Diablo’s entire body goes dangerous in half a second. “What?”
Alpha’s voice comes through the wood. “Clothes on unless you want this briefing to become everybody’s problem.”
I close my eyes. “I hate this club.”
“No, you don’t,” Diablo says.
“No, I don’t.”
He helps me down, careful now, his hands lingering until I swat him away because if he keeps touching me, Alpha can brief us from the hallway for the rest of his life.
When we open the door, Alpha stands there with a tablet, eyes fixed aggressively above our shoulders.
“Congratulations, I assume,” he says.
Diablo’s brows lift. “You assume?”
“I’ve been waiting outside the door. I heard furniture die and Darling say yes. Context clues.”
My face heats. “Alpha.”
“Right. Crime.” He looks down at the tablet. “I dug deeper into Amour Reyes.”
That sobers the room fast.
We step out into the hall. Diablo’s hand stays at my back. In the main room, the Saints are still moving. Carmen’s visit has left a charge in the air like lightning looking for a place to land.
Alpha swipes the screen. “Reyes Floral was clean on paper until Rafael Solano’s last year alive. Then it started taking private contracts from three shell companies connected to Solano routes. Not drug routes. Burial logistics.”
I frown. “Funeral flowers?”
“Funeral flowers, refrigerated transport, cemetery maintenance donations, grave deliveries. All clean unless you stack the dates beside club murders and missing shipments.”
Diablo goes still beside me. “Rafael used the flower company to move something.”
“Or hide something,” Alpha says.
My stomach tightens.
Alpha’s phone pings.
He looks down.
The color drains from his face.
Diablo notices. “What?”
Alpha turns the phone toward us.
Unknown sender. No number. No profile. Just a message in plain text.
STOP LOOKING AT THE FLOWERS.
START LOOKING AT RAFAEL’S GRAVE.
Under it is a photo.
A grave marker in moonlight.
