joker and I checked our pieces, eyes locked. Aces stayed on the bike, scanning the highway with a predator’s patience.
Nines and Glitz slid into the shadows, moving fast and low. I saw the glimmer of a phone screen, then nothing. The only light was the pulsing pink and blue from the club’s sign, and the slow red of the horizon promising morning, eventually.
“Ready?” Joker hissed.
I racked the slide. “Let’s go get your girl.”
We moved as one, a pack of wolves with murder in our hearts. No one spoke. No one doubted.
Nines and Glitz set up by the side entrance, phones out, bags open.
Nines thumbed a stick into the panel by the service door, watched LEDs blink, then grinned.
“Their WiFi’s running on 2005 passwords.
I’m in.” She tapped her screen. The cameras above the door stuttered and froze on a perfect image of nothing happening.
“Go,” I hissed, and Spade slammed the heel of her boot into the door so hard the hinges creaked.
Inside, the mood flipped. Outside, it was all cheer and color.
Inside, it was the rotted-off end of a failed party with cheap carpet, stale beer, and the faint aftersmell of bleach and cigarette burns.
The main floor was empty except for a bartender mopping the sticky tile.
He didn’t even look up. That told me everything I needed to know about how often places like this got hit.
Spade and Tempest moved first, splitting left and right. I followed Joker straight up the gut, boots squeaking. The sound echoed, too loud, so we slowed. At the end of the hall was a battered steel door, with a hand-lettered sign: “PRIVATE—NO GIRLS.” I bit down a smile.
Two men in wrinkled sport coats played cards at a folding table by the door. One was texting; the other counted chips and hummed. Spade walked right up, so confident you’d think she was on payroll.
Texting Guy never saw her hand before it closed around his wrist and bent it up behind his back. The phone clattered to the floor, screen spiderwebbing. Spade used the man as a human shield and jabbed a finger at the other guy. “Don’t move,” she said. “Or you’ll lose more than the ante.”
The guy in the suit lunged anyway. Idiot.
Tempest caught him by the collar, yanked him off his feet, and drove his head into the wall. The sound was a muffled thunk, followed by the slow slide of a body crumpling into the mop bucket.
Joker knelt, grabbed the first man’s hair, and hissed, “Where’s the girls?”
He tried to spit at her, but she smashed his face against the table and broke his nose. Blood splashed across the cards, and he started talking.
“Back room. Basement. Past the bar, through the kitchen.”
I looked at the private door. “Is he lying?”
Joker shook her head. “This is a dummy. Real action’s under the floor.”
Spade pistol-whipped the guy once, just to make sure, then let him slump.
We moved on, deeper into the club. Past a half-lit bar, then a corridor lined with velvet paintings of breasts and Elvis knockoffs. Two more men blocked the kitchen door. They saw us, reached inside their jackets. The one on the left actually tried to talk.
“Hey, ladies—”
Tempest didn’t let him finish. She had a taser in her hand and jabbed it into his chest. He dropped like a sack of hams, every muscle convulsing.
The other man got his gun out, but Spade was already moving, low and fast. She went for his knees, a full-body tackle that sent both of them through the swinging kitchen doors.
I chased them in. The kitchen was tiny, choked with trays of pre-made burritos and the sour stink of old meat. The gunman was on his back. Spade had her knee on his throat, her hand on the gun. “You ever use this?” she asked.
He didn’t answer, so she broke his index finger. The noise was loud, cartoonish, and he started to cry.
“Better for your health to not reach for it again,” Spade said, voice mild.
Joker was already through the pantry, scanning shelves for anything out of place.
“Here,” she said, and pointed at a door blocked by crates of potatoes.
I helped her clear the barricade. The door had a lock, but not a good one. I shot it. The noise was obscene in the tiny space; the door popped and swung open on a set of stairs leading down, the bulb at the top flickering with every step.