14. Stryker
STRYKER
Miami feels like a different planet from Black Rock.
Too loud. Too wet. Too crowded. Even the air feels heavier here, sticking to skin and clothes the second you step outside. By midnight the streets below the hotel still pulse with traffic and music, while neon reflects off damp pavement like the city physically refuses to sleep.
I’m fucking over it.
Not because the meeting itself went badly.
Actually the opposite. The Coyotes intercepted another Bratva-linked shipment moving through the coast two nights ago, which confirms what we already suspected.
The Bratva’s not backing off Vegas or Nevada territory just because the Mafia got weakened after Vincenzo’s death.
If anything, they’re pushing harder.
Reyes leans beside me on the hotel balcony, smoking, while I stare out across the city. “You’ve checked your phone seven times in ten minutes.”
“I’m waiting on updates.”
“You got updates.” He exhales smoke toward the street below before glancing sideways at me. “Blade already told you the kid got accepted.”
I don’t answer immediately because he’s right.
Paxton starts school Monday.
That information should not settle into my chest the way it does. I barely know the kid. Barely know Nora anymore either, if we’re being honest. Six years changes people whether they want it to or not.
Still, I haven’t stopped thinking about either of them since we left Nevada.
Blade and Viper have kept me updated every day while we’ve been down here.
Pictures mostly. Paxton helping Blade cook grilled cheese yesterday.
Nora sitting cross-legged on the living room floor sorting paint swatches while Viper held up samples and intentionally picked the ugliest colors possible just to irritate her.
Domestic little snapshots I shouldn’t care about nearly this much.
“You miss them,” Reyes says bluntly.
“Yes.”
That drags a laugh out of him immediately.
“Damn. Usually you at least pretend to resist emotional attachment first.”
“I’m not emotionally attached.”
“You looked at a picture of that kid eating cereal this morning like somebody handed you classified government intelligence.”
Fair point.
I shove my phone back into my pocket before he can say anything else and head inside the suite again.
The Coyotes rented out one of the upper floors of the hotel for meetings while tensions with the Bratva keep escalating. Guards linger outside elevators. Men rotate through hallways armed and alert. Every organization’s getting twitchier lately and nobody fully understands why yet.
That’s the dangerous part.
Too many moving pieces.
Inside the conference room, Calder sits at the head of the table, while Moreno argues quietly with one of their men near the windows. Max flips through printed shipping manifests looking irritated enough to stab somebody with a pen.
Reyes drops into the chair beside me, while Calder nods once in greeting.
“You Wolves seeing movement near you too?” he asks.
“Some,” I answer. “Mostly transport interference. Small hits.”
“Same shit here,” Moreno mutters.
Max tosses another folder onto the table. “Bratva’s getting bolder.”
“Or desperate,” Reyes says.
Calder leans back slightly in his chair. “Either way they’re coordinated now. That’s the problem.”
That part none of us disagree on.
Historically the Bratva and Vegas Mafia cooperate only when money outweighs pride. Lately though there’s too much overlap happening too smoothly. Routes connecting. Shared resources. Mutual protection.
Which means somebody’s organizing it.
Joaquin keeps surfacing in pieces around all of it too, though never directly enough for us to pin him down.
I rub one hand slowly across my jaw while scanning shipment maps spread across the table. “We still think Joaquin’s sitting somewhere near the center of it.”
Moreno nods once. “Same conclusion here.”
“But there’s something else," Calder says after a beat.
The room quiets slightly.
Calder exchanges a look with Max before continuing. “There’s another operation we’ve been trying to track for years now. Separate from the cartel stuff.”
I glance up fully. “What kind of operation?”
“Trafficking auctions.”
That gets everyone’s attention immediately.
Max tosses another folder onto the table harder this time. “Six years ago me, Calder, and Moreno attended a masquerade gala outside Vegas. Thought it was some high-end networking bullshit.”
My spine goes rigid instantly.
Across the table Reyes notices immediately.
Moreno continues, “Turned out the whole thing was a trafficking front. Women getting auctioned to buyers.”
Silence settles heavily across the room.
Then I say, “We were there.”
Three pairs of eyes snap toward me immediately.
“What?” Calder asks sharply.
“Me. Blade. Viper.” I lean forward slowly against the table. “We attended that masquerade.”
For a second nobody says anything.
Then Max laughs once in disbelief. “You’re fucking kidding.”
“No.”
Moreno straightens fully now. “You were actually there that night?”
“We didn’t know what it was either,” I say evenly. “Thought it was rich people networking until masked men started dragging women through the halls.”
Reyes looks between all of us completely lost now. “Hold up. What the fuck?”
Calder ignores him entirely. “You got out?”
“Barely.”
The room changes after that.
“We’ve spent six years trying to track those auctions,” Max says. “Every lead dries up before we hit the location.”
“Same here,” I answer immediately. “We find estates after they’re cleared.”
Moreno swears quietly under his breath. “Jesus Christ.”
Calder studies me for another second before asking, “Why’d you look?”
“Woman,” I answer finally.
Understanding flashes across all three faces immediately.
Max nods once slowly like that explains enough. “Yeah.”
Reyes looks deeply concerned now. “You chased a woman through a trafficking auction?”
“Yes.”
“That’s objectively insane.”
Also true.
Calder leans back slightly in his chair. “We lost someone there too.”
I glance toward him automatically. “Someone important?”
“Yeah.”
The answer comes too fast to be casual.
Moreno folds his arms across his chest while Max stares down at the table briefly before saying, “We got separated before everything went to shit.”
“We lost ours too,” I admit quietly.
Nobody speaks for a moment after that.
Then Calder says, “The girl we’re trying to find is named Valentina Cruz.”
The world fucking stops and everything inside me genuinely stills for half a second.
Across the table Reyes notices immediately. “Why do you look like that?”
I ignore him. Because suddenly my brain’s replaying Nora talking about her foster sister. Valetina. The girl taken at the estate. The one she still carries around like an open wound six years later.
Holy fucking shit.
I look directly at Calder. “Dark hair?”
All three Coyotes go alert instantly.
“Yes,” Moreno answers carefully.
“Spoke mostly Spanish back then?” I continue.
Now Max leans forward hard enough his chair scrapes. “How the fuck do you know that?”
I exhale slowly through my nose. “The woman we lost that night was Nora and she had a friend,” I continue carefully. “Her name was Valetina.”
Nobody moves and nobody fucking breathes. Then Moreno says something rapid in Spanish while Max drops back against his chair looking stunned.
“You know of Valentina?” Calder asks sharply. “Who is Nora?”
“Yeah, we met her that night before everything happened. She came to find Nora to tell her she was going with some people,” I look at them carefully and add, “Obviously you know this now. But, Valentina was taken and Nora ran off that day. We just found Nora five days ago.”
“What?”
“She ended up in Black Rock randomly.”
The room erupts after that. Questions overlapping. Moreno demanding details. Max asking if she’s okay. Calder staring at me like I just told him ghosts are real.
Reyes finally interrupts loudly enough to cut through all of it. “Can somebody explain why everyone suddenly looks emotionally compromised?”
“Because,” Max says slowly while still staring at me, “apparently the girl they lost and the girl we lost knew each other.”
Even saying it out loud feels fucking surreal. Pure coincidence. Impossible coincidence, maybe. Yet somehow perfectly fitting too, because apparently that entire night permanently ruined everybody involved in it.
Calder rubs one hand slowly across his mouth. “Nora’s alive?”
“Yeah.”
“And Valentina?” Silence at first and then….
Max says carefully, “We had a trail on Valentina for maybe a year afterward.”
Every muscle in my body tightens instantly.
“What kind of trail?”
“Mostly sightings,” Moreno answers. “Cartel-adjacent territories. Rumors.”
“Then nothing," Calder finishes quietly. “Completely disappeared.”
Hope’s dangerous in our world.
Still, I can’t stop thinking about Nora hearing this information. Even uncertainty would matter to her after six years of believing she lost Valentina forever.
At the same time another colder thought settles in too.
If Valentina ended up circulating cartel territory afterward, then Joaquin and the Bratva overlap might not be coincidence either.
Everything keeps circling back to that fucking night.
Reyes notices the shift in my expression immediately. “You’re planning already.”
“Yes.”
Because now Nora matters to this investigation, whether I wanted that or not, and Paxton definitely matters.
Calder watches me quietly for another second before saying, “We’ll share everything we have on Valetina.”
“We’ll do the same,” I answer immediately.
The partnership solidifies right there, in a way that has nothing to do with business anymore. This isn’t just about routes or shipments or mutual protection now. It’s personal for all of us.
By the time the meeting finally ends a few hours later, exhaustion sits sharp beneath my skin in that restless way that guarantees my brain won’t shut the fuck off anytime soon.
Outside, humid night air presses against my skin again while Reyes unlocks the SUV.
“You realize your life’s officially complicated as hell now, right?” he asks.
I snort quietly. “Now?”
“Fair point.”
I climb into the passenger seat already pulling my phone back out automatically. Three unread messages from Blade. One blurry picture of Paxton asleep on Nora’s couch holding a stuffed dinosaur against his chest.
And one message from Viper underneath it.
Viper:
Kid asked when you’re coming back.
Something tightens hard in my chest again. I need to get the fuck home.