LOGINMarcus
Two days after we got home from Nowhere, I was starting to think the car Sable saw outside the clubhouse really had been nothing.
She’d mentioned it when she came back inside with the Devil’s Den shirts. Dark older sedan, parked across the road, gone not long after she noticed it.
She hadn’t seen the driver or gotten a plate, and the security cameras hadn’t given Nixx enough to work with. We’d check
MarcusJarek had been home from his ride for less than ten minutes when Sable decided I was apparently next on some invisible recovery schedule.She had checked him over with enough subtlety to fool absolutely no one, asking whether his leg hurt, whether his hands were still shaking, whether he wanted food, water, a shower, or to sit down. Jarek answered every question with increasing irritation until she finally grabbed his face, kissed him hard, and turned to me.“Upstairs.”I raised an eyebrow. “Excuse me?”“You heard me.” She hooked a finger through the front of my cut and pulled me closer. “You’ve been watching him like you’re afraid he’ll disappear if you blink since Arroyo. Go be his husband for a while.”Jarek leaned against the bar behind her. “Pretty sure he’s been my husband this whole time.”“Then act like it.”I looked between them. “And where are you going?”“I’m staying down here.” Her smile turned wicked. “For a little while.”The meaning landed. The three of us had s
SableThe second Jarek’s bike disappeared past the end of the road, I wanted to throw up.I did not.Mostly because Marcus was standing beside me looking exactly like I felt, and one of us needed to pretend this was a reasonable thing we had agreed to.“He has his phone,” I said.Marcus nodded. “And his gun.”“He knows where he’s going.”Marcus looked at me. “He said around town.”“Close enough.”“It is absolutely not close enough.”“I know.”That was the problem.I knew exactly what I wanted to do. Call him. Ask where he was, what road he was on, whether anybody was following him. Ask him to keep the call open while he rode so I could hear his engine and know he was still moving.Maybe send Nixx after him at a distance.That last thought was bad enough that I looked toward the garage on instinct.Marcus caught it immediately. “No.”“I didn’t say anything.”“You looked at Nixx’s bike.”“I was looking at the garage.”“You were looking at Nixx’s bike through the garage.”I crossed my arm
JarekI almost changed my mind before I reached the bottom of the stairs.That pissed me off enough to keep going.The clubhouse was quiet for once. Not empty, because Black Daggers apparently reproduced whenever nobody was looking, but quiet enough that I could hear the refrigerator motor behind the bar and somebody rolling a tool chest across the garage floor.My helmet sat on the table where I had left it the night before. So did my gloves. Sable had not moved either one, and Marcus had not hidden my keys. I appreciated that more than I planned to tell them.Both of them were sitting at the bar when I came downstairs. Sable had a plate in front of her and was pretending to eat. Marcus had his phone in his hand and was pretending to read something.They were terrible actors.I picked up my helmet, and Sable’s fork stopped halfway to her mouth.I looked at her.She immediately put it down. “I didn’t say anything.”“You were about to.”“I was breathing.”“Judgmentally.”Marcus covered
MarcusThe 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







