Jackal wiped an imaginary smudge off the counter, more to give his hands something to do than anything else. “I do what they ask me to,” he said. “Pour drinks. Run errands. Watch doors. Keep my ears open. I’ll get my turn when the club needs me for something bigger. I’m not in a rush.” He glanced up, eyes more serious than his tone. “This place needs someone sober behind the bar who knows which bottle to grab when Blackjack lifts his hand without looking. That’s a job too.”
It was. More important than most people outside the life ever realized.
Valkyrie watched him for a long moment, the corners of her mouth softening. “You remind me of someone,” she said. “Girl in our club. Cali. Takes care of people and acts like it’s not a big deal. She thinks being in the background is safer. It isn’t, even if she’d like it to be.”
Jackal smiled a little. “Cali, huh?” he said. “Wouldn’t mind meeting her one day. Sounds like my kind of trouble.”
“When this is done,” Valkyrie said, and it landed with more weight than the words deserved. “When Tesauro’s either in the ground or too scared to say the word shore without flinching, Or, if some other opportunity arises. I’ll introduce you.”
“That sounds like a plan,” he said. “I’llbe here. Still pouring.”
“Hell,” I cut in. “When this is over, Blackjack and Liberty are probably going to throw some unholy joint party anyway. You’ll get your wishes all at once. Devils, Vipers, Giorlandos, half the shore, all drunk and yelling over the same song.”
Tanya laughed. “I want to see Liberty drunk in this room,” she said. “Just once. I think the walls might melt. I heard she’s a complete badass. The female version of Blackjack.”
“Babies will be named after that night,” Jackal added in as a joke.
“Don’t give them ideas,” Quinn murmured.
Valkyrie shifted, turning toward Quinn. “You hear anything new on Miami?” she asked. “Mink sent Liberty some scans of the hospital chatter, but that’s the last I’ve heard.”
Quinn’s fingers worried at the rim of her glass. “He’s… stable,” she said. “That’s what the nurses said when I called. Stable. Talking. Bitching. Which is very him. But every time I call, I think they’re going to say something else. Sometimes I just want them to say he’s good enough to come home.”
Her jaw set. “He hates it there,” she added. “Hospitals. Needles. Machines. Memories of Anchor, and ghosts.”
I felt that one in my chest.
Anchor’s name still hung in this clubhouse like a smell. Last man we’d had go down hard and not get back up. You could see it every time someone lookedat Miami’s empty chair in Church.
Before I could say anything, movement across the room snagged my attention.
Blackjack walked into the room with 8-Ball, Snake Eyes, and Spade at his side. His phone then lit up. Normally when that happened and it was anything remotely club-related, he’d hit speaker and let the room carry the weight with him.
This time he picked it up and put it to his ear.
Something in my spine went cold.
He said nothing at first. Just listened, eyes going flint-hard in that way they did when bad news flowed through the line like static.
“When?” he asked.
That was it. One word. Short. Sharp.
There was a pause. 8-Ball watched him, eyebrows drawing in.
“Okay,” Blackjack said finally. “Thank you for letting me know.”
He hung up. Didn’t move. Then his gaze lifted, cut through the room, and landed on me.
My stomach dropped.
“Be right back,” I told Valkyrie and Quinn, the coffee suddenly sour in my mouth.
I crossed the room, everything in it going weirdly distant. The laughter. The clink of a glass. The sharp tang of gun oil and cleaner. A cue ball being struck. All of it blurred around the space between me and my President’s face.
“What’s going on?” 8-Ball asked just as I got there. “Who was it?”
Blackjack looked at him, then at me.
