"Let's see the trailer-park trash!" Julian mocked, his eyes wide with manic energy. "Let's see what kind of cheap, pathetic—"
Julian’s voice abruptly cut off.
The words died in his throat. The sickening smirk instantly vanished from his lips, replaced by a look of sheer, unadulterated confusion.
The overhead halogen light of the parking lot flickered, casting a harsh glare onto my exposed chest.
There, covering the entirety of my torso from my collarbones to my stomach, was a massive, intricate, flawless tattoo. It wasn't cheap carnival ink. It was the darkest, heaviest black ink a needle could punch into human skin.
It was a giant, roaring skull, its eye sockets hollow and deep, entirely engulfed in towering, stylized flames. Wrapped tightly around the skull’s jaw and threading through its teeth were heavy, jagged black chains.
Julian stared at it. He blinked, clearly not understanding what he was looking at. He just saw ink. "What is this?" Julian scoffed nervously, trying to recover his bravado. "What, you got some cheap biker-gang Halloween tattoo? You think that scares me?"
But behind Julian, Gage had stepped forward.
The older enforcer was staring directly at my chest. His heavy, suppressed pistol slowly began to lower toward the ground. All the color rapidly drained from Gage’s face, leaving him looking like a bloated, terrified corpse. His hands began to shake uncontrollably.
"Mr... Mr. Vance," Gage stammered. His voice was a thin, high-pitched wheeze of sheer panic.
"What?" Julian snapped, turning around. "What's wrong with you?"
"That... that ink..." Gage took a step backward, completely ignoring Julian, his eyes locked onto my chest in absolute horror. "The Flaming Skull with the Black Chains. It’s... it’s the Iron Skulls."
"So what?" Julian yelled, his patience gone. "Some washed-up meth dealers? My dad wipes out gangs like that before breakfast!"
"No," Gage whispered, his knees visibly trembling. "No, boss, you don't understand. The Iron Skulls aren't a street gang. They're a national army. And nobody—nobody—wears the chain through the teeth except the Founder. The First President. The man who built the entire underworld."
Gage looked at me, his eyes wide with a terror so profound it bordered on religious awe. He suddenly understood everything. He understood why I didn't scream when I was tased. He understood why I told the kid to let the boy go. And he finally understood what "Code 50" meant.
"Code 50," Gage breathed, his voice breaking. "It means total war. It means kill everyone in the opposing organization." Gage looked at Julian, tears of panic actually forming in his eyes. "We touched the King, Julian. We put our hands on the King."
"Shut up!" Julian screamed, backhanding Gage hard across the face. "You're a coward! I'll kill him right now!"
Julian raised the titanium bat over his head, fully intending to crush my skull.
But as he raised the weapon, the ground beneath us began to vibrate.
It wasn't a metaphor. The literal asphalt of the parking lot began to tremble, tiny pebbles bouncing off the pavement. A low, deep, rhythmic thrumming sound began to roll across the desert highway. It sounded like an approaching thunderstorm, dark and terrifying, shaking the very air in our lungs.