Priest snorted. “Poetic,” he said. “Maybe we should put that on the wall.”
“We start a war now, we die slow and ugly,” Mirage said. “We walk away; we die broke. So, what’s left?”
The room looked back to Blackjack. That’s how this worked. We could argue until we were hoarse, but the final call always came from the head of the table.
He sat there for a long moment, weight settled on his shoulders, gaze distant. You could hear the old bike clock ticking on the wall behind him, second hand dragging.
When he spoke, his voice was quiet and lethal.
“They wanted us cheap,” he said. “Easy muscle. Disposable hands on their dirty work. They sent us in blind and pointed guns at our backs. That means they forgot something important.”
“What’s that?” Voodoo asked.
Blackjack’s eyes came alive. “We’re not their fucking casino employees,” he said. “We’re the Devil’s Aces.”
The line hit like a punch. It straightened spines. Lit something up behind everyone’s eyes.
“They want that bike delivered, or back?” Blackjack went on. “Fine. They can have it. But not on their terms. Not on their timetable. From this moment on, the price just changed.”
“How much?” Mirage asked. No hesitation. Just business.
Blackjack bared his teeth. It wasn’t a smile. “Enough that when we name it, Roman stops talking and starts listening,” he said. “Enough that he has to look his own blood in the eye and explain why the bill’s that high.”
“And if he balks?” Priest asked.
“Then he can explain to his Russian and his sons why the only people dumb enough to run their errands just walked off the board,” Blackjack said. “They put us in the line of fire for a ghost contact and a cursed bike. They want it back, they pay. In full. Up front.”
“And until then?” I asked.
“Until then, that bike stays exactly where it is,” Blackjack said. “Our hands. Our house. Our secret. Nobody sees it, nobody touches it, nobody rides it except Miami when I say so. That bike isn’t just leverage. It’s proof. Whatever the Vincinos and their pets or whomever this mystery buyer are hauling through those docks, I want eyes on it before we hand itback.”
It was a good call. A hard one. The kind that made enemies, but the kind that kept us alive.
“We going to tell the family that?” Spade asked.
Blackjack met his gaze. “I’ll tell Roman,” he said. “Man to man. If he’s as smart as I think he is, he’ll recognize the favor I’m doing him by not dragging this straight into the light.”
Mirage nodded, satisfied at the math. “We’ll need to run numbers on a new rate,” he said. “Hazard pay. Premium for discretion. Retroactive, considering tonight.”
“Already on it,” Blackjack said. “You just make sure the books can hold the weight when it hits.”
Mirage smiled faintly. “Books can hold anything you throw at them. It’s people who crack.”
Before anybody could answer, Blackjack’s phone buzzed on the table. The sound was jarring in the quiet. We all looked at it like it was a grenade.
He picked it up as the screen lit up with an unsaved number that still looked familiar. One of the network maybe. One of the many nameless voices who fed us information when something in the city broke in the wrong direction.
He answered. “Yeah.”
We couldn’t hear the other side, just the hum of static and a voice too faint to make out. But we could see Blackjack’s face.
At first nothing changed. Then his eyes narrowed.His free hand flattened on the table. His jaw clenched so hard the muscle jumped.
“Where?” he asked.
The voice answered. The word that floated over the table was unmistakable.Hospital.
“Condition?” Blackjack said.
