2. Roman “Ro” Zore #3
I didn’t need to hear it. I knew the look. It was the same one the streets had been giving me since I rolled back in. You’re back, but you’re already in the middle of something you don’t understand.
The rain didn’t soften — it shifted, angling sideways in sheets that made the whole tent sway like it had something to say. I stepped back out into it, letting it roll off my shoulders, letting it hide the heat that was already creeping into my jaw.
Saint and Nova were still under that umbrella when I turned away, but I didn’t need to look twice. The picture was burned in now — him angled close, her not stepping back, the kid tucked in between them like they’d been a unit for a minute.
I cut through the outer ring of the crowd, boots sucking at the mud, nods from a few old faces, longer stares from the rest. The Disciples knew how to size up a man the way a wolf sizes up another predator — eyes low, shoulders square, calculating whether to bare teeth or just keep moving.
Trigger didn’t bother with the calculation.
He stepped right into my path, his boots planted wide enough that I’d have to go around him or through him.
He lived and breathed Street Disciples. His cut looked the same as the last time I’d seen it — black leather broken in by years of rain and heat, the club’s crown patch on the back faded at the edges but still bold enough to make people look twice.
The big, red, bold letters “VP” flashed in my view like a bullshit warning.
The difference was in him — more lines in his face, more gray cutting through the beard, and that scar on his nose still jagged like it had been carved there on purpose.
“You keep circlin’ the tent like you own it,” he growled, voice pitched low but sharp enough to cut through the rain. “You don’t.”
I let my eyes drift down and back up slow, like I was reading every word on his jacket before I answered. “I’m not here for the tent. I’m here for Sal.”
Trigger’s laugh was short, dry. “You think that’s what this is?
A damn memorial?” He stepped in closer, close enough that the smell of wet leather and cheap bourbon slid in under the rain.
“This is a meet-and-measure, boy. Every man here’s clocking you right now.
And from where I’m standing, you ain’t measuring up. ”
My hand twitched once at my side, not enough to be seen unless you were looking for it. I was looking at him, though, dead on. “I didn’t ride in for your approval.”
“No,” he mocked, grinning without humor. “You rode in ‘cause Grams called. You rode in ‘cause the last Zore with a crown patch is in that box, and the streets are wondering if you got enough bite to hold what’s left or let it fall.”
Behind him, I caught sight of Jinx leaning against one of the poles holding up the tent, a cigarette cupped in his hand to keep it dry.
His eyes weren’t on the casket. They were on me.
Toothpick Tony was a few feet away, chewing slow, that toothpick bouncing with every shift of his jaw. Watching. Listening. Filing it away.
“You still talk too much, Trigger.” I countered, stepping just enough to the side to make him move or block me again.
He didn’t move. “You still run too easy, Saintless.”
That one hit deeper than it should have, maybe because he wasn’t wrong.
I let the rain run down my face before I answered. “I didn’t run. I chose to keep breathing, you copy that?”
He countered a laugh at that, the kind that wasn’t meant to find anything funny. “Sal always said your problem was you thought heart could keep you alive. It don’t. Steel does. Fire does. And right now, you ain’t showing me either.”
I leaned in just a fraction, enough so only he could hear it over the rain. “You keep trying to measure me, Trigger. But you forgot — I’m not here to fit into your cut. I’m here to bury my blood. I already own the cut.”
His eyes narrowed, and for a second, I thought he might swing just to prove something. Instead, he stepped back half a pace, boots sucking at the mud, lips curling into something that was almost a smirk.
“You’re in the middle of something you don’t even see yet,” he taunted. “But you will. And when you do, I hope you’re ready to bleed for it.”
He turned away before I could answer, boots carrying him back toward the line of patched brothers near the back. The ones who’d been watching all along.
The preacher’s voice rose over the rain now.
“Ashes to Ashes. Dusk to Dusk.”
People began to shift, gathering in closer to the casket.
I moved toward the front, sliding past Cruz, who gave me a look again that screamed he knew more than he’d ever tell me in public.
Lani was beside him, arms crossed, lips pressed tight like she’d been holding in the urge to speak all service long.
Up at the casket, the black lacquer gleamed under the storm light, silver trim catching the flashes of movement around it.
The crown patch on top looked too clean, too untouched by the kind of weather Sal had lived in.
I reached out, fingers brushing the edge just long enough to feel the chill in the metal before I pulled back.
The preacher’s voice rolled low under the tent, a deep, gravel-worn baritone that carried even through the hammer of rain on canvas.
“A man’s word… it’s all he’s got when the dirt comes to claim him,” he bellowed, palm pressed to the black lacquer of Sal’s casket like he was swearing in on it. “You break that? You ain’t just lost your honor — you done sold your soul cheap.”
A pause. The wind pushed the tent walls in, snapping the plastic like a warning.
“Loyalty ain’t for fair weather. Loyalty is the storm.
It’s the hand you still grip when every bone in it is broken.
It’s standin’ for your brother even when the ground under you turnin’ to ash.
And if you ain’t built for that… best step off before you’re the reason they gotta bury another man too soon. ”
A murmur rippled through the crowd — low coughs, shifting boots, the faint creak of leather. Sniffles that couldn’t go unnoticed. I should’ve been locked on his words, hearing them for what they were. Maybe a warning. Maybe a judgment.
But I wasn’t.
Because my eyes were drawn, like they had been all day — back to the edge of the tent.
Saint was gone.
Nova was still there, holding the little girl, but the umbrella was closed now, hanging at her side, water dripping from its tips. She was looking out into the fog where he’d walked, her face unreadable.
Trigger’s words were still in my head, mixing with the image of Saint’s hand on her arm, the way the kid had clung to her sleeve, the way the umbrella had tilted just enough to block my line of vision.
The streets were already moving under this storm. And I was standing in the middle without knowing whose rain was about to hit me first.
The preacher’s voice had settled into that funeral rhythm—low, drawn out, and heavy enough to put more weight on the rain. Each word dragged like boots through wet gravel, meant to sound holy but landing like they’d been pulled from a script.
“We gather here in the shadow of loss… to remember a man who now rests in peace, ya dig?” he voiced, slow and deliberate, eyes sweeping over the crowd like he was checking if we believed him.
“The Lord says in John 14… ‘Let not your heart be troubled.’ He says there is a place prepared for us, where pain don’t touch and tears don’t fall. ”
The rain smacked against the tent, dripping steady down the poles, pooling at his feet like it was daring him to step off and meet it.
“Brother Sal walks those streets now—gold underfoot, crown on his head, free from the battles of this life. We can honor him best by finding that same peace… by laying down our burdens… by letting go.”
He looked around like he was waiting for nods, for “Amens” to fill the gaps between the drops. But none came.
I’d heard enough sermons in my life to know the difference between someone speaking life and someone just filling the air so it ain’t quiet. This one? Just smoke. No fire. No grit. No truth that could cut deep enough to matter.
The MC moved like wolves at the edge of the flock—leather creaking, boots shifting in the mud, eyes scanning the crowd the way they used to scan an alley before a deal.
It wasn’t grief they carried. It was turf.
Sal might’ve been in the ground, but the patch on his back was still out here breathing, still marking space.
Lani Cruz stood near the front, her black coat wrapped tight, a hand resting just above the strap of her bag.
Her eyes swept the whole gathering like she was working the register at the diner—counting heads, tallying debts, remembering who paid and who didn’t.
Behind her, Cruz himself stood with a stillness I didn’t trust. Man’s jaw looked like it’d been carved out of tension.
I knew that look. It’s the one you wear when you’re wondering if the ground you’re standing on is about to give way.
The preacher finally concluded his planned sermon, turning over the funeral into the hands of the funeral home team.
“We want you to know that our condolences goes out to each and every one of you.” The lady in the all black dress stated.
The man to the right of her, started next. “If we could have all the pallbearers rise and make their way to the front at this time.”
The pallbearers were six Disciples, big enough to make the casket look smaller than it was, their hands gripping the polished wood.
Jinx was one of them. I hadn’t seen him in years, but the tattoos on his neck were the same—only now they’d spread up into the hollow under his jaw, black ink creeping toward his ear.
He caught me watching and nodded once. Not a welcome.
Not a warning. Just a mark in his mental notebook.