25. Vegarro “Vega” Moretti #2
It sounded simple but simple didn't mean it would be easy. And now that I had someone I wanted to make it home to, this gunplay felt way more intense. I battled with feelings I never had before in these situations. I was scared of abandoning Sonnet, the way everyone else had in her life.
I watched the street again. The kids chased their ball toward the next block. The women on the porches turned their heads toward somebody arguing near the corner store. The old heads grabbed their cards and started fussing over money.
That was our window.
I nodded once, and Reek pulled the UPS truck forward first. We followed in the van.
The second Roman’s outside men turned toward the truck, the doors opened.
Saint stepped out with a package in his hand and a gun behind it.
Big A came around the other side. The first shots tore through the block, and the men dressed as mechanics reached for weapons too late.
People screamed and ran. Porch chairs fell over. A car door slammed. Somebody yelled for the kids to get inside.
Lux jumped out the van first. “Move!”
Lowe dropped the man near the side entrance. Prodigy hit the one reaching from behind a parked car. Wise moved with me toward the front door while Saint and Big A kept the outside covered.
The front glass shattered before I reached it.
I stepped over the broken pieces and entered with my gun raised.
The waiting area had plastic chairs, a dusty counter, and a TV mounted near the ceiling.
A man came through the hallway with his gun halfway up, and I put two in him before he found his aim.
Wise entered behind me. “Hallway clear.”
“We headed to the shop floor,” I ordered.
We moved through the narrow hall and into the service area. The shop opened up into three bays with cars lifted, toolboxes against the wall, and stacks of wrapped product near the back. Only a few men were inside, but they came out shooting.
Gunfire filled the building causing metal to spark and glass to break.
A bullet punched through the hood of a stripped Charger beside me.
I fired over the front of it and caught one of Roman’s men in the neck.
Prodigy came through the side and dropped another man trying to run toward the storage room.
Lux and Lowe pushed in behind us. Then the barking started.
It was loud, vicious, and too fucking close.
I had heard about Promise’s dogs before.
The names, Princess and Muffin, had sounded funny until two big black Boerboels came out near the back with her, and nothing about them looked funny in person.
They were huge, with thick necks, wide, huge heads, heavy jaws, and bodies packed with muscle.
They had to be over two-hundred pounds. Their coats were black and glossy, stretched over shoulders that looked built to knock a grown man off his feet.
Saliva clung to their mouths while they watched us with the kind of focus that told me they weren’t pets; they were weapons.
Promise stepped out with both of them at her sides, gun in her hand, and murder in her eyes. The dogs stood beside her with their heads up, ears alert, and paws planted on the concrete, waiting for word from her.
Promise had a gun in one hand and her eyes locked on Lux.
“Fass ihn!” she shouted, and the dogs launched at Lux.
Lux screamed higher than any grown man with a gun should’ve screamed. “Arrrgh! Oh, shit!”
He scrambled backward, knocking into a rolling chair before stumbling over a jack.
One of the dogs lunged for his face, teeth snapping close enough for Lux to throw his forearm up and shove its head away.
The second one came from the side, paws scraping across the concrete while it tried to get at his jaw.
The rest of Roman’s men were already down.
Promise and Roman were the only ones left shooting but getting a clean shot at either one of them wasn’t simple.
Roman kept ducking in and out of the storage room, firing through the doorway before disappearing behind the wall again.
Promise stayed near the service bay entrance, using the cars, toolboxes, and her dogs to keep everybody split.
She wasn’t standing in the open waiting to get dropped.
Wise was on my left, trying to keep Roman from pushing out of the storage room.
Prodigy had the right side covered, shooting through the space between a lifted car and a stack of tires.
Saint and Big A were near the hallway, keeping the front clear in case anybody else came through.
Reek was outside in the UPS truck, blocking the street and making sure nobody rolled up behind us.
Those dogs had Lux trapped near the middle of the shop, and none of us could get a clean shot without risking him.
“Ahhhhh! Somebody get these fucking dogs!” Lux yelled, pushing at the dog’s head with one hand while trying not to shoot himself with the other.
Lowe aimed his gun toward them. “Lux, move!”
“I’m moving, nigga!”
“You ain’t moving fast enough!”
“I’m trying not to get my fucking face ate off!”
If this hadn’t been life or death, I would’ve laughed at his ass. Lux was screaming like a bitch.
Lowe was about to fire at one of the dogs, but then Promise’s voice cut through the chaos again. “Zurück!”
Both dogs stopped inches from Lux, turned at once, and ran back through the doorway behind her.
Then she started bussin’. Promise wasn’t hiding behind men.
She moved with purpose, firing from one angle, shifting, then firing again before anybody could settle on her position.
One bullet tore into the wall near my head.
Another hit the toolbox beside Prodigy and sent metal drawers crashing open.
“She can shoot!” Lowe barked.
“No shit!” Lux yelled, still trying to catch his breath.
Roman appeared behind Promise for one second.
My focus snapped to him. I moved toward the storage room.
Wise and Saint fired over me, clearing space while I crossed the shop floor.
Roman backed deeper into the room, and Promise covered him with clean shots that kept forcing me behind cars and toolboxes.
Every time I moved, she made me pay for that shit.
I had almost made it to the storage room when Lowe made a sound I had never heard come out of him before.
I spun around to see that a shot had tore through his thigh and knocked his leg from under him.
The second slammed into his hip before he could catch himself.
The third hit his side and spun him into the car beside him hard enough to make metal groan.
“Lowe!” Lux screamed, and his brother’s name came out broken and panicked.
Lowe dropped to the concrete awkwardly. His legs folded beneath him, but one of them didn’t move right after that.
His foot dragged across the floor when he tried to push himself back, and the look on his face told me something inside him had stopped working as it should.
Blood started to spread too fast. He tried to lift his gun, but his arm shook, and his body sagged against the tire beside him.
His mouth opened, but nothing came out at first. Then he coughed, and blood hit his lips.
It didn’t look like Lowe had simply been shot; it looked like Lowe was leaving us.
“No, no, no!” Lux bellowed as he ran towards Lowe. He dropped beside him, tears pooling in his eyes. “Stay with me, bro! You fucking stay with me!”
Wise grabbed Lowe by the back of his shirt and dragged him behind the car. “He’s hit bad! It’s bad!” he shouted at us.
That changed everything. Roman was still alive. The reason Sonnet couldn’t live free stood on the other side of that storage room, and every part of me wanted to keep going until he stopped breathing.
Then Lowe coughed up blood onto the concrete.
Family came first.
“Get him outta here!” I bellowed.
Big A ran in with Saint covering him. Prodigy fired toward Promise while Wise helped Lux lift Lowe. Promise stepped out again, firing toward us with no fear in her expression. I shot back and almost caught her near the shoulder.
She jerked, grabbed the doorframe, and still fired again. But Roman grabbed her arm and pulled her deeper into the storage room.
I turned from the storage room and helped cover our exit. We backed out through smoke, glass, and gunfire. Saint and Prodigy fired through the hallway while Big A and Lux dragged Lowe toward the van. Reek had the UPS truck angled across the street, blocking traffic and giving us space to move.
Lowe’s head rolled to the side as Lux kept yelling his name. “Stay up, bro! Stay with me! Don’t fuckin’ do this to me!”
We put him into the van, and Wise jumped in after him. Prodigy climbed in next. Saint fired twice more through the broken front window before Big A yanked him inside.
I was the last one in. The van pulled off, tires burning against the street. I turned from the back window and saw Lowe on the floor with Lux’s hands pressed against him, trying to hold in blood that kept pushing through his fingers.
Lowe’s eyes kept rolling, then fighting their way back open. His lips moved, but no real words came out. Every sound he made was wet and weak.
“Stay with me,” Lux begged. “Lowe, don’t do this shit! Stay with me, bro!”
I had seen men die before. I had caused it. I had watched life leave bodies and felt nothing but the end of a good business day. This was different, though. This felt like something inside me was dying along with him. Every time his eyes started to close, a piece of me went with him.
I had never felt pain like that before. I usually killed who came against me, but I couldn’t end this feeling with violence. I couldn’t put my hands on it, couldn’t shoot it, couldn’t make it pay. All I could do was sit there as part of me died in that van too.