Page 96 of Double Down

He listens. His muscles tighten beneath me until the couch isn’t comfortable anymore. I consider rolling to rest only on Storm, but he’s tensing, too. This pocket of peace is about to rip like every other good thing.

“Who the hell is this?” Conrad demands, his fingers tightening and tangling in my hair.

The voice on the other end isn’t loud enough to catch every word, but I grasp the shape of the speaker. It’s a man, confident to the edge of cocky. Mean without needing to shout.

I hear my name, thendrugs,Titans, and then a phrase that freezes my blood in my veins—Blackvine Syndicate.

That’s not some local crew sniffing around. The locals don’t even have a real name, at least not one I’ve heard.

But the Blackvine Syndicate is notorious. Not even my father would go near them for a loan.

They don’t operate like street gangs. They’re bigger, older, calculated in ways that never make the news until bodies turn up where no one wants to find them. They’re not based strictly out of Savannah or even Georgia, but are spread across the South, with ties to mob crews all over.

They’re the real shit, and they’re fucking scary.

Why the hell would they be calling Conrad?

“We have nothing to do with that,” Conrad says flatly. “We don’t sell anything, so whatever?—”

The voice cuts him off so hard he goes silent. I glance at Storm. He’s watching Conrad with a focus that prickles my skin.

He’s scared.

Con puts the call on speaker. The voice fills the room—gravel dragged over metal.

Then, more words that stop my breath: drugs. Not just any drugs—the same ones showing up at the casino resort, killing these stupid fucking college kids.

“They were stolen from us,” the voice says, clearer now. “And we want them back. You’ve got two days to figure out where they are—and provide an offer to pay us back for the ones you already moved.”

Moved. As in sold.

They think the Titans stole from them and are running product, selling their drugs and pocketing the money. The words are scattershot in my head. I can’t make them make sense.

Conrad’s jaw flexes. His fist tightens in my hair. “We didn’t steal anything. I don’t know who told you?—”

The line goes dead.

He stares at the black screen a beat too long. Heat rolls off him. Conrad’s anger runs hot and deep, and only his obsessive need for control tempers it. Control is the last thing he’s feeling now.

Storm breaks the choke of silence. “This just got so much fucking worse.”

No shit.

“Get up,” Conrad says. His voice is sharp enough to slice through and silence any building question in my throat.

The tenderness he showed me is already gone, erased like never before.

Storm leans and pulls me into his lap, pressing my cheek to his chest quick and hard. His heart hammers in my ear.

Conrad’s already standing, already moving.

“I need to get you cleaned up,” Storm says, low and urgent. “We have to talk to Mav and Atticus. This changes things.”

I slide off his lap and take a step toward the door. “Then let me come with you?—”

“Not this time, Phoenix.” Conrad doesn’t even look at me. The office door shuts behind him.

And I’m locked out. Again.