King of Ashes

Roman suggests that he and his siblings visit their father together the next day. Neveah grows frustrated because she suspects that she’ll be handling Keith’s long-term care by herself or running the business alone in the event of his death. Roman apologizes and offers to take care of the crematory if she wants to take time off in the future.

Chauncey calls Neveah and reveals that Getty had ties to both the BBB and a rival gang, the Ghost Town Crew (GTC). Neveah fears what this means for her brothers. She resolves to solve the problem facing her family, even though her brothers don’t want her help.

Roman has nightmares about Getty. The next morning, he meets a sex worker at a motel, but she is too young and inexperienced with domination to satisfy his desires. Roman meets Tranquil and Torrent in their secret office located inside Trout’s, an upscale soul food restaurant. He produces $50,000 and a box of ashes, which he says are Getty’s and Cassidy’s remains. Tranquil pulls a gun on Roman because he was told to bring more, but Torrent is intrigued when the financial manager explains how he can quickly make them much more money by playing the stock market with techniques like pump-and-dump, short sales, and insider trading. Torrent agrees to Roman’s scheme but warns him that if he doesn’t make their money back, they will kill him.

When Torrent asks Roman if he knows where Splodie is, Roman covers for Yellaboy by saying that both he and Splodie stayed at the crematory until the job was done and then left together. Roman’s and Yellaboy’s stories match, but Roman knows that it will take more to earn Torrent’s trust, so he shares that Getty was a confidential informant. Based on Yellaboy’s lies to his boss, Roman deduces that the gang member went somewhere that he wasn’t supposed to when he left Splodie alone at the crematory.

The narrative moves forward a week. Dante is haunted by memories of Splodie’s murder and has been taking large doses of OxyContin in an attempt to cope. During a visit to their father, Roman tells Dante that he’s going to attend Tranquil’s birthday party that night so that all the gang’s top members will see him deliver $150,000. The gang members have to pay the Gilchrist brothers over half of what they make, and Roman is certain that breeds hatred and greed.

The party is at a private nightclub called the Kingdom. Yellaboy meets Roman and Dante outside, and Roman gives him some money, insinuating that he can make him more. Yellaboy keeps the money but threatens to kill Roman if he learns that Roman is responsible for Splodie’s disappearance.

At the party, Roman meets Jealousy “Jae” Evers, a beautiful young woman who works at the mayor’s office. They bond over their interest in anime and their tragic pasts. Jae’s father is now in jail, and Roman tells her about his mother’s disappearance. To Roman’s astonishment, he discovers that she is Torrent and Tranquil’s half-sister.

Tranquil is furious about Roman’s interest in Jae, but Torrent respects Jae’s right to choose whom she dates. When everyone leaves the party, Khalil drives by and opens fire. Roman pulls Torrent and Jae down to safety. Tranquil shoots at Khalil, but he escapes unharmed. Another partygoer, an older man named Russell, has an aneurysm and collapses.

Terrified by the shooting, Jae asks Roman and Dante to spend the night at her apartment. The next morning, she thanks Roman for not making advances on her while she was in a fragile state. She tells him that Mayor Gravely is trying to gentrify the Skids and that her half-brothers have an alliance with the mayor. As Dante and Roman drive home, Dante upbraids his older brother for organizing the drive-by that caused Russell’s aneurysm. Roman reminds him that he is trying to fix Dante’s mistakes.

When the brothers arrive home, Chauncey is waiting for them. The detective suspects that the BBB is extorting them and offers them protection if they talk. The detective also says that the gang is involved in human trafficking and arms running. Roman and Dante have already given their statements about the drive-by to a patrol officer, and Roman tells Chauncey not to come back without a warrant.

Neveah obtains the case file about her mother’s disappearance from the Cold Case Division. According to Oscar’s report, he and Bonita had sex around noon on the day of her disappearance. Afterward, he took the rest of the day off while she worked at the crematory until Keith’s arrival. Reading the file deepens Neveah’s certainty that her father killed her mother.

Roman urges Dante not to leave the house or do drugs in the daytime because the cops are watching them, but Dante brushes off Roman’s warnings that Khalil will kill Dante if he destroys their plans. Roman arranges for Khalil to blow up one of the stash houses where the Black Baron Boys keep the drugs they sell. While Khalil is destroying the stash house, Roman is on a date with Jae in Richmond. That same night, an unknown phone number texts Dante, “Deedee I miss u” (179), and he realizes the message is from Cassidy.

Roman rarely shares his desire to be sexually dominated with the women he dates, but he feels safe sharing this with Jae. After their date, she enthusiastically explores his preferences during their first sexual encounter. On his way home the next morning, Roman drives past the charred remains of the stash house and asks Dante to arrange a meeting with Torrent.

When Roman arrives home, Neveah is waiting for him with the case file. He’s shocked when she reveals that Keith knew Bonita was cheating on him. She shows him a photo of the driver’s seat of their mother’s abandoned car, which is pushed away from the steering wheel at an angle. They both know that their father angles his seat like that when he drives due to back injuries he sustained working at the crematory. Unwilling to confront the possibility that his parents weren’t who he thought they were, Roman shouts at his sister and storms upstairs.

Dante arranges for his brother to meet Torrent but warns him that the gang leader is in a foul mood because of the destroyed stash house. Roman estimates that Torrent lost $1 million worth of drugs in the attack, and he tells the gang leader that he could make several million by buying up construction and demolition companies and using his ties to the mayor to acquire government contracts for the gentrification project in the Skids. Tranquil thinks that Roman isn’t to be trusted, but Torrent is cautiously interested in Roman’s business proposal.

The gang member who first realized that someone had set the stash house on fire is a man named Corey. Torrent is furious with him because he didn’t catch the person responsible, but Corey protests that he was just trying to get everyone out. Torrent declares that the men who work for him are replaceable and has Tranquil smash Corey’s hand with a mallet. Although Roman is horrified by this act of violence, he tells himself that Torrent relies on fear to manipulate people and can be outsmarted.

Dante knows that his siblings love him, but he still feels like his family would be rid of a burden if he died by suicide. He muses that “sometimes all it takes is one thing to make you want to live” when Roman returns home with his favorite pizza (197).

Roman and Jae go on another date and then have sex at her apartment. He feels like “a man in full” with her because he doesn’t have to hide his kinks (197). He’s awoken at 2 am by a call from Tranquil. The gang leader tells him to go to 2234 Falmouth Road in the neighboring Warren County. Roman realizes that the address is the infamous farm. He wakes Dante and tells him to contact Khalil if he doesn’t come back. Dante pleads with him not to go and even offers to accompany him. Neveah overhears their conversation and threatens to call the police and file a missing person report if Roman doesn’t return home within a few hours.

Roman drives to the address Tranquil gave him, a three-story farmhouse. The Gilchrist brothers keep a large number of pit bulls on the farm. Before Roman’s arrival, Torrent killed Yellaboy by setting two dogs on him because Yellaboy made a deal with the rival Ghost Town Crew. Torrent has decided to purchase a construction company and a demolition company like Roman proposed, and he warns Roman that he’ll meet Yellaboy’s fate if he crosses him.

Mike Handler, a married man and the owner of Guardian Construction, occasionally meets with sex workers at the Kingdom. After one such visit, Roman and two BBB members called the Bang Bang Twins corner him. Roman tells him to sell 51% of his business to JCR Investments. The man initially refuses, but the Bang Bang twins torture him with a pair of pliers until he surrenders.

After delivering the papers Mike signed to Torrent, Roman goes to Jae’s house. She asks Roman how he knows her brothers and tells him that she can’t be with him if he’s involved in criminal activities. She shares that Terrance (“Torrent”) and Tracy (“Tranquil”) were raised by their father, who was a member of the BBB. Roman lies and tells her that her brothers inquired about his wealth management business because they’re “looking to go legit” (214).

On Monday, Roman meets with Mayor Melvin Gravely. He readily agrees to give Guardian the government contract in exchange for a $100,000 donation to his campaign. Roman knows that the project to revitalize the Skids is just a scheme for the mayor to take money from the state, and he considers the corrupt politician one of the people most responsible for the city’s decline.

After his meeting with the mayor, Roman takes Jae out for lunch. In broad daylight, four Black Baron Boys open fire on a Ghost Town Crew-affiliated vape shop across the street from the restaurant. A gravely injured woman staggers out of the shop and collapses in the street. Roman and Jae dive to the floor, and he holds her close. He promises that things will be all right in the future.

The narrative moves back in time to the day of Bonita’s disappearance. Delia comes over to Roman’s house, and the teenagers kiss. As they start to undress, a distraught Dante bursts into the living room. Delia quickly excuses herself. When Dante says that he saw their mother with Oscar at the crematory, Roman feels as if “he has been tossed off the tallest building in the world and is speeding toward the pavement” (223). Roman tries to soothe his brother and insists that they go talk to their mother so she can explain.