The Sultan clubhouse crouched at the far edge of town, its stucco blistered and peeling, the neon sign above the door stuttering “OPEN” with only the O and P illuminated. The place looked like it had been designed for failure: dirt lot, broken bottle glass crusting the curb, windows blacked out with the kind of paint you buy by the five-gallon bucket from a hardware store that doesn’t ask for ID. Someone had tried to pretty it up once—fake palm trees, a cement fountain in the shape of a naked lady—but the palm trees were dead and the fountain had been used as a urinal for so long you could smell it through the truck windows.
We circled up a quarter mile out, in the lot behind a payday loan shack, where the sun couldn’t quite reach.Damron did a final headcount, then split the crew into two teams—one to breach, one to sweep the perimeter. Nitro got the breach, and he grinned as if he had just won the lottery. Augustine took point on the perimeter sweep, his twin pistols tucked under his cut and his face already set in the calm, bored look of a man who preferred violence as a last resort but had no problem making it a first.
Seneca rode with me. He checked his blade, then checked it again, the edge catching the slant of light as he flicked it in and out of the sheath. I’d seen him cut through hog hide at the last cookout, but I’d never seen him use it on a person. I didn’t doubt he’d do it with the same focus and efficiency.
Damron looked at me, one eyebrow cocked. “You know what you’re doing?” he said, not a question, more a challenge.
“Yeah,” I said, hand steady on the butt of my gun. My mouth was dry, but my head was clear—crystal, the way it only got when everything else had been burned away.
He grunted approval, then jerked his chin at the rest. “Two minutes,” he said. “Let’s make it loud.”
The ride up was short, every man moving in sync, tires spitting dust, the rumble of pipes low and tight. We killed the engines a block away, then stalked the last hundred yards on foot, boots sinking in the soft shoulder of theroad. There were two Sultans on lookout, smoking cigarettes at the corner of the building and talking too loud for their own good. Nitro took the left, I took the right. By the time the first guy realized what was happening, Nitro had jammed a blackjack into his throat and rolled him into the bushes. My guy tried to reach for his piece, but I caught his wrist and drove his face into the cinderblock so hard his sunglasses snapped in half.
We paused, let the perimeter team fan out. Augustine and Gordo flanked the north wall, while Brick and Chino took up positions on the east and west. I could hear the steady, measured breaths of every man, the way their boots moved in a cadence so precise it felt rehearsed. The Scythes had done this before. A dozen times, a hundred. It was the one thing we were all built for.
Nitro signaled, one hand raised, then another. Seneca tossed the flashbang. There was a split second of silence, then the world went white and screaming.
I kicked the door. It gave on the first try, splintering along the frame. Nitro was through first, shotgun raised. There was a blur of bodies—three Sultans at a card table, one behind the bar, two more at the far end of the room watching a TV that screamed at maximum volume. The flashbang had done its work. Nobody was moving fast.
Nitro fired, the blast so loud my ears rang. The man behind the bar jerked, then folded over the sink, blood fountaining against the bottles lined up on the shelves. The other two dove for cover, but Seneca was already moving. He vaulted the bar, knife flashing, and drove the blade up under the ribcage of the nearest target. The guy’s eyes went wide, then dull, and Seneca let him down like a lover, careful and deliberate.
I swept the room, looking for the only face that mattered. In the far corner, by the emergency exit, I caught a glimpse—bald head, scars along the jaw, eyes so pale it looked like he’d been left out in the sun too long. The man who’d planned the bank job, the man who’d put a bullet through Ma, who’d left Dad’s dog tags in a pool of blood and didn’t even bother to check if she was dead before he ran.
He was moving, already heading for the back, and I followed, letting the noise of the firefight cover my approach. Nitro and Seneca handled the rest of the Sultans, every shot and shout punctuated by the sound of flesh on wood, wood on bone.
The back corridor was narrow and stank of piss and spilled beer. I followed the fresh smear of blood—someone had taken a hit but kept moving. My boots slipped on it, but I didn’t slow down.
At the end of the hall, a storage room with a metal door half off its hinges. I pushed in, gun raised. The Sultan leader was there, crouched behind a filing cabinet, a sawed-off tucked under his arm. He looked at me, and for a second, we just stared at each other, two animals with nothing left to lose.
He fired first, the shot wild, tearing a chunk out of the drywall. I kept low, moved right, and squeezed off two rounds. The first went wide, the second caught him in the thigh. He went down, but didn’t drop the gun. He was still trying to reload when I closed the gap.
“Medina,” he hissed, blood bubbling in his mouth.
“You remember me,” I said, voice so calm I didn’t recognize it.
He laughed, then coughed, then spat a wad of blood onto the floor. “You think this changes anything? You’re all fucking dead.”
I walked up, pressed the barrel to his forehead. “So are you,” I said.
I didn’t pull the trigger. Instead, I kicked the gun from his hand, then dragged him up by the collar. He was heavier than I expected, but adrenaline made up the difference. I slammed him against the cabinet, felt the air leave his lungs.
“You shot my mother,” I said. “You left her to die.”
He sneered. “She wasn’t supposed to be there. She was just fucking collateral.”
“Collateral?” I said, and punched him. Hard. The cartilage in his nose collapsed with a wet crunch, and he screamed, flailing at my hands.
I hit him again, and again, every blow driving the words deeper. “You. Killed. Her.” My knuckles split, blood mixing with his. He clawed at my face, found my eye, and gouged. The pain was bright, but I didn’t let go.
He found a knife somewhere, a switchblade, and jabbed it into my side. I felt the steel slip under the rib, hot and sickening, but I kept going. I grabbed his wrist, twisted until the bone cracked, then slammed his head into the cabinet until the steel dented. He sagged, but I wasn’t finished.
I hauled him upright, then wrapped both hands around his neck. His eyes bulged, the whites gone red and wild. He mouthed something, maybe a curse, maybe a plea. It didn’t matter.
I squeezed, and the last thing I saw was the way his lips curled back from his teeth, a smile or a snarl, I couldn’t tell. I kept squeezing until his hands stopped moving, until his head lolled and the room went quiet except for my own breathing, ragged and wet.
I let him drop, then staggered back. My vision swam, red at the edges. I pressed a hand to my side, tried to stop the bleeding. The pain was distant, background noise.
Footsteps pounded the hallway. Damron appeared in the doorway, gun at the ready. He saw the body, saw me, then nodded once.
