2. Stryker #2
I had learned to trust that feeling when it came. It usually meant a door was about to open, or a wall was about to crack, and either way, I needed to be ready before anyone else heard the sound.
We left the room without another word and took the stairs down because the elevator smelled like piss and shook between floors.
Outside, the desert air hit cooler than expected, carrying dust, hot asphalt, and the faint chemical stink from the hotel pool.
Our bikes sat under a flickering lot light beside a minivan with peeling paint and a convertible some idiot had left unlocked.
Three rented tuxes and three motorcycles didn’t make sense together, but that was the first thing that felt honest all night.
Viper swung onto his bike and adjusted his mask over his forehead until we got closer. “No rental car. No driver. Just three subtle businessmen arriving on Harleys.”
I mounted my bike and checked the road beyond the lot. “We aren’t businessmen.”
“No,” Blade said, settling onto his own bike. “We’re subtle.”
Viper laughed as he started his engine. I didn’t.
My mind had already moved ahead to the estate, the guests, the work, the possibilities, the risks, the dozen ways a room full of rich criminals could turn wrong before the first drink was poured.
I hoped whatever was coming tonight helped the Wolves instead of pulling us into something we weren’t built to fight yet.
I hoped, and because hope was useless without action, I rode.
By the time the blonde crossed the ballroom with a bottle tucked against her hip, I had already decided I hated almost everyone in the room.
The estate was worse than expected. Too much marble, too much glass, too much money pretending taste could be purchased by the square foot.
The ballroom glowed gold beneath chandeliers that probably cost more than the garage back home, and every table seemed crowded with men who had never worried about rent, ammunition, or whether the man watching their back would still be there when bullets started moving.
They wore four-piece suits tailored close to their bodies, custom masks made of leather, metal, feathers, and, in one case, what looked like polished bone. They laughed too softly. Touched women too casually. Looked at other men like every conversation was a transaction already halfway done.
We had found an empty table near the edge of the room after twenty minutes of failing to blend in.
The table gave me a view of the main doors, one service entrance, part of the hallway leading toward the restrooms, and the raised platform, where musicians played something slow and forgettable.
Viper had taken the chair angled toward the densest cluster of guests, listening more than speaking.
Blade sat with his back close to the wall because he was smarter than most men in rooms like this.
I sat between them, nursing a glass of whiskey that cost too much and tasted like someone had described smoke to water.
“Man by the east column has been watching the redheaded server for eight minutes,” Blade said quietly.
Viper didn’t look over. “Because she lifted his watch.”
Blade glanced at him.
“She gave it to the brunette with the tray,” Viper continued. “Brunette passed it to the catering manager. Either they’re running their own side business, or the staff here are better trained than advertised.”
I watched the catering manager disappear through a service door. “Not our problem unless someone thinks we’re part of it.”
“We look too cheap to be part of it,” Viper said.
Blade adjusted his cuff and scanned the room again. “That mask isn’t helping.”
Viper’s mask was better than ours, only because he had refused to grab the first black one off the rack.
It still came from the same store, but he’d picked one with sharper lines and less shine.
Mine sat heavy across the bridge of my nose and made every glance feel narrower.
Blade’s looked plain enough to disappear on him, which suited him fine.
The invitation had gotten us through the gate.
It had not gotten us respect. I had felt the shift as soon as we walked in, the quiet calculation from men who knew we were not polished enough to be equals and not obviously poor enough to be staff.
A few recognized the patches we weren’t wearing, because Vegas and Black Rock talked to each other, whether they admitted it or not.
Most didn’t know what to make of us, which gave us room to watch.
But watching didn’t pay.
“We need to move,” Viper said under his breath. “The man near the balcony doors is connected. I’ve seen him before. Not sure where.”
“Then figure out where.”
“I’m trying. His face would help.”
“Mask,” Blade said dryly.
“Yes, thank you, Doctor.”
I leaned back in the chair, letting my gaze move over the room again. “We give it another twenty. Then you talk to him.”
Viper gave me a mild look. “I talk to him?”
“You’re prettier.”
Blade’s mouth twitched.
Viper touched a hand to his chest like I’d wounded him. “That almost sounded like a compliment.”
“It wasn’t.”
“I’ll take it anyway.”
I would’ve pushed him then, forced the night back toward the reason we came, but that was when I saw her.
She moved between tables with practiced balance, a black bottle-service uniform fitted close enough to draw attention without looking sloppy.
The outfit had gold buttons down the front, thin straps over her shoulders, and structured seams that made a uniform look like something designed by someone who understood exactly what men would pay to look at.
A black-and-gold mask covered the upper half of her face, more ornate than ours, with dark edges and blue stones that caught the light when she turned her head.
Blonde hair fell in loose waves around her shoulders, pale against the black fabric, and her eyes behind the mask were a clear blue I noticed even from across the room.
She wasn’t the only beautiful woman here.
The room was full of them, which already told me something about the hosts.
But something about this one didn’t fit the way the others did.
She wasn’t floating through the room pretending this was natural.
She watched where she walked. Kept track of hands reaching too close.
Smiled when expected, but not before. When a man leaned into her space, her shoulders stayed relaxed, but her weight shifted half a step back toward open floor.
Careful girl. Smart girl.
Viper followed my gaze because of course he did. “Well.”
Blade looked next, slower. His attention stayed on her face, then her hands, then the way she avoided letting anyone fully block her path. “She’s nervous.”
“She’s observant,” Viper corrected softly.
“She’s both,” I said.
The blonde stopped at a table near the center, pouring champagne while a man in a silver mask said something that made the others laugh.
She smiled politely, but her mouth didn’t soften with it.
Nice mouth. Full lower lip, natural color, no heavy lipstick, nothing exaggerated.
The mask hid the rest, leaving only those eyes and that controlled mouth, which somehow made looking at her worse.
I lifted two fingers when she turned.
Blade’s gaze cut to me briefly.
Viper leaned back, interested now for reasons that had nothing to do with work. “Networking can wait ten minutes.”
“We don’t know that she’ll come over,” Blade said.
She did.
Not immediately though. She finished pouring, listened to something from another server, then crossed toward us with the bottle still in hand.
Up close, the uniform showed more detail.
Black satin panels, gold hardware, short skirt with a draped piece at one hip, stockings sheer enough to catch the light.
She had a toned body, not soft in the way a lot of the women here had been made to appear.
Strong legs. Narrow waist. Shoulders held square even when she stopped beside our table and smiled like she had been trained to.
“Can I get you gentlemen anything?” she asked.
Her voice was steady, but not empty. There was a dry edge under the service sweetness, like she was already prepared for one of us to say something stupid.
Viper smiled first. He usually did. “That depends. Are you recommending the champagne, or are you required to pretend it’s good?”
Her gaze moved to him, and I watched her decide how much honesty the room allowed. “It’s good champagne. Whether it’s worth what they’re charging for it is a different question.”
Blade’s eyebrows lifted slightly.
Viper’s smile turned real. “That was diplomatic.”
“That was generous,” she said.
I liked her before I meant to.
“What’s your name?” I asked.
Her eyes moved to me then. Clear blue, direct for a second before she remembered where she was and adjusted. “Nora.”
“Nora,” I repeated, testing it quietly.
She heard the shift in my voice. I saw it in the faint tightening at the corner of her mouth.
“And you are?” she asked.
Viper answered before I did. “Tonight? Respectable.”
Blade looked down into his drink like he couldn’t believe he had willingly come anywhere with us.
Nora’s attention flicked to Blade and stayed there a beat longer, maybe because he wasn’t performing. “That sounds unlikely.”
I let out a low laugh. Viper looked delighted.
“She’s got you there,” Blade said.
Viper ignored him. “I’m Viper. The cheerful one is Blade. The unfriendly one is Stryker.”
Nora looked at each of us in turn. She didn’t flirt by reflex the way some of the servers had.
She measured instead. My size, my hands, the way I sat, the distance between us and the exits.
When she reached me again, I had the sense she saw more than the tux, more than the cheap mask, more than the part I let rooms have first.
“Stryker,” she said. “That’s subtle.”
“It wasn’t meant to be.”
“I figured.”
Viper rested his forearm on the table. “You from Vegas, Nora?”