“We’re not here for jokes,” he said. “We’re here for property.”
“Yard’s closed,” I said. “Owner’s dead. Looks like your people got here first. You want to file a complaint, call the cops.”
He laughed once, low.
“We’re not here for scrap metal,” he said. He jerked his chin slightly past us. “We’re here for what was inside the bike. Our client paid Vinc-heavy money for that package. Real cash. He wants it back.”
Vincino money he meant to say but caught himself. Had to be.
Jersey inhaled sharply beside me. I didn’t look at him. Didn’t have to. The ledger had said enough about the Steel Serpents doing side work in other people’s shadows.
“That so?” Liberty asked quietly. She stepped forward, into the lane, like she was just out for a stroll.
“Yeah,” the Serpent said. “That so. You got it, you give it back, we don’t have to decorate this place with your insides. Everyone goes home. Our client doesn’t like thieves.”
Liberty tilted her head.
“All I see here,” she said, “Are a bunch of boys playing dress up. If your client lostsomething, that sounds like his problem. Not ours.”
“We know it rode in on the bike,” he said, patience thinning. “We know your boy took it when things went sideways. We know he crashed not far from here, and we know the cops dragged what was left to this lovely slice of heaven. Don’t play stupid with me bitch; you’re bad at it.”
“Funny,” Liberty said. “You must think I’m bad at breathing too, with the way you’re talking.”
His eyes hardened.
“Give it back, or we can start putting bullets through your people, and he still gets what he wants. Only difference is how messy it gets on the way there.”
Liberty smiled then. That small, vicious curl of her mouth that had made more than one man rethink his choices at a bar.
“You came into my state,” she said softly. “Onto my roads. Into a yard in my territory. You strangled a man with his own phone, then waited in his shadow for us to arrive. And you think you get to threaten me? I’m not fucking stupid. The second anyone hands you anything, you’ll kill us all and clean up any trace of it.”
He opened his mouth to respond.
“Right side,” Medusa barked.
I didn’t think. I moved.
A Serpent had slipped further around the car stacks to our right, gun already coming up. Indigo’s shot rang out first, sending him scrambling behind a door-less sedan body instead of getting what he wanted.
Everything bled into motion.
Gunfire cracked and screamed, ricocheting off metal. Windows exploded into fragments. Tires coughed dust. The lane turned into chaos in under two seconds.
I dropped behind the closest hood, steel biting my palms, and popped up to send two rounds downrange. One Serpent ducked. Another cursed as a bullet kissed his shoulder.
I then heard one of our own yell. I turned and spotted Diamondback clutching her arm. She brought her hand up and I saw red.
“Diamondback, status!” I yelled.
“Grazed,” she shouted back through gritted teeth. “Arm. Still working.”
“Indigo, pull her back!” I ordered.
Indigo moved from cover, low and fast, but shots stitched the ground around her boots and forced her to hunker behind a crumpled minivan shell instead. She was pinned.
“Fuck,” she hissed.
Jersey moved then.
