Chapter 17
After I got my shit together, Wire called church. There was so much for me to catch them up on. The story would take a while. I was not looking forward to reliving all of that, but if I wanted my freedom, I needed to get them up to date.
I sat down in the new but familiar room.
“We still need to address your crimes against the patch. I will take into consideration along with every other bastard in here that there were some extraordinary circumstances, but we gotta air it out. Cool?” Wire looked to me, waiting for my response.
“Yeah, I understand.”
“So, what the hell you beat me down for? Wait, let me guess. Too pretty?” Clean asked, cutting over Wire. He gave his smile, but this time one of his lips didn’t go all the way up, his face still swollen.
“Shit, my bad.” I rubbed the back of my neck, “I thought you were there to kill me. I reacted.”
“Where the fuck did you learn to fight like that?” Devin asked, “I’ve seen professional fighters who weren’t as quick and deadly up close as you are. It was fucking impressive.”
I grunted, “Stall brawls, twenty-four, and zero.” I smiled slightly.
“What the hell is that?” Ryder asked.
Here we go back down memory lane. “Stall brawls, I was locked in a clear box about the size of two small bathroom stalls with another opponent. There is no airflow, so no oxygen, only what’s in the box and your lungs when the door closes. The doors only open after you kill the other person or both of you die from lack of air. Stall brawls were a big sport for the rich and cruel.”
“Fucking hell.” Wire said, raising his hand to his face and scrubbing his beard. “You did that twenty-four times?”
“Yeah. A lot of blood on my hands.”
Everyone around the table murmured and whispered about how fucked up that was for a second before Wire turned to Clean to see what he thought the punishment should be.
“Fuck that. I’m just glad the big fuck didn’t kill me. We all good over here.”
I was cleared of that one.
“Storm, why did you fuck with his bike.”
“Oh, I was deliberately trying to kill him.” I nodded my head.
“Well, fuck, that makes me feel better.” Storm said, laughing.
My head snapped in his direction; he even fucking sounded like Vale.
“Why are you trying to kill him, and is the issue dead now?” Wire asked, noting the death glare I was shooting at Storm.
“His brother.” I turned back to Wire, “His brother needs to die. I was going to kill Storm just because he shared the same blood as that piece of rotting shit.”
“Vale is alive?” Storm asked.
“Unfortunately.” I bit back. I took a few deep breaths to calm myself. I had to realize Storm wasn’t his brother, “Yes, he is still alive.”
“I am assuming since there is bad blood, it means he turned like we were told.”
I slid down a little further in my seat, “Turned like a five-dollar trick. He lasted maybe two hours before he traded his soul to the devil.”
“Motherfucker.” Storm dropped his head.
“He snitched on us?” Ryder asked.
“Yes, told the remaining two Vilanuevas brothers about shipment, supply, personnel, that was all I heard when they carried him out squealing like a pig.”
There was a collective groan that passed through the entire room. I am sure no one wanted to hear the word Vilanuevas again.
“He’s a snitch, but does that mean we have to go after his family, does it have to be death for him?” Storm asked his eyes cast down.
“What Vale did to me, what he did to Angel…”
“Angel is alive?” Prez asked, stopping me from what I was saying.
Finally, something that I could smile about, “Yes, Angel, is very much alive. Annoying as ever.”
Prez fisted his hair before getting up and coming over to me to hug me again. “Oh, thank you, brother. Thank you so much.”
I clapped him on the back and let him move away.
“Where is she?”
“She’s safe for now. She is with Jazmine.”
“What do you mean for now?” A new member named Ripper asked me.
“The real reason I came here.” I looked to Wire, he was the only one who could grant what I was asking, “We escaped a couple of weeks back, but the Giles’s are not going to go away. They are going to hunt us down. She thinks of us like her pets. I can handle it if she catches me, but I know she won’t leave without Angel too. We’ve been hiding out, but they are closing in. The owner of the store next to Jazmine’s was killed. My name plastered on a wall in every store on the pier. It’s only a matter of time.”
“Never. They are not taking you or that girl anywhere ever again.”
I spent the next few hours telling them everything; the room was silent by the end. Everyone was more than just a bit somber by my story.
Wire began organizing immediately. Like a well-oiled machine, everyone knew there part. Except for me, I was out of the loop. Clean began calling ally’s seeing if we could get a location for the next shipment the Giles family was going to make. Who they knew. Prez called Archer, the usually stoic sniper, whooping and hollering through the phone when he found out I was home. For the first time since I stepped foot on American soil as a free man, I felt safe. My brothers had my back.
“Hey, where’s Mikki?” I asked Prez after he got off the phone with someone else.
“She’s over at Maven’s house. We sent all the wives away. We didn’t know if you were a threat.” He shrugged a little ashamed.
“I was a threat; you did right.”
“I know Mikki is going to be so fucking happy.”
I smiled thinking back to the girl at Jazmine’s house, she used to cry
