Jamie Riley 

From the street, Static looked like money. Chrome trim, smoked glass, the glow of custom LEDs lining the doorway. No name on the building, just the symbol; a black crown with one red slash through it. The line outside snaked around the block, full of overdressed regulars and first-timers praying to get past the velvet rope. Most wouldn’t.

Behind the door, it was all heat and flash. Light bent in every direction off mirrored walls and crystal fixtures. The music pulsed through the floor like a second heartbeat. On the main level, the crowd moved like liquid, VIP girls in glass heels, men in designer jackets.

But upstairs, in the private suite, behind soundproof doors and blackout curtains, everything was still.

Armando Cortez, Freddy’s cousin and the man at the very top, had built Static five years back, not as a moneymaker but as insulation. Something clean, expensive and far removed from the street-level noise most crews operated in. The kind of place where you could host anyone, city officials, rivals, clients, and still control the room.

Getting Tino to the club looking alive had been a full-time operation. Jamie mapped it out down to the hour, every pill, every symptom and side effect. Tino needed something to dull the pain but not knock him out. Ketorolac, for a start. A small dose of oxy; just enough to quiet the worst of it, not enough to feed the itch he knew Tino had for it. He watched every milligram like a hawk. For the swelling and stiffness, methylprednisolone. And to keep him upright and alert, modafinil. No crash, no wired jaw or cracked-out stare, just focus. Tight timing, tight doses. No extras. No stash Tino could dip into behind Jamie’s back.

The room where the meeting would take place was wide. A glass table ran the length of it, set with crystal tumblers, an open bottle of something dark, and ashtrays lined with the slow burn of cigars and cigarettes. Along the walls, leather seating wrapped around in a seamless curve, deep enough to swallow you if you leaned back. A black chandelier hung overhead like a cage, its lights recessed and cool-toned.

Freddy was seated in a black armchair at the far end of the table, a glass in one hand and smoke trailing from the other. He hadn’t said much since they arrived. Vic sat to his right, Reyna was on his left. Tino sat next to her, opposite Vic. Black gloves covered his hands, smooth and tight like they were part of the outfit and not there to hide gauze. He’d cleaned up, hair pushed back, jacket zipped to the neck. From a distance, he looked fine. Unbothered, even. Jamie knew better. He could see the tightness in Tino’s shoulders, the slight delay every time he shifted in his seat.

Jamie stayed standing. From where he was, he had a clear view of the whole room. The table, the players, the door. Static was as deep in Cortez territory as you could get. If there was one place they were safe, it was here. But Jamie didn’t like sitting with his back to anything.

When the door opened, three figures stepped in; Dante first, followed by Lars, who barely fit through the doorframe, shoulders brushing the sides like he was built for a different kind of entrance. Behind them came Jaro, the cook.

Jamie clocked the change immediately. No Wes. That was off. Until now, Wes had been Dante’s shadow.

Dante gave Freddy a respectful nod as he took a seat at the table. “Appreciate you taking the time.”

Freddy didn’t return the gesture. He took a slow sip from his glass and set it down with a dull clink. “Two of mine were ambushed after your last drop off.” No sugarcoating, no warm-up. Just the facts, laid out like a blade on the table.

Jamie watched Dante closely. Not for the reaction, Dante was too controlled for that, but for the flicker beneath it.

“I heard. That shouldn’t have happened.”

Freddy’s voice didn’t shift. “You’re right. It shouldn’t.”

“We had nothing to do with that hit.” Dante’s hands rested palm-down on the table, like he wanted to show he wasn’t hiding anything.

Freddy tapped ash from his cigar into the tray. “You dropped product with my boys. An hour later, someone opens fire on them. I don’t deal in coincidence.”

“That wasn’t my call,” Dante said. “If someone moved without permission, they’ll answer for it. But I don’t let ghosts run my crew. I run it. And that didn’t come from me.”

Freddy didn't interrupt. He was listening closely, not to what Dante was saying, but how he said it. The rhythm, the restraint, the way his eyes moved.

“See my boy Riley here?” Freddy gestured without looking. “Smart kid. Knew the batch you dropped off wasn’t gonna test like the last one. Your product tested eighty-six. I don’t like surprises, Dante. Not on the street and not in the numbers.”

This was news to Jamie. But it didn’t feel like news. It felt like confirmation.

He glanced across the table at Tino. Tino was already looking at him, eyes tired, posture a little too hunched. But at the corner of Tino’s lips, there was the faintest twitch. Barely a smile, just a flicker, and just for Jamie. It slipped under Jamie’s ribs before he could block it. He didn’t smile back, but he held his gaze a second longer.

“Eighty-six?” Dante sounded surprised. “That’s not what we have on record.”

“I don’t give a shit what you have on record.” Freddy leaned back slowly in his chair, the leather creaking beneath him. “We don’t move product under ninety. That was the deal. So either someone’s lying, or someone’s slipping.”

Dante nodded. “I get how that looks. But our side didn’t cut anything. The batch was sealed when it left us. I stand by that.”

“Standing by it doesn’t make it true,” Vic said.

“We left the package sealed,” Dante insisted. “From our side, the process didn’t change. If it’s testing lower, we need to retrace the whole line, not assume the problem starts with us.”

“Eighty-six passed off as ninety-eight, then someone tries to bury these two?” Reyna said. “Looks like a setup.”

Dante looked at her when he spoke. “If we wanted to burn this bridge, we wouldn’t be here.”

“Being here doesn’t clear it.”

“No,” Dante said. “But it should count for something. You’ve been at this longer than I have, Freddy. You know things can go sideways even when no one’s pulling strings. I’m not here to sell excuses. But I didn’t come with lies either. If someone on my side stepped out of line, I’ll handle it. If something happened to the product, we’ll trace it. But I’m not walking in here playing dumb, and I’m not throwing anyone under the bus without proof.”

Freddy didn’t answer. Dante exhaled through his nose then snapped his fingers. “Jaro.”

Jaro, who had been standing at the door next to Lars, stepped forward.

“We run purity twice,” he said. “Once post-cook, once post-cool. Both readings came back consistent.” He didn’t look nervous. No twitchy hands. No fidgeting. “We log every step. Temperatures, weights, ratios. Everything’s written down. We don’t fuck around with the numbers. We’ve also got footage. Security cams cover every angle of the lab.”

“Then send it,” Jamie said. “All of it.”

Dante’s eyes shifted to Freddy, waiting. Freddy nodded.

“You'll have it by tonight. Footage, logs, timestamps. Start to finish. We don’t cut corners.”

If Dante was lying, he was too good at it.

“We want to make this right.” Dante added. “Even if the footage clears us, and the paperwork checks out, this still hit your people. So we’re offering compensation.” He sat forward slightly, elbows on the table. “We’ve already started prepping a replacement batch. Full volume. And until this is settled for good, we’re offering a temporary cut. Five percent off our end, to you. You’ll see it in your cut.”

Freddy’s fingers tapped once on the table. “Five?”

“Could go ten,” Dante said. “If that’s what it takes to hold this steady.”

It was a smart offer. Not groveling and not an admission, but enough to keep the peace, and make it harder for Freddy to justify burning the bridge.

Freddy let the room hang in silence before answering. “We’ll take the batch.” He didn’t thank them. He stated it like a transaction, not a resolution.

“It’ll be ready by Friday. Delivered direct.”

“Then that’s where we’ll leave it, for now.”

Jamie’s eyes swept the table. Tino was still holding his posture, but Jamie could tell it was costing him.

“Thanks for the sit-down,” Dante said, standing. His men moved with him.

Freddy didn’t respond.

Jamie stayed quiet, watching the Southbound crew file out. Just before the door closed, Lars glanced back and met Jamie’s eyes. He grinned.

Once Southbound was gone, Freddy didn’t waste time. He launched straight into updates; product rotations, border movement, street-level shifts. Black Ice was just one piece of the puzzle. Southbound wasn’t their only partner. Freddy name-dropped two others they were moving weight with.

Then came the assignments. Jamie and Tino were to keep handling Southbound distribution. Pulling them now would send the wrong message, one Dante might mistake for weakness. 

“We stay on course,” Freddy said. “They don’t get to think we’re rattled.”

The only difference now was the muscle. From here on out, they’d roll heavier; more eyes, more guns, more insurance. As for keeping tabs on Southbound, Freddy made it clear that part wouldn’t fall to Jamie or Tino. Reyna would handle surveillance, off-site, hands-clean, nothing traceable. She already had trackers on their drop vehicles and was working on planting a source near their cook.

Freddy said all this like a weather report. Jamie remembered every word. When Freddy was done, he stood. No room for questions. The rest followed.

Tino was the last one to move. Jamie didn’t rush him. They left together, down the side corridor until they reached the steel exit door leading them into the alley behind the club. He leaned back against the damp concrete wall, one foot pressed flat to it, hands in his pockets. He’d held it together during the meeting, but now under the yellow alley light, the cracks were showing. He looked paler now, darker beneath the eyes.

Jamie stood in front of him, cigarette between his lips, shielding the flame from the breeze as he lit it. He took one drag, then passed it to Tino.

Tino took it between gloved fingers and brought it to his mouth. “What’d you think of him?”

Jamie moved to stand next to Tino, back against the wall. “He’s lying.”

Tino hummed. “Freddy’s fucked if he finds out Southbound did it.”

“He’s not.” Jamie reached into his jacket for another cigarette. He didn’t light it right away but just held it, something to keep his hands busy. “We’re the ones who get fucked. If it blows up, we take the hit. Not him, not Armando. We’re the ones on the street. We do the drops, the pickups. We sit across assholes like Dante and pretend we don't see what’s coming. We get shot, we get caught, we get dumped in alleys. And they send flowers to our mothers and call it respect.”

Tino scoffed, but winced halfway through it. “Mine woulda sent Freddy a thank-you card.” When he looked at Jamie, he grinned. “Little dramatic, ain’t you? We ain't dead yet.”

“Yet.”

“You scared to die?”

Jamie shook his head, finally lighting the cigarette. “But I don’t wanna die for people like Freddy. Or Armando, or Vic.”

“Good,” Tino said, and flicked his spent cigarette away with two fingers. “So don’t. They wouldn’t die for your ass either.”

Jamie watched Tino’s cigarette tumble into a shallow puddle, ember hissing out on impact.

If they wouldn’t die for you, don’t die for them. If someone hits you, hit back harder. If it hurts, take something. If it still hurts, pretend it doesn’t. Simple math. Tino's math. It always sounded so easy when Tino said things like that. Like it was all just about calling the right bluff and keeping your chin up. But Jamie didn’t work like that. He couldn’t strip things down to one clean answer and walk away from the rest. His mind stayed crowded, what-ifs and maybes stacked like boxes he couldn’t stop opening.

He wasn’t afraid to die, that part was true. But he was tired of how easy it had become to picture it, how normal it felt to measure your life in the people who might show up at your funeral, and the ones who’d just collect your shoes.

And Tino? Tino spoke like death wasn’t a threat, just a fuck-up you couldn’t fix. Like it was a place he’d already been, a door he kept stumbling through, and the worst part wasn’t going, it was coming back.

“We ain’t gonna die, Jamie.”

Jamie glanced at him, skeptical.

“We’re fucking invincible.” Tino said it with a smile, like the universe might hear and decide not to test it.

A bloodied, half-drugged idiot grinning like the laws of mortality didn’t apply to them. Jamie didn’t doubt he believed it. It was ridiculous. It was delusional. Tino wasn’t invincible. He was barely standing. He was stitched together by drugs, pain, and sheer willpower.

It wasn't the first time Tino had said that. Jamie had heard it before, back when Tino was twelve and his English still had an accent he’d eventually grow out of. There’d been whispers about a man who’d moved in nearby, about what he’d done to young girls. Tino had wanted to gather a few kids, take bats, knives, tire irons, and beat him up. “What if he has a gun?” Jamie had asked, and Tino had scoffed. “I can’t be killed”, he’d said. “People tried.” Then he’d looked at Jamie and added, “You too. Your dad ain’t kill you yet. We’re invincible.”

He’d said it like a promise carved out of scar tissue. Their survival was proof of immunity. And now, years later, still stitched up and sore in a dark alley, he was making that same stupid promise all over again.

Jamie understood it. He saw the madness in it. The magic in the feral defiance. Because when the world tries to kill you young, you either learn to flinch or you learn to laugh. And Tino had never flinched. It wasn’t bravery. It was the absence of fear where there should have been some. Jamie had seen a lot of people try to wear that like armor, but with Tino, it wasn’t armor. It was bone-deep. Because Jamie understood Tino had grown up without the space to feel fear, without the permission to fall apart. So he built a myth. A version of himself that couldn’t be killed, because no one and nothing had managed it yet. Bullets passed through without consequence. Overdoses were just naps with bad side effects.

And even though Jamie knew it was a lie, knew Tino bled like anyone else, cracked like anyone else, he still found himself wanting to believe it. Because when Tino smiled like that, shot and still on his feet… It felt like maybe they really were. Maybe they were the exception, and the rules didn’t apply to them. Maybe their story ended differently.

Jamie looked away, and let his eyes drift up toward the sky.

Delusion was softer than truth, he thought. Sometimes, it might even be the only thing that kept your feet moving and your gun loaded.

He let go, for just a moment. He didn’t want to argue. Didn’t want to poke holes in the fantasy.

He breathed out slowly and watched the smoke vanish into the night and said softly, like a line in a prayer: “Yeah. We are.”