Nova’s eyes cut toward me for half a second before returning to him, but that half-second was enough. It was the same look she’d given me the night I left — calm on the outside, but inside… she was already closing doors.
He caught the glance, followed it, and landed on me. No surprise in his face. No curiosity, either. Just a slow scan, up from my boots to my eyes, and a faint nod that was more acknowledgment than greeting.
He didn’t move closer. Didn’t step back. Just adjusted the umbrella again as if the three of them — him, Nova, the kid — were in their own separate pocket of dry air that I wasn’t invited into.
The rain made a steady hiss against the nylon above their heads, louder when the wind angled it, softer when it straightened. I could smell Nova’s perfume from here — not the sweet florals she used to wear, but something warmer, richer. Amber, maybe. Woodier. The kind of scent that stayed in your clothes after one hug and followed you into every room.
Behind us, the preacher’s voice carried through the static of the storm, low and rolling, speaking about the measure of a man’s life. I only caught pieces — “legacy,” “loyalty,” “burden” — words that meant different things in our world than they did in his. God really wanted to wash away Sal’s dirty steps on this Earth.
Dude’s hand shifted just slightly, the tips of his fingers brushing the edge of Nova’s arm in a way that looked casual to anyone not watching for it. To me, it was deliberate. A signal. A stake in the ground without saying a word. I hadn’t seen either of them in years.
I stopped about six feet from them, close enough to feel the faint drift of dry warmth from under the umbrella, far enough that it wouldn’t cover me. My gloves were slick with rain, leather darker now than when I’d put them on, water dripping from my cuffs to my boots.
For a moment, none of us spoke. Just the sound of rain and the preacher’s voice, and somewhere in the distance, the low idle of more bikes lined along the gravel.
Finally, Nova turned her head toward me fully. Her eyes were sharp, unreadable, but there was a flicker — quick, buried — that told me she’d been expecting me, even if she didn’t want to admit it.
“Roman,” she stated. Not a question. Not a welcome. Just the fact of my name in her mouth, cutting through the rain.
“Nova,” I answered, keeping my voice low, steady.
Dude’s gaze stayed on me the whole time, like he was measuring not just my words but the space between them.
“And you are?” I asked finally, eyes flicking toward him but not away from her for long.
He let a beat pass before answering, his voice smooth but with a weight under it that said he was used to being heard.
“Ezra Calloway. Friends call me Saint, ya dig?”
The corner of my mouth twitched — not a smile, not quite. “Saint, huh? You looking casket sharp. Funny name, though, for a man standing with the devil’s favorite girl.”
Nova’s eyes narrowed, but she didn’t speak. Saint did.
“Funny,” he chuckled, tilting his head just slightly, “I was thinking the same about you.”
The air between us tightened, pulled thin by the weight of what wasn’t being said. The rain kept falling, the preacher kept talking, but in that moment the whole damn graveyard felt like it was holding its breath.
The kid shifted in Nova’s arms, turning just enough for me to catch the faintest glimpse of her face. And in that glimpse — those eyes — my stomach tightened.
Before I could speak, before I could even process the thought forming in my head, ole boy Saint shifted the umbrella again, angling it to block my view.
“Enjoy the service,” he warned, and I caught the unwelcomed invitation.
I stood there another second, boots rooted in mud, before I stepped back, letting the rain close in around me again.
From the corner of my eye, I caught Cruz watching from near the tent’s other side, his expression unreadable, jaw set. Lani leaned in just slightly toward him, saying something I couldn’t hear over the rain.
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’reback, 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.”
