Chapter 9 #3
For a second, the hardness dropped from her face, and I saw the weight underneath. The calculus. Her girls. Her bars. Her beds. The women under this roof who had crawled out of worse hells than this and just wanted a place the monsters didn’t reach.
She straightened. The blade slid back into place.
“All right, here’s how this is going to go.”
We all listened.
“That bag doesn’t leave this building without me and Blackjack’s say,” she said.
“Joint custody. It moves only when we both agree. If one of us catches wind that someone is sniffing around looking for it, we tell the other immediately. No secrets. No hoping it will go away. We’re in this together now. ”
8-Ball nodded. “Agreed,” he said.
“We put eyes on every point this touches,” she went on.
“Miami stays under watch at the hospital. Birdie has him. Mink has an eye on law enforcement channels. Any suit or cop looks at his chart funny, we’ll know.
You keep your boys watching your end. The docks, the casinos, your clubhouse.
We put our girls on our bars, our streets, our usual pipeline.
Anyone new sniffing around, asking the wrong questions, carrying themselves like more than a drunk, we flag it. ”
“Copy that,” Blackjack said. “We’ll increase coverage on the piers. Mirage will work the money angle, see if any of our regular flow looks off. Snake Eyes is already shaking his trees.”
“In return,” Liberty said, “you keep Roman’s people on a leash. I’m not gonna have some eager Giorlando soldier stomping through my turf because he heard a rumor about this missing book. You want to tell him this exists, you do it in a room you control. Not in my streets.”
“That’s already on the docket,” Blackjack revealed. “I have a sit-down with Roman and Vladimir today. High floor at one of the casinos. Roman’s Penthouse. Neutral ground, allegedly. Mirage, Spade, Ace, and Snake Eyes are coming with me. Smaller footprint. Enough muscle to make a point.”
My heart rate picked up.
“You going to tell him everything?” Liberty asked.
“I’m going to tell him this,” Blackjack said.
“Someone used his docks to move a package he didn’t authorize.
That package got attacked by mercs. One of my men nearly died.
The package is volatile as hell and ties his enemies together in ways we don’t fully understand just yet.
And that unless he wants a war on three fronts, he needs to get his own house in order and help us figure out who the hell is moving product through his yards without his blessing. ”
“And the book?” she asked.
“The existence of it, yes,” Blackjack said. “The details, not fully yet. Not until I know whether Vladimir is in this as a mark or a player. I’m not handing proof of the Vincinos’ plans to someone who might be the one writing them.”
Liberty considered that, and nodded. “Fine,” she said. “But you keep me in the loop. You learn something in that penthouse, I want to know it before your ass hits your bike seat again.”
“You will,” he said. “In fact…” He trailed off for a second, then firmed his tone. “8-Ball, Jersey.”
“Yeah,” we said together.
“If you don’t hear from me within an hour of the meeting start time,” he said, “you treat it like we didn’t walk out. Eight, you operate as acting President. Jersey, you lay out war plans. If none of us make it out, you’re VP. Not Spade or Miami. Understood?”
The room shrank.
“Come on,” I said automatically. My throat was dry. “That’s dramatic, even for you.”
“This isn’t dramatics Jersey,” he said. “This is contingency. If Roman or someone else decides I am more useful as a message than a partner, the club doesn’t get to stand around wringing hands.
You fall in. You follow this plan we hammered out before I go in.
You get that book and its tech under deeper cover.
You tighten up ranks. You keep Quinn and the others breathing.
You keep Miami alive for as long as his body will let him.
I’ll need someone leading the war by Eight’s side.
Miami’s out of commission. Spade will be with me at the meeting, so if I’m taken out, chances are he will be too. ”
8-Ball’s jaw clenched. “I don’t like this,” he said.
“Neither do I,” Blackjack said. “But I like pretending we’re untouchable even less.
This meeting could go smoothly. Roman could be as pissed as we are and be ready to burn whoever did this.
Or he could already be compromised. Or Vladimir could be half a step from stabbing him in the back and this exposes it all.
We don’t know. So, we plan for the worst and aim for the better. ”
Liberty’s gaze flicked between the phone and me. I felt her recalculating. A man on the other end who might not walk out. Another who might have to step into shoes he wasn’t ready to fill, at least for a while.
“You sure about your boy?” she asked Blackjack. “VP is a heavy patch.”
“He’s been carrying it without the rocker for years,” Blackjack said. “No offense Eight. The only difference would be the ink. If I fall, Eight keeps the head. Jersey keeps the teeth. Together, they keep our family breathing long enough to either bury me right or burn the ones who did it.”
Heat crawled up my neck. Not pride. Not exactly. Something mixed with dread. Responsibility was heavier than any gun.
“You hear that, Jersey?” he asked.
“Yeah,” I said quietly. “I hear you.”
“Good,” he said.
“Besides. I don’t want to end up dying stupid in a Viper clubhouse over some argument about beards.”
Valkyrie coughed once. It might have been a laugh.
“We’ll keep you from dying stupid,” Liberty said. “I can’t promise I won’t be tempted to shoot you for being mouthy, though.”
“That’s half his charm,” Blackjack said.
I could tell it was with a smirk. “Okay. Here’s the plan.
I’ll text you when I arrive. If you don’t hear from me in an hour, you treat it as a loss.
Until then, you three,” he meant me, 8-Ball, and Turnpike, “act like I’m walking out and we still have time to play with. ”
“Copy,” 8-Ball said.
“Got it,” Turnpike said.
“Yes, Prez,” I acknowledged.
“Good,” he said. “Now close that book, put it back in the bag, and don’t open it again unless we’re all in the same room or the world’s on fire.”
I ran my hand over the pages once, feeling the weight of the names and numbers there without reading them. Then I shut it and slipped it back into the pack, zipping it up. The sound seemed too loud.
Liberty watched my hands. “Welcome to the deep end, Devil,” she said. “You ready to learn how to swim with us and fight like a girl, or are you still thinking you can ride this out?”
I met her eyes.
“Alone was never an option,” I said. “Not anymore.”
She smiled. Sharp. Pleased.
“Good,” she said. “Because like it or not, our roads just merged. And whoever’s out there hunting that shit is about to learn what happens when you push two clubs into the same corner.”
The phone on the desk went quiet. Blackjack had hung up.
The room stayed loud anyway. Not with sound. With possibility. With risk.
With the ticking of a clock we couldn’t see but all felt.
I looked at the bag. At 8-Ball. At Liberty. At Valkyrie by the door, arms folded, eyes on me.
If that hour ran out and the call never came, everything I thought I knew about my life was going to shift.
One thing was going to stay the same though.
Whoever had set this in motion, whoever had written that book and put it in that bike and sent killers after my brother, had just made themselves the worst kind of enemies.
We were coming.
All of us. Devil’s Aces and Shore Vipers. Two different kinds of venom swirling toward the same wound.
They wanted power.
They were about to catch fire.