“No,” I say, sliding onto a stool. “Went to grab Bash from school.”
Will spins the bottle in his hand, then nods toward the paper. “Good. We’ve been talking.”
“Not talking,” JT says. “Laying out options.”
“Scouting possibilities,” Will adds. “Carefully.”
They don’t say his name. They don’t have to. I know we are talking about Stauder and the lingering debt Will promised to pay.
Just the idea that fucker thinks he still has a grip on everything that matters to me, boils my blood. And I know the second Will looks at me with that steady, unflinching calm, we’re past the planning stage.
This isn’t a conversation.
It’s time.
“We’ve got a way in. Infrastructure softens. He’s gotten comfortable.” He taps the coaster, numbers marked in pen. “Security rotates on this twelve-day cycle. And like clockwork, Ned makes a drop himself that same day. ”
He traces the loop once. Then again. Then again.
“I want to watch it repeat. Make sure it’s consistent. But if it is—” His finger stops. “That’s our window.”
I glance toward the loft stairs.
Picturing Sable in my bed, her bare shoulder, the ink still fresh. I think of Bash’s grin when he sees it. Think of what it took to get us here.
And most importantly, I think of what I’ll do to make sure no one takes it away.
I’ll erase his name from the goddamn earth.
I look back at them—my brothers. Weapons.
"Track it." I nod. “We wait. And when the time is right, we make him disappear.”
Hex and Sable’s engagement party is not the worst thing I’ve ever been forced to attend. That honor still goes to JT’s “I’m totally fine” twenty-fourth birthday, when we had to talk him out of fulfilling his dream of leaping from the Fortnite Battle Bus—by way of skydiving drunk in a banana costume.
But this?
This is definitely top five.
Tonight’s just for family. The chosen kind.
Sable’s mom, Marilyn, is behind the bar—God help us—trying to convince Hex that her newest cocktails deserve a permanent place on the menu. She’s all charm and volume and “mixology flair,” whatever the fuck that means, sliding garnished glasses across the counter to Sable and whoever the hell is willing to taste one.
Hex is actually humoring her, nodding along, taste-testing things with that little brow-lift that says he’s got no intention of arguing. Not tonight.
Bash is here too, tucked to the side in one of the booths, playing a game on his tablet and pretending not to listen to the grown-ups. I’ve caught him glancing up more than once with that knowing look kids get when they realize their mom is happy and safe and settled. There’s a stillness in the kid that seems new.
So yeah. This is not our usual kind of night.
It could’ve been sweet—almost touching—if the human glitter bomb wasn’t standing on a barstool, radiating the kind of confidence usually reserved for cult leaders and drag queens.
Demi.
Sable’s unhinged, redheaded best friend. She’s loud, half-drunk, and draped in a dress that’s ninety percent sequins, ten percent sin, and absolutely no apologies. Fuck, she probably made it herself and that might make it even worse. She’s singing—or trying to—with Sable, both of them swaying off-key through some country pop song Hex clearly endures solely because he’s stupid in love with her. It’s awful. Painful, even. If there were dogs within a two-mile radius, I’m pretty sure they’re howling.
I can’t even begin to describe the audacity that is Demi’s behavior.
She’s already barefoot. That alone makes me twitch. An hour ago, she chucked her heels into a planter out back with the fury of someone betrayed by their footwear. She’s spilled at least six drinks—nope,seven,correction:eight. And I’ve watched her lick not one, buttwosurfaces she should absolutely not have been licking. Her tongue claimed the jukebox second. She said it “tasted like memories.” I had to physically look away before my soul left my body.
