26. Sonnet Ellison
SONNET ELLISON
Vega’s breakfast plate sat untouched on the kitchen island for hours. I stared at it from the stool across the island, feeling my stomach in knots. I hadn’t eaten either. I couldn’t. I kept checking my phone every few minutes, even though Vega’s messages had given me nothing useful.
I’m good.
Don’t open the door for anyone until I get there.
I’ll explain when I get there.
Every text made my nerves worse because Vega didn’t text that way. He wasn’t that short with his words, and he didn’t leave me guessing unless something was wrong.
Something was wrong. I knew it in my bones. I had mopped the kitchen twice. I had folded a blanket that I didn’t need to. I had stood by the window until my legs went numb.
Suddenly, the front door finally opened, and my whole body jerked toward the sound.
Vega stepped inside with blood covering him. It was on his shirt, his hands, his arms, and smeared along the side of his neck. Dark spots marked his jeans. His face looked empty in a way I had never seen before.
For one second, my mind refused to work.
Then I ran towards him, screaming in fear. “Vega!”
I was on him before the door even closed all the way. I lifted the bottom of his shirt and searched his stomach, ribs, sides, and anywhere they could reach.
“Where are you shot?” I panicked, feeling my voice breaking apart.
His hands caught mine. “Baby.”
“No.” I pushed his shirt higher, searching for holes, wounds, anything.
“It’s not mine, baby.”
His voice didn’t sound relieved, so I froze.
My hands stayed pressed to him. “Whose is it?”
Vega’s jaw flexed, and his eyes moved past me toward the kitchen for half a second before coming back to mine. “Lowe’s.”
The floor started to sway underneath my feet.
“He’s fighting for his life. I don’t think he’s going to make it.”
My breath hitched. Vega walked past me and shut the front door. His face had no life in it.
“What happened?” I asked.
“Jamir was right. Roman was at the shop.” His voice sounded rough from shouting or pain.
My eyes widened with hope. “You got him?”
Vega ran a hand over his face. “He’s still alive.
” Then he took in a long and slow deep breath.
“Lowe got hit bad multiple times. They rushed him into surgery. Doctors said it’ll be hours.
Roman is still alive, and he’s pissed right now.
He knows we came for him. He knows we found one of his spots.
He knows I’m not backing off. That means he’s looking for me, and he’s looking for you. So, I had to come get you.”
Vega moved to the couch and sat down. It looked like something inside him had finally reached the edge.
He leaned forward with his elbows on his knees and his eyes fixed on nothing.
His shoulders rose hard with every breath.
No tears fell. His expression didn’t contort.
He didn’t yell. He didn’t break the way other people broke.
He just sat there, staring ahead, breathing through grief that seemed too big for his body to hold.
I walked toward him slowly, dropped to my knees in front of him, and put my hands on his thighs.
His eyes lowered to mine, but it still didn’t look like he was in the room with me.
“He was right there,” he murmured roughly. “Roman was right there. I could see him. I could have ended all of this shit. Then Lowe got hit.” Vega stopped talking for a second and pressed his bloodied hands together. “I had to pull back. I had to choose.”
Tears burned my eyes. I didn’t know Lowe the way Vega knew him. I didn’t know their whole history or every memory tied to their brotherhood, but I had been around them enough to know what they were to each other.
And his family was fighting for his life because of me.
I stood up fast, blurting, “It’s over. This ends now.”
Vega’s weary eyes lifted to me, questioning.
“It has to stop. This is too much.”
“Roman’s not going to stop looking for you.”
“Then find another way.”
“What you saw and heard can destroy him. He can’t let you live. I don’t have a choice. I have to kill him. I’m trying to keep you alive.”
“Lowe is fighting for his life! You’re trying to keep me alive, but everybody around you keeps bleeding for it.”
His face went still.
“I’m not worth all of this,” I said.
His eyes darkened. “Don’t say that.”
“I’m not worth all this hurt in your eyes. I’m not worth Lowe possibly dying! I’m not worth Lux sitting in some hospital begging his brother not to die. I’m not worth your whole family and crew tearing itself apart behind me!”
“You don’t get to decide that for me.”
“Then I’ll decide it for myself.” My hands shook at my sides. “Find another way, or I’m leaving.”
His expression hardened. “You’re not leaving.”
I folded my arms across my chest defiantly. “I’ll leave this house and never fucking come back.”
“Sonnet—”
“No, listen to me!” I stepped closer, sobbing.
“I’ll leave. I swear I will. I’ll run. I’ll take my chances.
I’ll go to the police, press, internet, wherever I have to go.
I’ll scream Roman’s name to anyone that will listen before I sit in this house and watch you come back with more blood on you because of me. ”
I wiped my face, but more tears came right after. Vega just stared at my tears as if they were causing him even more pain. For a few seconds, the whole room went silent except for his breathing and mine.
Then Vega stood, crossed the space between us, and took my face in his hands. His palms were still stained with blood, but I didn’t pull away.
“Okay, baby,” he said.
I stared at him, barely able to see through my tears.
His thumbs wiped tears across my skin. “Okay. I’ll find another way.”
My body almost gave out from relief and grief at the same time.
Vega pulled me into him carefully, holding me against him and could feel how wild his heart was beating.
“I’ll find another way,” he said again. “I promise you.”
I held on to him even though blood got on my shirt.
Vega told me to pack whatever I could carry because we were going to stay in a hotel until he figured out another way to handle Roman.
He stood in the bedroom doorway with his gun in his hand on ready while I threw clothes into a bag with shaking fingers. The way he watched the hallway confirmed shit had gotten real, and Roman could come at us at any moment.
I didn’t understand how my life had gotten here.
I had spent most of my life alone, burying myself in books because stories were easier to survive than the truth.
Books gave me somewhere to put my mind when the real world kept reminding me I didn’t have parents, a home, or anybody who had to choose me.
Now I had people choosing me everywhere I turned. That should’ve made life feel beautiful, and in some ways, it did. I felt more wanted than I ever had. I felt more protected and connected to something that felt bigger than any of my trauma. But I was also hiding from a madman who wanted me dead.
Murder was around me. My life had never held this much death. But it had never held this much love either.
By the time we got to the hospital, my stomach was in knots of pain. Vega parked in a spot that didn’t seem legal and guided me out by the hand. We walked inside with his hand at the small of my back.
The surgical waiting room was full. Pain had filled that space from wall to wall.
Lux sat hunched forward with both hands in his hair, his shirt stained with Lowe’s blood.
His mother sat next to him, comforting him.
His eyes were red, and his face looked destroyed.
The few words that were spoken every now and then told me that the woman that stood near Lux, crying into a tissue, was Lowe’s mother.
The man identical to Lux and Lowe that held her against him and stared at the floor with his jaw clenched was Lux and Lowe’s father.
He looked like he was seconds away from completely breaking himself.
Any other time, I would have been salivating over how delicious and beautiful those men were.
The one I remembered to be named Saint looked at Lux, then shook his head. “I’m sorry, but I gotta say this before it eats me alive.”
Lux lifted his red eyes from the floor. “Say what?”
Saint pointed at him. “That scream you let out when them dogs came at you was nasty work.”
For half a second, nobody moved or said a word. Then Reek covered his mouth and turned his face toward the wall.
Lux frowned. “Man, shut the fuck up.”
“No, for real,” Saint said. “I thought Promise shot a woman in there. I looked over, and it was your grown ass screaming like a bitch.”
Big A rubbed a hand over his beard. “That pitch was crazy.”
“I ain’t never heard nothing like that from a man,” Reek added.
Lux sat up. “Two, two-hundred-pound dogs was trying to eat me, and y’all worried about how I sounded?”
Prodigy looked over. “You did sound like a bitch.”
Lux stared at him. “You too, nigga?”
The laughs that escaped them weren’t loud or truly happy. They came out broken and tired.
“Promise said, ‘Fass ihn,’ and Lux turned into somebody’s auntie at church,” Saint went on, causing more weak chuckles.
Lux scowled. “Y’all bogus as hell.”
Reek nodded. “You was screaming in German too. Them dogs had you bilingual.”
Even Lowe’s mother made a small sound that almost became a laugh before she pressed tissue to her mouth. Lowe’s father rubbed her shoulder, and for one tiny moment, the room didn’t feel full of only fear.
Lux tried to look mad, but his mouth trembled as he tried to keep from laughing at himself. “Man, if y’all had seen them dogs up close, you would’ve screamed too.”
Saint nodded. “That’s true. Them dogs wasn’t playing.”
“Exactly,” Lux said. “Thank you.”
“You still screamed like a bitch, though,” Saint added.
“Lowe said the same thing,” Vega suddenly blurted.
Everybody quieted.