Danger leaks. It spreads out throu #2
The passenger’s head turns. Not much. Barely a movement.
If I hadn’t been waiting for it, I might’ve missed it.
He doesn’t watch me long. That’s the tell.
Men with nothing to hide stare too much or not at all.
Guilty men try to look normal, and normal is where they fuck up.
He sees the cut. He looks away too fast.
I keep riding.
The urge to stop sits in my right hand like a loaded gun. Pull over. Walk up. Open the door. Find out who the fuck they are and why they’re sitting outside a club business like they’ve got business of their own. Simple. Effective. Also loud.
Logan’s voice moves through my head, hard and pissed.
We’ve got enough heat.
I grit my teeth and ride another block. Then another.
The cold presses under my collar, but I barely feel it.
My attention is behind me now, stretched back toward the van like wire pulled too tight.
I could call it in. That’s the smart thing, if smart means following the shape of the plan.
Call Logan. Tell him there’s a suspicious van near Ambrosia.
Let him send a prospect or two to sit on it.
Let Landon pull cameras. Let Dom see if plates tell us anything.
Slow.
Too slow.
Instinct doesn’t like slow.
I pull into the lot of a closed auto parts store and cut the engine behind the building, out of direct sight from the main road. Silence rushes in after the motor dies, thick and immediate. I take off my helmet and listen.
A siren wails far off, not close enough to matter. Wind drags a loose sign against a chain-link fence. Somewhere behind the shops, a bottle breaks and a man laughs.
I pull my phone out and hit Logan’s name.
He answers on the second ring. “You on your way back?”
“No.”
Silence.
Then, colder, “Why?”
“There’s a van outside Ambrosia.”
“You call me before or after you walked up on it?”
“Before.”
“Don’t sound so proud of yourself.”
I look toward the main road, though I can’t see the van from here. “Not proud.”
“What kind of van?”
“Dark. No markings. Engine running. No lights. Two in front, maybe one in back.”
Logan exhales, and I can hear the restraint in it. “Could be nothing.”
“Could be.”
“But you don’t think so.”
“No.”
A pause. Not long, but enough for him to shift from irritated brother to president. “Does it look tied to the shit we talked about?”
“Don’t know.”
“Plate?”
I give it to him from memory.
“Fuck,” he mutters, and there’s a scrape on his end like he’s moving. “Stay put.”
“No.”
“Cobra.”
“I’m circling.”
“You just told me you already did.”
“I’m doing it again.”
“Goddamn it.” His voice drops lower, harder. “I said we’re laying low.”
“You said don’t ignore something being off too.”
“I also said don’t freelance.”
“I called.”
“You called while already freelancing.”
He’s not wrong. I look toward the street again. “If they move, I’m following.”
“If they move toward Ambrosia, you call me and keep eyes. You don’t start a fucking war in the street unless they force it.”
“If they force it, I won’t need permission.”
“No shit, that’s what worries me.” Another pause. “I’m sending Blaze and Hammer to drift nearby. Not obvious. You hear me?”
“I hear you.”
“That isn’t the same as agreeing.”
“No.”
Logan swears again, low and vicious. “Keep your head on. We don’t know what this is.”
“That’s why I’m still here.” I end the call before he can keep talking. Not because I don’t respect Logan. Because everything useful has already been said. The rest is just men trying to hold a leash on something that already scented blood. I slide the phone away and start the bike again.
The engine sounds too loud in the alley, but there’s no avoiding that. I pull out slow, heading away from Ambrosia first, then cut down another side street. The grid here isn’t clean, which helps. Old buildings and narrow lanes make it easier to move without being obvious if you know the angles.
I know angles. Always have. Places to stand where no one notices. Corners that hide more than they should. Windows that reflect what’s behind you.
People think survival is strength. It’s not. Strength helps after. Survival starts before anything happens. It starts in noticing where the door is, who has the keys, whose footsteps mean food and whose footsteps mean pain.
My fingers tighten around the grips once, then loosen. Old shit. Irrelevant. Except it isn’t.
It never is.
I come out two blocks east of Ambrosia and ride parallel to the main street, using the storefront windows to catch flashes of reflection.
Headlights. Passing cars. My own bike for a second, dark shape and cut.
Then nothing. I slow near a corner and wait for a delivery truck to lumber past, using its bulk to cover my turn.
When I have the angle again, I see the van. Still there. Still running. Now the sliding door is cracked. Not open. Not closed. Just enough.
My body reacts before I decide it should. Jaw tightens. Grip adjusts on the throttle. Shoulders loosen instead of locking, because tension slows you down and I don’t move slow when something feels off.
The van’s not waiting for someone inside Ambrosia. It’s waiting for movement.
My gaze moves past it, scanning the stretch of sidewalk beyond the hood, past the edge of the streetlight, toward the darker line of storefronts that lead into the salon strip.
Closed signs. Dark windows. One door still lit.
That certainty lands hard and clean, settling in my chest like something I’ve known longer than I’ve been thinking about it. Wrong place. Wrong stillness.
I ease past the van without turning my head, letting my peripheral catch what it can. Two shapes in the front. Passenger shifts slightly. Driver stays too still. No one gets out. No one calls out.
They’re waiting.
I ride another twenty feet and pull to the curb, angling the bike just enough that I can move fast in either direction. Engine cuts. Silence drops in heavy around me, broken only by the low rumble of the van and the distant noise bleeding from the main road.
I take my helmet off slow, not because I’m calm, but because fast movement reads like attention, and attention is the last thing I want to give them before I know what they’re doing. Cold air hits my face again. The feeling’s stronger now. Not fear.
Never fear.
Awareness.
The kind that crawls under your skin and stays there, quiet and certain, waiting for you to either listen or ignore it.
Most people ignore it. I don’t. I shift my stance slightly, boots planted on the pavement, one hand resting near the bike, the other loose at my side.
My gaze drifts across the street like I’m looking at nothing in particular, like I’m just another man taking a second before heading out. But I’m not looking at nothing.
I’m watching everything.
The van. The sidewalk. The gaps between buildings. The reflection in the glass across the street. The passenger moves again. Barely. The door slides another inch. There it is. That’s enough.
My body settles into it, decision already made without needing to be said out loud. I’m not leaving. Not yet. I don’t know who they’re waiting for. I don’t know what they think they’re doing. But I know this…
They’re not sitting there for nothing.
And whatever happens next is going to happen fast.
I roll my shoulders once, loosening the tension that would slow me down, and shift my weight forward just slightly, ready.
Watching. Waiting. Letting instinct do what it’s always done.
Because someone is about to step into this.
And I’m already in position when they do.