Reyes Floral Imports squats behind a chain-link fence under the dirty belly of the flight path. The sign out front has elegant gold lettering, like brides come here to pick centerpieces instead of rival clubs dragging women inside for messages. Blue-green paint peels from the concrete walls. White box trucks line one side. A refrigerated trailer hums at the east dock. Beyond it, a rail spur cuts through weeds and gravel, empty tracks shining under the hard sun.
Alpha’s voice comes through next. Calm. Too calm. “Thermal drone shows six heat signatures inside main floor, two elevated, one in office corridor, one possible hostage center-left near cold room wall. Can’t confirm Toro. There is a service tunnel behind cold storage leading to the rail-side gate.”
“There’s his rabbit hole,” I say.
“Already sending Dune and Tubbs to pinch it,” Vice says.
“Not enough,” I answer. “Toro invited me alone. Means the slippery fucker’s got a second out.”
Diablo slows before the last turn, and we peel into an abandoned lot behind a shuttered tile company. Bikes go quiet one by one. The sudden silence makes the warehouse hum louder.
Everyone moves.
No speeches. No chest beating. No macho bullshit. Just guns checked, blades palmed, eyes flat. The Saints Outlaws don’t look like heroes in the daylight. We look like what comes after men make bad choices and run out of prayers.
Diablo points two fingers toward the front. Magic and Six melt that way with him. Vice taps my shoulder and nods toward the east dock.
“You with me,” he says.
“Lucky you.”
“Keep talking, Shady. If you pass out from blood loss, I’ll tell Lady your last words were stupid.”
“If I pass out, tell her I looked sexy doing it.”
Vice’s mouth almost moves. “Good you’re still with us.”
No.
Not really.
I’m somewhere else, standing in the garage again, watching Cherry step out with sorry on her lips and Lady’s eyes going wide with betrayal. I’m at Vice Ink, hearing Cherry tell a room full of brothers about blood on a bathroom floor and a baby that never breathed. I’m in Lady’s tower, my hand on herthroat, my mouth at her ear, taking things I wanted before I had told her enough truth to deserve them.
“Shady.”
Vice’s voice cuts clean.
I blink.
He studies me for half a second. “Head in the room.”
“My head’s in the damn room.”
“Then quit looking like you’re digging your own grave.”
“Already dug it,” I say. “Just trying not to throw her in with me.”
He doesn’t answer.
We move.
The first guard at the dock never sees me. He has a cigarette between his fingers and a white denim cut hanging open over a black shirt. Mutherfuker patch. Ugly as sin. He turns at the scuff of my boot, and I drive the butt of my gun into his throat before he can make sound. Vice catches his body, lowers him, and I strip the radio from his belt.
The second guard comes around the truck with his hand already going for his waistband.
Vice shoots him once, suppressed and clean.
The man folds beside buckets of white roses.
