로그인MarcusThe allied clubs started leaving the morning after the last red marker disappeared.Not all at once. That would have made the clubhouse parking lot look like we were trying to announce a small invasion to every cop still paying attention to us. The Steel Reapers rolled out first, followed by the Iron Saints. Camden clasped Jarek’s forearm before he left, told him to keep his people out of trouble for at least a week, and got told to go fuck himself.It was probably the closest thing either man had to a sentimental goodbye.By noon, the clubhouse had thinned enough that I could see sections of floor again. The war room still looked like a disaster, with maps taped to walls, white marks covering most of the boards, and three empty coffee cups around Nixx’s laptop even though nobody could remember which one belonged to him. The difference was that nobody stared at the screens waiting for another attack.Brian and Tag stood near the bar with the Vipers who had stayed through the fi
MarcusMateo Serrano had been dead for twenty-three minutes when the first sirens reached the compound.That was enough time to clear every room twice, separate the wounded from the dead, disarm the men who surrendered, and make sure nobody still hiding in a bathroom or storage closet decided to restart the war because he had not gotten the message.It was not enough time to understand everything we had just taken.The command room alone held more evidence than Nixx and Benny could photograph before headlights cut across the service road. Laptops, route sheets, burner phones, account numbers, property records, driver lists.I stood in the doorway while Stone pressed gauze against a cut on his forearm and watched Nixx close the last laptop without touching anything else.“That’s it,” I said. “Hands off.”He looked offended.“I know.”“You can marry the computers later.”Benny snorted from beside him. “He’d make a terrible husband.”“Fuck both of you.”Normal enough.That helped.Jarek
SableI heard Jarek say Mateo’s name through the comms before I saw either of them. He did not say it loudly because he did not need to. Every person still moving inside that building understood what it meant.Bryce and I were coming through the western loading corridor when gunfire cracked from the center section. Marcus answered from the east almost at the same time, and for several seconds the reinforced interior became nothing but noise bouncing off concrete.“Jarek?” I said.No answer.I
JarekThe first thing I heard after we killed our engines was Marcus breathing steadily through the radio.Then Sable came through. “West in position.”Brian checked in from the old Luke lane. Max answered from the north. One by one, every piece of the plan settled where it belonged until the compound ahead of us stopped looking like Mateo Serrano’s last stronghold and started looking like a box with every exit closed.I stood behind a low rise south of the main gate with Smitty and three Daggers spread around me.
MarcusBy seven that evening, the war room had stopped looking like a place where we chased Mateo Serrano and started looking like a place where we were going to end him.Nixx had the final property on the center screen, enlarged from recent satellite imagery and county records. The compound sat beyond an old service road west of the highway, fenced on all four sides with one main vehicle gate, a smaller delivery entrance on the west, and enough open ground around the central buildings to make a bad approach expensive.Brian’s old Vipers map lay open beside the laptop.Max stood on the opposite side of the table with Emilio. Tag leaned beside Brian. Stone, Bryce, Sable, Jarek, and I filled the rest of the space while Benny worked a second screen, matching recovered Serrano phones against the tower sector around L7-4.Nobody needed a speech.We needed assignments.Jarek tapped the main building on the screen. “This is the center. County plans show offices here, warehouse here, maintena
MarcusBy the time we regrouped after The Bullet, Brian had three old Vipers maps spread across the war-room table and looked offended by every line.“Luke used this one for years,” he said, dragging a finger across a faded route west of Belen. “Stopped after he started dealing directly with Gino. Nobody touched it after that.”Nixx leaned over the map. “Why?”“Because it was dirty even by Luke standards.”Sable dropped into the chair beside me with fresh medical







