Chapter 164 Four Days

Chapter 164 Four Days
Every senior member who could be reached was in the main room by nightfall, the tables that had once held Rosa's food now bare except for a single map spread across the center one, weighted at the corners with whatever was nearest at hand.

Dante stood at the head of it, Cade and Renzo flanking him, Lyra a step back but close enough to be seen as part of the group rather than an observer.

Rosa and Mara stood near the bar, arms crossed, listening without speaking. Even Lina had come, standing beside Renzo with a quiet stillness that didn't match her usual energy.

"Friday," Dante said, once the room had settled. "Four days. That's what we're working with now, not two weeks."

A murmur moved through the room. "What changed," one of the older members asked, a broad man named Castillo who'd been with the club longer than Cade had been alive.

"We got eyes inside their operation," Dante said. "Confirmed weapons, moved up timeline. Whatever Garza's planning, he's decided he can't wait for the land filing to clear. He's moving before that."

"Which means what," Castillo pressed. "He's not waiting to own the land legally. He's just taking it."

"That's my read," Dante said. "Force first, paperwork later if he even bothers with paperwork at all."

Cade stepped forward slightly. "We have four days to figure out how we respond."

"There's a difference?" someone asked from the back.

"There is," Cade said. "Reacting means we wait for Friday and scramble when it happens. Responding means we decide now what we're willing to do, and we go in already knowing our own answer."

Dante nodded at that, letting it sit in the room for a moment. "What's the south end actually worth to us," Castillo asked. "Compared to what it'll cost defending it."

The room went quiet at that, the practical brutality of the question landing plain.

"It's not just land," Dante said. "It's a message. If we let Garza take it by force without answering, every rival we've ever had learns exactly how far they can push us."

"And if we answer with force," Castillo said, "we're not any better than what we're trying to stop him from becoming."

Dante's jaw tightened. "I'm not planning to answer with more force than necessary. I'm planning to make sure we're not caught unprepared when he moves."

"What does that look like," Renzo asked.

Dante looked at the map, tracing the fence line, the storage buildings, the access road, the warehouse cluster now marked in red.

"We reinforce the south end starting tomorrow, not obviously. Quiet, staggered, so it doesn't look like we know anything."

"And if he brings what Lyra saw into it," Cade said. "The weapons."

"Then we need to be ready to answer in kind," Dante said, something grim settling into his voice. "Not eager for it. Ready for it."

The room broke into smaller conversations after that, plans dividing into pieces, assignments passed between the senior members while Dante moved through it all steady and methodical, exactly the leader Cade had watched him become over the past weeks.

Lyra found herself standing near the bar with Mara and Rosa.

"You did something today," Mara said quietly, studying her. "Something that scared Cade half to death, from the look of him earlier."

"I know."

"How are you doing with it," Rosa asked, more gently than her usual bluntness.

Lyra considered the question honestly. "I keep seeing the crate, the guns." She wrapped her arms around herself slightly. "I knew it was serious before today. Knowing and seeing aren't the same thing."

"No," Mara agreed. "They never are."

Lina drifted over from where she'd been standing near Renzo, her usual brightness dimmed into something quieter. "Is it strange that I'm more scared now than I was before we knew the details?"

"It's not strange," Rosa said. "Not knowing lets you imagine it's smaller than it is. Knowing takes that away."

Lina nodded slowly, glancing back toward Renzo, who was deep in conversation with two other members about the south end's weakest points. "He's going to be right in the middle of whatever happens Friday."

"He always is," Mara said, not unkindly.

"I know." Lina's voice was smaller than Lyra had heard it before. "I just wish, for once, he wasn't."

Lyra watched her for a moment but said nothing.

Dante called Cade aside near the end of the meeting, the two of them stepping into the back hallway while the room continued sorting through assignments.

"I need you leading the south end response personally," Dante said.

"I figured as much."

"That means Lyra stays back," Dante said.

Cade's jaw tightened. "She's not going to like being told to stay back."

"I don't need her to like it," Dante said. "I need her safe. She's given us more than we could've asked for already. Friday isn't hers to carry."

"I'll talk to her."

"Talk to her tonight," Dante said. "I want everyone clear on their place before tomorrow starts."

Cade found her still near the bar when the meeting finally broke, the room emptying slowly around them as members filed out into the night to start whatever preparations had been assigned to them.

"Dante wants you back," he said, sitting beside her.

Lyra looked at him steadily. "I figured he would."

"You're not going to fight me on it?"

"I did my part," she said. "I got you the information you needed. What happens Friday is a different kind of danger than a warehouse in daylight. I know the difference."

Cade let out a breath he seemed to have been holding since the meeting started. "Thank you."

"Don't thank me like I'm doing you a favor," she said, softer now. "I'm doing it because I don't want to be the reason you're distracted on Friday, worrying about where I am instead of what's in front of you."

He reached for her hand, quiet for a moment. "Four days," he said.

"Yeah." she echoed.

They sat together in the emptying room, the map still spread across the center table, red marks waiting patiently for Friday to arrive and prove whether everything they'd planned tonight would be enough.

"I keep thinking about what you said," Cade said eventually. "The other night, about loving me."

"I meant it."

"I know you did." He looked at her, something raw and open in his expression.

"I just keep thinking that if Friday goes wrong, I want you to already know, fully know, that whatever happens, that was real."

Lyra turned to face him fully, cupping his jaw with one hand. "It's real, Cade. It was real before I said it and it'll be real after Friday too, whatever Friday brings."

He closed his eyes briefly, leaning into her touch. "I love you," he said again, quieter this time, like he was trying to make sure it settled somewhere permanent before the coming days asked anything more of either of them.

"I love you too," she said. "Now let's get through Friday so we have time for all the days after it."