LOGINSable
The farther south we drove, the emptier the world became.
The glow of Southtown disappeared behind us first, swallowed gradually by long stretches of dark highway and empty desert. Gas stations became sparse. Houses vanished entirely. Eventually the only things outside the van windows were old fences, scrub brush, and the occasional set of distant headlights cutting across the night miles away.
The isolation settled heavily into my che
JarekThe first thing I knew was that my wrists would not move.The second was the smell.Bleach. Sweat. Concrete. Something medicinal caught at the back of my throat while darkness pressed close around me. I pulled once, hard, and resistance answered immediately.No.Not again.I twisted, searching for leverage that was not there. My shoulder lit up. Something touched my chest, and every part of me reacted before I knew what the fuck I
SableThe current gate rotation sat on the war-room screen like an accusation.Marcus had brought back enough from the meeting in Belen to make everybody upstairs go quiet. Mateo was preparing multiple sites. Weapons, vehicles, men, routes that could move if one location burned. The surviving Jackal had confirmed the plan was bigger than revenge now. Jarek’s death was supposed to crack the Daggers open, and Marcus was supposed to inherit whatever remained.Then the bastard had unfolded the gate rotation.Not an old one.The new one.The version Nixx rebuilt after Motor Works, less than forty-eight hours before Marcus saw it in the Jackal’s hand.Mack had access to it.That did not make him guilty by itself anymore. We were past by itself. Two false packets had followed him out of the clubhouse and into Serrano communications. Now a current security schedule had reached the man acting as Mateo’s biker liaison.Nixx and Benny were working backward through every place the rotation had ex
MarcusBy eleven forty-five the next night, everybody who mattered knew where I was going and nobody who mattered looked like they did.That was the only way the meeting worked. Mateo’s people wanted me alone, which meant I had to arrive alone. It did not mean I was stupid enough to actually be alone. Nixx had the truck-service lot mapped from three angles, Benny had traffic cameras on the nearest road, and Stone and Bryce were positioned far enough out that nobody watching the meeting would see Dagger colors unless things went wrong.Jarek stayed at the clubhouse because his absence from the compound would destroy the entire point of the performance.
SableBy the next afternoon, apparently I had become a voting bloc.I learned that from the Iron Saints’ vice president, which was not how I expected my day to go. Camden and I had met exactly twice, once at a memorial ride and once when the Saints passed through Middletown on their way west. He was not a friend, but he was neutral enough that his call mattered. Neutral clubs did not usually insert themselves into another club’s internal problems unless those problems were starting to affect business.I answered outside Motor Works because Marcus was inside arguing with an insurance adjuster and I valued my hearing.&
MarcusBy midnight, Nixx had enough to confirm Mack was not simply unlucky.The second false packet had gone out with him at seven twenty-three. Twenty-three minutes later, the revised time, west gate, Benny’s name, and the fake storage unit appeared in Serrano communications. Once that hit, Nixx went backward through traffic cameras and card activity from the first leak instead of only looking forward from the second. That was how he found the gas station.Mack had stopped there after both packets.The first time, before we knew to watch him, a traffic camera caught his bike en
JarekI knew Mack’s name before Nixx finished saying it, and that was the problem.If the source had been a contractor with a temporary gate code or a driver hauling parts for Motor Works, I could have put him in a box marked enemy and dealt with it. Mack had a Black Daggers patch on his back. He had sat in church, ridden beside us, and crossed the gate without anyone looking twice.The fake route had belonged only to him: eight twenty, south gate, Belen storage. Twenty-three minutes later, those details appeared in Serrano communications.Marcus stood beside me with both hands braced against the table. Sable had gone very still on my other side, while Nixx and Benny waited for me to say something. Nobody rushed to fill the room because they knew me well enough to understand that silence did not mean I was calm.It meant I was working very fucking hard to become calm.“How sure?”“Ninety percent from the first leak alone,” Nixx said. “Higher if we get a second confirmation.”“Why not







