EPILOGUE
STEEL
Present day
I sit alone in this room, the hum of the city far beneath these thick walls. The weight of the crown hasn’t lessened. If anything, it’s grown heavier, layered with loss, with choices made and chances missed.
I still see him sometimes. My dad, Tama, The General. The man who built this empire with blood and grit. I see his cut draped over the casket, the white thread of his road name fraying, but still holding on, just like I have to.
And I remember Aria. Her laugh echoing through empty rooms, her eyes were full of things I never got to understand, the space she left that no amount of fire or brotherhood could ever fill.
I carry the club. The brothers. The legacy. But that ache, her absence, never truly fades. It settles beside the patch, a shadow I walk with every day.
There’s one story I haven’t told. One that gnaws at the edges of every decision since Tama’s death.
Dog.
He was always there. A brother. Trusted. Loyal, or so we believed.
But the truth hides in the silence between the roars, in the cracks beneath the leather and steel.
The man who helped us build this kingdom may have also been the one carving its gravestone.
I don’t know when the knife slipped between us, but I know it did. And soon, the fight we thought was behind us will come roaring back. Closer, deadlier, and from the shadows we never saw coming.
I am still Steel. Still forged in fire.
And this club, my family. We will either rise from the ashes or burn together.
Because the weight of the crown isn’t just power. It’s a sacrifice. And I’ve got no choice but to wear it until the end.