Chapter 40
CHAPTER FORTY
AKIO
After I helped Imani clean up her parents and bring them to bed so they could rest, she dragged me to another house in the slums, probably one that belonged to either Landon or Kai from Poison.
I didn’t want to go, but felt obligated to because of what my parents had done to Imani’s. The last thing I wanted was for her to be driving through Redwood with tears blurring her vision and her getting into a car accident.
That would definitely weigh on my conscience.
“Come on!” Imani exclaimed after squealing into the dirt driveway.
I exited the car to follow her.
Once she burst through a door, she hurried down a set of steps that led into a basement. When I reached the bottom stair, I spotted Jo?o with a cigarette hanging out of his mouth, Kai glaring at me, and Landon with his arms crossed. Allie—Imani’s best friend—also sat on a couch.
“They … they beat my parents up. I found them almost dead.” Imani cried hysterically, like she had been while we drove over here. “I … I didn’t know what to do. I bandaged them as much as I could, but I … I don’t know if I did it right.”
“Slow the fuck down. What happened?” Jo?o asked.
After glancing over her shoulder at me, she turned back to Poison and shook her head. “Over dinner, I asked Akio’s parents what they did to Kai’s. They were being assholes, so I left with Akio. We went down to Main Street, and … and I swore that I saw your mother talking to someone. I went to confront him to make sure she was okay, and he tried to kill me. Then?—”
“Who the fuck tried to kill you?” Kai asked, standing up and tucking his gun into the waistband of his cargo pants.
Tears ran down her cheeks, but she quickly pushed them away. “Some guy on Main Street. The same place Jo?o had found his mother. Akio …” She looked over her shoulder at me. “Akio saved me.” Imani sat beside Landon, wiping the blood from her hands with a wet towel.
Kai growled and dragged me by the back of my jacket, all the way back up the stairs and through the basement door. After slamming the door behind us, he threw me up against the side of the house. “If I find out that you touched a hair on her fucking head, I will kill you.”
I shook my head. “I didn’t. I swear.”
After shoving me into the street, Kai nodded toward the road. “Walk home.”
If he wanted me gone, then I would leave, but …
“You have to protect her from my parents,” I said, turning back toward him. I wasn’t going to plead because he already knew what my parents were capable of. They had killed his father. “You know how violent they can be to anyone who disrespects them. Imani … she told my mom off during dinner. My mom will want me to kill her for it, and if I don’t do it, they will. Please, keep her safe.”
“Get the fuck out of here,” Kai said through gritted teeth. “You’re not welcome.”
“Please, Kai. I can’t protect her,” I whispered. “They’ll kill me if I don’t.”
With his jaw twitching, he stared emptily at me. “Leave.”
So, I left because there was nothing more I could do. I couldn’t protect everyone.
I needed to make sure my parents wouldn’t do anything to her.
On my walk home in the rain, I decided to take a detour because I knew Mom couldn’t wait to gloat about what she had done to innocent people. And I wanted absolutely no part in that. I hoped she was gone by the time I got home.
Hands stuffed into my pockets, I walked up Nicole’s street toward her house. Rain splattered on me, wetting my hair and making it stick to my forehead. I yanked off my glasses and tried to wipe them off, only for more raindrops to decorate the lenses.
After walking up her front steps, I sucked in a breath and knocked on her door.
I only saw her car parked in the driveway, so I hoped that she was home.
My chest tightened at the thought of how stupid I had been by not telling her what she meant to me. I had frozen up, and … and I didn’t know what or how she would react to me showing up at her house this late at night.
But I wanted to apologize … and I needed someone after what I just did.
For Nicole, I’d kill anyone. But for Imani?
She was my friend and all, but that was Kai’s job.
When nobody answered the door, I knocked again. Rain continued to pound down on me, and I didn’t even have an umbrella to keep me dry. Another moment passed without the door opening, and I decided that she must be sleeping.
After all, it was late.
Yet when I went to turn around, the door swung open, and Nicole’s father smiled at me.
“Son, what can I do for you?”