“What’s going on, Terrence?” I asked him, senses suddenly on alert.
I can read my brother like a book. When we were growing up, I could always tell when he was wrapped up in mess before he told me. It would piss him off that I was able to tell, which is sometimes why he would stay clear away from me. Like now, standing before me is a very troubled man. I knew he’d been in hiding, trying to stay alive, but right now there’s more to it than that. Again, that feeling of flight was coming over me.
“What did you do, Terrence?” I asked him, ready to bolt the moment he said something stupid.
Terrence though waved me off and sat on the bed behind him. I didn’t sit next to him on the bed. I didn’t want anything crawling from the suspect sheets on the bed to my clothes, again it was that kind of place, but secondly, I needed to be ready.
“You’ve always been stubborn and hard headed ever since you were young,” he spat, anger suddenly drenched in his dark chocolate features.
“Um, so. What does that-”
He cut me off , “It means, that, as usual, I need to step in.”
I frowned and folded my arms. “You need to step in? Since when, Terrence? When have you ever had to take care of me? Step in for me because I’m in some shit? No, no, big brother, you seem to be mistaken.”
“No!” he shouted. I moved back further. He then closed his eyes, seemingly trying to calm himself and added. “You don’t have a clue how many times your mouth has gotten you in some shit that I had to get you out of.”
“My mouth,” I said, incredulously.
“Yeah, your mouth. Shit, Ayana, why can’t you ever do things the easy way? You think you can fuck with Santos and not have repercussions?”
My eyes narrowed. “What did you do?”
“Nothing yet,” he replied, and looked at the door, then pulled out his phone.
I moved closer to him. “What do you mean nothing yet?”
My brother looked up at me and sighed. “Santos is the big leagues, Ayana. This isn’t some low life gang you fucked with. When I gave you the number to the Feds, I expected you to hand over the case and let them deal with it. You weren’t supposed to get involved. Fighting? Really? And you thought what? That you were going to bring the Santos family to their knees?”
“No, of course not, but-”
“But what Ayana?” He waited for a reply from me, but I didn’t have one.
He nodded his head as if he made his point, “Yeah, well, I hate to break it to you, but there’s no way to bring down a family like Santos. They are like fucking weeds; no matter how many times you pull them up, they will just keep coming. In order to get rid of them for good, you have to kill them at the root.”
“Terrence…” I admonished.
Looking at how my brother was completely on edge was freaking me out. He did something bad, something horrible I knew it. I could feel my body sinking in quicksand, and no matter how hard I fought, I was only sinking faster.
I said my brother’s name again and moved closer to him, ready to get down to how I was going to help him out of some shit again, but he suddenly stood to his feet.
“I’ll take this shit from here.”
I shook my head. “No, Terrence it’s cool.”
I was about to tell my brother I had everything handled when the door to the room suddenly opened and in walked the devil himself, Allen.
Ho-ly shit!
I was about to piss my pants, realizing a little too late that I should have listened to my gut and left when I had the chance. But when my eyes traveled to my brother, he actually calmed slightly. It dawned on me that my brother, who gave me Martins’ number in the first place, was completely clueless of Ramone’s treachery.
Terrence casually walked toward Ramone. “You’re late.”
I backed up further from them, trying to figure out if I should just blurt out Ramone’s a traitor or wait to see what’s going to happen. My body started to shake uncontrollably, and I reached behind me to grab my phone.
“Did you talk to her?” Ramone asked my brother.
Terrence shrugged his shoulders and looked at me. “I was about to before you walked in.”
Ramone then gave me that horrible smile of his. “Good, I’ll take over from here.”
What happened next was a blur. It took me a minute for my brain to register what was happening, but once it did, I, unfortunately, reacted too late. I was about to pull out my phone and call Lock when I saw Ramone’s hand come into focus. Ramone had a black police baton in his hand that I hadn’t noticed before.
I screamed to my brother to watch out just as Ramone, face full of rage, quickly brought the baton up then down on my brother’s head. He hit my brother twice before he collapsed, then Ramone turned his crazy eyes on me, chest heaving with adrenaline and fierce rage.