Chapter Eight
Zeke
The front lot of Sexy Beavers looked like a backhoe had worked it over.
Concrete island bent up, steel poles tilting, parking stripes buried under a soup of broken bottles and blood.
A single neon “Open” flickered in the window, taunting anyone dumb enough to believe it.
We rolled in at first light, the Vegas sunrise making everything pink and cruel, and the silence outside the brothel was a warning all its own.
My father meant business, and although I believed Selene could handle herself, I made it my mission to make sure she stayed alive.
I shut down the Harley and let the last echo die. No movement. I got off the bike, boots crunching on safety glass. The rest of the crew lined up behind me, visors down, no one talking.
I stepped into the lobby and immediately wanted to leave again.
The air stank of copper and cheap disinfectant.
There was blood on the laminate floor, pooled and streaked, and more on the walls—swiped by a hand, maybe, or splattered by a head.
Two of the vending machines were toppled, the snack packs burst open and mixed with wet crimson.
Someone had gone to the trouble of dragging three bodies into the open, covering them with pool towels that were already soaked through.
A woman in a Beavers crop-top, lip split, and eye already swelling shut, sat against the front desk. Her hands trembled, still sticky with blood not her own. She looked up at me and tried to smile, then gave up and just nodded.
I ignored her for a moment and checked the rest of the room.
In the corner, near the ATM, four girls in lingerie huddled together.
They weren’t crying. Just shivering, eyes fixed on nothing.
One of them—the one with the purple hair—kept clutching her left arm, which hung limp and ugly at her side.
She saw me watching and held the stare, daring me to ask if she needed help.
Joker pushed past, glanced at the bodies, and said, “Fuck. Fuck.” She spat the word like it was a mouthful of broken teeth. “They did this fast.”
Spade knelt by the side entrance and checked the lock, running a gloved finger along the warped metal.
“Came through the back,” she said. “Probably knew the alarm codes. This was surgical.” Her face was blank, but I saw the tic in her jaw.
She was running through every scenario that ended with someone dying and measuring herself against it.
Aces moved to the girls, crouched down, and started checking for wounds with a medic’s precision.
She murmured something low, something that almost sounded gentle, and the purple-haired girl nodded and let her splint the wrist with a ruler and some tape.
Glitz made a beeline for the office, picking her way through the mess, already tallying up what it would cost to keep this out of the papers.
Nines ghosted into the server closet, black hoodie blending into the shadows, her fingers already tapping out search strings and pulling up the camera feeds.
Only Tempest moved more slowly than I, surveying the carnage with something like respect.
She found a girl collapsed behind the bar, a Beavers regular, tall, thin, and never fully clothed, and pulled her up into a gentle headlock.
“You breathing?” she asked, not unkind. The girl wheezed, then coughed out the word, “Destiny,” like it was a confession and not her working name.
Tempest nodded and brought her a half-bottle of water from the service station, rubbing her back with massive, careful hands.
I knelt beside the first of the covered bodies and pulled back the towel.
Underneath, a prospect. Young, no older than twenty, shaved head and acne scars like she’d never outgrown middle school.
Her eyes were still open, staring at the ceiling, and her lips were curled up in a rictus that could have been a smile if you squinted.
She’d been shot in the chest, through the cut, and blood had filled up the inside of the leather like a balloon before it burst. I pressed my fingers to her neck, knowing I wouldn’t feel a pulse, and felt the cool slackness of dead skin.
Someone had closed her jacket for her, hiding the wound.
The second body was a similar story. This one was a woman as well, a newer prospect I didn’t recognize, but the bullet had gone in behind her ear, execution style.
Hands still cuffed in front of her, the plastic tie stained with whatever she’d tried to claw out of the air in her last seconds.
I covered her back up. The third was a maybe a worker, probably snatched from the floor during the first round of gunfire.
The face was so torn up by the shot that there wasn’t much left, just the side of the skull and a single eyelid that fluttered in the air currents from the busted AC vent.
I stood, feeling the rage start in my calves and spread up like an electrical fire.
My hands shook. I bit the inside of my cheek until I tasted blood, forced myself to stay present.
Despite all the shit the man had done to me in life, this was the first time I wanted him dead. He’d crossed an unimaginable line.
Selene arrived and walked the steps slow and deliberate. She surveyed the room, taking it in like a general on a battlefield, then moved to the girls first. She knelt, whispered something to the purple-haired girl, then made her way to me.
She stopped beside the bodies, hands on her hips, and said, “How many dead?”
“Three. All prospects. Maybe a worker.” I nodded at the girl cradling her arm. “She’s next if we don’t get her to a hospital.”
Selene didn’t flinch. She just walked over, took out her phone, and started dialing.
Her voice was calm, maybe too calm, as she told Glitz to coordinate medical for the survivors and to get a disposal team for the bodies.
No police, not yet. Vegas Metro was corrupt, but the Harlots had developed their own way of cleaning up, though this was the first time Selene had actually lost anyone.
Aces looked up from splinting. “Most of these girls are in shock. One or two might be bleeding inside, but I can’t tell without a scan.”
Selene nodded. “Priority is getting the witnesses out and patched.”
Joker circled back, eyes wet, face twisted. “We know who did it. Jack Smalls. Who else has the balls to hit us on our own turf?”
Spade said, “Jack doesn’t do his own dirty work. He pays for hands.”
Joker spat. “Then we kill the hands, and then we take the fucking head.”
Selene didn’t look at me, but I saw her jaw tighten. She was making the calculation: attack or retreat, clean up or escalate. I wanted to reach out, say something, but I didn’t trust my voice.
Nines popped out of the server room. “Camera feeds were wiped at 4:22. But I pulled a backup from the cloud. You want to see?”
Selene shook her head. “Not yet. Get the girls out of here first.” She fixed me with a stare, the kind that had sent men running in other towns. “Zeke. You know your father’s moves better than anyone. Where does he go after this?”
I thought of the old man in his desert fortress, surrounded by yes-men and memories of when he ran this city with a meat cleaver and a smile. I pictured him hearing about the massacre, laughing at the news, waiting for us to hit back so he could finish the job.
“He waits,” I said. “He lets us mourn, then comes to the funeral.”
Joker snapped her blade open, not at anyone, just at the world. “Then we don’t mourn.”
Selene closed her eyes for a second, just long enough to let the pain show, then opened them and set her jaw. “Get the survivors to the clubhouse. Bring the bodies, too. Nobody gets left behind.”
I turned to the prospect under the towel, the one with the rictus smile, and felt something I hadn’t in years—a guilt so raw I almost puked. I’d trained for violence, learned to dish it out, but I never figured I’d be the reason three kids ended up dead on a Monday morning.
As we carried the bodies out to the waiting van, Destiny grabbed my wrist. Her nails dug into the meat, desperate. “Don’t let him do this again,” she said, voice shredded.
I nodded, even though I knew it was a promise I probably couldn’t keep. “I won’t.”
The ride back to the clubhouse was silent except for the sound of Tempest humming, low and steady, as she held Destiny in the back seat. I watched the sunrise tear open the city, the promise of a new day feeling like an insult. The van was hauling our bikes.
When we pulled in, Selene got out first and waited by the door, eyes on the horizon. She didn’t speak as we brought in the wounded and the dead, just stood there, arms crossed, until the last body was inside.
Only then did she say, “Jack Smalls did this. And he’s going to pay.” She looked at each of us, daring anyone to say otherwise. No one did. I wanted to say I’d take care of it, but even I knew that when a woman had her mind set, you didn’t get in the way. My turn would come.
I watched her, knowing that the next move would be all-out war, and that whatever happened, it would be bloody, loud, and final.
Nines set her tablet down. “There’s a delivery every morning at six. Trucks come in from the east. It’s a different company every week, but always the same two drivers. If we can intercept, we could ride the trucks straight through the gate.”
Spade looked up, eyes cold. “I can handle that. It’ll be fun to break something that belongs to Jack for a change.”
Aces nodded, then grinned. “I’ll take care of the bikes. We’ll need extra horsepower to haul the loot.”
Selene waited until everyone was done, then said, “That’s just one hit. He’ll expect a counterpunch. What else have you got, Zeke?”
I slid the next sheet forward. “Tomorrow night, he’s moving a new shipment through the old Koval warehouse.
It’s supposed to be guns, but if you read the codes on the manifest, it’s probably coke.
If we hit it, we either get enough firepower to start a small war, or enough coke to buy half the city. ”
Joker laughed, loud and mean. “That’ll really piss him off.”
I looked at the crew, then back at Selene. “You want to hurt him, you have to break the myth. Hit both at once, and he’ll look weak. People will jump ship.”
Spade checked her sidearm. “I’ll need three shooters, minimum.”
Selene finally sat down. She poured herself two fingers of bourbon, then looked up at me. “You got a personal stake in this?”
I didn’t answer, but she saw it. She always did.
“Joker, you’re point on the cash job. Spade, you take the warehouse with Tempest and Nines.
Glitz, run the tech from here and keep the air clean.
Aces, you’re backup on both fronts—fast wheels, fast in and out.
I’ll take the third team and go after Jack’s private club. If he’s hiding, it’ll be there.”
I nodded, but that wasn’t good enough. “Not every parent is a good parent I said. We both know that. My father got people killed. Doesn’t give two shits about Simone or me.”
“Like my mother.”
“Like your mother.” I tapped the table. “I agree with hitting my father’s deals. But that won’t stop his next hit on this club or some other group.”
“He has to die,” Selene said.
I nodded. “He has to die.”
Everyone nodded, but no one smiled. The mood was razor-sharp, ready to bleed. I felt a weird pride, but also dread, like I’d finally found people worth fighting for, and now I’d signed their death warrants.
Selene turned to me. “You stay with me. I want you close in case he’s got a surprise.”
“Fine by me,” I said. “I want to see the look on his face when he figures out who hit him.”
She snorted. “You’re a sick bastard, Smalls.”
“Runs in the family.”
They spent the next hour prepping gear, finalizing routes, and memorizing maps. I could hear the bikes outside, engines idling in the dark, the sound thick and heavy in my chest. My hands shook again, but this time, it felt right.
Selene cornered me in the hallway, away from the others. “You’re not doing this just for revenge. What’s really going on?”
I shook my head. “I’m doing it because it’s the only thing I’m good at. Because if I don’t, he’ll never stop.”
She studied me, then said, “Don’t die tonight.”
“No promises,” I said, and meant it.
We met up by the gate. The rest of the crew was already suited up, helmets on, gloves tightened.
Joker flashed a grin, teeth shining in the gloom.
Spade and Tempest shared a nod that probably meant they’d already decided who would do the killing.
Nines adjusted her comms, and Glitz stood in the back, a phone in each hand, already running the numbers.
Selene mounted her bike, boots scuffing the pavement. I climbed onto mine and lined up next to her.
“You ready for this?” she asked, low so only I could hear.
“I’ve never been more ready for anything in my life,” I said.
She revved her engine. The others followed suit, one after another, until the noise was a living thing.
We rolled out into the night, the whole city stretching out in front of us.