Page 27 of Bones and Ashes

Every order followed without question.

"And I don't wanna make the same ones twice. So I just need time. Time to think. Time to breathe. Time to figure out what this thing looks like now that the rot's been cut out. And I think you guys need time too. All of you. Every man in this club needs a minute to sit with what happened and decide if he's still here for the right reasons."

I let that hang.

Because it needs to hang.

Because I'm not Brick. I don't paper over the cracks and call it structure. I don't smile at a man while I'm buildin' the case that buries him. Whatever I am—and I'm still figurin' that out, minute by minute, breath by fuckin' breath—I'm not that.

"Because I'm gonna say this plainly right now, Diesel." I hold his gaze. "Whatever Brick was doin'—the deals, the angles, the shit he had runnin'—it's over. All of it. Done. Sealed. Buried next to the man himself."

Diesel doesn't blink.

"And that decision comes with consequences. Real ones. Feds. Rivals. Supply chains that just went dead. Brothers who maybe weren't brothers at all—just men who liked the shape of Brick's shadow and don't know how to stand in their own."

I exhale slow through my nose.

"And these aren't consequences you can opt out of, ya got me? There is no way to abstain on this one. There is no sittin' in the back of church with your arms crossed pretendin' this don't touch you. It touches all of us. Every patch. Every prospect. Every woman and child tied to this cut."

He nods. Slow. Deliberate. The way a man nods when he's not just agreein' with you—he's submittin' to the truth of it.

"I got ya," he says. Quiet. Solid. Like a foundation stone bein' set.

I stand up.

He stands up.

And we dap. Not the loose, half-hearted kind. The real kind. Hands clasped tight, pulled in, shoulders touchin'. And for just a second—just one fuckin' second—it feels like somethin' holy. Like two men standin' in the wreckage agreein' to build instead of burn.

"We'll figure it out, brother," I tell him.

"We always do," he says. And he means it.

I walk out.

I don't look back.

Don't pause at the door.

Don't check if anyone's watchin' or waitin' or needin' one more word from me because I'm empty of words right now. Used up. Spent like a magazine fired dry.

The sun hits me the second I clear the threshold and it's fuckin' blinding. White and hot and everywhere at once, pourin' down on the dust, and the bikes, and the cracked asphalt like God Himself decided to turn the lights on just to see what's left.

I put the everything about this morning behind me.

All of it.

I put it behind me and I just stand there for a second.

Eyes closed.

Face tilted up.

Lettin' the sun bake me.

Sanitize me.

Burn off whatever's clingin' to my skin that don't belong there.