Page 30 of Spade

“The east access is staff only. No cameras, two doors, both can be jimmied. Subfloor is reinforced, but if we cut power, we have two minutes before backup lights. Joker?”

She shrugged. “Cakewalk.”

“Medical?” I asked.

Selene glanced at me, then Tempest. “We’ll have supplies, but you go fast. The men—some might need real triage.”

Tempest cracked a single knuckle. “I’ll bring the kit.”

No one lingered. The plan was already alive, breathing in the room’s corners. Chairs scraped back, the dry hush of business closing for the night. I pushed up, letting the blood stiffen in my jacket, and watched as the rest filed out—Glitz already on her phone, Aces silent, Joker’s grin going sharp as a blade as soon as she hit the hallway. Only Selene hung back.

I waited. She kept her eyes on the scar running along my jaw, not quite the same spot as last week’s cut, but close enough that it could’ve been deliberate. She said, “If this gets noisy, you’ll make the call.”

“Yes,” I said.

“Don’t hold back,” she said, softer than I’d ever heard from her. “Not with this. Not with them.”

I thought of the men locked in chairs, never fewer than six, never a way out. I nodded. “I won’t.”

Selene stood, boots silent on the carpet. “Bring your best, Spade. You know how this works.”

She turned and left. The room stayed hollow for a second, just the low thrum of the casino bleeding through the walls. I walked out with my hands at my sides, not bothering to hide the red on my skin. Past the rows of slots, over the glassy blue carpet, into the parking lot where the air was so dry it could’ve been cracking.

My bike was the only thing in the lot that looked like it belonged here, matte black, stripped to function, the throttle cable patched in three places. I kicked a leg over, squeezed the clutch, and let the engine wake the night. The mission was already replaying in my skull, over and over: entry, breach, power, descent, extraction, burn. The Queens had set up shop in the wrong city. They were about to learn what happened when you crossed the line.

I rolled out onto the empty side street, hit the throttle, and split the silence in half. Every muscle in my body was ready for war.

12

Spade

Ineeded to do this one alone, while everyone else was thinking about men being jacked off and women swimming in semen.

I’d been tracking this asshole for months.

The blood was already thickening on the ground by the time I finished killing the man. Just another criminal set free by a system that secretly blamed the victims. Now the system was going to have to find the dick I cut off and tossed down the street drain.

The knife slid back into its sheath with a sound only I seemed to notice—something between a click and a sigh. I crouched over his body, wiping the blade clean on his shirt, not rushing the job. Under the nervous tremor of neon, every movement felt staged for an invisible audience: me, the dead, and whatever watched from the far side of midnight.

I didn’t hear Jason at first. The sound of him was lost in the compressor’s thump and the distant, sleepless drag of the Strip. But I knew he was there—the way prey knows the shadow’s changed. When I turned, he was already in the open, service weapon leveled on me from twenty feet. Elbows locked, stance squared. He was a pro, but he had the look of a man just barely holding himself together.

I kept the knife in my left hand, edge out, fingers loose. I didn’t stand up all the way. No sudden moves. The gun was new—a compact model, matte finish, trigger set for a short pull.

“Don’t,” he said. The word was as steady as the muzzle. “I don’t mind shooting an armed woman.”

I stayed down. “You’re a little late.”

He ignored it. “Put the knife on the ground, Spade. We need to do this the smart way.”

I weighed it, then slid the blade out in front of me. “It’s just a tool.”

“I know what you do with your tools.” He edged closer, keeping the barrel high.

“Congratulations.” I looked past him, toward the alley’s open mouth. “You going to make the arrest, or just watch me finish?”

His jaw worked. For a second, I thought he’d do it—go by the book, cuffs and all. But we both knew the minute he tried, I’d bolt. Or worse.

“Stay where you are,” he said.