Page 134 of Double Down

Every search I run digs the knife in deeper. He’s definitely dirty. Bought and paid for, and cheaply. The drugs, the fake Botox, the fentanyl—all of it funneled through him. And behind him is whoever’s trying to start a war for territory in Savannah.

The hell of it is…we’re not even players on the board. We don’t deal in drugs. We don’t sell injectables or run guns or do any of this other mob bullshit. We’re just…normal people.

Normal people with a hotel that happens to make a shit ton of money, sure, but normal fucking people.

Is that what this is all about? Are they trying to leverage us for control of Titan-Wynn so they can use it to launder money and run all their dirty shit through it?

No fucking thank you.

I rub a hand over my face. “Motherfucker.”

For weeks I’ve been trying to find the thread, the single string I could tug on until this whole mess unraveled. I thought maybe it was the spa. Maybe the missing staff. Maybe the overdose patterns. But no, it’s him, a fucking cop.

It’d be bad enough if he were just peddling poison through our resort, but no, he’s the same son of a bitch who’s been threatening Phoenix—which begs the question—who the fuck is he working for?

He doesn’t have the balls to rip off Blackvine, and he isn’t smart enough to pull any of this shit off on his own.

If he’s the puppet, who the fuck is his master?

I slam my fist against the desk hard enough to rattle the monitors.

The footage of Mav and Storm. This dirty fucker has it, and he can get to our girl.

And all of this with the goddamn mob breathing down our necks, because he’s part of them framing us to cover his own ass.

It all connects. I can see the web clearly, but I don’t see a way out. There is no path that gets us where we need to be.

That’s the part that undoes me. Because usually, no matter how dark, no matter how impossible they are, I can see the angles. The cracks in the wall. A way to manipulate, to calculate, to come out on top.

But this?

We’re boxed in. Every option is a trap.

I stare at the screens until the lines blur, until my reflection stares back at me from the black edges of the glass.

Death is too good for some people. Too fast. Too clean.

And yet, for the first time in my life, I feel something worse than rage, worse than vengeance.

I feel cornered.

I lean back in my chair, exhale slowly, and close my eyes.

For the first time, I can’t see a scenario where we win…and for the first time I have something real to lose.

36

Maverick

We finally havea name for the people pulling this bullshit.

The Savannah Mafia.Cute branding for a crew selling poison on our floors and threatening my girl.

Not the fun stuff we’d normally tax and enjoy behind closed doors. Nah, we don’t fuck with fentanyl, knock-off semi-glutides, or Faux-tox that turns faces into crime scenes.

Worse—Atticus’s research says they stole their stash from something bigger and meaner: the Blackvine Syndicate. Grady Calhoun doesn’t care about our “we’re not your enemy” tone. They don’t know us. They don’t negotiate with strangers.

They balance ledgers in knees and funerals.