Somewhere beyond this city, inside a compound I haven’t seen yet, Riley is going about her day, not knowing that everything just changed.
And Tate is keeping his promise. I have to believe that. I have to trust that the brother who caught her when her knees buckled at my graveside is still catching her, still holding the pieces together the way I asked him to. The way I know he will.
I square my shoulders and adjust the jacket, feeling the photograph through the jacket lining, small and folded, known only to me, and I walk forward into the heat.
Marco Reyes has arrived.
Chapter Fourteen
TATE
Church is called at ten.
By five past, the whole table is seated. Luke is to my right, the way he always is. Diesel is at the far end with his arms crossed, already decided before I’ve opened my mouth, but that’s just Diesel. Flame sits beside him. Remy is at the end of the row, still young enough that he sits up straighter when the church doors close. Cable is there with his laptop open because Cable’s laptop is always open.
I look around the table at my men.Good men.“Two items today.” I let that land before continuing, “We’ll start with the shop deal.”
The pitch is simple, and I don’t dress it up. The developer, the Strip premise, the numbers, a second customization shop, high-end, high-visibility, the kind of operation that caters to clients who drop fifty thousand on a paint job without blinking and don’t ask questions about who is running the show behind the polished front.
I read their faces while I talk.
Diesel’s expression doesn’t move, which means he’s still processing. Luke is doing the numbers in his head, quietly, without making a performance of it. Flame nods twice. Remy listens like a man taking a test.
When I finish, I sit back and let it settle.
Always the first one to speak, Diesel questions, “What’s the ask?”
“Full club investment. We front the fit-out costs, take fifty percent of the revenue stream. His premises, our operation running inside it.”
“The existing shop?”
“Keeps running alongside it. The east side grounds us in the city. The Strip opens doors the east side never could.”
Luke nods once. That’s enough.
“The developer,” Flame asks from across the table. “We know him?”
“I’ve met him twice. He’s straightforward, he’s motivated, and he doesn’t look at things that don’t concern him directly.” I glance around the table. “The kind of man who wants to make money and has the good sense to understand that some operations run better when nobody asks too many questions.”
The room settles into the quiet of men doing their own calculations. That’s how church works. I lay out what needs laying out, and then the silence does its job, and I watch it do that job in the faces of every man at the table.
Remy clears his throat.
Everyone looks at him.
He has the look of someone who’s decided to say what he’s thinking and isn’t entirely sure how it’s going to land.
“Cars that expensive, money moving through a shop like that,” he says. “Nobody’s looking at the books twice.”
He’s right, and he knows he’s right, and the fact that he’s said it out loud in church rather than keeping it to himself tells me something useful about where his head is.
“Exactly.”
Something settles in him at that. Good.
“I want a vote. You’ve heard the numbers. Where does this table stand?”
Every hand goes up without hesitation, and that’s what I needed to see. Not just the yes, but the speed of it. These men know what opportunity looks like when it’s sitting in front of them.
