Page 64 of Tiny's Testament
Torch clomps up in turnout pants he stole from a city fire sale, soot streaking his face. “New rule,” he says, deadpan. “If anyone lights my wrench drawer again, I’m switching the whole club to decaf.”
Trigger walks by with a crate of mags, never breaking stride. “Man drinks decaf, he’s already dead.”
Bones hauls a charred tool chest like it’s a wounded dog. “We’ll build it back. Stronger. Meaner. Add a bar.” He winks atNina, peeking around Danyella, and stage-whispers, “Kidding. Juice bar.”
Nina considers. “With popsicles?”
“Kid’s got priorities,” Bones says gravely. Even Capone’s mouth twitches. It’s nothing. It’s everything.
“Church in fifteen,” Capone says. “Wash the ash off your throats. Leave it on your cuts.”
Men scatter. It’s not quiet work. Hoses slam into the ground, boots crunch through cinders. Someone coughs hard enough to taste blood. Trigger checks for burns on Dagger’s forearm while Torch curses the melted remains of a toolbox like it’s a fallen brother. I help Bones pry a bent beam off one of the bikes that almost made it. The frame groans, giving up a ghost of heat.
Syvannah stands beside Danyella and Nina, wrapped in a blanket but refusing to sit, refusing to go inside. I see her when she touches her cheek with the back of her hand, eyes fixed on the ruins like she’s memorizing what they lost. She doesn’t notice me watching her.
The compound breathes as one wounded animal. We rinse our faces, spit dark smoke, and straighten cuts that reek of fire and fear.
And then we walk toward Church.
Together.
Quiet.
Ready to hunt.
The table is a map of smoke. Char flakes still cling to the wood grain. We fill the seats. Blayze sits on Capone’s left, Trigger stares at his ledger as if it offended him, Torch fiddles with a half-melted ratchet, and Dagger sits like a storm disguised as a man. Derange and Aftermath take the far side. Pretty Playboy, Jax, Seth, and Knight anchor the edge. Red sets the tablet in the center and paints our problem in pixels.
Capone doesn’t raise his voice. “This wasn’t random. We’ve got Hounds spray at one site, our line hit at the docks, and now our garage is gutted with a remote. Pattern says Lattimer funds, and Hounds execute.”
Trigger flips open the Pelican case at his boots, steel gleams. “Then we cut the purse string and the dogs starve.”
Dagger rolls his shoulders. “Or bite harder.”
“Either way,” Torch says, “they’re chewing on the wrong bone.”
Capone tips two fingers at Red, who zooms to grainy footage of a side street southbound. “Same pickup from the burn site. Plate is ghosted, but I traced the fuel stops.” He punches three points that triangulate east of San Ysidro. “And an old ag cooperative that shouldn’t be alive is suddenly electric, literally. Night draws power like a stage.”
“Warehouse,” Blayze says.
“Or waystation,” Red replies. “Hounds prefer spokes-and-hub.”
Capone’s eyes slide to me. He doesn’t ask. He orders. “You know their hand. You take point.”
I nod. The rope tightens another notch. “We do it quietly. Courier off the hub, not the hub itself. If there’s a leak, we stem it. If there’s a throat, we find it.”
“Trigger goes with you,” Capone says. “Dagger on your wing. Red in your ear. Bones and Torch on the door if it turns stupid.” He looks around the table, counting what I already counted. Who we can afford to risk, who we can’t. “No cowboy shit.”
Pretty Playboy smirks. “Define ‘cowboy.’ Asking for a friend.”
“Friend can polish the van,” Trigger says without looking up.
Seth’s knuckles crack in measured time. Jax spins a knife once, catches it by the spine, and pockets it clean. I forget how eerily similar Jax and Torch are.
Knight tries to look invisible and fails, Capone notices him anyway. “Prospect, you shadow Red. Learn to see the teeth before they close.”
“Yes, sir,” Knight says, posture straightening by reflex.
The room’s heat drops a degree when I see Syvannah in the doorway with smoke-smudged hair tied back, eyes like questions she’s tired of holding. She doesn’t move. Doesn’t blink. Just dares me with silence.
