There wasn’t a cloud in the sky on the day they buried Camel.

Layla thought that was appropriate. In the very short time she’d known him, Camel hadn’t so much as looked sideways at anyone. Thunder and rain would’ve been a disservice to his memory.

But it was hot, and the bone-dry grass around her shattered and snapped like kindling as she shifted her weight uneasily from one foot to the other, staring at the glare off his coffin as it lowered slowly, methodically into the ground.

A bead of sweat trickled between her shoulder blades. This is it. He’s really gone.

It had been a week since Camel’s murder. Layla hadn’t been home in all that time, living instead at the club with the Marauders. She knew her parents were probably worried, but there was a good reason Layla hadn’t been back there, and it had less to do with a fear of punishment than it did a fear of what might happen to them if she showed up at their door.

El Coyote had seen her. He’d looked into her eyes. If he found out who her parents were, he might hurt them. Despite the conflicting feelings Layla had about her parents, she didn’t want them to suffer the same fate that Camel had on her behalf.

She couldn’t be responsible for one more person sacrificing their life for hers. She wouldn’t be able to live with it if they did.

Her gaze flicked to Jesse’s face, shining with rivulets of perspiration that caught in his stubble before wriggling down his neck. It was much too hot for heavy leather jackets today, but he wore his anyway. So did they all.

She brushed an offending droplet from her eyebrow and blinked, focusing on him again. He was so covered in sweat that if he were crying, it would be impossible to tell.

Bear seemed to have no misgivings about shedding tears in front of anyone else. The lines in his grizzled face seemed so much deeper now; fathomless ravines of grief that might open up and swallow him whole at any moment. He looked like a father who had lost a son, and as the weight of his regret settled on his massive frame, she watched his shoulders droop with the effort to maintain it.

He was shouldering a burden the rest of them just couldn’t bring themselves to acknowledge.

When Gordo left to take a call on his cell phone, Jesse didn’t reprimand him. It was the call they’d all been waiting for—he wouldn’t have walked out on the funeral for anything else. She caught his look of apology as he carefully waddled away from the group and only nodded at him in return, trying to provide at least some modicum of comfort with her numb gesture as Gareth sidled up alongside her.

Not now, she wanted to say to him. But when his arm encircled the small of her back and tightened just so around her waist, she found she didn’t have the strength to refuse him.

She stole another glance at Jesse, but his attention remained on the coffin until it was out of sight beneath the lip of dirt surrounding Camel’s newly-dug grave.

“Jesse,” she whispered, urging Gareth to step aside. “His jacket…”

Jesse finally shifted his eyes to meet hers. He momentarily scanned her body, noting Camel’s jacket hanging loose from her shoulders. Then he slowly shook his head.

“You can’t take it with you,” was all he said.

Gareth shot her a sideways glance, his whiskey-colored eyes narrowed into glimmering slits. There was an accusation in his stare, one that she refused to address just now. If Gareth couldn’t understand the importance of basic decency on a day like this, that was hardly her problem.

Jesse had just lost a friend—more than that, he’d lost someone he was supposed to keep safe. There was no reason to rub salt into the depths of his wound, regardless of any long-standing rivalry between them.

And on top of it all, Layla just wasn’t in the mood.

“Hey,” Gordo whispered as he returned from the innumerable rows of headstones cracking under the heat of the sun behind them. “That was them. They wanna talk.”

“Not now,” Gareth said, but Jesse interrupted him.

“No, it’s fine. There’s not much else we can do here.” He looked around, his eyes flicking from Gordo to Hollywood, Bear and Gareth, and finally to Layla. “Anyone need to do or say anything before we go?”

“I do,” Bear said, trudging the short distance to Camel’s grave. Jesse watched him go, then turned back to the others and waited. When no one else announced their intentions, he nodded and headed for the shade of one of the big white oaks overlooking the graveyard.

Even gathered under the shadows cast by its sprawling boughs, there was little relief to be found. Layla desperately wanted to shed her jacket and let the minimal breeze rustling the leaves above her caress her shoulders, but by the way everyone else kept theirs on, she was sure she’d be breaking some kind of unspoken rule if she did. It was the last thing she wanted to do on a day like this, when their solidarity seemed so very important.

Unity. Despite how uncomfortable the heat made her, she’d never felt anything quite as strong as the bond they all shared in that moment.

It was strange that this was the place she’d found a sense of community and belonging. The foster system, and eventually her parents, had tried to make her feel that in all the traditional ways. Churches, family vacations, after-school activities; these were the things that Layla had been meant to find her place in.

But she’d never fit. Not until she joined the Marauders.

Well, what was a little heat stroke between friends?

“What’d they say?” Jesse said, craning his neck to watch Bear hovering over Camel’s fully-lowered coffin. He looked like he was saying something, but Layla couldn’t hear what.

“They wanna meet up,” Gordo answered, wiping his brow with his sleeve. It didn’t help. “At La Hacienda. I know it’s not ideal, but…”

“No,” Jesse said quickly. “We’re not meeting on their turf. We lost Camel on contested ground. No way I’m gonna put us in an even worse position this time around.”

“With all due respect, Jesse, I’m not sure we’ve got a lot of room to negotiate here,” Gordo said. “They know we fucked up, man. They know we ain’t shit without ‘em. They know they hold all the cards—”

“All right, we get it,” Gareth snarled. “Just who the fuck are we dealin’ with, anyway?”

“Pablo Nuñez. He’s the head of one of the lesser-known cartels in Mexico, but he does the dirty work of a lot of the higher-ups. La Hacienda is where he does most of his business.”

“You mean it’s where he gets most of his drug mules,” Hollywood muttered.

Layla blinked. “Drug mules?”

He nodded. “Yeah. Nuñez picks up illegals that’ve just crossed the border and makes ‘em an offer they can’t refuse,” he explained. “Like, literally can’t refuse, ‘cause if they do…”

“He kills them,” Layla finished.

“Or worse, he sends ‘em back over the border,” Gordo added. “Nuñez is as smart as he is powerful. He knows what he’s got, and he knows when he sees someone who ain’t got shit standin’ in front of him. He knows we’re fucked, Jesse. It’s either La Hacienda or nothin’.”

Jesse turned away, clasping his hands behind his head as he looked up at the thirsty verdant leaves shivering above him in another teasing breeze. Layla heard him sigh through his teeth. It sounded like a rattlesnake’s quiver.

“I’m with Gordo,” Gareth said after a moment of silence. “I don’t think we should push this one. But Jesse’s right, too. This ain’t neutral territory like the Bottle Cap—this is straight-up cartel turf. It’s like walkin’ into a wasp’s nest. I’m sure a lot of ‘em will be thinkin’ about what happened to Los Muertos, too, now that we told ‘em about the warehouse fire.” He paused, then: “Let’s move some of that meth and get us some arms.”

“Jesus, boy,” Bear said as he tramped down the hill. “Is everything that comes outta your mouth fuckin’ retarded?”

“Is it such a bad idea?” Layla asked. “I mean, if he’s really that dangerous…”

“It ain’t the guns I’ve got a problem with,” Bear said, rubbing his face in his bandana. “It’s the crystal. What do you think Nuñez and his boys’ll do to us if they find out we shorted ‘em?”

“How’s he gonna know?” Gareth countered. “It ain’t like we took all of it. Shit, I don’t even know how much we got for sure. Nuñez can’t miss what he doesn’t know was lost.”

“I told him we had at least a couple grand’s worth,” Gordo said, his eyes darting between Bear and Gareth. “How much are we gonna have left if you buy guns?”

“You shouldn’t have told him shit,” Gareth snapped. “I don’t know if we had that much to begin with.”

Gordo’s dark face flushed. “How the fuck was I supposed to get him to agree to meet us? I had to make it worth his while, man.”

“Then we’ll have to make it enough,” Jesse said, turning around to face his brothers. “We’re outta cash. We spent most of what we had saved up just to give Camel the burial he deserved. If we can’t push Nuñez into changin’ where we meet up, then we’re gonna need firepower on our side, and the only way we’re gonna get it is if we move the meth.” He flattened his lips into a thin line. “Looks like I agree with Gareth for once.”

Bear slowly shook his head before turning away from Jesse and walking back to where they’d parked their bikes. “How many more people we gotta lose before you figure this shit out, Jesse?”

Jesse didn’t answer him. Instead, he turned to Gordo. “Tell Nuñez we’ll meet him at La Hacienda tomorrow. Don’t mention anything else about the crystal. I don’t wanna make any promises we can’t keep.”

Then he looked over at Gareth. “You go catch up with Bear. I want this deal planned down to the last fuckin’ letter. Help him take his mind off Camel, too.”

Gareth looked like he might object, casting a glare in Bear’s direction before merely nodding to Jesse. He brushed his fingers lightly over Layla’s ass just as he turned away, eliciting a current of sparks up and down her spine. She fought to control her shiver.

“Hollywood, see if any of your old friends in Cali can point you in the right direction for some buyers for our meth. If not, hit the streets yourself. I wanna know what kinda client base we have within the next two hours.

“Oh, and Gordo,” he called out over his shoulder. “Put out some feelers. I wanna get a handle on Pablo Nuñez—who he is and what makes him tick. I wanna know everything there is to know about that fucker before we meet him tomorrow.”

Gordo gave a short nod, then trundled into the distance, dialing a number on his cell phone.

“What about me?” Layla asked, gathering her long blonde hair above her nape and securing it with an elastic band. It immediately offered relief against the sticky sweat building up at the base of her skull. “What can I do?”

Jesse hesitated, his emerald eyes gleaming even behind the darkness of his shades. After a few moments, he wet his cracking lips.

“Come with me,” he said at last.