Chapter 17
Bishop Graves
The skyline was like a warning flare. From the backseat, I watched Eclipse unravel. Fire climbing, people breaking in every direction, the street alive with panic. Gunshots cut through the noise, sharp and out of place. The flames chewed at the building, steady and cold, and the crowd scattered, looking for a hole to crawl into to duck for cover. Streetlights and fire washed everything in the same dirty orange, like the city had already been burning before tonight. My palms slipped on the leather, skin stretched tight over my knuckles until it cracked. The driver looked at me once in the mirror, then back to the road. His foot never lifted. That was enough.
My phone buzzed in my pocket. Dutch, of course. I let it ring twice so I didn’t have to play the surprised card.
“B, they're going after Eclipse’s files, they hit the computers, the place is on fire, Crymez and Mack are down. Kree...” Dutch’s voice came clipped and panicked, trying to keep up with the strategy.
“Say the name,” I said, not looking away from the scene behind me. The crack of gunfire and the roar of flames rolled over us like a tide.
“Nigga you know fuckin’ well it’s Kreed. That nigga thinks he can come for my city! Timmy says someone has shut down all the communications, and all the feeds are out of order. We need containment, and I need you to move...”
If the system was hit that clean, it was only one of two people who did it. It was either Link or that nigga Konceited. And if it's Kreed coming at Eclipse, then it was most definitely Konceited.
“Containment?” I barked. “You really think containment’s the move when Kreed is in the building? Nigga you tried to set that niggas peoples up! You dipped him in the pot and expected him not to cook?” I tasted bile and laughed, low and ugly. “You should be thanking me. I didn’t peel out and leave you in this mess. At least I can let you take the credit for bringing down a King.”
Dutch stammered. “Nigga, you can’t just...”
“I can and I will,” I cut him off. “Trev, get us out of here so we’re ahead of these niggas. Hit up Vante, and tell him we need eyes on Eclipse when them niggas roll out. Tell the other niggas to meet me before the Union City exit at the overpass. Tell Rico and Silas that Kreed doesn’t leave this city if he's still breathing, hit that nigga before the overpass.”
I didn’t wait to hear Dutch agree. I made the calls before he could say a fucking thing.
Using my burner phone, I redialed the lieutenants, my voice steady as the city shook around me. Men answered with the sound of boots and static.
“On my way.”
“Four minutes.”
“Got eyes on the bridge.”
I mapped them out in my head, placing them like pawns on a board, who could flank, who’d pop tires, who’d make enough noise to drown out sirens when they finally showed. We sat and waited for them to move. I understood what Dutch wouldn’t understand. It doesn’t matter what we brought to the table, whether it’s the death of Kreed, the missing information that nigga Sebastain stole, or the money they would never give us a seat. I learned that years ago, so I would make my own moves and take whatever I wanted by force. I wanted Kreed dead. I wanted Konceited and that bitch Mena dead too. Then I wanted that lil nigga Henny dead. All of them thought they could take me down, but never saw the snake in their bed that wanted exactly what I wanted.
“Rest in peace, Ja. Stupid ass nigga.”
Everyone who thought they could put me down would die now that my bitch was home. A shadow moved in my periphery: a dark SUV screaming down the highway, its tires singing on the wet pavement.
“We need to salvage what we can. At least they don’t know about the warehouse. I need to make some changes,” Dutch muttered through the line like a man watching his life unravel.
I said nothing as I watched the SUV slice through traffic, then saw it accelerate and peel around vehicles that were moving too slowly.
“Trev, circle around and come up off I-88.”
“Bishop! Do you fuckin’ hear me nigga? We need to get this shit...”
I ended the call as Trev pulled off onto the next exit and took us to the best vantage point so we could hit them as soon as their guard was down. For a moment, I watched the SUV until it was swallowed up in the river of vehicles and disappeared.
My phone vibrated again, and I looked down, ready to deny that shit if it was Dutch. But it wasn’t, it was Deja. My queen, P-Town’s own, the woman who never asked for explanations, only results. Her voice came in clipped and hot as a match.
“You'd better be where I told you, Bishop. Don’t give me any ghost excuses and get your ass back to P-Town. We start flattening Union City just as soon as I find my fucking ex-husband and my son, so I can finish what I started. Then I need to get my twin and undo all that damn brainwashing them niggas did to him,” she said, sucking her teeth. I stopped arguing with her over that nigga Link. It wasn’t worth it, and the gunshot wound I had was proof enough that it didn’t matter what the truth was about him because she would make it right. “Once we do that, I want to smoke everyone out and leave not one nigga standing. You hear me? I ain’t playin’. Niggas in every city need to understand that I’m home.”
There was a raw hunger in her tone, the kind that made the men under me nervous cause they hadn’t been carved out of the same predatory bone. But everything about her ass made my dick hard, even when she shot me. If anyone was going to get me to the top, it would be her. Now that she was back, it was time for me to sit my other bitch down. I needed to use her and then get rid of her ass before Deja finds out about us fucking. I blinked as I heard car horns and distant shouts in the background of her call.
“Deja, baby,” I said, softening on purpose. “You know I got you. But Eclipse just went full chaos. Dutch got his shit on fire, and he wanted me babysitting the mess. I’m pulling my boys to the overpass first. If I can catch Kreed here and now, I might as well take the shot.”
“Mmm, you promise?” Her laugh was a knife, sharp and lethal.
“I promise,” I said, making sure that it sounded like I meant it. I made the kind of promises that meant blood and accounting. “But don’t get cute. If you move early, you break the pattern. Wait on my word.”
“Nigga, don’t act like I wasn’t the one who invented this street game,” she sneered.
Then she barked something else that sounded like an insult wrapped in affection before hanging up. I stared at the screen until it went black, feeling that familiar flicker of loyalty and fear braided together. Deja wanted war. Dutch wanted the blame contained for those who don’t even show their faces, but me? I wanted a name to bleed.
Kreed.
That name was a taste in the back of my throat I couldn't spit out. I’d seen him move like a storm as he assembled a crew that took control, making his takeover inevitable. So that meant I wanted him gone in a way that made a statement. Not for Dutch’s boardroom or the men with pensions and excuses, but for the way he moved through my life like he owned the map. For the way he’d claimed things that were mine by right of the streets. For the sight of his grin when he pulled that shit and left mine permanently scarred.
“Trev,” I said through the window, my voice flat. “The overpass past the Union exit is coming up. Cut it. Now.”
Trev nodded, his hands steady on the wheel. He took the exit and slid us under the overpass, parked tight. I watched Eclipse’s flames in the rear window as they curled in the air, and sirens’ blue and red trying to outrun itself. This world was about to be split down the middle, one for me and the other for Deja.
I made another call, this time faster, to the ones I knew would do what needed to be done without a funeral sermon.
“Rico, Silas, before they reach the overpass, I want fire and that SUV flipped on its back. Hold till I say go.”
My voice was controlled and a threat wrapped in one. “If Kreed shows, you know the rules. He dies on sight.”
Silence on the other side was deliberate, the kind that meant a man understood the cost.
“We got that nigga, Bishop.”
I let the phone rest on my knee and closed my eyes for a second, feeling the car’s vibration under me. Deja’s words burned at the edges of my vision. Dutch’s panic echoed in my mind. The city around us was a live wire snapping.
My anger for Kreed wasn’t just about pride or territory. It was personal. He crossed a line he couldn’t come back from. He had to go, just as certain debts were collected in our world. It had to be publicly, painfully, so that everyone who thought themselves untouchable learned the math.
I cracked my knuckles and felt the weight of the gun at my hip like a promise coming true. Trev checked the mirror. The boys were moving into position across the blocks like chess pieces under my breath, and for the first time since the gunfire started, the plan felt steady.
“Here they come, Boss,” Trev said.
“Alright,” I said, breathing out through my teeth. “We move on my word. We take care of Dutch’s mess, and then we start burning the rest down. Kreed is gonna get his reckoning, and then we can go at that nigga Henny. Chop off the heads and watch all that shit collapse. But tonight, we make sure nothing walks away from Del Mar without them knowing they’ve been touched.”
“Give the word and we're ready,” Trev grunted, his hands tightening on the wheel.
I looked out the window as I picked up my phone, dialing the numbers to set this shit in motion. I saw the dark SUV speeding down the highway, and I smiled slowly as I pressed the call button.
“Flip that bitch, and take out everyone in that shit, then light it up,” I commanded.