Chapter Twenty-Nine
Creed
Heelz our strip club, is quiet this time of night. It’s perfect for meetings, no one here will bother us and it gets swept for bugs daily.
The girls aren’t out yet; just the soft shuffle of movement backstage and the low pulse of bass through the floor. The air smells like whiskey, sweat, and perfume.
Lev Ivanov sits across from me in the private booth at the back, jacket draped across the seat, shirt crisp enough to slice skin. He’s got that polite smile, one that never reaches his eyes, the kind only a man born into power has.
I slide a folded photocopy folder across the table. It’s the ledger.
He looks down at it, fingers tapping the edge. “And why show me this, Creed?” Lev asks. “You don’t strike me as a man who shares his toys easily.”
I take a slow drink of bourbon before answering. “Hector Sanchez took a woman under my protection. Her name’s Jet. Hector thinks he can trade her for that ledger. I’m meeting him later tonight.”
Lev glances up. “Why are you telling me this?”
“Because I know what’s in it.” I lean forward slightly, lowering my voice. “It’s got every name Hector’s been working with suppliers, dealers, transport routes. Some of those names might interest you.”
A flicker of amusement ghosts across his face as he unfolds the copy, scanning a few lines. “They do indeed.” He looks up again, eyes glinting. “What do you want?” Lev leans back, resting an arm across the booth. “And this girl… is she worth all this trouble?”
“She’s under the club’s protection,” I repeat. “That makes her worth it. And one of my men wants her back.”
He studies me for a long moment, then smiles. “Tell me, who is the member who would risk this much?”
“Justice,” I reply.
Lev’s grin widens. “Ah. The quiet one. I have heard of him. Perhaps he would like to be there when we… handle this Hector problem?”
I smile back, slow and deliberate. “Yeah. I think he’d like that just fine.”
Lev raises his glass, and I match it. Crystal meets crystal, two devils toasting the cost of keeping what’s theirs.
The next night, the rain hasn’t stopped all day.
Justice and I follow one of Lev’s men through a narrow hallway that smells like bleach and plastic lines the floor. Igor, a big bastard, shaved head, arms covered in faded ink, leads us down a concrete staircase into the bowels of a basement.
The basement has a spotlight shining on Hector Sanchez.
His eyes are closed, and he hangs in the same way he had Jet hanging, with thick plastic ties cutting into his wrists, sweat and blood dripping from his face.
His expensive shirt is torn open, the arrogance gone, replaced by a sickly kind of panic.
Igor opens the door, nods once, and steps aside. Then he’s gone, leaving the three of us alone.
Hector starts talking the second the door closes. “Creed, listen to me, brother, this wasn’t personal! I can make this right. Whatever you want money, product, women, anything!”
His words bounce off the walls, desperate and frantic.
Justice stands beside me, silent, hands flexing at his sides. I can feel the storm in him, the tension, the weight of what Jet went through.
Hector’s voice cracks. “Please. I can help you! We can work together—”
Justice steps forward, slow and steady, until he’s inches from Hector’s face. His voice is low, cold enough to freeze the air between them. “I should make you suffer. Drag this out. Let you bleed and suffer.” He pauses, eyes narrowing. “But it’s not my call.”
I say nothing. Just nod once.
Justice raises his gun. The sound is deafening in the small room, one sharp, final crack.
Blood splatters across the wall, hot and thick, painting the concrete in dark streaks. Fragments of bone and brain matter spray outward, a violent bloom against gray. Hector’s body jerks once, then goes limp, hanging by the wrists like a broken marionette.
For a long moment, the only sound is the slow drip of blood hitting the floor.
Justice lowers the gun, breath ragged. When he turns toward me, his jaw’s tight, eyes shadowed but clear. “Debt’s paid.”
I nod. “Yeah. It is.”
He looks at me again, voice low. “Thank you. For letting me end him.”
“Don’t thank me, brother,” I say, meeting his stare. “Just remember why we did it, not only for her, but for the club and for what’s ours.”
He nods once solemnly, and together we walk out, the sound of our boots echoing through the concrete hall.
Behind us, Hector Sanchez hangs in silence, another ghost swallowed by the darkness that made him.
Outside, the night air hits cold and clean for the first time in a long while. He was named Justice as he has his own brand of it, and tonight he lived up to his name.
Jet will never know what he did. This is Royal Bastards business, but the brothers will know.
And most of all, so will Justice.