Chapter 16
Sixteen
Valkyrie
The Black Velvet didn’t look like a war zone from the outside.
It looked like money.
The club sat near the strip, wrapped in glass and light.
Black marble steps, velvet rope, two mountains in suits at the door.
Neon script curled above the entrance—BLACK VELVET—in a soft purple glow that said you had to know somebody to get past the line, and if you had to ask how much a drink cost, you didn’t belong inside.
We didn’t wait in the line.
Jersey rolled ahead of us, lifted two fingers.
One of the door mountains clocked the Devils patches, then my Vipers colors, and hit the latch.
Rope lifted. Crowd parted. The looks that followed us were all money, lust, curiosity, and that particular edge of fear that came when people realized the real wolves had just walked into their pretty little cage.
Inside was worse.
Champagne and perfume and sweat. Bass so heavy it vibrated in my ribs and made my bruises complain.
Lights strobed over leather couches, mirror-backed bars, bodies pressed together in tailored suits and dresses that cost more than some bikes.
Girls in sparkles and heels moved through the swarm like they’d been bred for it.
The Black Velvet was built in layers. Dance floor drowning in light and noise. Rail of tables above it for the semi-important. And above that, like a throne box at a gladiator ring, the VIP lounge—a suspended glass-and-steel nest overlooking everything.
That’s where Dante “Diamond” Giorlando held court probably.
We were escorted up by a man with a jaw like a cinder block and a discreet earpiece. He didn’t ask our names. Didn’t need to. The patches did the talking. Vipers. Devils. Roman’s problem solving children.
The VIP lounge was quieter only by degrees.
Music still bled through the glass, bass a constant pulse under our feet, but voices were more contained.
Leather booths. Low tables. Crystal bottles lined up like trophies.
High rollers, models, men who lived in custom suits and thought they were bulletproof because they tipped well.
Dante stood by the glass.
Red suit, no shirt. Just a blood-colored blazer and matching pants, black dress shoes shined obscene. His chest was a map of ink—saints and sinners climbing up sculpted muscle. Gold chain, gold watch, rings that would break your nose if he slapped you. Hair slicked back perfectly.
He looked exactly like the kind of man who’d use a club as a mirror just to see himself prettier.
Turnpike made a face I didn’t miss. Jersey’s mouth twitched.
Dante turned as we approached. His eyes flicked over the patches, the faces, the grime we still wore from the day. Annoyance flashed before charm slid over everything like lacquer.
“Blackjack sent his best?” Dante asked, voice smooth.
“Blackjack sends us as a warning,” Jersey said.
Dante’s smile thinned. “You picked a fun way to bring me a Hallmark card,” he said, glancing at the Valet in front of his club. “Packed house. Money on every table. And you waltz in here with colors like you’re about to fire a gun in the air.”
“We’d prefer not to,” I said. “That’s sort of why we’re here.”
His gaze landed on me finally. Took in the blue-and-black of the Shore Vipers. The warlord patch on my chest. The faint smudge of someone else’s blood still on my cut.
“I don’t know you,” he said. “New pet?” he then asked, turning to Jersey.
“New ally,” I replied. “And I’m nobodies’ pet.”
He huffed a laugh. “Relax.”
He waved us closer toward a low table already crowded with half-finished bottles and abandoned glasses.
Two men flanked him like furniture—Abenzio Leandro on his left, Metella Azzarello on his right.
I knew the names from Jersey’s rundown on the way in here after we parked.
Both soldiers. Both old-line Giorlando men.
Abenzio was thick-necked, middle-aged, scar doing a white line across his lip. Azzarello was leaner, younger, eyes sharp, suit black and immaculate.
Raptor hovered just behind Turnpike’s shoulder, trying to look smaller than he was. Baby prospect. First real big war job. I didn’t need to see his face to feel the electricity under his skin. Fear and pride and wanting to prove himself so hard it stung.
“Talk fast,” Dante said. “Before one of my VIPs gets spooked and leaves before spending more money.”
Jersey didn’t bother with a speech. He laid it out in short, hard strokes.
The messenger at the gate. The SUVs that had rolled up to the Devil’s compound to talk about numbers like they were inevitabilities.
Tesauro’s name. The three businesses hit in the same breath—Sin City, the Lodge, Outlaw Armory.
“All deliberate,” I added. “Strip club, bar, gun shop. Three different income streams. Three different fingers. All broken at the same time.”
Dante’s jaw worked. “I’ll be fine. Have you seen the guards out front? I don’t cut corners on security.”
“Maybe not,” Turnpike said. “But you’re lit up like a fucking Christmas tree right now, Diamond.
Your club is on the hit list. Your name.
Your accounts. Your fronts. You’re exactly the kind of target they go for when they want to show your father they can reach into his pockets and take out whatever they want. ”
That got through.
For a second, something sharp flickered behind Dante’s gaze. Then the smirk came back, thinner.
“So what?” he asked. “You’re here to hold my hand through a slow night?”
“We’re here to make sure you walk out the door when this place closes,” I said. “Whether or not anyone tries to make that harder is up to your friends in Philly.”
Before he could respond, something rippled through the air below us.
You get a feel for crowds when you spend enough nights in rooms with too much liquor and not enough sense. The shift was subtle at first. A sway in the movement instead of a flow. A buzz that wasn’t just laughter.
Then a shout from near the front doors. The kind that cuts across the heavy bass and chatter. Glass breaking in a way that wasn’t a bartender’s accident. A woman’s scream.
Dante’s head whipped toward the floor below. So did all of ours.
Movement at the entrance. Figures pushing against the crowd instead of with it. A flash of metal where there shouldn’t be.
“Down!” Abenzio barked.
The front windows of the club blew inward, glass exploding in a spray that caught laser light and scattered it. Bullets chewed through the entryway, thudding into walls, bar fronts, bodies. The bass kept going, gunfire almost muffled in the soundscape.
People moved all at once. Some dropped. Some ran. Some froze and became obstacles or targets depending on how the night felt about them.
The flicker of muzzle flashes near the entrance lit up faces twisted in something beyond fear.
Cartel boys in black shirts, Vincino soldiers in dark jackets with that same clean money stink all over them.
I saw a familiar face in the mess—a Serpent patch near the door, maybe two. They’d brought their snakes along.
The windows of the VIP lounge door shattered next.
Glass burst inward in a glittering wave. The first round would’ve taken my head off if Jersey hadn’t slammed into me from the side.
We hit the floor hard. My shoulder throbbed from landing on it. His weight crushed the breath out of me. I heard Turnpike curse as he grabbed the edge of the table we’d been standing near and flipped it on its side. Bottles toppled, shattered. Liquid and glass slid across the floor.
“Move!” Turnpike barked.
We rolled, crawled, dragged ourselves behind the overturned furniture as more rounds punched through where we’d just been. The windows along the VIP edge went spiderwebbed and then gave entirely, glass raining down onto the dance floor below in a deadly glitter.
I scanned the lounge quickly, heart thudding in time with that bass rumble still pulsing in my bones.
Raptor was crouched behind another table closer to Dante, eyes huge, gun in his hands. Dante was half-crouched near the glass with Abenzio, both returning fire in controlled bursts down at the men below. Azzarello had his gun out too, posture perfect behind his boss.
The club lights hadn’t stopped. Color strobed over everything. Red, blue. It made it impossible to tell blood from champagne from backlit sweat.
“Front left, by the bar,” Jersey shouted, peeking over the edge of the table just long enough to send two rounds into a shadow. “Three cartel, two in suits. Serpents near the pillar!”
I rose to a knee, braced my arm on the table edge, and took aim. A Vincino suit using a screaming woman as a shield popped his head up at the wrong time. My bullet kissed his forehead. He dropped. The woman scrambled away on hands and knees, dress torn.
The air smelled like spilled liquor and fear.
They wanted chaos. Cover. Too many bodies moving for anyone to see who was shooting who until it was too late.
Raptor shifted, trying to get a clean line. His hands shook, but his jaw was set.
“Take your time,” I yelled over, voice sharp. “You don’t spray, you place. Breathe. Sight. Squeeze.”
His eyes flicked to mine for half a heartbeat. He nodded once. Then he leaned out just enough and fired.
One of the cartel guys near the lower bar jerked and went down.
“Good,” Jersey yelled. “Good shot!”
There was no time for Raptor to smile.
A round came up from the floor at a nasty angle. I heard the crack an instant before I saw it hit.
Raptor jerked like a puppet with its strings yanked. The bullet caught him high in the neck, just under the jawline. Blood fountained in a pulse.
He collapsed back onto the carpet behind the table, gun skittering away.
“Fuck!” I hissed.
I was moving before I realized it.
I slid across broken glass and spilled booze on my knees. My knees and palms sliced open; I didn’t care. I got to Raptor as he grabbed at his own throat, eyes huge and wild.