Chapter 15 #3
“You,” he said, pointing at me. “Valkyrie.” His hand shifted toward the door. “Turnpike. And Raptor. He’s been looking at the floor since the SUVs showed up. Time to see if the kid stands up straight when it matters.”
Valkyrie’s mouth twitched like she was already anticipating me and Dante in the same building.
“That’s a lot of ego in one room,” she murmured.
“If they start measuring dicks, you let them,” Blackjack said.
“As long as nobody starts a shooting match unless it’s absolutely necessary.
You’re going to assess. Show the Giorlandos our colors give a shit their glass stays safe.
Make it clear to Dante we didn’t send this storm, but we’re not letting it blow through unchecked. ”
“Copy,” I said.
“Everyone else knows their assignments,” Blackjack said to the room. “We treat this like the frontline now. No one gets comfortable. No one assumes a quiet hour means we’re safe. It just means the next hit hasn’t landed yet.”
He stood up. Meeting over by posture alone.
We filed out.
In the hallway, the noise of the main room filtered up—voices, clink of bottles, low curse words as men reloaded magazines and taped windows.
Valkyrie fell into step beside me without being asked.
“You all right?” she asked quietly.
“Define all right,” I said.
She huffed. “That line’s getting old.”
“So’s this war,” I replied.
We stepped out into the night air.
The yard looked different in floodlight. The Devil’s Aces insignia on the concrete looked darker. Maybe that was just my eyes.
We stopped just outside the door, in the shadow where the noise thinned out.
“You meant what you said in there?” she asked.
“The part where I essentially told a mafia boss he needed to stop being precious about his consigliere?”
“That part,” she said.
“Yeah. Stumbling upon that ledger changed the timeline. But it didn’t create this.
These moves were coming whether Miami took that bike or not.
We just cut in on the dance early and fucked up their choreography.
The Vincinos. Bolivars. Serpents. All of them were circling this before we even saw that bike.
Men like Tesauro and Vladimir don’t just wake up on a Tuesday and decide to tear down an empire.
They’ve been building up to it. Our club didn’t start this fire. We just saw the first sparks up close.”
Her hand lifted.
She hesitated for a heartbeat—enough time to decide whether touching me again tonight was a mistake—and then she put her palm on my arm. Right over the ink that wrapped wrist to shoulder. Warm. Solid.
“I told you before,” she said. “Your club before everything. Mine too. We didn’t choose the shape of this war. We’re just choosing how we stand in it.”
I looked down at her hand.
Safe.
The word slid through my head before I could catch it. It was stupid. Nothing about any of this was safe. But right here, in this little pocket of shadow, with her fingers on my skin and her eyes on my face, the static in my spine eased a fraction.
Her gaze flicked to my mouth for half a second before jerking back up to my eyes.
We both thought about the kiss. I could feel it in the way the air shifted between us.
“About earlier,” she started to say.
“Blackjack said you needed us?”
Turnpike’s voice cut across the yard and interrupted us. Heavy boots on concrete. Raptor’s lighter steps fell behind him.
Of course our conversation would be interrupted.
We stepped apart a hair, like we’d been discussing weather instead of the ways we were getting under each other’s skin.
Turnpike took one look at the space between us and arched a brow.
“Interrupting something?” he asked.
“Yeah,” I said. “Your future beauty sleep.”
He snorted. “Funny. Prez said I was babysitting you two. Figured I’d better show up before you eloped.”
Raptor hovered just behind him. Young. Eager. Jaw tight enough to crack his teeth. This would be the first real war for him. You could smell his uncertainty.
“You ready, kid?” I asked him.
His chin jerked once. “Yes,” he said. Voice a little too loud. “I mean—yeah. I’m ready.”
“Relax,” Valkyrie said. “We’re just going to a club.”
“Owned by a Giorlando,” Turnpike added. “That’s like saying we’re just walking into a lion’s den with a steak jacket on.”
“Dante’s going to be pissed we’re even there,” I said. “Doesn’t want any of his guests to get spooked.”
Turnpike groaned. “Diamond in a bad mood? I can’t wait.”
Valkyrie let her hand fall from my arm, but the warmth of it stayed.
I grabbed my helmet off the peg by the door. The night smelled like oil, rain that hadn’t fallen yet, and the metallic edge of everything about to go to hell.
Turnpike swung his leg over his bike, Raptor fumbled his helmet on and corrected the strap twice before getting it right. Valkyrie moved with that easy confidence that made everything look intentional.
I met her eyes once more through the curve of my visor before I dropped it.
We didn’t say anything else.
Engines turned over. Thunder in the yard. The gate groaned as it rolled open, showing us a slice of city washed in bad neon and even worse intentions.
The strip glittered in the distance like it didn’t know it was about to be a battlefield.
I settled into the saddle, felt the familiar rumble under me, and breathed once.
“The night’s just getting started,” I muttered.
Then we rolled out to see what else it wanted to break.