Blackjack drummed his fingers once on the table, then steepled them. “How long’s it been?”
I checked the mental timeline. The ride back here after the regroup at the docks. The cleanup. The hours since. “Few hours now.”
“Maybe his phone died,” Roadkill said. “You know how he treats that thing. Like a disposable lighter.”
That tugged a grin out of me despite the knot in my stomach. “Quinn’s probably losing her mind right about now,” I said. “Girl sends him ten texts, two tit pics, and a video every hour she’s bored. If he goeslonger than ten minutes without answering, she starts writing his eulogy.”
A couple of the guys snorted, tension cracking for half a second. Priest smirked. Voodoo huffed smoke from the vape he wasn’t supposed to have in Church.
Then the worry seeped back in.
“Quinn’ll keep him alive out of spite,” Priest said. “She’s invested.”
“Phone or no phone,” Snake Eyes said, “I have a bad feeling about this.”
A low groan rolled around the table.
“You have a bad feeling when the coffee’s out,” Spade muttered.
“Yeah,” Snake Eyes said. “And you ignore me just about as often. Doesn’t make me wrong.”
Blackjack cut through it. “We’ll worry about Miami when we have something to worry about,” he said. “I trust that he’s safe as long as he’s right about no tail. Right now, we worry about the deal.”
The room sobered in an instant.
“Somebody suggested the Shore Vipers,” Ace said quietly, flipping his pad to a page with scribbled names. “Out by the bar.”
“That was me,” Jackal said from the wall. “Just thinking. Drop was north. Vipers are more north. Could’ve been ’em testing lines.”
Every eye went to Blackjack.
He sat back slowly, chair creaking. For a moment I saw the years in his face, the weightof all the roads he’d ridden and all the graves he’d put men in.
“Wasn’t Liberty’s girls,” he said.
“How you so sure?” Spade asked, not challenging, just blunt.
“Because I know Liberty,” Blackjack said. “And I know how she runs her MC. Vipers handle their own. Their girls. Their streets. Strip joints, dancers, women who need a roof. They don’t ambush other clubs’ business in the dark. They don’t circle trucks, and they don’t patch in men.”
“They strapped?” Voodoo asked. “I’ve seen their cuts in passing. Mean bitches.”
“Mean doesn’t equal stupid,” Blackjack said. “Liberty’s smart. She doesn’t work for men like the Vincinos. She doesn’t work for men at all.”
A couple brows rose at that.
“You know her?” Priest asked.
Blackjack’s eyes went distant for a second, like he was watching an old reel in his head. “Long time ago,” he said. “Before half of you were even old enough to ride. Me and Liberty have an understanding. What’s ours is ours. What’s theirs is theirs. We keep the lines clean and we won’t have problems.”
“Then who were they?” Spade asked.
Silence settled. You could hear the refrigerator kick on in the bar outside.
8-Ball cleared his throat. “I got a guess,” he said.
Blackjack nodded once. Permission.
“Back when I was doing time,” 8-Ball said, “therewere rumors about a club out of Philly. Not a real club. No bar runs. No charity rides. No rallies. Just patches. Bikes. Work. They’d show up when someone with deep pockets wanted a message sent, or a job done with deniability.”
