Epilogue #3
But that was tomorrow's problem. Tonight was about finishing what they'd started.
Mickey returned with a duffel bag, handed it to Cull with trembling hands. The sergeant at arms unzipped it, counted quickly, then nodded at Verdict.
"Smart choice." Verdict dropped his cigarette, crushed it under his boot. "Bus station's six blocks east. I'd start walking."
They left Mickey Brennan standing in his family's bar surrounded by broken glass and a lifetime of bad decisions. Outside, the Canton night was cool and damp, harbor fog starting to roll in from the water.
Cull secured the duffel in his saddlebag. "Think he'll run?"
"Don't care." Verdict swung a leg over his Harley, the engine rumbling to life beneath him. "He's not our problem anymore. Someone else wants to deal with a skimming bartender with more debt than sense, they're welcome to him."
They rode through Canton toward the harbor, V-twins echoing off brick row houses and corner bars where Natty Boh signs glowed orange in foggy windows. This was Killers territory—every block they'd bled for, every corner they'd fought to hold when bigger crews tried to push them out.
Baltimore wasn't a pretty city. It wasn't a kind one. But it was theirs.
The cargo issue turned out to be a container that shouldn't have been on the manifest—Stevedore had flagged it during routine inventory, and Dredge had pulled it aside before customs got curious.
Inside: enough unregistered firearms to arm a small militia, none of them belonging to anyone the Killers did business with.
"Marchetti?" Dredge asked, his calm voice cutting through the diesel-and-saltwater air of the Locust Point dock.
Verdict studied the crates. High-end stuff. Military surplus, mostly, with a few custom pieces that cost more than most men made in a year. "Could be. Could be someone else moving product through our port without permission."
"Either way—"
"Either way, it stops." Verdict pulled out his phone, dialed Beltway. "Get me everything on Marchetti's shipping contacts. Tonight."
He hung up before Beltway could respond. The road captain would handle it.
By the time they finished securing the container—some of the product would find its way into Killers armory, the rest would disappear into the harbor—the fog had thickened to a gray blanket over the water.
Verdict rode back to the compound alone, brothers peeling off to their own blocks as they cut through Fell's Point.
The clubhouse was quiet when he rolled in. Late enough that most brothers were either out working or passed out in their quarters. He parked his bike in the garage, ran a hand over the fuel tank like he was checking on an old friend, then headed for the roof.
This was his ritual. Had been since he'd founded the club, since he'd buried his father and watched his mother lose everything and decided that if the system wouldn't protect working people, he'd build something that would.
The rooftop of the Fell's Point compound looked out over the Inner Harbor—cargo ships and pleasure boats, city lights reflecting off black water, the distant glow of the steel mills that used to employ half of Baltimore before they went cold.
His father had worked those docks for thirty years.
Loaded cargo until his heart gave out and the company that owed him everything gave his family nothing.
Verdict lit another cigarette. Poured himself two fingers of Pikesville rye from the bottle he kept stashed in the rooftop access shed.
The harbor fog rolled in thicker, softening the city's edges until everything looked like a memory of itself. He could hear V-twins in the distance—Cull and Stevedore heading back from the docks, probably. The rumble of his brothers coming home.
He should've felt settled. The Mickey Brennan thing was handled. The cargo issue was contained. The club was solid, territory secure, respect maintained.
But there was something crawling under his skin tonight. A restlessness he couldn't name and couldn't shake. Like the fog was hiding something he should be able to see.
He stayed on the roof until the rye was gone and the fog swallowed even the harbor lights.
Tomorrow would bring new problems. It always did.
But tonight, Dominic Caron—the man his brothers called Verdict—sat alone with the ghosts of a city that had given him everything and taken everything in return, and waited for the next fight to find him.
It wouldn't take long.
Chapter Two
The last customer of the night was a dockworker named Eddie who'd been eating at Delgado's since before Rosa could see over the counter.
"You look like hell, mija."
"Double shift." Rosa wiped down the grill, ignoring the burn in her shoulders. "Go home, Eddie. Your wife's gonna think you found someone prettier."
Eddie laughed, dropped a ten on the counter for a six-dollar check, and shuffled out into the Highlandtown night. The bell above the door chimed twice—once when he left, once when the door swung back.
Silence.
Rosa loved this part. The diner empty, chairs upturned on tables, the hum of the ancient refrigerator the only sound.
Fifty-two years of grease and coffee and neighborhood history baked into these walls.
Her grandmother had opened this place in 1972 with three hundred dollars and a recipe for carnitas that could make grown men weep.
Now it was Rosa's. Had been since Abuela passed four years ago, since Rosa came home from her second tour with a Bronze Star and a need to save something that mattered.
She finished the grill, checked the walk-in, counted the register. Twelve hundred and change—not bad for a Tuesday. Enough to cover Maria's salary, the electric bill, maybe put a little toward the new hood vent the inspector had been nagging about.
She grabbed her keys and killed the lights.
The street was quiet. Highlandtown at midnight meant a few lit windows, a dog barking somewhere down the block, the distant hum of the beltway.
Rosa locked the front door, already thinking about the shower waiting in her apartment upstairs, the cold beer in her fridge, the six hours of sleep before she had to do this all over again.
Then she smelled smoke.
Not cigarette smoke. Not grill smoke.
The thick, chemical stink of something that wasn't supposed to burn.
She turned.
Half a block down, where she'd parked the delivery truck this morning, flames clawed at the night sky.
Orange and yellow and hungry, licking up the sides of the vehicle that had belonged to her grandfather before it belonged to her.
The truck she'd learned to drive stick in.
The truck that still had her abuela's rosary hanging from the rearview mirror.
Gone.
The roar hit her next—fire eating metal, tires popping, something inside the cab catching and exploding outward in a shower of sparks.
Rosa didn't scream. Didn't run toward it like the heroes in movies.
She stood on the sidewalk in front of her grandmother's diner and felt something cold and sharp settle into her chest.
This was the fourth time.
First, the letter. Polite, professional, offering to buy the corner lot at three times market value. She'd thrown it in the trash.
Second, the visit. Two men in nice suits explaining that Mr. Marchetti was very interested in "revitalizing the neighborhood" and that her cooperation would be "generously rewarded." She'd told them to get the hell out of her diner before she called the cops.
Third, the phone calls. Less polite. Mentions of "unfortunate accidents" and "insurance difficulties." She'd hung up every time.
Now this.
"Rosa! Rosa, Jesus Christ—"
Sal Mendez from the bodega two doors down came running, still in his apron. Behind him, Maria's husband Jorge, who'd been walking home from the night shift. Mrs. Patterson from across the street, clutching her housecoat closed, phone already pressed to her ear.
"I called 911," Mrs. Patterson shouted. "Fire department's on the way."
"Get back!" Jorge was pulling people away from the heat. "Fuel tank could go—"
Rosa watched her neighbors scramble. Good people. People her grandmother had fed on credit during hard times, people who'd brought casseroles when Abuela died, people who showed up every morning for coffee and gossip and the comfort of a place that never changed.
They were grabbing buckets. Dragging out garden hoses. Trying to save something that was already gone.
She should help. She should be doing something.
But all she could see was the fire reflected in the diner's windows. Fifty-two years of her family's blood and sweat, and some developer with mob money thought he could burn her out like she was nothing.
Fury rose in her throat like bile.
Not fear. She'd been afraid in Afghanistan—real afraid, the kind that made your hands shake and your bowels go liquid. She'd driven supply convoys through IED alley while her sergeant bled out in the passenger seat. She'd held a nineteen-year-old private's hand while he died calling for his mother.
This wasn't fear. This was rage.
"Mija, you okay?" Sal gripped her arm, his face lit orange by the flames. "You need to sit down—"
"I'm fine."
"You're shaking."
"I'm angry." Rosa pulled away gently, patted his hand. "There's a difference."
The fire truck arrived with sirens that woke up the rest of the block.
Firefighters in yellow gear, hoses unfurling, the whole choreographed chaos of emergency response.
Rosa answered their questions mechanically.
Yes, it was her truck. No, she hadn't seen anyone.
No, she didn't know why someone would do this.
Lies.
She knew exactly why. She just wasn't stupid enough to say Victor Marchetti's name to a Baltimore firefighter who might be on his payroll.
By the time they'd drowned the flames, the truck was nothing but a blackened skeleton. The rosary was gone. The stick shift she'd learned on was melted slag. Twenty years of memories, reduced to smoking metal and ash.
Rosa stood on the corner, arms crossed, watching the cleanup crew work.