Page 27 of Colt
The common room was what it always was: loud and warm and familiar in the way a place gets when you’ve spent enough years in it. Pool tables. The bar. Brothers who’d been throughthings together and knew when not to ask questions. A couple of club girls circulating the edges, doing what they do.
I found my stool and signaled for a beer.
Dutch materialized at the far end of the bar within thirty seconds of me sitting down. Didn’t come over—just looked at me with the question in his eyes. I gave him the look that meantI’m okay, and he read it the way he always read me, two seconds of assessment, and then he nodded and left me alone.
That was enough.
I drank my beer and let the room go on around me and thought about the first time I’d taken Lilac to the clubhouse. Not this one. The Death’s Head clubhouse in Texas. Loud and dark, and rough around the edges.
She’d been nervous. Trying not to show it, sitting straight on the stool beside mine, watching everything.
Then Barrel knocked his whole drink off the bar. Glass everywhere. He made a face like a man witnessing his own funeral, and I heard Lilac laugh beside me. A real one, unguarded, the kind that started somewhere low and just escaped.
She’d uncurled.
She’s going to be okay, I’d thought.She’s going to fit here.
And she had. Better than I’d expected, better than I’d deserved. The brothers liked her because she didn’t fawn, didn’t flinch, and gave as good as she got. The old ladies liked her because she had a spine.
I looked around the Venom Riders common room.
Louder than Death’s Head was. Warmer. Fewer of those edges you had to navigate, fewer undercurrents. The watchfulness that had just been atmosphere back then—I hadn’t understood what it meant until I knew what those men were capable of.
She’d have liked it better here, I thought.
That landed somewhere between comfort and grief, and I let it sit.
I was still thinking about Lilac when Dutch called church an hour later.
The table was the same as always: Dutch at the head, me on his right, Holden and Handful across from me, Glitch at the far end with his laptop open. Brothers sat or stood anywhere they could.
“The new wing is on schedule.” Dutch dropped a folder on the table. “Move-in in two weeks.” He looked around the table. “Indira’s already secured the first three contracts through her network. Security consulting—all legitimate, all regional. That office space earns its keep the day we open it.” He scanned the table. “Montana runs funded the build. Eight months of hauls go into those walls. I want that remembered.”
Handful leaned back in his chair. “The Wolves’ end of things has gone quiet since the implosion.”
“Yeah.” Dutch nodded. “We’ve been running those routes with extra cover as standard—keep that in place. But we’re not filling their vacuum.” His voice went flat. “Montana stays stable, stays ours, stays quiet. We don’t need that kind of attention. Louisville is the priority now.”
“What’s the Louisville update?” Holden asked.
“We’re past the groundwork—that was months ago.” Dutch turned to a page in the folder. “The contact’s ready to move. Three distribution facilities, full security operations scope. He wants us on the ground.” Dutch looked at me. “You’re point man.”
“Understood.”
“The timeline—” Dutch paused, just briefly, the way he did when he was being specific about something, “—is flexible.” He said it to the table, not just to me, which meant it was a club position and not a private conversation. “Louisville moves whenColt’s ready. Holden and Handful handle initial coordination in the meantime. Colt’s personal situation takes precedence. That’s not a discussion.”
No one made it one. Holden gave the table a short nod. Handful turned a page in the folder. The decision landed without ceremony, the way Dutch’s decisions usually did when he’d already made them and just needed the room to hear it.
Church broke and the table cleared. I drifted back toward the bar with a fresh beer, not ready for my room and everything that would be in it.
I’d been there maybe ten minutes whenshesat down.
She was one of the club girls—around long enough to think she could read us. She slid onto the stool beside mine with the kind of easy confidence that comes from getting away with things.
“Thought you could use the company,” she said.
I didn’t look at her. “Not tonight.”
“Come on.” Her voice dropped lower, the angle she ran. “You’ve been wound tight all week.”
