Twenty One #4
“You Devils start every party without us?” she shouted as she passed.
“Fashionably late as always,” Valkyrie yelled back, teeth bared.
Behind Liberty, Rosé hunched low over her bars, pistol steady. Two more Vipers—Cali and India—fanned out, one taking the far side, the other angling in toward the guard rail.
The cartel and Vincino men hadn’t planned for this. You could see it in the way they reacted—not coordinated, just panic.
One of them turned his gun toward Liberty’s flank.
I dropped him with a shot through the sternum.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw movement inside the lobby.
It was Blackjack.
He and 8-Ball came in hard through the street-side interior corridor, guns already spitting. Turnpike was with them, his new patch glistening, his face set.
The last of Vlad’s men on the inside were caught in a pincer—Devils at their backs, Vipers on the boards.
They broke.
Badly.
The Cartel member with the shotgun I injured earlier tried to run. Valkyrie shot him in the spine. He went down and stayed there.
The last suited gunman threw his hands up. Liberty’s rear rider, Medusa, winged him anyway, just to make a point. He dropped his weapon, clutching his arm.
Vladimir didn’t run.
He dragged Roman’s wife toward a railing, arm tight around her shoulders, still using her as cover. Gianna was pressed close now, between him and the rail, head ducked like she was just trying to survive the storm.
“Miami!” Blackjack barked into the comms. “Talk to me.”
“You’re clear on the boardwalk for now,” Miami said.
“All I see moving are the women on their bikes, you idiots in cuts, and Vlad in the middle of the mess. Street side, we’re good.
You’ve got cops starting to roll further up, but Roman’s men are already diverting tourists and traffic to block them from coming.
You’ve got maybe five minutes, ten at the most before uniforms try to make this their problem. ”
“Plenty of time,” Blackjack said.
We started converging. Those of us Devils still inside the building appeared, missing the action but here now for the conclusion of it.
Liberty’s formation peeled away, bikes slowing, then circling back to form a loose perimeter up-board and down-board, engines idling low. A few of her girls dismounted, guns still out, eyes sharp.
Inside the lobby, 8-Ball and Turnpike stepped up to the shattered doorway, covering Vladimir from the other angle. A few of the other Devils’ fanned out behind them.
Valkyrie and I moved forward across the boards, staying low. The boards creaked under our boots, old wood protesting.
“Vladimir,” Blackjack called.
His voice was calm. Hard.
“You’re done,” he said. “Let her go.”
Vlad turned slightly, enough that I could see his face more clearly. Sweat had dampened the hair at his temples. There was a cut on his cheekbone that hadn’t been there upstairs. His eyes… weren’t afraid.
“You have me surrounded,” he said, smiling. “I admit, it’s impressive. Devils, and Vipers. A very dangerous and expensive audience.”
“You wanted a show,” Liberty said, semi-idle where she sat on her bike, one boot down, gun resting on the bars. “You got one. Time to bow. Acts over.”
He shifted his grip. His pistol pressed into Roman’s wife’s side hard. She whimpered, hands trembling in the zip ties.
Gianna’s head lifted.
Her eyes found mine again.
Up close, they looked like Roman’s. Dark, intelligent, angry. But there was something else there too.
A decision.
She whispered something to her mother I couldn’t hear.
Then she stepped closer to Vladimir, like she was seeking more cover, pressing herself against his back.
From anyone else’s angle, it looked like terror. Like she was hiding. From us.
From mine, ten feet off, it looked like positioning.
Her bound hands slid down, then up, like she was just grabbing for his coat for balance.
I saw the glint of metal.
A knife. I don’t know where she got it. Maybe in the chaos of the gunfight she took it off a body. Or maybe she had it on her the entire time.
Smart girl.
He didn’t notice her.
He was too busy talking.
“You won’t shoot me,” he said. “Not while I hold them.”
“Wanna bet?” 8-Ball called. “I’ve been practicing.”
“Roman will want to do it himself,” Vlad said. “You know this. You think he’ll thank you if you steal that from him?”
“Pretty sure he’ll thank us more for not making him plan a double funeral,” Blackjack said. “Last chance.”
Gianna moved.
She drove the knife into his back, right under the ribs, all her weight behind it.
At first, he gasped. Then a scream escaped him.
The sound tore through the night.
His pistol arm jerked away from Roman’s wife on instinct, hand clawing for the wound. Blood soaked his shirt almost immediately.
Roman’s wife stumbled forward out of his grip, falling to her knees on the boards.
Gianna yanked the blade free and kicked the back of his knee at the same time.
He dropped.
He went down hard, one leg buckling, his weight slamming into the railing post. The gun flew out of his grip, skidding across the planks toward me.
I didn’t think.
I fired.
The first shot took him in the right shoulder. The second chewed through his thigh, high enough to ruin his chances of sprinting anywhere anytime soon.
He collapsed fully, spine hitting the boards.
Priest was already moving for the mother, med kit out. Valkyrie lunged forward to cover Gianna, her body interposing between the girl and the rest of the building.
Blackjack strode out onto the boards from the lobby, gun still trained on Vladimir.
Liberty swung off her bike and came up from the other side.
Vladimir coughed. He stared up at Gianna, betrayal cutting deeper than the injuries.
“You—” he rasped. “You little—”
She stared down at him.
Her chest heaved like she’d been running. I knew it to be adrenaline.
Tears streaked her face, but there was an icy clarity under them that made the hair on my arms lift.
“After all my family has made you. I thought of you as an uncle. Congratulations, Vladimir. You rat.”
Anyone else hearing it would think it was just a furious, traumatized daughter casting blame on the man who’d held a gun to her mother.
I heard something else coiled in it.
Intention.
Narrative.
She’d just written his role for history.
He realized it too.
“You have… no idea… what you are doing,” he coughed, hand scrabbling weakly at the boards. “Tesauro… will… have… his… rev—”
Blackjack stepped in and slammed his boot down on Vlad’s wounded thigh.
The Russian howled. Whatever he’d been about to say dissolved into a ragged noise.
“Save it,” Blackjack said. “You’re not bleeding out here. You don’t die on these boards. Roman asked us to bring you back breathing. You’re going to get your big finale at a different venue.”
He nodded toward Priest.
“Stabilize him just enough to keep him from checking out early,” he ordered. “Tourniquet that leg. I want him screaming when we hand him over.”
Priest left Roman’s wife long enough to snap a band around Vladimir’s thigh. He checked his stab wound too, said it wasn’t fatal, and that he’d live. The Russian cursed in at least three languages.
“Miami,” Blackjack said into his mic. “Status.”
“Building’s clear of hostiles,” Miami said.
“The ones who weren’t dead already are either running or surrendering to Roman’s men.
Street cams show the SUVs and van are empty.
Drivers are fucking gone, captured, or dead too.
Boardwalk cams show… a lot of shell casings.
Sirens inbound from three directions. You need to move. Now.”
“Copy that,” Blackjack said.
Liberty stepped in, eyes sweeping the scene. Her gaze lingered on Vladimir, then on Gianna and her mother, then on us.
“You always pick the prettiest party venues,” she said dryly.
“Tell your girls to start clearing their brass,” Blackjack replied. “You came in hot, now we leave cold. I don’t want the police pinning more than noise complaints on any of us. Roman can take care of that but not if we get caught here red handed.”
Liberty flicked two fingers in a signal. The Vipers broke, some already moving back to their bikes, others scooping up dropped mags and shells.
Priest helped Roman’s wife to her feet. She shook. Her eyes darted over all of us—cuts, guns, bodies. She looked like she wanted to be somewhere else so badly it hurt to see.
“Donatella,” Blackjack said, toning himself down by degrees. “We’re getting you out of here.”
She swallowed. “Thank you, Alice. Roman?” she managed to say.
“You’ll see him soon,” Blackjack said.
Gianna moved to her mother’s side, rubbing at the raw skin on her wrists where the zip ties had been cut. She looked at me.
“You good kid?” Blackjack asked her.
“Yes. Thank you,” she said with a nod.
Her voice was steady.
“Don’t thank us yet,” I said. “We still have to get you past the rest of this circus.”
She smiled faintly.
Blackjack dialed a number on his phone with his thumb and held it to his ear.
He didn’t put it on speaker.
“Roman,” he said when it connected. “It’s over. We’ve got them. Donatella and Gianna are alive. Your traitor’s breathing too, for now.”
He listened.
His jaw tightened.
“We’ll bring him,” he said. “Name the spot.”
A pause.
“The beach?” he repeated. “The old south-end stretch. Yeah. I know it.”
He listened again, then huffed a humorless laugh.
“Understood,” he said. “We’ll be there.”
He hung up and slipped the phone back into his pocket.
“Roman wants a meeting,” he said. “Tonight.”
I glanced at Vladimir.
He glared back up at me, sweat and blood making his face shine.
“Can he walk?” I asked Priest.
Priest snorted. “Not without screaming,” he said. “But with enough drugs and tape, we can get him upright long enough to throw him into a cage.”
“Nothing helpful. Let him feel it all. We need him alive, not comfortable,” Blackjack said.
He looked at Liberty next.
“You riding with us?” he asked.
“Wouldn’t miss the finale,” she said. “Besides, I didn’t come down all this way just to let you Devils have all the fun.”
I felt Valkyrie step close to my side.
The adrenaline was starting to ebb, leaving behind a weird floating feeling. My ears rang. My hands were still steady on the gun, but my heart knew what it had almost just agreed to.
We stand up, we die together.
We stood up. We didn’t die.
Not this time.
Her fingers brushed my wrist, just for a second, under the guise of checking my grip.
“You okay?” she asked under her breath.
“No,” I said. “But I’m here.”
“Same,” she replied.
I thought about what Miami had said at the bar. About not waiting. About how quickly things flipped. About lying on your back somewhere with only one thought left—I should’ve done something when I had the chance.
I’d made a call behind that patio stack. I wasn’t going back on it.
I turned my hand and caught hers properly, squeezing once.
Her eyes widened slightly, then softened in a way I hadn’t seen before. Like some part of her armor had decided it could shift without everything underneath spilling out.
“We’ll talk later,” I said.
“Yeah,” she murmured. “We will.”
Sirens wailed closer now, echoing out onto the boards.
Blackjack started barking orders.
“Valkyrie, Jersey, help Priest and Turnpike get Vladimir into an SUV,” he said. “8-Ball, you coordinate exfiltration on the street side. Liberty, take your girls north-fast, then cut back through side streets to avoid the cops. Valkyrie, you can peel off with them once we’re clear here.”
I tightened my grip on her hand.
“Or,” Blackjack added, glancing at us, a flicker of understanding in his eyes, “you can ride with us to the beach to see what comes next. Your President already said she’s in this to the end. Might as well see one of the big plays with your own eyes.”
Valkyrie raised one eyebrow.
“Hell yeah,” she replied.
Liberty snorted. “Text me the location. We’ll meet you there.”
We then moved.
Priest and Turnpike hauled Vladimir up between them. He groaned as his leg took weight, eyes rolling.
“Careful,” I said. “Wouldn’t want you passing out before your big moment.”
He spat blood in my direction. It hit the boards before it hit my boots.
“You think… this ends it,” he panted. “You’re… stupid. You cut off one hand… the other still holds the knife.”
“Yeah,” I said. “We’ll see about that.”
We muscled him toward the street-side service gate where one of Roman’s anonymous black SUVs already waited with its engine humming.
Roman’s wife followed, one hand on Gianna’s arm. Her heels clicked unevenly on the concrete. She looked shellshocked.
Gianna looked like she’d already decided how to turn this into fuel.
As we loaded Vladimir into the back, I stared at him.
Vladimir wasn’t the head of this beast. Others were involved too. He was just the piece that had stuck his neck out first.
We’d take him to the beach like Roman wanted. We’d watch the old man do whatever the hell he thought justice meant.
And then?
Then we’d see what slithered out of the hole Vladimir left behind.
As I swung the SUV door shut on Vladimir’s groan, the wind off the ocean lifted the smell of death and blood away for a second.
The war wasn’t over. Not yet. If anything, this was just the end of act one.
But for the first time since Tesauro’s name got whispered at our gate, it felt like we’d cracked something in his foundation.
I caught Valkyrie’s eyes over the roof of the SUV.
King and queen, I thought.
We’d just survived our coronation.
Now we were headed to a beach to help bury a traitor and see what kind of kingdom we were actually fighting in.