I give it a beat before I nod at Cable. “Second item.”
Cable closes the shop deal folder and opens something else on his screen, turning the laptop slightly so the table can see.
Financial data, network maps, lines connecting points that mean something to Cable and are beginning to mean something to everyone else.
Cable says the name and leaves it in the room, “Clemente.”
Every face at the table goes somewhere harder and quieter. These men knew Tracker, and not one of them has forgotten what happened at that mansion. Cable doesn’t need to explain who Clemente is or why the name lands the way it does.
“Six weeks of tracking his networks,” Cable says. “Financial mostly, because the money trail tells you more than the man ever would. I’ve mapped where it moves, how it moves, and where it ends up.” He pauses. “He’s exposed. Not enough to be careless. Clemente doesn’t get careless. It’s why he’s still standing. But the mansion incident cost him people, and the El Pasos being gone took out a distribution channel he hasn’t fully replaced yet. He’s rebuilding, and while everything points to that, there are gaps.”
He looks at me directly. “Lawrence is one of them. He’s confirmed alive and connected. Clemente has him close, which means when we find Clemente, Lawrence is there too.”
“Lawrence.” Luke’s voice is quiet and flat. The edge underneath it is something I hear because I know him well enough to hear everything he doesn’t put on the surface, and what’s underneath that one word has been sitting with him since the night we both woke up in hospital beds and were told what had happened.
The silence that follows is different from the silence after the shop vote. The kind men sit inside when they’re holding something down.
Luke’s jaw is set.
Meeting his gaze across the table, we don’t need words for what passes between us. We’d been in that mansion together. We had taken enough damage that the hospital kept us longer than either of us would admit to the club, and some things don’t need to be said out loud to be understood.
“We’re not moving until Cable has the full picture,” I say, looking around the table. “But we are moving. What Clemente and Lawrence took from this club doesn’t go unanswered. Not the Sinners.” Letting that sit for a second. “Not while I’m in this chair.”
Nobody argues.
“Weekly updates, Cable. Every shift, every gap, I want to know the day it changes.”
“Understood.”
“Luke.” He looks at me. “You and I will talk separately.”
He nods once, and I see what I need to in his face. He’ll hold it together. When the time comes, he’ll be exactly where he needs to be.
I pick up the gavel. “Church is closed.”
The men file out, the usual post-church energy spilling into the hallway. Diesel goes straight to the bar. Remy and Flame are already talking about something that has Flame almost smiling, which, for Flame, is practically a celebration.
Cable stays.
He’s packing his laptop near the door, positioned in that way of his when he has something to say that wasn’t for the table. It doesn’t happen often, but when it does, I pay attention.
So I wait.
“There’s someone I’ve picked up in Clemente’s network,” Cable says. “Someone who doesn’t fit the picture I’ve built.”
“Doesn’t fit how?”
“Clemente’s inner circle is fully mapped. He keeps tight control of who moves in that world, and I know that world wellenough now to notice when something doesn’t line up.” He looks at me steadily. “About three weeks ago, someone new appeared in the data. The financial patterns suggest he’s significant. Not a foot soldier, not logistics, but someone with access. I can’t place him in any of the networks I’ve been tracking, and I can’t get a solid ID.”
“Someone Clemente brought in recently.”
“That’s one possibility. The other is that he’s been there a while and only recently started moving in a way I’d pick up.” Cable closes the laptop bag. “I don’t know which. And I don’t like not knowing.”
“Keep watching.”
“Always.” He picks up his bag and leaves.
After the room clears, I sit at the head of the empty table, and the clubhouse settles around me.
