Maverick exhales slowly.
“If someone is trying to fracture our relationship,” he says, voice smooth but edged in steel, “they are either very brave… or very stupid.”
“Or desperate,” Bones mutters, arms crossed. “What does someone gain by starting a war between the Italian Mafia and our club?”
“A war,” Skip says, “not to boost your ego, Maverick, but the Shadows would lose.”
No one laughs.
Because he’s right.
We’re lethal. We’re disciplined.
But the Moretti empire?
They’re generational. Political. Embedded. Judges on payroll. Senators at dinner tables. Entire ports that answer to their name.
We run territory…They run systems.
Thank fuck Maverick is on our side.
Spike doesn’t bristle at Skip’s honesty. If anything, he nods once.
“Correct,” Maverick says evenly. “If we went to war, you would bleed quickly.”
Spike’s eyes flash, but he stays silent.
“And we,” Stefano continues, “would bleed slowly. Expensively. Publicly. Which means someone profits while we dismantle one another.”
“Arms dealers?” Foster suggests.
“Competing suppliers,” Skip adds.
“Cartels,” Bones says darkly. “Remnants of Los Fantasmas looking for payback.”
Maverick’s expression turns to stone at that name.
“Or,” Stefano adds quietly, “someone seeking access to California without Shadow’s interference… while keeping New York distracted.”
“New York holds my largest numbers in America,” Maverick adds. “If someone wanted to hit the Moretti Family hard, New York is the place to do it.”
“And, as far as everyone knows,” Stefano adds. “Maverick’s home base is in New York.”
“With my brother’s face always there, it wasn’t hard for that rumor to stick,” Maverick adds.
“Well,” Spike says, pushing to his feet, palms flattening on the table, “our next step is obvious. We get a hold of our New York supplier and get some fucking answers.”
“In the meantime,” Maverick says, posture shifting into something eerily similar to his brother’s, stapled fingers and all. “I’ll send out quiet feelers. See if there’s talk in the underground circuit about the Italians and a motorcycle club out of Palm Springs doing business together.”
“Or,” Foster says mildly, “we give them what they want.”
Every head turns toward him.
“Explain,” Spike orders.
Foster folds his hands together. Calm. Clinical.
“Whoever did this wants tension between us. They’re waiting to see if it worked.” He glances between Maverick and Stefano. “So we let them believe it did.”
