The only way I make it through this is forward. One foot, one mile, one heartbeat at a time.
We park row after row outside the old chapel Dad helped rebuild after the riots back in ’94. The same church where he married my mom. The same church where I was baptized. Red brick, white trim, and a crooked steeple. No gold, no glamour. Just grit.
Just like him.
Engines go still one by one, a sea of chrome and black metal falling silent. Men pull off their helmets, dust streaked across cheeks, eyes red and dry. The sun hits the chapel like a final spotlight on the end of an era.
Aria slides off the back of my bike, her hands lingering on my waist a beat longer than usual. I glance at her over my shoulder, expecting a smile. She just looks at the chapel like it’s about to bury more than my father.
There’s something in her eyes I can’t name. Her jaw tightens like she’s swallowing something she doesn’t want to say. I wait for the question I know is coming, but it never does.
Inside, it’s quiet. The wooden pews creak as men with broken knuckles and inked skin fold into them. Some of them haven’t set foot in a church in decades. That doesn’t matter. They’re here for him.
Aria sits alone, two rows behind me, not beside me. Not this time. Her hands are folded in her lap. She’s too still, like if she moves, she’ll break. When I glance back, she doesn’t meet my eyes, but a lone tear escapes, trailing down her cheek.
Dad’s cut is draped over the closed casket. Black leather worn soft from years of wear, the SOMC patch still bold across the back. The white thread of his road name, The General, fraying at the edges, but still holding.
I walk down the aisle alone. My boots echo in the enormous, high-peaked building. There is no music, no sermon. Just me and the weight of everything.
I stop at the casket and lay my hand on Dad’s cut. His warmth is gone, but the leather still smells like oil and smoke, like rides before dawn, like home. His power, that presence, is still here. In the silence. In every soul sitting behind me. In the pounding of my pulse against the inside of my throat.
“I got us know,” I whisper.
It isn’t a vow, it’s the truth. Our truth.
For a second, I wish I could turn and see Aria’s face. See if she believes I can carry it. But I don’t because I already know the answer.
Crusher steps up first, slow and solid, wearing his grief like armor. His jaw’s clenched, his eyes hard, but when he looks at the casket, something in him bends.
“He taught me how to spot a lie with one look,” Crusher says, voice low. “Taught me loyalty doesn’t come from blood, it comes from who bleeds for you.”
He lays a hand on the edge of the wood. “Rest easy, old man. I’ll watch his back now.”
He looks at me, just once, and nods. A silent exchange. I feel it down to the bone.
Rock moves like the silence is swallowing him whole. He sets a single black rose beside the cut. His hands shake as he touches the patch.
“I owe him my life,” Rock murmurs. “I was nineteen and about to put a bullet in my own skull. You found me, he patchedme up, and gave me a reason to live. Then he made me prove I was worth the second chance.”
Rock swallows hard. “You were more than a father to Isaiah. You were one to all of us.”
My eyes burn with unshed tears as I hold them back and stand next to my father’s casket.
Rampage doesn’t say anything at first. He stands there, fists tight at his sides, knuckles raw. Then he pulls out a brass knuckle keychain, Tama’s old one, and lays it down on the casket.
“He never backed down from a fight,” Rampage says gruffly. “Taught me that rage without reason is just chaos. But rage with discipline? That’s a weapon.”
His voice cracks at the end, and I see it. How deeply he’s bleeding under the surface.
City walks up with his phone in hand, then puts it away. No numbers here. No spreadsheets. Just memories.
“He told me once that every empire falls when it stops keeping score,” City says. “That power without intelligence is a hammer with no handle.”
He taps the corner of the casket. “You gave me more than a job, Tama. You gave me purpose.” He looks over at me. “I’ll keep the math clean, Prez. No ghosts in the books.”
Throttle rolls in last, helmet still tucked under his arm, wind-tossed hair half braided, grease stains on his cut. His eyes are wet, but there’s a defiance in the way he stands.
“I’m the one who always asked why,” he says with a soft grin. “And you… You always answered with a ride. You said the road gives you time to think, and thinking leads to the truth.”
