“Go on,” he said. “What have you got?”
Hacksaw didn’t waste time. He never did.
“We went where we said we would,” he began, his tone clipped, all business now. “Riley got us in with a few of the lower Riders. Nothing official, nothing that’s going to get back to Nico, but enough to get a feel for things.”
Riley gave a small nod. “They’re getting bolder,” he added. “More visible. Less careful about where they’re moving product.It’s like they’re testing how far they can push before we push back.”
“They’re not testing,” Dante said calmly. “They’re assuming we won’t.”
“Either way,” Hacksaw continued, “there’s a shift. It’s not chaos yet, but it’s heading that way.”
I leaned back in my chair, arms folded loosely across my chest, listening without really needing to speak. This was familiar territory. Strategy. Territory. Power plays. Things that made sense.
Things I could control.
“Anything concrete?” I asked, my voice steady, detached.
“Bits,” Chris said with a shrug. “Nothing you could take to the bank, but there’s chatter. Apparently there’s a shipment due at the end of the month. And it’s more than they’ve ever moved at once.”
“How much?” Dante demanded.
“At least a million,” Hacksaw said with a slight grimace.
“Shit,” Dante hissed. “Get Monster and Ant watching. I want to know when that shipment comes in and exactly where it’s going. We know they won’t sell it clean.”
The Riders never did.
We also dealt in drugs. It wasn’t something we were overly happy about, but we sold a product that was the lesser of two evils. The Riders cut their coke with whatever shit they could to maximise their product.
“Will do, boss,” Chris nodded. “But there’s something else as well. There was chatter. Some girls have gone missing.”
“What’s new?” Dante scoffed. “Bunnies?”
“We think so. But it happened at the rally.”
My attention sharpened slightly at that, but I didn’t let it show.
“People were talking about how it went down,” he went on. “Who got caught up in what. Who got pulled out before things got messy.”
“Standard,” Dante muttered. “The Riders won’t care about a few bunnies, they care who stayed until the bitter end.”
“Mostly, yeah,” Chris agreed. “But there was a bit more interest in… specific movements.”
Hacksaw glanced at him briefly, then looked back at Dante. “Gabriella came up.”
When her name was mentioned, I didn’t react, not outwardly at least, but something inside my chest tightened all the same, my body going unnaturally still as though even the smallest movement might betray how quickly the conversation had stopped feeling like routine club business and started feeling personal.
“What about her?” Dante asked, his tone neutral.
“From what we were told,” Riley said carefully, “when things started to go south, she was pulled out early. Didn’t stay in the main crowd. Wasn’t anywhere near the worst of it.”
“Smart,” Dante said.
“Or controlled,” Hacksaw countered.
Riley gave a slight shrug. “Depends how you look at it.”
Chris leaned forward, resting his forearms on the table. “Either way, she didn’t stay out there. She was moved, quick and clean.”