All four prospects answered in unison. “Yes, Prez.”
“Mirage,” Blackjack said. “You start running numbers on a new rate. Hazard, discretion, retroactive for tonight. When I sit down with Roman, I want a figure that makes his eye twitch.”
Mirage gave a short nod. “I’ll have it.”
“Ace,” Blackjack went on. “Minutes locked down. Nobody sees ’em but me and 8-Ball.”
Ace tapped his pad. “Got it.”
“Spade, Priest,” Blackjack said. “Start preparing everyone. If this turns into something ugly, I don’t want anyone surprised when the first shot gets fired and I want this place ready to be locked into a fortress at the drop of a dime.”
Priest’s knuckles cracked again. Spade’s lips curved into something that wasn’t quite a smile.
“Snake Eyes,” Blackjack said. “You get me everything you can sniff out on cops, EMTs, tow companies, and any eyes near that crash. Who called it in. Who responded. And what happened exactly.”
Snake Eyes nodded slowly. “On it.”
Blackjack leaned back. “Church is adjourned,” he said. “Brothers, keep your heads. Watch our streets. Nobody does anything stupid on their own.”
Chairs scraped again as everyone rose. The room filled with the low rustle of leather and the clink of chains and buckles. Men touched shoulders, muttered short prayers, curses, promises.
I stood, but stayed where I was. I knew that lookon Blackjack’s face. He was in move-making mode.
He pushed his chair back and stood. “Jersey,” he said. “With me.”
Only me. No one else.
He left the chapel without checking if I followed. He didn’t have to. I was on his heels down the hallway, the sound of Church fading behind us, the noise from the bar growing ahead. When we passed through the main room, heads turned, questions hanging in eyes and never making it to mouths. Tanya stood behind the bar, hand wrapped around a rag she hadn’t moved for a full minute. Vicky and Eve weren’t there. Thank God.
Blackjack didn’t slow. He cut straight for the door at the back marked OFFICE and shouldered it open. I slipped in after him and shut it, the click of the latch sealing us into a smaller, quieter world.
His office smelled like smoke and paper and old leather. Maps of the city were pinned to the wall, covered in colored pins and lines showing territories, routes, trouble spots. A safe sat behind the desk. A gun lay atop a stack of ledgers like it had been set down absentmindedly between tasks.
Blackjack dropped into his chair with a grunt and pulled his phone out. The light from the screen painted his beard in blue.
“First, Roman,” he said.
I leaned against the filing cabinet, arms crossed, heart still running too fast. I knew better than to talk now. My job was to watch, listen, and be ready.
He scrolled through a short list of numbers and hit one. The line rang twice, then a voice answered. Italian, smooth, controlled.
“Pronto.”
“Roman,” Blackjack said. “It’s Alice.”
He hardly ever used his real name. Never with us. Hearing it now made the hairs on my neck stand.
There was a pause on the other end. “Blackjack,” Roman Giorlando said. “To what do I owe the pleasure at this hour?”
Pleasure. Yeah.
“We got a problem,” Blackjack said. “Tonight’s dock shipment. The special cargo your people asked us to move.”
There was a pause just a fraction too long. “You’ll have to be more specific,” Roman said. “My family moves a lot of cargo.”
“The blacked-out bike that came in off your pier,” Blackjack said. “No markings, no paperwork. Came off one of your containers. We were told to take it to a secure unit. Contact name Carlo. No show at the drop. Instead, we got greeted by mercenaries on bikes with possible Vincino money all over them.”
Silence. Not the smug kind. The dangerous kind. I watched Blackjack’s eyes and saw something shift there.
