He straightened slightly, already moving. “Give me a second.”
Sage pulled his phone, thumb moving fast as he brought up the archived file.
A face matched the screen.
His jaw tightened.
“He’s on the list.”
Boston shifted behind Micah, restless energy barely contained. “It’s definitely a professional hit.”
Sage ran his fingertips slowly over the sparkling surface of the counter. Everything had been wiped. He’d bet the fucker had vacuumed before leaving.
“Yeah,” he agreed.
Law’s whiskey-colored eyes moved once across the room, taking in the same details.
“Victim opened the door,” Sage continued. “And the killer walked right in.”
Law glanced back toward the doorway. “And someone knew exactly where to find this guy.”
“The question is, why?” Micah murmured.
Sage’s gaze flicked to the data on his phone and back to the dead man. “From his background, this guy was dirty.”
“So what?” Boston frowned. “The killer rolled out justice?”
“We do,” Law said quietly.
That was true. Genesis and YA took out scum that deserved it.
“So, this guy is a killer of killers?” Boston asked into the sudden hush.
The words settled between them as they stood in the gruesome—and oddly spotless—crime scene.
Two days later…
The Nevada desert still held the heat it had gathered all day, warmth rising off the gravel lot in slow waves as Law eased his truck off the highway and rolled to a stop in the overflow lot across from the Rusty Spur Dance Hall.
He left the engine running for a moment and studied the place through the windshield.
Low building. Weathered wood siding. Neon beer signs glowing through the front windows in uneven reds and blues. The sign over the door buzzed faintly where a few bulbs had burned out, the light flickering across a porch crowded with people drifting in and out of the entrance.
The gravel lot was full.
Pickup trucks lined the front of the building and spilled along the roadside shoulder, dust hanging in the air where another truck had just pulled in. Laughter carried across the lot. A group of women in boots and denim stepped off the porch, one of them already dragging on a cigarette while the muffled thump of country music pushed through the walls—fiddle, steel guitar, and the heavy rhythm of a dance floor in motion.
Friday night.
The kind of place locals packed shoulder to shoulder once the sun went down.
Which was exactly why it held his attention.
Law’s gaze moved past the porch to the line of trucks parked along the front of the building, scanning them the way long habit had taught him to scan anything unfamiliar.
Sage’s vehicle stood out immediately.
The small dent in the rear bumper caught the swing of the lot light, and Law recognized it without having to think about it. He’d noticed it weeks ago after Sage clipped a gatepost at the ranch and pretended the damage had always been there.
