I drag my fingers across the table, over the ink lines and coordinates, stopping on one spot circled in red. Vernon. A warehouse dressed like a front, empty on paper, crawling with heat signatures Divine flagged an hour ago.
A trap.
That’s where I’ll start fixing this.
Divine’s smart enough to trace the accounts back to me. The Harlots will come sniffing again. Rebel will too. But by the time they find me, it’ll be done.
Either I take out the Vultures before they reach her, or they take me down trying.
Either way, she’ll be clear.
That’s the plan. That’s all that’s left.
I thumb the lighter in my pocket until the metal warms, then set it down beside the whiskey glass, one small ritual before war. I holster my pistol, slide my knife into the small of my back, and shrug into my cut. The skull stitched across it feels heavier tonight, like it knows something I don’t. I grab my keys. By the time my brothers realize I’m gone, it’ll already be too late.
The clubhouse is quiet when I walk out. The kind ofquiet that happens before bad news. The kind that tastes like last chances.
I look once toward the door she left through this morning. My chest feels hollowed out, ribs aching around the empty space where her trust used to live.
She thinks I betrayed her. Let her. Better she hates me than dies for me.
But if Bishop gets in my way, if he thinks he’s going to save her from the fallout I started, he’ll find out what the skull and crown on my back really means.
If I can’t protect Rebel, no man will. Not even him. Because she deserves the kind of peace I’ll never get to see.
15
CARTER
Bones is gone. That’s the first thing I notice when Divine’s morning update hits my cell. His cell phone is cold, his accounts are locked, and his bike’s not at the Royal Bastards compound.
Even Capone’s tech guy, Red, can’t find him, and that’s saying something. Red was recruited for the CIA or some shit when he was a teenager, but he didn’t want to do their dirty work, so instead, he did a stint in prison for a crime he didn’t commit.
This is not Bones running. He’s hunting, and the rest of us are already behind the trail.
The air inside the clubhouse feels heavier, like the walls know something’s about to give. Rebel is standing by the table, staring at the coordinates Divine just sent over. Her jaw’s locked, eyes dark.
“Vernon,” she says, her voice too calm to be anything but panic in disguise. “He’s heading straight for it.”
“Warehouse zone,” I confirm. “Old logistics yard offAlameda. The Vultures have been using it as a holding site for shipments. If he’s going there alone…”
“He won’t come back.” She looks at me, eyes sharp and shining. “You think he’s guilty.”
“I think he’s trying to make amends.”
Her jaw sets. “By dying?”
“Some men think that’s the only language left. He won’t come back if he is there alone.”
“Correction, none of you will, if you go in without backup. The chatter’s bad. The Vultures are pulling manpower from every borough. They’re gearing for something big.” Divine interrupts.
“Define big,” I say.
“Big as in forty-plus signatures. Trucks, drones, new ordnance. And guess what? The comms chatter uses the same encryption we pulled off that textile hub. Someone’s moving the money fast, and it’s coming from a banker tied to Emerge Auditing.”
Rebel looks at me. “You think Bones found out?”
I nod slowly. “Or worse, he’s walking right into it to fix what he thinks he broke.”
