She smiled, more tired than before. “I’ve seen worse.”
We sat in the sudden quiet, the echo of their boots fading down the stairs.
I reached for the tags, but let them fall. “You don’t have to stay.”
She scratched the dog behind the ears and looked at me like I was an idiot. “I know. But I will.”
We didn’t talk about the funeral, or the club, or what would come after. We just listened to the wind outside, the soft click of the dog’s nails on linoleum, and the steady beat of time running out before everything changed again.
***
The bikers didn’t stay gone. An hour later, there was another knock—this time a coded three-short, one-long that said business, not sympathy. I opened up, and Nitro andAugustine slipped in again, this time without the armor of club cuts, just black t-shirts and the kind of jeans that looked pre-scuffed from warehouse work or bar brawls. Augustine had a folder under his arm.
Emily had moved to the far corner, arms crossed, attention fixed on the dog at her feet but listening like a sonar array. I could tell by the flex of her jaw that she caught every word, even if she pretended not to.
Nitro didn’t waste time. “It’s about the Sultans,” he said, settling into the same chair as before. “Rumor mill is moving fast. Word is, they had help from inside.”
I grabbed a legal pad off the counter, uncapped a pen, and started a bullet list. I wrote SULTANS at the top, double-underlined it. If my hand shook, I didn’t let it show.
Augustine laid out the intel, voice low. “Three witnesses mentioned accents. One of them said Middle Eastern, another called it Russian, but it’s bullshit. Sultans are using Turkish imports as muscle—guys who don’t know the streets, but know how to pull a trigger.”
“Any visuals?” I asked.
He slid a cell phone across the table, the screen showing grainy security footage from the bank. Two men in hoodies, one with a walk that caught my attention—a limp in the right leg, toe-out. The third hung back, never showing his face.
I zoomed in and caught the flash of a tattoo on shooter two's wrist. “There. Bottom of a Sultan patch, no question.”
Emily looked up, eyes sharp. “You think they picked her at random, or was it targeted?”
Nitro watched her, weighing the question before answering. “You ever see a club job done at random?”
She shook her head. “No.”
I wrote, NOT RANDOM. TARGETED. in block caps, then circled it.
“Retaliation?” I said, looking at Nitro.
He nodded. “That’s Damron’s line, but he wants to play it quiet until after the funeral. No public mess. No blowback.”
Sergeant let out a low whine and pressed her head into Emily’s knee. Emily stroked her fur, never breaking eye contact with the table.
Augustine sipped at the coffee still left in his mug. “They’re moving east tonight. Got eyes on a car with Arizona plates. They’re bunkering up at the old motel by the truck stop.”
“Good,” I said. The legal pad was already half-filled with notes, a little more legible than the obituary but cut from the same cloth. I catalogued every detail, every rumor, each a step closer to something I could grab and crush.
Emily stood, pacing once around the table. “So you’re just waiting?”
I could tell she hated the idea of doing nothing, of letting the machinery of the club grind away while the rest of us just watched.
“It’s about optics,” Nitro said. “We let the heat die down, then settle it off the books. Cleaner that way.”
Emily nodded, but her lips pressed thin.
Augustine stood, folder still under his arm. “We’ll be around if you need us. Eyes open, ears up.”
I followed them to the door. This time, as I opened it, Augustine glanced at Emily, then back to me. “You got good taste,” he said. “Keep her close.”
The door shut behind them, leaving the space heavy with something I couldn’t name.
