I move toward the bike without rushing. Rushing announces too much. So does hesitation. My boots hit the pavement in an even rhythm, and my eyes sweep the lot once more. Front entrance. Side door. Back alley. Roofline. Cars. Windows. Hands if I can see them. Faces if they matter.
Nothing.
Still, the feeling that followed me out of church hasn’t left.
That’s the problem with rooms full of men talking strategy. They make shit sound contained because the walls are close and everyone has a chair. They lay out possible threats, build neat lines between one concern and the next, and act like danger respects categories. It doesn’t.
Danger leaks.
It spreads out through side streets and parking lots and dark corners where people assume nothing will happen because nothing has happened yet.
The RICO investigation is still sitting on the edge of us like a blade. The calls to Brynn, the questions about her brother, the voices in the background, the people asking around town. All of it means someone is probing. Maybe official. Maybe not. Maybe some hungry bastard using the investigation as cover to build something we can’t see yet. Doesn’t matter which. The shape is the same. Someone’s looking. And men who look long enough eventually find a door.
I reach my bike, but I don’t get on. Something pulls my attention left. Not a sound. Not movement. Just wrong. I turn my head slightly.
Across the street, half a block down from Ambrosia, a van sits at the curb with its engine running. Dark color. No markings. Nothing memorable at first glance. Parked in a spot where someone could pretend they’re waiting for a pickup, waiting for a call, waiting for a person still inside one of the shops. The exhaust drifts from the tailpipe in pale, uneven breaths, disappearing into the cold before it reaches the streetlight.
The van doesn’t scare me. It irritates me. Wrong place. Wrong stillness.
I watch it without turning my body fully toward it.
The driver’s side window is too dark to see through. No headlights. Parking lights off. Engine running anyway. That’s a choice, not a mistake. In this cold, plenty of people leave a car running, but most of them want heat or visibility. They check phones. Tap fingers. Shift in their seats. Give the world some sign of being a person doing ordinary shit. This thing sits like a held breath. It doesn’t sit right.
I pull my gloves from my pocket and slide them on slow. Leather over knuckles. Tug at the wrist. Other hand. Same motion. My eyes stay on the van through all of it. No movement. No door opening. No brake lights. No face in the windshield.
Most men would tell themselves it’s nothing. A van sitting on a public street isn’t a threat by itself. A running engine in winter isn’t suspicious enough to justify action. A dark window doesn’t mean someone’s watching. Most men need proof because they’re afraid of being wrong.
I’m not. Being wrong costs less than ignoring the thing your body already knows.
Behind me, the door to Ambrosia opens and a warm burst of sound spills into the lot.
“Cobra.”
Allison.
I look back without moving my feet.
She’s standing in the doorway with her arms crossed, blonde hair pinned up, expression tight in a way she probably doesn’t show customers. Red light catches her face, making her look sharper than she already does. “You good?” she asks.
My gaze moves back to the van. “Inside.” That’s all I say.
She follows my line of sight, and her posture changes immediately. Not dramatic. Just enough. Shoulders squared. Chin lifted. Eyes narrowing. “What is it?”
“Don’t know yet.”
“Yet,” she repeats.
I look at her again. “Lock the door behind me. Side door too. Tell the girls rides wait inside.”
She doesn’t argue. That’s why I respect her. “Got it,” she says.
The door closes a second later, and I hear the lock turn.Good.
I swing onto my bike and start it. The engine catches low and hard beneath me, the vibration traveling through my thighs, my hands, my chest. Familiar. Grounding.
The van still doesn’t move.
I ease out of the lot and onto the road like I’m heading back to the clubhouse, just another ride after a routine pickup. I don’t look directly at the van as I pass it. Men watching for attention know how to read attention. I let my peripheral vision do the work.
