King of Ashes

The next morning, Khalil comes to the Carruthers’ home. Roman is supposed to join Torrent and Tranquil for a meeting with the man who supplies them with drugs and weapons later that day. Roman and Khalil plan to attack the gun shipment and make it look like a biker gang called the Rare Breed is responsible. Khalil warns Roman that he’ll likely have to kill people to execute this plan. Roman thinks of his father lying comatose in the hospital and tells his friend to do what he must.

Roman accompanies Torrent and Tranquil to a bar atop a hotel in Richmond. The space is empty except for a bartender and the gang leader’s connection, an infamous mob boss named Shade Sinclair. Shade wants Roman to use his creative accounting practices in a venture similar to the BBB’s arrangement with the mayor’s office, but on a larger scale. The mob boss warns that there will be deadly consequences if his investments aren’t as successful as Torrent’s have been, but Roman accepts. After the meeting, Torrent tells Roman that Shade used to be in a gang with their father and supported their family while their father was in jail. When Roman suggests that Shade must be a true friend, Torrent replies, “The devil ain’t got no friends” (242).

Later that day, Dante tells his brother that Cassidy wants to come home. Roman urges him to convince her to stay away because Torrent and Tranquil will kill them, Cassidy, Neveah, and Keith if they discover she’s alive. Dante holds himself responsible for the deaths that have occurred because Roman is trying to fix his mistakes, including the six people who were killed at the vape shop and the four people who died at Candy’s. He tells Roman that he’ll talk to Cassidy but says that they have to protect her if she returns to Jefferson Run. Roman’s assistant calls him and asks him to have a Zoom meeting with a distressed client who made a disastrous financial decision. Roman goes to the crematory to borrow his father’s laptop.

Neveah meets with Lawrence, a friend and coworker of her mother’s. One night, Bonita broke down in tears and told him that her husband didn’t love her anymore. They had a tryst, and Keith caught them. Lawrence still remembers the mingled love and hatred in Keith’s eyes, and he thinks that Keith may have killed his wife.

Chauncey goes to the crematory and tells Roman that he knows he’s working with the BBB. He threatens to frame him as a snitch unless Roman gives him $25,000 and becomes his new confidential informant. Roman denies the detective’s accusations and says that he’s been seen with Torrent and Tranquil because he’s dating their sister. Chauncey gives Roman a few days to consider his offer. After Chauncey leaves, Roman tells Khalil that the detective is another problem for his friend to solve.

Roman meets Torrent and Tranquil at Trout’s. The gang leaders are holding two men captive in the restaurant’s walk-in freezer. They’re called Wiz and Cali, and they were carrying the shipment of weapons that Khalil stole. Wiz describes how men dressed like members of the Rare Breed motorcycle gang bombed the vehicles guarding the shipment. Torrent had already arranged to sell the weapons to another gang, and he accuses Wiz and Cali of giving away the shipment’s route because their attackers allowed the two men to live.

Torrent and Tranquil shoot Wiz and Cali.

When Torrent slips on the blood covering the floor, a 15-year-old gang member named Eddie Munsta laughs. Torrent kills the teenager by stabbing him repeatedly with a chef’s knife. The gang members are deeply shaken by the murder, and it reminds Roman of something his father once said: “Sometimes the man wearing the crown ain’t the man that’s supposed to be the king” (262). After Roman cremates the three people killed in Trout’s that day, he tries to call Dante, but his brother doesn’t answer. Meanwhile, Dante meets Cassidy in a run-down motel in a small town named Aruna, 50 miles away from Jefferson Run.

Neveah confronts Roman after finding unlabeled urns of ashes and missing cremation crates, the result of his work for Torrent and Tranquil. She knows that he’s involved with the gangsters who attacked him, Dante, and Keith, and she reminds him that it’s a felony to cremate a body without the permission of the deceased person’s family. Roman tries to reassure her, but she breaks down in tears because she’s afraid of losing her brothers like she lost her mother.

Neveah drives off, and Roman follows her because he’s worried about her. Members of the Ghost Town Crew shoot at Neveah’s truck, but Roman makes them miss by ramming their vehicle with his car. Both Roman and Neveah manage to escape. Roman calls Dante and asks him to stay with Neveah at the house. Next, he calls Khalil. He suspects that Chauncey set him up with the GTC to seek payback against Neveah and to scare him into paying the detective. He asks Khalil to trail Chauncey and have one of his associates watch out for Neveah.

When Roman arrives home, Dante tells him that Neveah is upstairs and frightened but uninjured. Dante suggests that their family should leave town, but Roman wants to “finish it.” Dante speculates that Roman is reluctant to walk away from the BBB because he enjoys excelling at strategy and making money. Roman checks on Neveah, who is filled with fear and anger. She screams at him to stop what they are doing. Roman subdues his fear and resolves to make things right for his siblings.

The next day, Cassidy tells Dante that she is at her mother’s home in Jefferson Run. At his urging, she reluctantly promises to head back to a motel in Aruna. Fearing what his brother might do to protect his family, Dante decides not to tell Roman about Cassidy’s return.

Jae discovers that Roman lied to her about helping her brothers leave their lives of crime when Tranquil tells her that the BBB is making more money than ever before with Roman’s help. Although she and Roman love one another, she breaks up with him because she refuses to be with someone involved in her brothers’ crimes. Roman vows to pay Tranquil back for spitefully sabotaging his relationship with Jae.

Roman realizes that Cassidy is back in town when he sees Splodie’s car drive by. He doubts that Dante will succeed in convincing her to leave, and he asks Khalil to kill her if she refuses to get out of town. Part of Roman balks at this choice because he feels he is crossing a line, but he decides that there are really “no lines, only choices” (289).

During a visit to her comatose father, Neveah upbraids Keith for taking Bonita away from her children. While describing the care he receives, a nurse mentions that Keith can’t have aspirin due to the blood thinners he is taking to ensure that he doesn’t get blood clots. Neveah decides to have Keith transferred to a long-term care facility. Since Bonita’s death, Neveah has felt like she had to sacrifice her life for her family, and she refuses to do so any longer.

Khalil frames the Ghost Town Crew for Splodie’s murder by leaving the gang member’s blood-stained, bullet-ridden, and graffitied car outside of Trout’s. In retaliation, the Black Baron Boys murder several members of the Ghost Town Crew along with any nearby friends, family members, and bystanders. An intoxicated Dante staggers into the crematory and weeps because he thinks that the Ghost Town Crew killed Cassidy. Roman does his best to console his brother and then secretly cremates Cassidy’s body.