He’s not wrong. I look toward the street again. “If they move, I’m following.”
“If they move toward Ambrosia, you call me and keep eyes. You don’t start a fucking war in the street unless they force it.”
“If they force it, I won’t need permission.”
“No shit, that’s what worries me.” Another pause. “I’m sending Blaze and Hammer to drift nearby. Not obvious. You hear me?”
“I hear you.”
“That isn’t the same as agreeing.”
“No.”
Logan swears again, low and vicious. “Keep your head on. We don’t know what this is.”
“That’s why I’m still here.” I end the call before he can keep talking. Not because I don’t respect Logan. Because everything useful has already been said. The rest is just men trying to hold a leash on something that already scented blood. I slide the phone away and start the bike again.
The engine sounds too loud in the alley, but there’s no avoiding that. I pull out slow, heading away from Ambrosia first, then cut down another side street. The grid here isn’t clean, which helps. Old buildings and narrow lanes make it easier to move without being obvious if you know the angles.
I know angles. Always have. Places to stand where no one notices. Corners that hide more than they should. Windows that reflect what’s behind you.
People think survival is strength. It’s not. Strength helps after. Survival starts before anything happens. It starts in noticing where the door is, who has the keys, whose footsteps mean food and whose footsteps mean pain.
My fingers tighten around the grips once, then loosen. Old shit. Irrelevant. Except it isn’t.
It never is.
I come out two blocks east of Ambrosia and ride parallel to the main street, using the storefront windows to catch flashes of reflection. Headlights. Passing cars. My own bike for a second, dark shape and cut. Then nothing. I slow near a corner and wait for a delivery truck to lumber past, using its bulk to cover my turn.
When I have the angle again, I see the van. Still there. Still running. Now the sliding door is cracked. Not open. Not closed. Just enough.
My body reacts before I decide it should. Jaw tightens. Grip adjusts on the throttle. Shoulders loosen instead of locking, because tension slows you down and I don’t move slow when something feels off.
The van’s not waiting for someone inside Ambrosia. It’s waiting for movement.
My gaze moves past it, scanning the stretch of sidewalk beyond the hood, past the edge of the streetlight, toward the darker line of storefronts that lead into the salon strip. Closed signs. Dark windows. One door still lit. That certainty lands hard and clean, settling in my chest like something I’ve known longer than I’ve been thinking about it. Wrong place. Wrong stillness.
I ease past the van without turning my head, letting my peripheral catch what it can. Two shapes in the front. Passenger shifts slightly. Driver stays too still. No one gets out. No one calls out.
They’re waiting.
I ride another twenty feet and pull to the curb, angling the bike just enough that I can move fast in either direction. Engine cuts. Silence drops in heavy around me, broken only by the low rumble of the van and the distant noise bleeding from the main road.
I take my helmet off slow, not because I’m calm, but because fast movement reads like attention, and attention is the last thing I want to give them before I know what they’re doing. Cold air hits my face again.The feeling’s stronger now. Not fear.
Never fear.
Awareness.
The kind that crawls under your skin and stays there, quiet and certain, waiting for you to either listen or ignore it. Most people ignore it. I don’t. I shift my stance slightly, boots planted on the pavement, one hand resting near the bike, the other loose at my side. My gaze drifts across the street like I’m looking at nothing in particular, like I’m just another man taking a second before heading out. But I’m not looking at nothing.
I’m watching everything.
The van. The sidewalk. The gaps between buildings. The reflection in the glass across the street. The passenger moves again. Barely. The door slides another inch. There it is. That’s enough.
My body settles into it, decision already made without needing to be said out loud. I’m not leaving. Not yet. I don’t know who they’re waiting for. I don’t know what they think they’re doing. But I know this…
They’re not sitting there for nothing.
