We stepped back into the rain. It was thick now. God’s reminding the city who’s boss. I took my helmet, looked at Saint. “You talk to Nova tonight?”
He waited half a second. “I drop off groceries, not words.”
“You drop both,” I told him. “Just decide which one you want remembered when the door gets kicked in.”
His eyes didn’t blink. “Doors that get kicked in deserve it.”
I chuckled because I liked him. Not enough to trust him. Enough to plan with him.
Whit slid back into the SUV and the tinted glass ate his silhouette. Saint didn’t move until we were gone. He walked away without another word, umbrella closing like a mouth.
Paranoia crawled under my collar as I rode. Every streetlight blinked felt like a signal, every set of headlights slowed just a hair too long. Saint posted up in the shadows, Darius moving like a man who never dirtied his shoes—none of them were careless. Which meant somebody else was. Nova’s face stayed sharp in my head. That house. That baby. And me in the middle, playing chess on a board where every piece bleeds. The Crest talked in whispers, but it screamed through patterns if you watched long enough. I wasn’t just watching tonight. I was marking. Testing. Leaving reminders that I could be quiet too.
I rode alone to her block because some errands don’t need an audience. Doesn’t take long. My bike knows the way to every door that matters. The rain on my visor made the streetlights smear like someone rubbed the truth out with their thumb.
Her windows were on the second floor, left of the cracked gutter. Lamp low. Baby breathing a rhythm that leaks through drywall if you ever slept too close to noise. I parked my bike two blocks down and walk because engines scare good sleep. I brought a paper bag with nothing in it, so my hands look honest.
A truck sat idled across the street. Headlights off, engine rumbling. Flicker-flicker—two quick taps of brights. That was Saint. He doesn’t wave. I don’t either. Men who wave at each other in the dark ain’t men.
I go up the stairs. The third step creaked underneath my weight. I put my heel where the nail sat. Habit. I didn’t knock. I didn’t test locks. I placed a chalk crown on the door, waist high, where a child saw it before a woman does. Soft chalk. White. Rain will take it in an hour. That’s how you mark turf without getting charged for the graffiti.
Footsteps inside. Slow, careful. The chain slid. A shadow under the door breathes once. I step back so the peephole catches only the paper bag I ain’t carrying.
“Who?”
Her voice. Sober. No tremor. She learned quick.
“Wrong door,” I called back, and let the hall soak in the words. I go back down quiet, took the middle of each step so the wood groaned honest. People trusted squeaks more than silence.
Saint’s brights blinked once. He saw the crown and hated that he didn’t get to erase it himself. Good. Men like him need friction or they think their prayers are working too well.
At the corner I watched her blinds lift a thumb’s width. A fingertip wiped the chalk. Not scared. Offended. Better.
I turned the corner and caught the Ducati-white ghost sliding past the pharmacy that only believed in S’s and A’s. D tapped two fingers off his temple in a salute he didn’t earn. I didn’t tap back. He ain’t my flag. I trod toward the block I left my bike on, because for now… I was finished with this block. I’d see Nova and little miss Aaliyah soon.
The chalk dust was still on my fingers when I hit the clubhouse. Same rain on my shoulders, same thoughts in my head. The kind of thoughts that rattle louder than pipes in winter. The kind of thoughts that make men drink faster just to drown the sound.
Inside, the boys were loud like sirens that forgot the whole city wasn’t a crime. I let them, though. I wanted a certain kind of noise tonight, the kind that sounded like confidence and smelled like beer. Jinx sat in the corner near the busted jukebox, hands quiet. He’s the kind of quiet that makes rooms forget he’s there. He’s the one I want to handle what needs to be handled with the mayor’s boy. I slid into the shadow beside him. He doesn’t look up. He knows me by the way the air moved around my boots.
“You carrying anything new?” I interrogated.
His mouth makes a line. “I carry what pays.”
“I’ll pay to not carry.”
He blew smoke into a slow coil. “That costs more.”
I grinned because I liked math when he spoke it. “Friday,” I affirmed. “I don’t want a jam. I want choreography. Folks must be where they need to be when the first siren gets boring.”
“You calling the siren?” he quizzed, which is the way a smart man askes you if your dumb. Everyone knows that you not supposed to alert anyone about anything in the hood.
“They’ll come for free,” I countered, with a sinister grin creeping across my face. “Cameras make cops itch.”
He nodded once. “What you want from me?”
“Ro,” I asserted. The name’s a tool. “Steer him to the gate, not the center. Make sure a mic lands when his mouth opens. His bike needs to idle too loud.”
“Dirty?”
