Chapter 1 Echos Of The Street

Rain, blood, and silence — that’s all Westward ever leaves behind.

The city always smells like rain and gasoline.
Even when it’s dry, you can feel it in the air — that mix of metal, exhaust, and heat that sticks to your clothes and won’t wash out.
It’s the kind of smell that gets into people too.
No one around here ever really smells clean.

I walk home the same way I always do — hood up.
The other kids call it paranoia.
I call it instinct.
I learned that from Loui.

He used to say, “Keep your eyes low, son, but keep your mind high.”
That was his version of love — short, simple, and meant to keep me breathing.

People talk about him like he was a ghost with good posture.
To the neighborhood, he was Loui the Saint — the man who got stuff done for others, made money, kept his people safe, but most importantly he kept his mouth shut.
To me, he was my hero — the guy who taught me how to throw a straight punch, fix a carburetor, and never owe anyone twice.

Then one night he walked into the fog down the street and never came home.
The next morning, the paper said “Local Mechanic Found Dead.”
They left out the part about the mob ties, the setup, the car that did the hit, the reason he went out that night.
The people who knew better didn’t talk about it — just nodded slow when they saw me in the street, the way men do when they recognize a story that ain’t done yet.

That was six years ago.
I was nine then.
I’m fifteen now, and I can still hear the sound the rain made on the porch that night.
It hit different after that.

I pass Rico’s Mechanic Shop every day on my way home.
I believe that's where he was headed that night.
He went there a lot. Almost every night.
It’s a habit I can’t break — like saying a prayer you don’t believe in anymore.

The boards on the windows are gray and swollen from years of storms.
The letters on the sign barely hang on.
It used to shine red and white — RICO’S MECHANIC SHOP — TUNE-UPS AND REPAIRS.
Now it just says CO’S HANI OP, flickering when the wind hits the power line right.

People cross the street when they see it.
I don’t.
I stop and stare.

Here is where he took his last breath.
Right on that cracked patch of concrete near the curb.
Every time it rains, the water gathers there darker than anywhere else.
I tell myself it’s just oil.
It never feels like oil.

I pull my hood lower and keep walking.
The air feels heavier around this block — like the street still remembers what it saw.

“Yo, mob baby!”
The voice snaps the quiet in half.
I know that voice.
Without even turning around I know that voice.

Jayden.
Same wannabe tough kid who’s been trying to make a name off mine since freshman year.
I turned around to no surprise.
He’s got two others with him — Tone and Rico, not the real Rico, just a kid who took the name because he thought it sounded hard; his real name was Ricardo.

I keep walking, knowing what I had coming if I didn’t.

“Hey, don’t act like you don’t hear me,” Jayden calls out.
His voice is all teeth.
“Heard your pops was some big-time gangster till he flipped. What’s that make you, huh? Little snitch junior?”

The word flipped hangs in the air like smoke.
It’s what they all whisper — that my dad wore a wire.
That he sold out Lonzo to save himself.
It’s a lie Lonzo started and the streets carried like gospel.

I stop.
My fingers curl in my hoodie pocket, foiling with the interior lint.

“You sure you wanna finish that sentence?”

Jayden laughs.
“Oh, he talks now! What, you gonna fight me? C’mon, Saint boy, show me what daddy taught you.”

I turn slow.
Drop my backpack to the ground.
The sound of it hitting the pavement is sharp — the kind that cuts through every other noise.

He swings first.
Always does.
His fist comes wild, sloppy.
I catch his wrist and drive a punch into his ribs.
He folds halfway, gasping like he just swallowed the air wrong.

Tone comes next, trying to grab me.
I duck and shove him back into a wall.
He stumbles, curses, tries again.
Rico hangs back, nervous.
He’s waiting to see who wins.

For a few seconds, I’m good.
Every lesson my father gave me comes back like instinct — aim small, move quick, never waste a hit.

Then Jayden’s knee slams into my stomach, and the world snaps bright white.
I hit the ground hard.
Concrete tears skin off my elbow.
Then the boots come — quick, mean, rhythm like a song only they can hear.

Ribs.
Back.
Shoulder.
Ribs again.
Pain blurs into noise.
I stop counting.

Through it all, I can almost hear Loui’s voice — that calm, low hum he had when things got bad.
Don’t fold, son. Not till it’s done.

I don’t know if it’s memory or madness, but it keeps me breathing.
I roll once, block one kick, swing blind and connect with somebody’s leg.
The surprise buys me two seconds.

Then the air shifts.
The rhythm stops.
Silence thickens.

Heavy footsteps. Three sets.
Slow, certain, unbothered.

A voice cuts through the rain.
“Yo. Enough.”

The bullies freeze.
They turn like they’re facing a ghost.

Three men walk up from the corner, dressed in black jackets and jeans heavy with rain.
Patches on their sleeves — a cross welded from a wrench and a chain.

The Iron Saints.
What’s left of them, anyway.
They were Loui’s people once.
And somehow, they became mine.

Jayden tries to talk.
“We — uh — weren’t doin’ nothin’.”

The front man, Marlo, just stares.
“Didn’t ask.”

His voice is gravel soaked in whiskey — the kind that makes people move before they think.
The boys don’t even try to apologize.
They bolt, tripping over each other, fading into the rain like they were never there.

Marlo steps closer, offers me a hand.
“You good, kid?”

I wipe the blood from my mouth with the back of my sleeve.
“Yeah. They caught me slippin’, that’s all.”

He smirks.
“That’s ’cause you keep forgettin’ you ain’t alone out here.”

He’s right.
I’ve been running small errands for the Saints since I was ten — drop-offs, collections, messages.
They said it was to look after me, to keep me safe, but I knew better.
Nothing the Saints do is for free.

They made sure I had food, shoes, and protection in a city that eats people who don’t belong to anyone.
I guess that means I’ve belonged to them ever since.

Marlo hands me my backpack and nods toward the corner.
“Come on. Let’s get you home.”

We walk side by side through the drizzle, boots splashing in the same puddles.
The streetlights flicker on as the sky goes darker.

When we pass the boarded shop again, I look at it — really look.
My reflection stares back from a shard of glass under the awning.
Hood up, blood on my lip, standing next to my father’s ghosts.

For a second, I swear I see him behind me — Loui in his fedora, cigarette burning low, nodding like he approves.
Then the light shifts, and it’s just me again.

I zip my hoodie, tuck my hands in my pockets, and keep walking.
The rain keeps falling, and the city hums like it’s whispering something only I’m supposed to hear.

Whatever it is, I know one thing for sure:
The street remembers.
And so do I.


The reports about Loui Saint’s death are still out there.
You just have to know where to look.
Start with r/RiosReality on Reddit.