Her eyes met mine.
“Tell Blackjack,” she said. “Tell him to watch his clubhouse, and his people. Whatever’s coming for us will be coming for him too. It’s only a matter of time before something else happens. We’re in this together and we watch each other’s backs.”
“I’ll pass it on,” I said.
“Good.” She pushed her chair back. “Church is closed. Valkyrie, Jersey Boy—basement. Everyone else, you know your jobs. Make me proud.”
Chairs scraped back. Patches shifted. The Vipers filed out, each one moving with purpose now, not just habit. Not just duty. This was about survival now.
Valkyrie jerked her head toward the hallway.
“This way.”
The basement felt colder this time.
Concrete sweat beaded on the walls. The bare bulb over the stairs swayed just enoughto send shadows sliding slowly over the steps as we went down. The smell of oil and old metal wrapped around everything, thick in the back of your throat.
Valkyrie walked ahead of me, one hand up around her neck as if to check that the key was still there.
My steps sounded too loud in my own ears.
We reached the heavy door to the safe alcove. She slipped the key from her chain and fed it into the lock. The sound of it turning was more satisfying than it had any right to be.
The door swung open with a low creak.
The safe sat there, big and black, like it had grown out of the wall.
Valkyrie stepped up, fit the key into the slot beneath the keypad—a physical override, a modernized update—and turned. The safe thunked and clicked, then yielded when she pulled the handle.
The backpack sat dead center on the middle shelf. I stepped in, lifted it out, and set it on a nearby worktable.
“Ready?” Valkyrie asked.
“No,” I said. “But let’s do it anyway.”
I unzipped the pack and pulled the ledger free.
It always hit me the same way, that book. The leather, worn but not weak. Pages bulging slightly from the amount of lives crammed inside.
I opened to the sections I’d mentally marked.
“This one,” I said, flipping to a page webbed with lines between initials and numbers. “Steel Serpentsand BC—Bolivar Cartel. Routes in and out of Philly.”
I held the book flat and raised my phone. The camera shutter confirmed the photos being taken. Click. Click.
Another page. This one a neat list of Roman’s dock numbers, with notes about “third-party leverage” and “potential Russian pivot.” Another picture. Then another.
“Roman’s going to enjoy this light reading,” Valkyrie said.
“He asked for a peek behind his own curtains,” I said. “We’re just giving him the flashlight.”
I turned to the marked section referencing “The Russian.” The same title repeated in tidy, impersonal handwriting. Beside it, little symbols—half circles, triangles—like whoever wrote it didn’t want to spell out exactly how important that piece was, just in case someone else ever read it.
“Definitely this,” I muttered.
“Smile,” Valkyrie said dryly.
I snapped it.
