Danger leaks. It spreads out throu
Ambrosia spits me back into the cold with music still crawling under my skin.
Inside, the bass is low and steady, the kind that works its way into the walls and stays there even after the door shuts behind you.
Outside, the winter night cuts it clean.
The air hits my face hard enough to sharpen everything, and I let the door close at my back while I stand beneath the red wash of the club sign and listen. Not to the music.
Past it.
Street. Engines. Wind catching trash near the curb. A woman laughing somewhere down the block, too loud and already fading. Nothing obvious. That’s usually where trouble starts.
I pull the deposit bag tighter inside my cut, making sure it’s secure.
Allison gave me the money with that look in her eye that said she understood enough to be pissed but not enough to push.
Smart woman. She knows when to ask and when to let the club handle its shit.
Not everybody has that skill. Most people think every silence is an invitation to pry.
It’s not.
Sometimes it’s a warning.
The lot is mostly empty this early, only a handful of cars scattered under the security lights.
Chrome shines dull on my bike, frost starting to catch along the seat and handlebars.
The glow from Ambrosia turns the pavement red near the door, then fades into the yellow spill of the streetlamps closer to the road.
I move toward the bike without rushing. Rushing announces too much. So does hesitation. My boots hit the pavement in an even rhythm, and my eyes sweep the lot once more. Front entrance. Side door. Back alley. Roofline. Cars. Windows. Hands if I can see them. Faces if they matter.
Nothing.
Still, the feeling that followed me out of church hasn’t left.
That’s the problem with rooms full of men talking strategy. They make shit sound contained because the walls are close and everyone has a chair. They lay out possible threats, build neat lines between one concern and the next, and act like danger respects categories. It doesn’t.
Danger leaks.
It spreads out through side streets and parking lots and dark corners where people assume nothing will happen because nothing has happened yet.
The RICO investigation is still sitting on the edge of us like a blade.
The calls to Brynn, the questions about her brother, the voices in the background, the people asking around town.
All of it means someone is probing. Maybe official.
Maybe not. Maybe some hungry bastard using the investigation as cover to build something we can’t see yet.
Doesn’t matter which. The shape is the same.
Someone’s looking. And men who look long enough eventually find a door.
I reach my bike, but I don’t get on. Something pulls my attention left. Not a sound. Not movement. Just wrong. I turn my head slightly.
Across the street, half a block down from Ambrosia, a van sits at the curb with its engine running.
Dark color. No markings. Nothing memorable at first glance.
Parked in a spot where someone could pretend they’re waiting for a pickup, waiting for a call, waiting for a person still inside one of the shops.
The exhaust drifts from the tailpipe in pale, uneven breaths, disappearing into the cold before it reaches the streetlight.
The van doesn’t scare me. It irritates me. Wrong place. Wrong stillness.
I watch it without turning my body fully toward it.
The driver’s side window is too dark to see through.
No headlights. Parking lights off. Engine running anyway.
That’s a choice, not a mistake. In this cold, plenty of people leave a car running, but most of them want heat or visibility.
They check phones. Tap fingers. Shift in their seats.
Give the world some sign of being a person doing ordinary shit.
This thing sits like a held breath. It doesn’t sit right.
I pull my gloves from my pocket and slide them on slow. Leather over knuckles. Tug at the wrist. Other hand. Same motion. My eyes stay on the van through all of it. No movement. No door opening. No brake lights. No face in the windshield.
Most men would tell themselves it’s nothing. A van sitting on a public street isn’t a threat by itself. A running engine in winter isn’t suspicious enough to justify action. A dark window doesn’t mean someone’s watching. Most men need proof because they’re afraid of being wrong.
I’m not. Being wrong costs less than ignoring the thing your body already knows.
Behind me, the door to Ambrosia opens and a warm burst of sound spills into the lot.
“Cobra.”
Allison.
I look back without moving my feet.
She’s standing in the doorway with her arms crossed, blonde hair pinned up, expression tight in a way she probably doesn’t show customers. Red light catches her face, making her look sharper than she already does. “You good?” she asks.
My gaze moves back to the van. “Inside.” That’s all I say.
She follows my line of sight, and her posture changes immediately. Not dramatic. Just enough. Shoulders squared. Chin lifted. Eyes narrowing. “What is it?”
“Don’t know yet.”
“Yet,” she repeats.
I look at her again. “Lock the door behind me. Side door too. Tell the girls rides wait inside.”
She doesn’t argue. That’s why I respect her. “Got it,” she says.
The door closes a second later, and I hear the lock turn. Good.
I swing onto my bike and start it. The engine catches low and hard beneath me, the vibration traveling through my thighs, my hands, my chest. Familiar. Grounding.
The van still doesn’t move.
I ease out of the lot and onto the road like I’m heading back to the clubhouse, just another ride after a routine pickup. I don’t look directly at the van as I pass it. Men watching for attention know how to read attention. I let my peripheral vision do the work.
Two shapes in front. Maybe one in back. Hard to tell through the tint and dark. The driver doesn’t turn his head. Passenger sits too still.
I ride past.
The block stretches ahead of me, dark storefronts on one side, narrow side streets cutting between buildings on the other.
A bar farther down leaks noise through a cracked door.
A couple stands near the entrance, arguing low and drunk, her hands moving too fast, his head bent close like he’s trying to look sorry without actually being sorry.
Beyond them, the street thins out into quieter businesses already closed for the night.
I should keep going. I have the deposit on me.
Logan’s words are still fresh. We’ve got enough heat.
Get the money and come back. That’s the plan.
I ride another twenty yards. Then I slow.
My hand loosens on the throttle before I decide to make it happen, and that tells me everything I need to know.
I don’t like the van. I don’t like the stillness.
I don’t like that my skin has gone tight across my shoulders for something I can’t name yet.
I take the next right. The bike leans into the turn, tires gripping cold pavement. The street narrows immediately, the light dimmer here, buildings pressing in closer. Dumpsters line the alley side. A cat bolts from under one of them and disappears through a gap in a fence.
I don’t speed. I don’t need to. I circle the block. That’s all. One pass to see if the van stays put. One pass to see if there’s another vehicle tucked somewhere with a better angle. One pass to give instinct a chance to turn into information.
The back side of Ambrosia is quieter. Service door locked. Security camera blinking above it. A stack of empty crates sits beside the rear wall, exactly where it always does. No one in the alley. No cigarette ember near the corner. No shadow pulling back from the light.
I keep moving.
At the end of the alley, I turn left again and roll past a row of closed shops.
A pawn shop with a metal grate over the window.
A nail salon with a handwritten sign crooked in the door.
A small office with blinds drawn tight. Nothing out of place at first glance.
Then a sedan pulls away from the opposite curb two blocks down. Could be nothing. Probably is.
Still, I clock it.
Dark gray. Four-door. One headlight slightly dimmer than the other. It turns the opposite direction, away from Ambrosia. No hurry. No obvious connection.
I keep it in my head anyway.
The church room rolls back through my mind in pieces.
Calls. Probing. Leverage. Someone looking for weak points.
A van sitting too still near club business doesn’t automatically tie to that.
It could be something else. Could be local assholes.
Could be a boyfriend waiting on one of the girls.
Could be a drunk trying to sober up before driving.
Could be nothing but cold metal and bad timing.
Doesn’t matter.
Something wrong is still something wrong, whether it belongs to the problem you already know about or a new one coming up behind it.
I turn left again. The bike carries me past a laundromat still lit bright despite only one old man sitting inside, reading a newspaper like the rest of the world hasn’t moved on. He looks up when I pass, not scared, just curious. I don’t slow. At the next corner, I come back toward the main road.
The van is still there. Same spot. Engine running. No lights.
I roll past from the opposite direction this time, slower than traffic but not slow enough to invite questions.
The window tint gives me nothing. The body gives me more.
Clean plates. Not local mud. No business sticker.
Rear tire slightly low. Sliding door on the passenger side.
Small dent near the back wheel well. There’s a scrape along the side panel, fresh enough that it catches the streetlight different.