“What did Ron say?” I ask.
His eyes slide to me. “He called earlier tonight. Said the same people were making a drop.”
Cruz pushes off the wall and crouches down, picks up a bolt off the floor, turns it over in his fingers. “We were out there for almost two hours.”
Bishop folds his arms across his chest. “I’m aware.”
“So either Ron burned us on purpose?—”
“He wouldn’t.” Bishop’s voice is flat. “Not after our conversation with him.”
“Or they made us and walked,” Cruz finishes, standing, tossing the bolt onto the workbench.
“Aren’t they supposed to be green?” I ask. There’s something just out of my reach, something I can’t quite grasp yet but I’m close.
“Unless they know who we are. And it wasn’t about the casino chips but about us—and byus, I mean you four. Because this reeks of Calloway bullshit that has nothing to do with us,” Lola says, waggling her thumb between the two of us.
Gage pushes off the bench. “Okay, so Ron lied, or we’re getting played by a bunch of fucking amateurs? Those are our only options?”
Cruz shifts his weight, recrosses his arms. “There might be another option. I need more time.”
The garage goes quiet.
Rafe steps forward into the gap. “You want me to take care of Ron?”
Bishop’s gaze cuts to him and stays there. “No.” A beat. “Not yet.”
Rafe holds his eyes for a moment, then looks away. “Fine.”
Bishop’s chest rises and falls once. His gaze moves across the room and settles on Cruz.
Bishop exhales slowly. “I’m not burning another one of Coco’s relationships based on a hunch,” he says. And then he looks at Cruz.
Cruz lets out a quiet, humorless breath, his face twisting into something colder, meaner. “First of all, fuck you. We already talked about this. I’m not going to prostitute myself just to keep a fucking fence.”
The words land hard. I blink, looking between them. “Wait,” I say. “Are you talking about Portia?”
Cruz’s eyes find mine. He doesn’t say anything. Just holds my gaze for a beat, then looks away—a single, quiet motion that answers everything.
I look at him. Really look. The way he’s standing with his shoulder angled toward the wall, arms crossed, the deliberate inches he’s kept between us since we walked in. Since the motel.
Bishop drags a hand down the back of his neck. “We’re not ending anything,” he says. “Not until we have a name.”
No one argues. They don’t agree either.
The frustration just sits in the air, heavy and unresolved.
Rafe shifts closer to me, not touching, but close enough that I feel the heat of him at my side.
“Yeah, well,” Cruz mutters, pushing off the wall just enough to shift his weight, “maybe if we didn’t keep relying on the same people over and over again, we wouldn’t keep ending up in the same spot.”
Bishop’s expression doesn’t change, but something sharp flickers behind his eyes. “Careful,” he says.
Cruz huffs a short laugh. “No, I’m serious. We’re sitting around waiting for a name that may or may not come while everything else just… waits.”
“It’s not waiting,” Bishop says. “It’s being smart.”
Silence stretches between them, thick enough to feel.
