12. Trigger #2
Ro didn’t notice yet. He was too deep in his speech, talking about his uncle, about men who died with boots on, about the cost of this life.
I slid my burner back into my pocket, arms crossed, leaning against the wall like I was just another man watching history repeat itself. In reality, I was tightening the noose.
He didn’t realize every word he spoke was being framed as dangerous. Passionate turned threatening. Legacy turned liability. And I didn’t have to say a thing.
“Keep talking, Ro,” I whispered to myself. “Make ‘em remember why the streets don’t trust crowns.”
The crowd leaned in, all hungry eyes and folded arms, waiting for Ro to prove something he wasn’t even sure he had.
He stood there with that old cut draped heavy on his shoulders, patches faded but still loud enough to make men remember Sal.
That’s the thing about ghosts—people respect ‘em more than the breathing.
Ro was fighting both tonight. Fighting the legend and the living.
I stayed tucked in the dark, blunt burning low, and let the tension marinate.
That’s my art. Silence ain’t empty; it’s loaded.
Every second Ro kept that mic in his hand, every word he spit, I was counting the cracks in his armor.
He talked loyalty like it was currency, talked family like he ain’t been missing for three years.
Half the block nodded, the other half just stared, weighing him up. Perfect.
I wanted him to feel like he was climbing.
Like the crowd was pulling him higher. Because when men feel high, they don’t see the drop.
That’s how you break a leader—you don’t shoot him.
You let him speak, let him get comfortable, let him believe he’s the answer.
Then you make him bleed in front of the same people clapping for him.
My phone buzzed twice in my pocket. Jinx’s signal.
He was in place, same as the rest. Cops at the gate looking bored but ready to make headlines.
Tony’s cam light blinking like a red eye demon.
Whit sitting pretty, smiling for the block like he was the one feeding them.
And me? I was in the cut, the quiet conductor of this whole symphony.
“Go ‘head, Ro,” I muttered, smoke curling from my lips. “Show ‘em you a king… so I can show ‘em what happens when kings don’t play chess right.”
Ro cleared his throat, eyes sweeping the crowd like he was counting ghosts.
The bass from a lowrider rattled a chain-link fence in the distance, kids clutching their mommas’ legs in silence.
Even the sheriffs at the gate leaned in.
The whole Crest was holding its breath. When he spoke, it was low, gravel rough, but carried over the hum of bass and grill smoke like it was gospel.
“Some of y’all lookin’ at me like I don’t belong up here,” he started, voice steady but sharp. “Like I ain’t been gone too long to talk about this Crest. And maybe you right. Maybe I was gone too long. Maybe I dipped when I shoulda stayed and fought. But I ain’t here to sugarcoat nothing.”
Murmurs rippled through the crowd. A few old heads exchanged looks, arms folded. Cameras zoomed in. I flicked my lighter, flame catching for a second, tiny glow lighting up my grin.
“I grew up right here, two blocks from this yard. I bled right here. I watched my uncle bleed right here too. They called him a legend, but legends don’t keep your lights on.
Legends don’t keep your kids from starvin’ or keep the pigs from knockin’ your door off the hinges.
Legends get buried, and the block just gets colder. ”
A whistle cut through the silence. The hood respected real talk, even when it hurt. I exhaled smoke slow, calculating every nod like chess pieces.
“I came back ‘cause I’m tired of watchin’ our people get played,” he continued, voice getting louder now, cutting through the night.
“Politicians smile for cameras, pigs stand at that gate like they protectin’ us, but they only here to count bodies.
The money flowin’ through this city ain’t never reached us.
We doin’ all the work, and they takin’ all the bread. Y’all clap for that?”
A few boos shot toward the gate. The sheriffs stiffened. Perfect.
Ro’s jaw tightened. “We out here killin’ each other while them suits and ties collectin’ checks. Half the names y’all scared of? I grew up with. Half the names runnin’ this city? They sittin’ right over there, pretendin’ they care.”
The cameras swung toward Whit like trained dogs. He didn’t flinch, but that smile faltered just enough for me to see it. I almost laughed.
I saw Saint shift by the fence. Not much—just a subtle slide of his boot, a hand adjusting his umbrella. But I knew that move. Saint was clockin’ everybody, already making a list of who needed to be ghosts after tonight.
Ro gripped the mic tighter, voice almost shaking now, not from fear but from that mix of rage and guilt only men like him carry.
“I ain’t no saint. Don’t get it twisted.
I did dirt. I dipped when I shoulda stayed.
I let this Crest rot ‘cause I thought distance was safety. But it wasn’t.
It just made me another coward with a pulse.
Y’all wanna call me out? Do it. I’ll take it.
But I came back to make sure this block don’t eat its own anymore.
I ain’t scared to bleed if it means my people get to breathe. ”
Cheers erupted, but they weren’t unified. Half the yard was with him, half was just watching, calculating like me. That’s what made this perfect—division breeds power.
And that’s exactly why I’d brought him here.
I nodded at Jinx. The signal was simple.
Ro’s bike roared to life across the yard, drowning his last words.
Cameras caught his jaw clenching, his hand tightening on the mic, his girl standing off to the side looking small under the lights.
The sheriffs shifted, radios crackling low.
Tino’s hand went to his vest. The yard was alive now, energy buzzing like a power line in the rain.
The sheriffs shifted at the gate like they’d been waiting for that sound. The crowd buzzed, not scared yet, but tense.
“Keep talkin’, nephew,” I muttered, smoke curling from my lips. “The higher you climb, the harder they gon’ watch you fall.”
I flicked the blunt out, crushed it under my boot, and leaned forward, arms resting on my knees. The crowd was eating from his hand now, but their eyes weren’t all friendly—some were wide with hope, some sharp with doubt.
Jinx shifted by the fence, his head cocked toward me like he was waiting for the next move. I tapped my temple twice. His nod was slow. The man understood silence better than anyone I ever met. He’d keep the energy simmering—not boiling. Not yet.
Ro’s voice carried, anger and pain knotted in every word. He was saying too much, but that was the plan. Get him heated, get him reckless, get him talking names that didn’t need daylight. The kind of talk cameras loved the kind that had cops writing reports before they even got back to the station.
From where I stood, I could see everything—the flicker of the camera light as Tony zoomed in on Ro’s face, the way Whit’s jaw clenched when his name slipped past Ro’s lips, the sheriffs shifting by the gate like they could feel the storm brewing.
And I was ready for where the chess piece fell.