Chapter 12
Marco
I’m standing on the corner doing my thing when I see Luna running down the road with a smile on her face. She glances around until she sees me and then rushes toward me, throwing herself into my arms. I wrap my arms around her and pull her in, needing her here with me.
“What are you so happy about?”
“I got a job! I got a job, Marco.”
“You did? Where at?”
“Here,” she replies, pulling away from me and handing me a piece of paper with an address scribbled on it.
“Doing what?”
“Invoicing people. I have no idea what I’m doing, but I’m going to learn,” she tells me with a huge grin on her face.
“Damn, Chula. I’m happy for you.” I pull her in and kiss her roughly, but something is off with her. She doesn’t quite kiss me back the way she usually does, and that worries me.
“That’s not even the best part,” she says when she finally pulls away from me.
“What else?”
“I can take online college classes. They’re paid for,” she says with a smile that could break hearts.
“Seriously?”
“Yeah. Isn’t that crazy?”
“Yeah, I mean, not a lot of places will do that for you.”
“I know. I couldn’t believe it either, but this is good, right?
I’m not saying I can do shit overnight, but eventually I will get a good job and be able to take care of Davey.
” She wraps her arms around my waist and rests her head on my chest. I can feel the excitement in her, and I know she’s happy about this.
I am too. She didn’t deserve this life, and now she has something to look forward to, but I wonder at what cost to her.
Things like this aren’t just handed to people, not people like us.
“And get this, they gave me a bus card so I don’t have to walk to work,” she adds, but keeps her face nuzzled into my chest.
“Sounds like you got it made, Chula.”
“It feels great, Marco, to know I can do this. That I can actually do something more with my life.”
“How long does school take?”
“Six years. But I can work my way up, right?” Those words hit hard. If she thinks this life is going to be easy on her for six years, she’s crazy.
“That’s a long time,” I tell her.
“I know, but I can do it. I know I can.”
“I know you can too. You can do anything, Chula.” She pulls back long enough to look up at me and then pulls my lips to hers.
She kisses me this time like she never wants to let me go, and that’s exactly how I feel about her.
I never want to let her go either. I keep her tucked into me for as long as I can when she says she has to see Davey.
I press one last kiss to her lips and watch her as she runs across the street to her brother.
“Where’s she going?” Tony asks when he walks out and stands next to me.
“To see Davey. She got good news,” I tell him.
“About what?”
“She got a job in the city.”
“No shit? Good for her. She deserves that.”
“Yeah.”
“You don’t like it?” he asks me. I shake my head.
“She won’t be here. And at what cost? No one hands shit to us for free.”
“You didn’t want her as crew anyway, Marco. You made that shit clear to her. So what’s the issue now?”
“She’ll forget about us. Big city boys and all,” I mumble under my breath. Now Tony laughs.
“I don’t think that’s going to be an issue. She cares about you, man. Don’t think that shit,” he tells me.
“I won’t lose her, Tony. I’ll take on a city motherfucker if I have to,” I admit to him. I’m not afraid to go to jail. I’ve been there most of my life.
“I don’t think it’s going to come down to that,” he says.
“You don’t?” I ask, looking over at him now. He shakes his head.
“No. She cares too much. Who did she come tell first?” he asks.
“Me.”
“There you have it. She wouldn’t have come to you if she didn’t see something in you, Marco. Don’t overthink that shit.”
“I’m trying not to. Anyway, what’s the word with the Creeps?”
“They’re going to try to hit us. We need to watch our asses with them, Marco. They’re dangerous. Worse than we are.”
“I know that. And I sure as shit don’t need a shootout around here with her and Davey that close,” I say, nodding toward her apartment. Not that I don’t think she can handle herself, I know she can. I’ve seen her fight. But bullets are another story. Bullets kill faster than her fists would.
“You really do care about her, don’t you?”
“Yeah, I do. And I’m not sure that’s a good thing,” I admit to him. I’m nothing good. I’m nothing she needs in her life. I’m only going to bring out the bad in her, and I don’t want that. I want more for her.
“So we hit them first,” Tony suggests just as shots ring out. I pull my gun out quickly, as does Tony, and a few of our other members come rushing toward us.
“Where’s that coming from?” Hock yells as we glance around.
That’s when I see them. Shit. They’re already hitting us.
I aim and fire as the others do the same, but we didn’t realize anyone was coming up behind us.
I hear laughter, and just as I turn, a fist lands on my face.
I stumble back and nearly fall, but I catch myself.
My gun fell from my hand when he hit me.
Now it’s nothing but my fists that are going to save me.
I swing back at him, and it’s all-out chaos. I can hear the yelling, the fighting. When we can handle things without guns around here, we do, and that’s exactly what we’re doing right now.
I can hear the sirens in the distance, but that doesn’t stop us. We keep fighting until the cops arrive and pull us apart. That’s when I hear her.
“Marco!” I turn my head right before I’m slammed into the side of the cop car. Luna comes racing toward me, shoving a cop on her way.
“You want to go next?” He roars at her. She flips him off and rushes toward me, only to be grabbed by another cop.
Our eyes lock from across the street, and all the air leaves my lungs.
The sadness in her eyes kills me. The look of fear.
She’s never looked like that. Not since I met her. And that shit kills a piece of me.
“I’m going to get you out! I’ll figure it out!” She yells as she’s dragged back across the street. I give her a small smile, but I know these charges aren’t going to be cheap. They never are. And Ravens don’t have that much saved up right now.
“I’ll come, Marco! I will!” She keeps yelling. I can’t do anything but stare at her. She has the biggest heart of anyone I know, even if she doesn’t see it. Fuck, this girl is messing with my head in ways I never thought she would.
I’m shoved into the back of the police car and read my rights as if I needed them read to me again. I know those motherfuckers by heart.
Once the scene is cleared, the car starts to pull away, and I see her still standing there with her arms wrapped around herself, watching me. She brushes away a tear, and that shit hurts. I don’t want her crying over me.
I’m thankful as fuck when the car pulls off and I can no longer see the hurt in her eyes.
“You’re going down for this one, Vasquez,” the asshole cop taunts as we drive. Fuck him. I don’t care what he has to say.
“You think so? You just happened to show up, and only the Ravens get taken down? Someone has you in their back pocket, right, asshole?” I growl at him. He reaches back and slaps the partition between us as if that’s going to scare me. All it does is make me laugh.
“You thought you wouldn’t go down, didn’t you?”
“I always knew I’d go down, just not like this.”
“And I’ll see to it that you don’t make it out,” he adds. I laugh now. With the right amount of money, I’ll be out. It’s just going to take some time to get that money.