Chapter 6
Six
Jersey Boy
The zipper teeth parted with a low hiss.
Inside the backpack sat a black leather book, thick and worn at the edges, the kind of thing that never saw daylight unless someone meant trouble. Next to it was a smaller bundle wrapped in plastic, flat and dense. A tablet, maybe. Or a drive case. Wires coiled at the bottom like snakes.
I ignored the electronics for now and pulled the book out.
It was heavier than it looked. Real leather, real paper, no cheap digital replacement. The cover was blank except for a small, embossed V.
Vincino. Had to be.
My stomach turned.
I opened it near the middle.
Handwritten entries, tight and neat. Columns of numbers. Names. Cities. Dates. Notes in Italian, others in English, a couple in Spanish. Someone had used different colored ink for different categories. Black for payments. Blue for contacts. Red for risks.
I flipped back a few pages.
BOLIVAR – distribution routes, northeastern corridor. Then arrows to port cities. Dollar signs. A note was in the margin. “Increase pressure, test Giorlando response.”
Next page.
STEEL SERPENTS – retainer renewed. Under that, a list of hits and “messages” with approximate dates. Some crossed out. One of the most recent said “secure and escort transit, high sensitivity. NJ coast. Use bikers, keep insignia hidden. No contact with the Giorlandos.”
My fingers tightened on the edges of the book.
Below that, in smaller letters:
“Keep Serpents at arm’s length. Too visible if heat comes down.”
I flipped ahead. The next section was a scouting report. Not for Philly. For Atlantic City.
CASINOS – ownership webs, shell companies, suspected skims. GIORLANDO FAMILY written across the top in underlined letters. Beneath it, notes on who might be bribed, who might be leaned on, which dealers were in debt. Little circles marked “soft targets.”
Then another heading.
“THE RUSSIAN – intermediary or independent?”
Under that, questions. Speculation. A doodle of a question mark.
Whoever wrote this didn’t fully understand where this Russian fit, but they were trying hard.
My heart hammered against my ribs.
This wasn’t just a ledger. It was a fucking war manual.
Bolivar Cartel. Vincino business fronts. Bank accounts. Safe houses. Shipment schedules. Contacts listed with little symbols next to them. Some with crosses. Some with dollar signs. Some with skulls.
A page near the back made my stomach flip.
YAKUZA – exploratory talks, via syndicate intermediaries. Prospects in port control, customs bottlenecks. Potential to triangulate Russians, Bolivar, “friends in Atlantic City” against each other.
Someone had written underneath, in red ink.
“Control the docks, control the board.”
I closed the book with more force than I meant to. The slap of leather on leather sounded too loud in the quiet room.
This thing was not meant to exist. Not all in one place. Not in writing. And definitely not in the hands of a half-dead biker from Florida and his idiot best friend in a borrowed hospital room.
Someone was either dangerously arrogant or dangerously desperate.
I slid the book back into the backpack, careful to tuck it under the plastic-wrapped device so it was not the first thing anyone would see. I zipped the bag fully closed and slung it onto my shoulder. Its weight settled between my shoulder blades, too present to ignore.
That bag was not leaving my sight again unless someone cut it off my corpse.
I took one last look at Miami. His face had relaxed again, drifting wherever the drugs took him. He looked younger like that. And breakable.
“I don’t know who’s trying to burn who,” I said quietly. “But I’m not letting them use you as kindling. You hear me? We’ll figure this shit out.”
He didn’t answer, but the heart monitor kept beeping in that steady rhythm. For now, that was enough.
I stepped back from the bed and dug my phone out of my pocket with my free hand. Thumbs moving on instinct.
I hit send to Blackjack.
The three little dots barely had time to appear before my phone buzzed with an incoming call.
“Yeah,” I said, bringing it to my ear as I moved toward the door.
“What do you mean ‘what was in the bike’?” Blackjack’s voice came through, sharp and awake. “Past tense.”
“I’m in his room now,” I said. “He pulled whatever was in that thing before the crash. Stuffed it into a backpack. Prez, it’s bad.
I’m talking Vincino black book. Cartel ties, Steel Serpent jobs, bank accounts, ports, even notes on a Russian and the Giorlando family.
They have been mapping everybody. Someone is either trying to play both sides or blow both families sky high. ”
There was a stretch of silence on the line. I could imagine him at his desk, jaw clenched, Mirage probably hovering with his own ideas of what that meant for the numbers.
“Are you sure?” he asked.
“I’m holding the fucker,” I said. “I’d bet my patch on it. It’s all here. Bolivar, Vincino, Russian mentions, Giorlando targets. Even Yakuza scribbles. Whoever wrote this wants a war they can steer from the shadows.”
I reached for the door handle and stepped out into the hallway. I began to walk around as Blackjack continued to speak, taking a quick mental checklist of the hall’s contents. A nurse’s cart at the far end, a trash bin, a wall-mounted sanitizer dispenser.
“Don’t read another word,” Blackjack said. “Don’t take pictures. Don’t call anyone else. You bring that book home and we decide together who sees it, if anyone. Until then, it doesn’t exist. You understand me?”
“I do,” I replied as I spotted a man down the hall.
He stepped into view from the intersecting corridor, his pace unhurried.
Dark suit. White shirt. No tie. Clean haircut.
The kind of face you forgot even as you were looking at it.
One hand brushed his jacket aside as he turned, and I saw the gun in his other, low at his thigh, angled so nobody would see it until it was too late.
He started walking toward me. Toward Miami’s room.
My blood ran cold and heart thudded louder than the monitors. Every instinct screamed.
The man’s gaze flicked up to the room numbers as he walked. 411. 413.
He slowed.
“Evan?” Blackjack’s voice pressed at my ear.
Before I could answer, another voice cut through the air. Not through the phone. From behind me.
“Get down!”
It was a woman’s voice. Sharp. Commanding. Closer than it should have been.
I spun around.
She stood in the hall like she had been carved to fit the space.
No helmet now. Long pale blond hair pulled back in a low tail, a few strands loose around a jaw that could cut glass.
Neck and throat inked in black, patterns disappearing under the collar of her black shirt.
Black jeans molded to strong legs. Black cut with the twin vipers and skull of the Shore Vipers patch.
Pistol already up in both her hands, arms steady.
Her eyes locked on mine for half a heartbeat. Ice blue. Focused. Annoyed I hadn’t already listened.
“I said get down, city boy!” she snapped.
Time did something weird.
I had heard once that when you met your soulmate, the world slowed down. I had always assumed if that were true, I would be in a bar, holding a drink, not in a hospital hallway with a woman aiming a gun past my head.
Figures.
I dropped.
The same instant my knees hit the floor, the gun at the far end of the hall came up.
The first shot cracked, loud and bright. The bullet hit the door frame where my shoulder had been a minute earlier, splintering wood and plaster.
The second shot sounded on top of it, a sharper one. Hers. She didn’t hesitate. Didn’t flinch. Just adjusted and fired again.
“Jersey!” Blackjack shouted in my ear. “What the fuck is going on?”
Before I could answer, something hot and fast kissed my hand. My phone jerked. There was a flash of plastic and glass and then it was just gone, ripped out of my fingers, pieces scattering across the gleaming floor.
The call cut off mid-curse.
“Shit,” I hissed.
Screams erupted from somewhere down the hall. A nurse dove behind the station desk. A metal tray clanged as someone dropped it. The heart monitor in Miami’s room sped up in protest through the half open door.
“Stay low,” the woman barked. She moved forward in a half crouch, sighting down the hall. “Don’t get cute.”
The man in the suit staggered as one of her shots found him. He pressed himself against the wall, arm jerking. His return fire went wild, chewing into the ceiling tiles, one bullet punching into a light fixture that popped and rained glass dust.
She advanced another step, controlled, teeth bared. Not a grin.
I scrambled closer to the doorway, keeping myself between the hall and Miami’s bed. The backpack seemed to burn between my shoulders. If the guy down there was here for the ledgers, I was wearing his prize and what he was after.
The loudspeakers crackled to life overhead.
“Code Silver, Code Silver,” a calm automated voice recited. “Security alert. Active shooter reported on the fourth floor. All staff, shelter in place. Lock all patient doors.”
Too late for that.
Another shot from the far end. I felt it whip the air near my cheek and slammed flatter against the wall.
The woman fired again, aiming lower this time. The man jerked, shouted, stumbled. His gun skittered for a second like he was losing his grip, then he clutched it again and lunged for the intersecting corridor.
“Coward!” she shouted.
She took two more quick steps and fired a parting shot.
The bullet caught him somewhere in the side or hip.
He barked in pain, then vanished around the corner.
A second later the ding of an elevator drifted down the hall, or maybe it was the crash bar of the stairwell door.
Hard to tell through the adrenaline buzz.
Silence dropped like a curtain, broken only by the alarm and distant chaos on other floors.
I pushed myself up to one knee.
“That who I think it was?” I asked, breathing hard.