Chapter 14: The Dead Father
The rooftop was Willie's place.
Marcus had learned that in the weeks since his recruitment—learned the school's geography not from maps but from watching where people went when they needed to think. The training yards for aggression. The library alcoves for hiding. The fire escapes for nervous energy.
And the rooftop for grief.
He found Willie there after curfew, sitting with his back against an air conditioning unit, cigarette burning between his fingers. The city lights spread below them, San Francisco's hills forming a dark topography against the glow.
"Mind company?"
Willie shrugged. Marcus sat down beside him, close enough to share warmth, far enough to not crowd.
Neither spoke for a while. The cigarette burned down to Willie's fingers before he flicked it away and lit another.
"My dad's dead."
The words came without preamble. Marcus waited.
"Three years now. I was fourteen." Willie's voice was flat, the kind of controlled that came from telling a story too many times. "He was making a deal—just a regular thing, nothing major. Someone decided they wanted his territory instead of paying for product."
"I'm sorry."
"Don't be. He wasn't a good person." Willie exhaled smoke toward the stars. "Neither am I. Neither will I ever be. It's in the blood, right? Lewis family legacy. My grandfather killed people. My father killed people. I'm supposed to kill people."
Marcus heard what Willie wasn't saying. The way his hands shook when he talked about it. The way he'd frozen in combat class last week when the instructor talked about first kills.
"You haven't," Marcus said quietly. "Have you?"
Willie's laugh was bitter. "Everyone thinks I have. The reputation. The name. I walk into a room and people assume I've got bodies behind me." He stubbed out the cigarette on the concrete. "But no. Never. Not once."
I know, Marcus thought. I know because the show made a point of it. Willie Lewis, the gangster's son who'd never pulled a trigger, carrying a reputation built on his father's corpse.
"The guy who did it," Willie continued. "The one who shot my dad. They never caught him."
"He's still out there." The words left Marcus's mouth before his brain caught up. "The guy who did it."
Willie went very still.
Marcus's stomach dropped. He'd spoken in present tense. He'd stated a fact about the killer's current status—information he shouldn't have. Information he had no way of knowing unless someone had told him, and no one had.
Fuck.
"How do you know that?" Willie's voice had gone flat in a different way. Dangerous.
"I—"
"You didn't ask if they caught him. You didn't ask what happened. You told me he's still out there." Willie turned to face him, and there was something raw in his expression. Hurt and confusion and the beginning of fear. "How do you KNOW that, Marcus?"
A dozen lies rushed to Marcus's tongue. He'd heard it from Shabnam's network. He'd made an assumption. He'd been guessing.
None of them would work. Willie was too smart, and the slip had been too clean.
"I know things," Marcus said finally. "Things I shouldn't know."
"What does that mean?"
"It means—" Marcus stopped. Tried again. "It means I can't explain it. Not in any way that makes sense. But sometimes I just... know things. About people. About what's going to happen."
Willie stared at him. The silence stretched until Marcus could hear his own heartbeat, loud and wrong in the quiet night.
"That's insane," Willie said.
"Yeah."
"That's not possible."
"I know."
"But you're telling me the truth."
It wasn't a question. Marcus nodded anyway.
Willie turned back toward the city lights. His jaw was tight, his shoulders tense—the posture of someone processing something too big to handle quickly. Marcus braced for the rejection. The accusation. The demand for real answers.
Instead, Willie said: "Okay."
"Okay?"
"Okay." Willie pulled out another cigarette, lit it with hands that only shook a little. "I don't understand it. I don't think you do either. But you're my friend. You're the first real friend I've had since I got to this fucking school."
He took a long drag, held it, let it out.
"Brothers don't always need explanations."
Something cracked in Marcus's chest. A pressure he hadn't known he was carrying, suddenly released. Willie wasn't asking him to justify the impossible. He was accepting it—accepting him—because that's what family did.
When was the last time someone accepted you like this?
He couldn't remember. Not in this life. Not in the one before.
"Thank you," Marcus said. His voice came out rough.
"Don't thank me. Just—" Willie shook his head. "Just keep being my friend, alright? I don't care what weird shit you've got going on. I care that you showed up."
"I'm not going anywhere."
"Good." Willie held out the pack of cigarettes. "Last one."
Marcus took it. They sat together in the dark, smoking in silence, while San Francisco glittered below them and the stars wheeled overhead.
When the cigarettes were done, they walked back to the dorm together. Neither spoke. Neither needed to.
Some pacts didn't need words.