The Devil's Tab picks up in the smoke left behind after Coyote's Bar burns, the night that forces Joker, Uncle William, and the rising Fuse to choose between survival and domination. Power doesn't come quietly along the Gulf Coast-every inch of territory is bought with blood, betrayal, or both. When the ashes settle, the Fuse isn't just a bar crew anymore. They're a storm rolling across the South, and every man who stands in their way learns how hard the fuse burns before it blows.
Joker moves through Panama City like a shadow with teeth, building the next stage of an empire while old ghosts try to drag him back under. JD Dixon's reach stretches farther than anyone imagined, pulling strings through corrupt councils, mercenaries, and the kind of men who'd sell their own brother for another night above ground. Smokes keeps the internal lines tight, Wrench arms the fleet, ODB handles explosives with a grin, and Saya operates in the dark corners where law and loyalty don't exist. Together they drag the Fuse from a street crew into a force that can't be ignored.
But fire always brings smoke, and smoke always brings eyes. The Council tightens its grip across the Gulf, sending soldiers instead of messengers, turning cities into battlegrounds and back roads into burial grounds. Every betrayal hits deeper than the last-old alliances snap, new enemies rise, and the tab for every sin comes due. Families fracture. Brothers bleed. Jokers are forced to play kings.
When the Fuse pushes into Louisiana, territories shift, loyalties snap, and a war begins that no one can control once it starts breathing. The streets flood with whispers of a new order coming out of Panama City, a movement with its own laws, its own codes, and its own definition of justice. The Fuse doesn't just want to survive anymore. They want to own the fire.
As bodies fall, secrets break open, and the price of power climbs past anything Joker ever promised himself he'd pay, one truth becomes clear: the Devil doesn't care about fairness. He only cares that every debt gets collected.
And in the Fuse, nobody walks away from a tab left unpaid.
