West Palm Beach, 1909.

Jerome Blake and his wife, Althea, arrive with plans to go legitimate. An icehouse. A clean front. A chance to turn blood money into permanence. But in a Florida boomtown built on railroads, resorts, and stolen land, legitimacy is just another hustle.

When Jerome discovers that a Black settlement known as the Styx is slated...

The Jerome Blake Entry Set brings together two short works that introduce the land, the moral logic, and the forces already in motion before power hardens into structure.

In The Numbers Man, survival is calculated through restraint and quiet decisions.

In The Curse of Ibis Island, a death on a remote island becomes a story no one wants to finish...

In Jim Crow–era Florida, survival is a numbers game.

When Jerome “Redbone” Blake is pulled into the underground bolita lottery, he tells himself it’s temporary. A way to stay fed. A way to stay alive. But as land speculation, political corruption, and racial violence collide, Jerome learns that power doesn’t come from avoiding the system—it comes...