Emery rolled her eyes at him before shooting me an appreciative smile for getting her bike inside. “And what would have happened if I hadn’t gone by the deli today?”
“Then someone else, far less good-looking, would have brought it,” Nico replied as he dug through the bag.
“But we know you always go by the deli,” I added as I took my sub from Nico. “You like to swing close to home around midday in case your parents end up needing anything.”
“Or you don’t feel like buying yourself lunch,” Miguel stated.
“You guys think you’re so clever,” Emery retorted. “You don’t know me as well as you think you do.”
“Sure we don’t, sweetheart,” Nico responded. “You keep telling yourself that.”
Emery flipped us the bird over her shoulder as she went inside. I watched through the glass pane in the door as she crossed paths with her brother Eddie on the stairs. He said something to her as he poked her in the side with a single finger that made her laugh heartily before they continued on their separate ways.
“What’s for lunch today, guys?” Eddie asked as he stepped outside.
“D’Marco’s Deli,” I replied before taking a huge bite of my sub.
“Good choice.” Eddie looked into the paper bag. “Anyone gonna eat that potato salad?”
“Take it,” Nico urged. “I never eat mine, and no matter how many times I tell them to keep it, they still send it.”
“Don’t mind if I do,” Eddie replied as he pulled the small container and a plastic fork from the bag. He popped the lid off and tossed it back into the bag before scooping a big bite of potato salad into his mouth. I always liked Eddie. He never treated us any differently because of who we were and what we did. “So, did you guys hear about the two monkeys that got out of the Brooklyn Zoo last week?”
I started laughing. “I saw a video where they raided a hotdog cart. The guy was screaming at them, and they couldn’t have cared less.” I reached for my phone to pull up the video when I heard the sound of chirping tires. Immediately, my guard went up, and my head snapped in the direction of the sound. I saw a car speeding toward us with its windows down. Time seemed to slow as I saw the glint of metal poke through the window.
“Gun! Everybody down!” Nico yelled.
I hit the ground and crawled behind the stone wall of the stoop as the street erupted in chaos. The gunmen opened fire, and bullets slammed into the stone around me. What felt like hours only lasted seconds, and as I looked around to assess the damage, my heart fell out of my chest. Eddie lay face down on the concrete, a pool of blood growing alarmingly larger around him, with the plastic fork still clutched in his hand. As I moved toward him, the building door opened.
“Eddie!” Emery screamed. She fell to his side, rolling him over to try and help him, but with the amount of blood staining the pavement, I knew it was too late. Emery’s parents also came outside, and the combination of the family’s grief nearly brought me to my knees. Not even the ambulance could drown out the sounds of their wails.
Nico quickly gathered our weapons and any contraband we had on us and brought them inside before the police arrived. Luckily, there were plenty of witnesses around who were able to corroborate our statements, and soon the street began to clear. Even though Eddie was already gone, the paramedics allowed her parents to go with the body to the hospital, leaving Emery standing on the sidewalk watching the ambulance quietly disappear down the street.
“Em, I’m so sorry about Eddie,” Miguel said, reaching out a comforting hand.
Emery jerked away from him like he’d burned her, and as she turned to look at us, I knew the look in her eyes would haunt me for the rest of my life. Gone was the playful sparkle. In its place was raw hatred.
“You did this. This is all your fault. If it weren’t for you, Eddie would still be alive!” Tears streamed down her face, and the utter brokenness in her voice shattered a piece of my soul.
“Emery,” Nico said as he tried to pull her into his arms.
“Don’t fucking touch me!” Emery screamed. “Don’t touch me. Don’t talk to me. Don’t even look at me ever again.”
When Nico reached for her again, Emery slapped him across the face. If it had been anyone else, Nico may have reacted differently. But it wasn’t anyone else, it was Emery, and we had long since come to terms with our feelings for her. There wasn’t anything we wouldn’t do for her, anything she could do to provoke our anger.
“You got my brother killed, and I will never fucking forgive you,” Emery whispered before pushing past us and running up the steps to her apartment.
We watched her go silently. My brain was still trying to process the sudden change from earlier. It wasn’t all that long ago that she’d run inside with a playful gesture, and now, we’d probably never see that side of her again.
“Find out who that was,” Nico said solemnly. “They’ve seen their last sunrise.”
“On it,” Miguel and I replied equally as solemnly.
We’d found the guys who had rolled up on us and taken them out. It was the least we could do, and not just because we didn’t want other gangs to think we were weak, but because we strived to protect our own, and killing Eddie was beyond unacceptable. It hadn’t been hard to track them down since they’d been bragging about taking out one of us. They honestly had no clue who they had fucked with, but by the time we were done with them, they did. It was a bittersweet victory because it didn’t bring us any closer to making things right with Emery.
I shook myself out of the past. There was no point in dwelling there, especially since so much about our lives no longer mattered. “I’ll go check on everyone’s food situation.”
Chapter five
