I gunned the throttle, Nitro right behind me, and we tore out of the lot, leaving the smell of gasoline and the taste of trouble hanging in the air.
###
Santa Fe’s downtown was a bastard’s idea of progress—condos crowding out the pawn shops, glass offices rising like tumors in the old brownstone. Giammati’s campaign HQ was the ugliest: a three-story mirror box with security cameras every six feet and a parking lot full of black sedans. Nitro and I rolled up at exactly 9:00 a.m., engines idling loud enough to rattle the windows. The suits in the lot gave us the look—fear, curiosity, and a sprinkle of white-collar hate—but nobody tried to stop us. That’s the thing about bikers: people assume you have a reason for everything, and that the reason is usually violence.
We dismounted, left the helmets on the handlebars, and walked up the path in lockstep. The glass doors sucked us into a blast of recycled air and vanilla-scented sanitizer. There was a receptionist up front—young, blonde, and instantly regretting her college major. She had a phone in one hand, a protein shake in the other, and zero interest in talking to men who looked like they’d killed before breakfast.
“Uh, can I help you?” she said, shrinking behind her screen.
I fixed her with a look. “We’re here for Giammati. Tell him St. James is in the lobby.”
She blinked twice. I watched the gears grind behind her eyes—recognition, then panic, then a desperate flick at the desk phone. I let her dial. The walls were lined with campaign posters: GIAMMATI—FOR THE FUTURE. Pictures of Robert with his perfect silver hair and plastic smile, handshaking with children and pretending to care about the environment. The American flag was everywhere: behind the desk, in the corners, even on the fucking carpet.
A pair of interns in matching khakis peered over the cubicle wall, then ducked out of sight. We waited. Nitro flexed his fingers, a nervous habit from his Marine days. I just stood, arms crossed, and stared at the security camera in the ceiling. Two minutes later, a heavy door buzzed open and Giammati himself strode out, trailed by a pair of staffers who looked like failed Secret Service applications.
Giammati was a head shorter than me but radiated asshole energy like a lighthouse. His suit was midnight blue, his tie a power red, his shoes shined so hard you could see your own failures reflected in the toes. He smiled wide, showing every capped tooth.
“Mr. St. James,” he said. “I would say it’s a surprise, but the morning’s already been full of them.” He shot a look at Nitro. “And you brought backup.”
I shrugged. “Just here for a talk, Robert.”
He gestured with his chin. “Let’s make it private, then.”
His office was bigger than most apartments I’d lived in—white walls, chrome desk, a view over the city that screamed money. There were trophies on the shelves, half a dozen pictures of Robert with various Presidents, and a golf putter set into the floor like a landmine. He waved us to a pair of chairs, then perched behind his desk like a vulture who’d just found a slow-moving animal. He needed a punch in the face in the worst way.
“Coffee? Water?” he offered, all fake hospitality.
“We’re good,” I said.
Nitro leaned forward, elbows on knees, scanning the room for weapons or exits. Old habits.
Giammati steepled his fingers. “So. The bill’s dead, your ex-wife is alive, and you two are here on a social call?”
I let the silence spool out, then cut it. “We’re here for the same reason everyone else is. To see who’s going to be alive at the end of this.”
He grinned, the kind of grin that said he’d been threatened by better men and was still standing. “You know, in my line of work, people try to intimidate me all the time. Lawyers, reporters, the occasional angry constituent. But you bikers? You take it to a whole new level.”
“We don’t try,” Nitro said, voice calm as a grenade pin. “We just do.”
Giammati ignored him, eyes on me. “Your ex-wife is a very dangerous woman, Damron. Ambitious. Resourceful. The kind who makes enemies whether she wants to or not.”
“She’s not my concern,” I lied. “You are.”
He sat back, folding his arms. “If you’re here to make threats, just be clear about it. I have a very busy day.”
I studied his face—no fear, just calculation. “We know about the shooter, Robert. We know you set it up. Carly drops out, you get a free ride to Washington. Only she didn’t, and now you’ve got a problem.”
His lip curled. “You bikers think the world runs on muscle. It doesn’t. It runs on leverage. Connections. Money.” He pointed at me. “You’re no match for me.”
“Funny,” I said. “Last I checked, a bullet does the same job for less.”
He tsked, a little click of the tongue. “Don’t threaten me, Damron. It won’t end well for either of us.”
“We’re not threatening you,” Nitro said, standing. “We’re promising you.”
The room got ten degrees colder. Giammati didn’t blink, but his hand drifted closer to the phone. “You touch me, you go away for life.”
I smiled, slow. “We’re not touching you, Robert. That’s not our style. But if you send another boy after her—hell, after anyone in this city—we’ll come for you. And there won’t be enough pieces left for a closed casket.”
