Chapter Seven #2
I felt the decision crystallize inside, hard as a diamond. My shoulders straightened. My jaw locked so tight I thought I’d break a tooth. I walked back to the table and took the shot. The bourbon went down like fire, but left me clear-headed and hungry.
“No,” I said. “I’m not.”
Stephanie watched me for a beat, then gave the tiniest nod. She saw the same thing in me that I’d felt in her, which was a refusal to let someone else write your story, no matter what it cost.
“Then let’s get to work,” she said.
***
The clubhouse war room had been a zoo, and I was the head zookeeper. Every officer had arrived early.
The big table was buried under city maps and hand-drawn blueprints; colored poker chips marked targets and routes, and there was more caffeine than blood in the collective bloodstream.
I didn’t have to call the meeting to order. The air already crackled with the static of coming violence.
Joker had claimed the left corner, feet up, flicking cards between her fingers like she was shuffling fate itself. “We hit the laundromats first,” she said, voice loud over the din. “He moves cash through there, and his old man’s pride couldn’t take a public hit.”
Spade, arms crossed and eyes narrowed, looked like she’d been up for three days straight and was ready to kill her own reflection.
“Laundry’s a distraction. The real money’s on the Strip.
We burn his flagship restaurant, he’ll scramble to cover, and we get a chance to cut his next move off at the knees. ”
Glitz banged a fist on the table, scattering comp slips and coins. “Don’t be idiots. The Strip is crawling with cops and tourists. We’d get hit by Metro before we made it through the kitchen.”
Nines, silent until then, popped a USB stick into her battered laptop and angled the screen so we could all see.
“Doesn’t matter. Both sites have private security, but I mapped their comms. They were coordinated.
If you made noise at one, the other locked down in ninety seconds.
” She tapped the map, blue veins lighting up across Las Vegas.
“We need a third front. Something nobody expected.”
The room hummed. I felt the adrenaline, the focus, the collective need for payback turning every second into a razor. I took the head of the table and leaned in.
“We hit all three,” I said. “Joker and Aces, take the laundromats. Spade, you and Tempest hit the restaurant, but don’t torch it.
Just scare the hell out of them and ruin a few months of profit.
Glitz, you run counter-surveillance, jam the phones, and prep the getaway cars.
Nines, you ghost their security while we’re inside.
I want zero civilian injuries and no fatalities unless they start it. ”
I glanced at Stephanie, and she nodded her approval. She then left the club, leaving me to manage what she trusted me to manage.
Joker grinned, savage. “Finally, something fun.”
Spade just nodded, the edges of her mouth twitching up.
Glitz chewed the end of a pencil, scowling but already texting someone for supplies.
I looked to Nines, who never showed emotion, but she tapped her keyboard as if she were counting down to a bomb.
“Questions?” I asked, voice flat.
Joker raised a hand. “What about Zeke?”
The room went silent. I felt my spine prickle.
“Fuck Zeke,” Spade spat. “He’s Jack’s muscle. He’ll cave when it counts.”
But I remembered his face, the lines of regret and rage, and the way he looked at me like I was the only person in town who could out-hate him. “We’ll handle Zeke if he shows.”
Joker shrugged. “Your funeral, Prez.”
I was about to close the meeting when the door swung open and every eye in the room locked on the six-foot-four wall of menace standing in the entry.
Zeke Smalls wore a leather jacket that probably cost more than my first bike, and he filled the doorway as if it were a coffin built just for him. His gaze cut straight through the testosterone and old vendettas and landed on me.
Nobody said a word. Joker flicked her blade open. Spade eased a hand to her holster.
Zeke ignored them, stepped inside, and only then did I realize how much air he displaced. He moved with the slow certainty of a man who could break a neck before breakfast and still have time for coffee.
He walked right up to the table and set a battered manila folder in front of me. “You want to kill my father?” he said, voice low, not a question. “You’d need better intel than that.”
I looked at the folder. It was thick, stained with something dark, and held together by a rubber band.
“What’s in it?” I asked, matching his tone.
“Schedules. Payoffs. Times when his security was weakest. I even put in his dry-cleaning receipts.” He looked at me with that bone-deep exhaustion, but there was something else there. It was wild and sad and maybe a little bit free.
Joker eyed him. “Why are you helping us?”
He met her glare. “Because he’s already dead. He just didn’t know it yet.”
Spade spat into a cup. “We’re supposed to trust you now?”
Zeke turned, and his voice dropped another octave. “Trust me or don’t. But you only get one shot at this. If you fuck it up, you’ll all be fertilizer by Thursday.”
Nines slid the folder closer and started scanning the contents, her fingers dancing over the keyboard. “It checks out,” she said, almost surprised. “He’s not lying.”
I watched Zeke, the way his jaw tensed and his eyes flicked to the exit every few seconds. He was ready to run or to kill, depending on what we’d do next.
“Why not just kill him yourself?” I asked.
He smiled, slow and ugly. “Because I’m not like him.”
I picked up the folder, leafed through the pages. Everything we needed was there: security rotations, blueprints, payoffs, even a couple of blackmail letters. The work of a lifetime, handed over to someone he barely knew.
He stared at me. “You want to do this? I can help. But once we start, there’s no going back.”
The others looked to me, waiting. Even Joker, who never waited for anything.
I stood and squared up to Zeke. “You’re in,” I said. “But you answer to me. You cross us, and I bury you myself.”
He nodded, once. “That’s fair.”
He stepped back, hands in his pockets, but the tension stayed. Our eyes locked, sealing our destiny. He wanted me as much as I wanted him. We both wanted the pain to go away. Unfortunately, his father was the source of our pain.
The room exhaled. I looked at my officers, the only family I had left, and for the first time since the casino went down, I felt like we might actually win.
“We hit him tomorrow night.”
Zeke lingered after the others filtered out, the room still thick with what-if and maybe. I opened the door between church and my club bedroom. I wasn’t sure I’d ever see the inside of Buck’s house, now my house, again. I looked back at Zeke.
Zeke followed, closing the door behind him, and that’s when our lips collided.
His body was emaculate, tanned, covered in ink, his muscles lean but intense. His hand moved between my legs.
Then we crashed onto the bed, bouncing like teenagers, rolling over tangled sheets and each other’s limbs. His mouth never left mine, and the way he kissed with teeth meant he was fighting sadistic.
There was a moment where he pulled away, face inches from mine.
I saw the raw edge of fear in his eyes and wanted to take it personally, but knew better.
He’d spent a lifetime learning how to keep pain out of his face, but tonight he wore it for me, on purpose.
An offering, maybe. I took it, raked my hands through his hair, and bit his shoulder because I needed to mark him in some way that would outlast the next twenty-four hours.
He laughed, a low rumble that started in his chest and rolled through me. “You always play rough?”
I grabbed the waistband of his jeans and yanked. “Is this a game?”
He didn’t answer, just fumbled at my shirt. Buttons popped, stitches tore. His hands were big enough to cover my ass and my spine at the same time, and the way he kneaded my skin was so deliberate, I shivered. The tattoos on his fingers scraped along my ribs, cool and sandpapery.
His jeans hit the floor. Mine followed. He bit my thigh, just above the bone, so hard I saw stars. I arched, ground my hips into his hand, and the way he cupped me—like he’d been planning this for weeks—I almost lost it.
I wanted to ruin him. I wanted to make him forget every other night.
He slid his head between my knees and licked a straight line up and over, slow at first, then building with a kind of violent, desperate suck.
I bucked, grabbed his hair, and pulled until his scalp protested.
He dug in with his tongue, fucked me with his mouth until I almost sobbed, until I came, and then popped up and smiled, all teeth and challenge.
“My turn,” I said, voice hoarse.
He rolled onto his back, hard cock up and waiting.
I crawled over him and pinned him to the mattress.
With one hand, I held his wrists; with my mouth, I took him in as deep as I could.
He arched, hissed, and pulled at my grip but didn’t break it.
I kept eye contact until he started to shake, then let go, slow, savoring every millimeter.
He flipped us, easy as turning a page. Now I was captive, arms over my head, his massive hands holding me in place while he lined up and pushed in, all at once.
I dug my heels into his back, let him know I wasn’t going to take this passively.
We pounded it out, sweat-slicked and mean, his face right above mine, sometimes burying in my neck, sometimes just looking at me like he needed to memorize what fucking me looked like.
I clawed his back so hard I broke a nail. He went harder, every thrust a rebuke, or a plea. When I climaxed again, I saw black for a second, then came back to the sensation of his tongue tracing circles behind my ear and his rough voice right in it.
“I’m not going anywhere,” he whispered.