Two detectives visit Ike Randolph to inform him that his son Isiah has been murdered.

Ike and Mya attend the joint funeral for Isiah and Derek, accompanied by their young granddaughter Arianna.

Buddy Lee introduces himself to Ike at the funeral and hints they should take matters into their own hands.

Someone destroys the headstones of Isiah and Derek and spray-paints them with anti-gay and racial slurs.

Ike contacts Buddy Lee after seeing the vandalized graves, and they arrange to meet and investigate together.

Ike and Buddy Lee visit The Rainbow Review and learn Isiah received a death threat connected to a secret affair.

Ike and Buddy Lee interrogate Andy at the landscaping company, then kill him and dispose of the body.

Grayson leads the Rare Breed motorcycle gang to Ike's business, and Ike holds him at machete-point to force their retreat.

Ike and Buddy Lee visit a gay bar and learn Tangerine's powerful boyfriend may be a music producer named Tariq.

Ike and Buddy Lee locate Tangerine at her mother's home, but the Rare Breed attacks and shoots Lunette.

Mya treats Tangerine's gunshot wound and discovers she is a transgender woman who has not completed her transition.

The Rare Breed lures Mya and Buddy Lee to Ike's house, kidnaps Arianna, and hospitalizes Mya in a staged crash.

Buddy Lee connects Gerald Winthrop Culpepper to the murders after recognizing the initial W saved in Tangerine's phone.

Ike and Buddy Lee use Tangerine to lure Gerald's father Gatsby outside his home, then kidnap him as leverage.

Buddy Lee throws his knife into Grayson's neck before collapsing from a gunshot wound and dying in Ike's arms.

Ike Randolph learns that his son Isiah has been murdered alongside Isiah's husband Derek, and at the funeral he meets Buddy Lee Williams, Derek's estranged father. When police fail to make progress, the defacement of their sons' graves pushes Ike back toward his violent past as Riot Randolph, and the two men begin tracing the killers through a web of confrontations and informants. Their investigation leads them to a transgender woman named Tangerine and the revelation that a powerful politician named Gerald Culpepper ordered the murders to silence a story. The conflict escalates when the Rare Breed motorcycle gang hospitalizes Mya and kidnaps Arianna, forcing Ike and Buddy Lee into a final reckoning. A massive gunfight ends with the destruction of the Rare Breed, the death of Gerald, and the rescue of Arianna, but Buddy Lee dies of his wounds in Ike's arms. In the aftermath, Ike finds a measure of peace at his son's graveside and vows to honor Isiah's memory by becoming a better grandfather.

The core murder investigation and hunt for justice.

Ike confronts Reverend Johnson after the funeral for emphasizing sin rather than Isiah's achievements as a reporter and athlete.

Detective LaPlata calls Ike to reveal that Isiah had received a formal death threat earlier that year.

Buddy Lee visits Ike's landscaping business and leaves his phone number on a receipt after Ike turns him away.

Grayson receives orders from an unidentified caller to find a woman named Tangerine before a hard deadline.

Ike breaks the finger of a Blue Anarchist named Bryce during an interrogation, then concludes the group is not responsible.

Brandon at a bakery reveals that Derek had connected a powerful man's secret affair to Isiah's planned news story.

Buddy Lee finds a notepad covered in cryptic drawings and a phone number inside Isiah and Derek's house.

Rare Breed prospects Andy and Oscar break into Isiah and Derek's house and fight with Ike and Buddy Lee.

Buddy Lee pours a beer over Derek's grave and vows to put the violent devil inside him to good use.

Detective LaPlata warns Buddy Lee that he cannot overlook any further acts of violence from him or Ike.

Ike and Buddy Lee visit music producer Tariq's estate and are badly beaten by his four bodyguards before escaping.

Ike visits gang leader Slice at a barbershop and arranges a meeting with Tariq in exchange for information on Tangerine.

Buddy Lee drives his truck through Gerald Culpepper's garage door and attacks him with a nail-studded baseball bat.

Ike detonates a homemade fertilizer bomb during the final gunfight, destroying the compound and most of the Rare Breed.

Ike visits Buddy Lee's grave, pours out a beer, and vows to be a better grandfather than he was a father.

This pool follows the smaller but essential steps that assemble Ike and Buddy Lee's investigation from its earliest moments. From tense police interactions and a reverend's dismissive eulogy, to Buddy Lee planting his phone number and Grayson receiving mysterious orders about Tangerine, the machinery of the story is set in motion. Physical confrontations with the Blue Anarchists, bakery worker Brandon, and Tariq's bodyguards each yield a piece of the puzzle, while Buddy Lee's discovery of cryptic clues in Isiah and Derek's home points toward a larger conspiracy. The investigation pushes both men deeper into their violent pasts, illustrated by Buddy Lee's quiet visit to Derek's grave and Ike's calculated alliance with the dangerous gang leader Slice. The story accelerates through Buddy Lee's explosive assault on Gerald's home and Ike's decision to end the final battle with a homemade bomb. In the aftermath, Ike honors Buddy Lee with a proper burial and makes a solemn promise at the graveside.

The clues, confrontations, and alliances that build the case.

Mya tells Ike at the funeral that Reverend Johnson said nothing worse than what Ike himself has said about Isiah.

Buddy Lee pulls a knife on his landlord Artie when Artie insults Derek, revealing his barely contained violent nature.

Mya tells Ike that Arianna lay down on Isiah and Derek's graves and said she wanted to stay with her fathers.

Oscar returns to the Rare Breed clubhouse and identifies one of his attackers as Randolph from the truck's name.

Bartender Tex quotes Martin Luther King Jr. to challenge Ike's willingness to oppose racism but not anti-gay bias.

Ike slams a man named Angelo into the bar when touched unexpectedly and is filmed on other patrons' phones.

Ike attacks a car carrying Rare Breed members with a bush axe after Mya reports she is being followed home.

Christine visits Buddy Lee and mentions that her husband Gerald has just publicly announced his bid for governor.

At a bar, Buddy Lee acknowledges to Ike that he was raised in racism and never questioned it until now.

Slice calls Grayson after meeting with Ike and betrays Tangerine's location in exchange for a criminal business favor.

Ike tells Tangerine that the main lesson he has learned is that being who you are should not be a death sentence.

Buddy Lee confesses in the hospital that he was the one who defaced the graves to pressure Ike into investigating.

Gerald visits Buddy Lee in a jail holding room and demands Tangerine be handed over in exchange for Arianna's life.

Buddy Lee tells Gerald he is not ashamed of who he is, directly contrasting himself with Gerald's hypocritical double life.

Detective LaPlata visits Ike's business to warn him he is being watched; Ike insists that Riot is not his name.

This pool traces the key moments of personal discovery and moral reckoning that slowly transform Ike and Buddy Lee over the course of the novel. Early scenes establish both men's deep-seated prejudices and volatile instincts, while incremental confrontations force them to question what they believe about justice, identity, and acceptance. Encounters at the gay bar, the barbershop, and across dinner tables chip away at their biases and push them closer to understanding the sons they failed. Critical revelations—including Buddy Lee's shocking confession about defacing the graves and the exposure of Gerald Culpepper as the man behind the murders—shift the story's momentum decisively toward its violent conclusion. Gerald's chilling jail visit and Buddy Lee's unashamed self-declaration capture the novel's central moral contrast between authenticity and corruption. By the final chapter, Ike has shed the identity of Riot Randolph and both men have spent their darkest selves in service of something that finally, painfully, matters.