3. Diesel
DIESEL
The rendezvous point is a gravel turnoff behind an abandoned feed mill, two miles from the county line, where kudzu’s swallowed half the roof and nobody’s bothered to tear the rest down. Cloud cover blots out the moon and stars, which suits us fine. We don’t come here for the view.
I strip off my cut after I kill the engine, folding it into the saddlebag with care, because Riot’s rule is Riot’s rule—no colors on a job like this, nothing that ties a face to a patch if things go sideways.
Underneath, I’m wearing a black hoodie, jeans, and boots I don’t care about ruining.
My rings stay on. Some habits I won’t break for anybody.
The mask goes on last. Red demon, cheap latex, just another Halloween aisle find. Up close it’s almost funny—the horns are a little crooked, the paint is chipping at one eye—but from a distance, under headlights, it does exactly what it’s supposed to do. Makes you a shape instead of a man.
Havoc’s already got his on when I walk over, leaning against the cage we’re using for transport tonight—an old panel van with county plates that Bone “acquired” through channels I don’t ask about.
Behind that horned latex, I can still tell it’s him by the way he holds his shoulders, loose and ready, patient.
“Prospects in position?” I ask.
“Kade’s a half mile north, Wyatt’s south.” He checks his phone, thumb moving fast. “Both in position. Radio silence otherwise. Bullet’s already up on the ridge.”
I nod toward Riot and Trigger, loading gear into the second truck. “They’re running perimeter same as we planned?”
“Yeah.” Havoc tilts his head, making his neck pop. “Ryder and Ace are already at the intercept point. We roll in ten.”
I check the knife at my ankle, the pistol at my back, then start running my thumb along the leather cord at my throat out of habit until I catch myself doing it and force my hand back down to my side.
The ring’s there. Tucked under the hoodie, resting against my sternum where the cut usually keeps it safe against my ribs. I’ve had it there for a week now, and I don’t know why. Or I don’t want to admit it to myself.
Seventeen years, and I still can’t leave the damn thing in a drawer. Now I’ve even escalated to wearing it against my skin.
We roll out in a loose line, headlights off until we’re deep enough into the back roads that nobody’ll notice a van and a truck moving through the dark.
County Road 9 curves along the ridge, trees crowding close on either side, and somewhere up ahead, according to Jinx’s tip, a transport van’s running a routine route with fuck-all security, moving confiscated weapons from one evidence locker to another.
Should be easy. I’ve been doing this too long to trust that thought.
Ryder’s voice crackles over the radio when we’re four minutes out. “In position. No traffic either direction.”
“Copy,” Havoc says. “Diesel and I are coming up the rear. Ace, you’re on the doors the second it stops.”
“Already there,” Ace says, and I can hear the grin in it even through static.
The plan’s simple enough. Trigger’s truck—the tow rig—sits half in the ditch a quarter mile up, hazards flashing, hood popped like it broke down in the middle of nowhere.
Any driver with half a brain slows down for that, especially on a road this empty, this late.
And when they do, Ryder and Ace come out of the treeline before the driver’s even got the window rolled down enough to ask if everybody’s all right.
We’re the last piece—coming up from behind, blocking the retreat, making sure nobody gets clever and tries to reverse their way out of it.
The van’s headlights hit the bend right on schedule, exactly the way Jinx said they would. I feel Havoc go still beside me, watching through the windshield with the same patience he brings to church when everyone else is shouting.
The van slows. It’s a standard box setup, county markings stenciled on the side panel, nothing about it screaming high-value cargo to anybody who doesn’t already know better.
It stops.
For about four seconds, everything goes exactly the way it’s supposed to.
Ryder and Ace break from the treeline fast and quiet, masks down, weapons up but not aimed at anything specific yet—just the promise of them if anybody’s stupid.
The driver’s door swings open on reflex, some poor bastard already halfway to offering help before his brain catches up to the men standing in his headlights wearing horns.
Then the passenger door opens too.
“Second man,” I say, already moving, reaching for the pistol at my back even as Havoc barks the same thing half a beat behind me.
Nobody told us it’d be two riders. Nobody told Jinx two riders, or Jinx didn’t think it mattered, and either way it’s a problem now, a big one, because the second guy’s reaching for his gun before his boots hit gravel.
I close the distance before he clears the holster.
Hit him low and hard, shoulder into his ribs, and we go down together in a tangle that knocks the wind out of both of us.
He’s stronger than he looks, wiry, all elbows and knees, and for a few seconds it’s just grunting and grappling in the dark while somewhere behind me I hear Ace shouting at the first guard, herding him face-first against the side of the van.
My guy gets a fist into my ribs that’ll bruise something fierce come morning. I answer with an elbow to his jaw that dazes him long enough that I can flip him onto his stomach and get a zip tie cinched around his wrists before he remembers how his hands work.
“Stay down,” I tell him, voice pitched low and rough behind the mask. “Nobody’s dying tonight. Just be smart.”
He stays down. Good instincts, for a county employee getting paid nowhere near enough for this.
It’s only when I’m hauling myself back up, chest heaving, adrenaline running hot enough that I barely feel the gravel biting into my palms, that I register the cord at my throat’s gone loose. Snapped somewhere in the scuffle, slack against my collarbone where it used to sit tight.
My stomach drops before my hand even finishes the motion of reaching up to check.
Nothing. Just cord, frayed at the end where it tore, and no weight where there should be weight, no metal weight beneath my hoodie.
“Diesel.” Havoc’s voice, tight, close. “We’re clear. Move.”
I don’t have time to look, not when Ace and Ryder are already hauling the first crate out of the van’s back doors, and our panel van is idling at the ready, and every second we stand here is a second closer to some deputy noticing his radio’s gone quiet.
I run my boot through the gravel where I fell, one pass, useless in the dark, then make myself stop before I get us caught.
It’s just a ring. Small stone, simple band, seventeen years of hiding in a pocket nobody else knew about.
It doesn’t have my name on it. Doesn’t have anybody’s name on it—I never got that far, never got the chance—so even if some crime scene tech finds it rolling around in a ditch off County Road 9, it’s not going to mean a damn thing to anybody.
That’s what I tell myself while we load the last crate, while our panel van settles under the weight, while the two guards lie zip-tied and cursing in the grass and Bullet’s voice comes calm and quiet over the radio confirming no vehicles inbound. That’s what I keep telling myself on the ride back.
It’s just a ring.
But my hand keeps finding my chest anyway, fingers pressing against nothing, like touching the empty space enough times might conjure the weight back.
We got the guns. Nobody got hurt bad enough to matter—the second guard’s got a jaw that’ll ache for a week, and the first’s pride took more of a beating than his body did, but both of them are breathing, both of them are cursing, both should be found inside the hour.
Should feel like a win.
I keep rubbing the broken cord between my fingers all the way back.