Epilogue #4
The fire cast long shadows down the cobblestone street.
To the south, she could see the harbor, cargo ships lit up like floating cities.
To the east, barely visible through the smoke haze, the old warehouse district of Fell's Point—where, if the rumors were true, a different kind of crew handled their business.
The Charm City Killers.
Everyone in Highlandtown knew about them.
The bikers who ran the waterfront, who kept the corner boys from setting up shop in family neighborhoods, who made problems disappear when the cops couldn't or wouldn't. Dangerous men with a code, her grandmother had said once. Better to have them nearby than not.
Rosa had never needed them. She'd handled her own problems her whole life—two combat tours' worth of handling problems.
But this was different.
Marchetti had money. Marchetti had men. Marchetti had burned her truck tonight, and if she didn't fold, he'd burn the diner next. Then maybe her apartment. Then maybe her.
"Ms. Delgado?"
The fire captain, a tired-looking man with soot on his face. "We'll have the incident report ready by tomorrow. You'll want it for your insurance claim."
"Thanks."
"You got somewhere to stay tonight? Might not be safe—"
"I live upstairs." Rosa nodded toward the diner. "I'm not going anywhere."
He looked like he wanted to argue, but something in her face stopped him. "Alright. You need anything, don't hesitate to call."
She watched him go. Watched the trucks pull away, the neighbors drift back to their homes, the street slowly empty until it was just her and the smoking ruins of her grandfather's truck.
The diner stood behind her, dark and quiet. Fifty-two years on this corner. Three generations of Delgados serving Highlandtown's working families. Her grandmother had built something here—not just a business, but a gathering place. A community.
Rosa would be damned if she'd let some silver-haired loan shark with real estate ambitions take it from her.
But standing alone on a sidewalk at two in the morning, watching smoke curl toward the sky, she wasn't naive enough to think stubbornness alone would save her.
She'd seen what happened in Afghanistan when superior forces decided they wanted something you had.
Convoys got ambushed. Outposts got overrun. People got killed.
Marchetti wanted this corner badly enough to burn for it.
She needed allies. Resources. Something to level a playing field that was tilted hard against her.
The cobblestone street that ran past the diner led straight toward Fell's Point. Toward the harbor. Toward the compound everyone whispered about but nobody talked about directly.
Rosa lit a cigarette—her first in three years—and let the smoke fill her lungs.
Not yet, she told herself. You're not that desperate yet.
But even as she thought it, she knew she was lying.
Because whoever had done this would be back. They always came back. And next time, it wouldn't be a truck.
Next time, it would be the diner. Or her apartment. Or her.
She smoked the cigarette down to the filter, dropped it on the cobblestones, crushed it under her boot.
Then Rosa Delgado went upstairs to her apartment, locked every deadbolt, and sat by the window with her grandfather's shotgun across her lap, watching the street until the sun came up.
Chapter Three
The chapel fell silent when Verdict walked in.
Six brothers around the scarred oak table, coffee cups and cigarettes and the particular tension that came with being summoned before noon. The harbor-facing windows were blacked out, but thin lines of morning light leaked through the edges, cutting across the Killers patch mounted on the wall.
Verdict took his seat at the head. Didn't speak yet. Let the silence do its work.
Dredge sat to his right, calm as always, a man comfortable with pressure that would crush others.
Cull to his left, arms crossed, face blank—the sergeant at arms didn't do small talk and didn't pretend otherwise.
Beltway had his phone out, scrolling through something.
Stevedore and Formstone filled out the table, both of them still in work clothes from the overnight shifts that kept their covers intact.
"Beltway." Verdict's voice was quiet. It didn't need to be loud. "Tell them what you told me."
The road captain set down his phone. "Got a call from my guy at the firehouse around three this morning. Truck fire in Highlandtown, corner of Eastern and Conkling. Delgado's Diner."
"That's inside our territory," Formstone said.
"Six blocks from the compound," Beltway confirmed. "Arson. Professional job—accelerant on the fuel tank, timed to go up after the place closed. No witnesses, no cameras that caught anything useful."
Stevedore leaned forward. "Marchetti?"
"Has to be." Beltway pulled up something on his phone, slid it across the table to Verdict. "Victor Marchetti's been buying up that block for eight months. Got the bodega two doors down last month, the row houses across the street before that. The diner's the last holdout."
Verdict looked at the screen. Property records, purchase dates, shell company names that all traced back to the same source. Marchetti wasn't even trying to hide it—he'd been operating near Killers territory for years without direct conflict, and he'd gotten comfortable. Sloppy.
That was about to change.
"The diner owner," Verdict said. "Rosa Delgado. What do we know?"
"Army vet," Dredge offered. "Two tours in Afghanistan, supply sergeant.
Came home about five years ago to save her grandmother's place from bankruptcy.
Turned it around, too—that diner's been a neighborhood anchor for decades.
Word is she's got a spine made of rebar.
Turned down Marchetti's buyout offers three times. "
"Four," Beltway corrected. "Last night was the fourth."
Cull grunted. "So she's got guts. Guts don't stop bullets."
"No," Verdict agreed. "They don't."
He thought about what Dredge had said. Supply sergeant—that meant logistics, organization, keeping operations running under pressure. Two tours meant she'd seen combat, or at least been close enough to smell it. The kind of woman who didn't rattle easy.
The kind of woman who'd probably rather eat glass than ask for help.
Too bad. This wasn't about her anymore.
"Marchetti sent his people into our territory," Verdict said, his voice carrying the weight of judgment. "Six blocks from where we sleep. That's not a real estate play. That's a challenge."
Nods around the table. Every man understood what that meant.
"Stevedore." Verdict turned to the big dockworker. "What's Marchetti moving through the port?"