“Leave it alone.”
His sharp answer only made me more curious, but I rinsed out the shampoo and began to soap my limbs while I changed the subject. “I called my so-called father yesterday. I wanted to talk to him about Mom.”
“He ran right over with emotional support.”
“Right,” I scoffed. “He said he couldn’t talk right then because he and the new wife were leaving for a cruise and he didn’t want to be late.” Remembering his self-centeredness pissed me off all over again. “I asked if he was going to pick up Mark and he said there was no reason to change Mark’s living situation because his new wife didn’t really like kids.”
“Knocking a girl up doesn’t automatically make a guy a father. You’re better off without him in your life.”
“I know. I asked him about the personal injury policy he had on Mom because he never cancelled it. He said not to look forward to getting any financial support from that. The policy would pay out fifteen thousand dollars. It’s not like he doesn’t have the money to help. I know he still has money in hidden accounts.” Even part of that would help keep me and Mark afloat until like Ryan said, I got my shit together.
“He can be forced to be financially responsible for Mark.”
I shook my head at Ryan’s suggestion. “I don’t have the energy to deal with it or the money for a lawyer or a court case. What if he decides to take Mark and not let me see my brother just to get even? ’Cause he’s like that. Then my brother would be stuck with the jackass father of the year and his anti-kid wife.”
“Who said anything about involving lawyers or the court?”
“You said he could be forced—oh.” Finished with the shower, I shut the water off. “Street justice.”
“It’s pretty effective.”
My mood marginally improved now that I was clean, I took the towel from Ryan and started drying off, pleased with the desire I saw in his eyes. He might have said that our being together was a mistake but he couldn’t hide that he wanted me. I wrapped the towel around me and tucked the end across my breasts. “Thanks for coming over.”
He nodded, looking so far out of reach emotionally that it made me want to cry all over again. “I don’t know how to talk to you now, since everything.” I couldn’t afford to lean on Ryan, to feel more for him than I already suspected was miles past friendship. I had to make sure I didn’t fall for him. The brink of love was a dangerous slope to be on when the other person didn’t intend to be anything other than a friend and maybe not even that. “Everything’s changed.” I almost held my breath waiting for him to lie to me, to tell me I was wrong.
“Yeah. Pretty much.”
“I know.” I took a deep breath and forced a smile, a bright, phony one that I’d used often in the past when my parents had given lavish parties filled with people who were too important to give a shit about anyone who wasn’t as rich as they were.
I clenched my hand to keep from reaching for Ryan. Seeing him, being this close to him made me feel stupid and girly and want nothing more than to fling myself into his arms. I wanted him to hold me against his chest and keep my new, ugly world at bay. But unless I wanted to be a masochist, it was best that I didn’t do that.
Shivering, I pulled my robe down from the back of the bathroom door and slid it on. I couldn’t prevent the wide yawn.
“Trouble sleeping?”
I tied the sash around the robe. “I don’t sleep much because I worry that whoever shot Mom will come back. I stay awake and listen to the sounds outside.”
Ryan’s eyes turned into glaciers. “You can sleep. You don’t have to worry about someone hurting you or Mark.”
“What? Are you going to be my guard dog?”
“I won’t let him hurt you.”
The ferociousness of his response hovered, fat with unspoken meaning, between us and I scowled, sensing an undercurrent, a meaning I wasn’t privy to. “You’re sure that it’s a he?”
Ryan blinked. “Most drive-by shootings are done by guys. That’s not hard to figure out.”
He took a step back into the hallway. “If you’re okay, I’ve got to get back to work. Lock up behind me.”
“Okay.” I followed him into the living room and kept my hand on the door after I’d closed it. I couldn’t shake the feeling that Ryan was keeping something from me, something even worse than what had happened to my mom.
*
RYAN
I don’t scare easily. That was a by-product of all the shit I’ve seen but Tana talking about making someone pay scared the hell out of me. She didn’t have any idea the kind of evil that lurked in the world I was going back into. You didn’t hunt for justice without having shit blow back on you. A life for a life, that was the way of the street. For Tana to start asking questions and hunting for the person who hurt her mom would put her in the crosshairs.
I left her house, jogging over to Cooper’s car. He lowered the window and extended his fist. We bumped and I went around to get into the passenger side. “You see anything?”
“Nah. I got here and talked to Ryker. He said a couple cars came by slow but the drivers weren't Chanos’ boys.” He pulled his sunglasses off and leaned across me to pop open the glove box. “Your old sidekick.”
The familiar gun lying there took me back to Donny’s side and all the sounds and smells of that day rushed at me. My hands pressing on his chest, pumping CPR compressions with every ounce of strength I had while blood oozed between my fingers. His broken voice telling me he was scared and pleading with me not to let him die. I slammed the glove box closed, wishing I could shut off the memory the same way. “I don’t carry any more.”
“I know that, but no matter how good you are with your fists, you’re no match for Chanos’ bullets.”
“Every time I look at a gun, I think of Donny,” I said.
Cooper nodded. “He was my friend too.”
Like me, Cooper had chosen to get jumped out of the gang. He’d fought demons far worse than mine and had come closer than I had to ending up in prison. He put his sunglasses back on. “Now picture if that was Tana you had to bury instead of Donny.”
The thought made me break out in a sweat. I couldn’t let anything happen to her no matter what bad shit I had to do and I didn’t doubt there was bad shit on the horizon. The demons I’d tried to outrun were reaching for me. I could almost hear their triumph. “I’m not carrying when I’m back in again.”
“Back in?” Cooper laughed, a hard, dry sound. “You never really left.” He smacked the tattoo on his arm. A replica of the one on mine. “Southtown Brothers for life, man.”
I’d promised Donny I’d never go back. But that was before Tana, before I knew there’d even be a Tana. Before I ripped my heart out of my chest and handed it over to her. I might not be in prison but Southtown Brothers was my life sentence. I knew that now.
“If you need me when the shit hits the fan, you know I’m there,” Cooper said.
I glanced toward Tana’s house. “Yeah.” I left the car, shutting the door in my wake.
“Here.” Cooper tossed the gun out onto the grass at my feet and revved the engine when I stared at him. “That dark side of you—the one that’s trying to figure out a way to beat Chanos until he’s a bloody stain—that’s a part of you that still exists. Might as well face facts. You can clean yourself up, you can think you’ve moved on, but you’re owned by the streets same as me. Juvante’s due to take the next watch. He’s on his way. See you.” He did a U-turn in the middle of the road and drove away.
I looked at the steel demon on the grass, waiting for the opportunity for me to give it life. The things I thought I’d escaped from taunted me, dancing in my memory, screenshot after screenshot of the things I’d done. My record was filled with events of vandalism, reckless driving, discharging a firearm in city limits, simple possession, grand theft for jacking cars, aggravated assault for beating the foster dad who was hurting his daughter and...I clenched my hands into fists. Regardless of the man I’d tried to become, how could I for one second have thought it was okay to have who I’d used to be around Tana?
A movement caught my eye and I turned my head to see. A black SUV rolled down the street, slowing, then stopping in front of Tana’s house. The driver focused on the front door of the house too long to be idle curiosity. I bent over, picked up the gun and jogged toward the SUV.
I knew the guy. Everyone called him Slam. Fat high school kid. A foot soldier for Chanos. Probably no idea what he was getting into. He was so busy looking the other direction, he never saw me coming until I had my hand at the side of his neck. I pushed my thumb against his windpipe hard enough for it to be uncomfortable and squeezed. “Five seconds before I beat your ass, bitch.”
He raised his hands from the wheel, holding them up like he was under arrest. Dumbass. “Hold on, we’re cool.” His voice, caught between childhood and manhood, squeaked and broke on the last word.
“I don’t see any Girl Scout cookies. You’re not selling anything so there’s no reason for you to be here checking out doors.”
“C’mon, man. I haven’t done anything.”
“You better think real hard before you show your face again.” I eased off the pressure and sweat rolled down the side of his face. “Go jerk off somewhere else.” I lowered my hand. “Get the hell out of here.”
His hands shook as he gripped the steering wheel and he took off, no doubt headed straight to Chanos.
Chapter Fifteen
TANA
After Mark settled for the night, I called Brooklyn to check on her and she asked if she could come over and I was glad. I couldn’t stand the thought of being alone. I didn’t bother to call Shelby and ask her to join us. Her parents didn’t want her in the neighborhood since learning about my mom’s shooting. If they knew half the places Shelby went and half the things she did, they’d lock her up like Rapunzel. I should know. I used to live in a tower, locked away from the real world just like Rapunzel. But I didn’t want to be that girl who let life happen to her.
An hour later, Brooklyn showed up. She was dressed head to toe in black. She’d changed the way she dressed since the attack like she was trying to fade into the background. Her hoop earrings caught the light as she hugged me. Dropping her purse into the chair by the door, she said, “I’m glad you called.”
“I was worried about you.”
“And I was worried about you.”
“How have you been?”
Her smile faded. “Fine and you keep asking, you keep checking on me, but don’t ask me again, please. I don’t like to think about it, okay?”
“Okay.”
She waved her hand toward the front door. “There’s some beer in my car if you want some.”
‘I can’t. I have to keep a clear head for Mark. He wakes up in the middle of the night and—” I shrugged, unable to put into words the nightmares that gripped my brother.
She sank down on the sofa and kicked off her shoes. “My family was so pissed when they heard what happened to your mom. How is she?”
“Still no change. I spend as much time as I can at the hospital until I have to leave to take care of Mark. She looks so still. I talk to her and I try to be positive but all I can think about are the things I didn’t get to say to her and I wonder if I ever will get the chance.”
“I’m sorry, Tana.”
I forced myself not to give in to the tears that hovered so close. “I want to talk to you because I need your help finding out who did this to my mom. Your brothers...I heard rumors in high school. They’ve got some connections, right?”
Brooklyn bolted upright. “Oh, shit, girl. I can’t believe what you’re thinking.” Her lips tightened and her dark eyes narrowed into slits. “Are you thinking that you want to drag my brothers into this?”
“No, I’m not asking that. I want information from them. If they’ve heard anything about the shooting.”
She ran her hand through her hair and shook her head. “If you’re thinking of trying to find out who did the shooting, that’s not a good idea. You should concentrate on what your mom wants you to do. Get your stuff ready to go to college.”
“College?” I couldn’t help the bitter laugh. I paced back and forth in front of the television, thinking out loud. “How do you think I can go off to college and leave Mark behind if Mom is even better by then? Who’d take care of him? College might not be my future for a while. Trying to keep a roof over our heads and food on the table, that’s my reality now.”
“But you don’t know the future,” Brooklyn argued. “I believe your mom is coming home and knowing her, she wouldn’t want this. For you to give up college to help her, it would break her heart.”
“What my mom wanted was to give us a good life. That’s why she worked two jobs.” I gestured around at the living room. “This? This poverty and scratching out a living, this isn’t what she wanted for us. Her in a coma isn’t what she wanted.” I hugged my arms around myself. “I have to find out who did this and why. I want to make sure it won’t happen again.”
“Why don’t you just ask Ryan to find out who shot your mom?”
“Because it’s not Ryan’s responsibility to take care of me or Mark,” I said more sharply than I meant to.
“He would die for you both and you know that.”
Ryan. His blue-green eyes. His muscled body. His smile. The way his body moved inside of mine. The thoughts whirled around inside of my head. If I asked for his help and something happened to him too...I couldn’t. “That’s what I’m afraid of.”
Her eyes softened. “Oh no. Do you love him?”
I couldn’t bear to think about that much less put it out there. “Even if I did fall for him, it would never work. He’s the kind of guy who walks away.”
“Who knows? Maybe that’s because he never had a reason to stay until now.” She lifted her shoulder in a shrug. “Anyway, I’ll help you however I can, but I can’t bring my brothers into this.”
“I understand. You don’t want anything to happen to them.”
“There’s more to it than that. If Ryan finds out my brothers helped you and something happens to you or Mark, he’d want answers and he wouldn’t ask for them nicely. I know enough about Ryan’s past to know he’s not someone to cross.”
Her words intrigued me. “What about his past?”
“On the streets, he was a bad ass, a real legend that everyone knew not to fuck with. He was arrested the first time when he was eight for stealing a car and his record only gets worse from there. I know he beat a man to the point where the guy begged for his life. I accidentally saw the police report at Mama Leena’s. The social worker gave it to her with a note saying she wanted Mama Leena to know all about Ryan before he came to live with her. He did stuff when he was in the gang.”