Hers to Protect

by Nicole Disney

  “It’s not that.”

  “What then?”

  “Kitchen isn’t happy about all this attention. He wants me to turn you guys over. Says the cops need to catch at least one of you or he’ll never be able to make it blow over.”

  “So what, you’re trying to decide which one of us to keep around? You’re going to listen to that shit? He’s a stupid crooked undercover cop, Marco. We’re members.”

  “Calm down,” Marco snapped. “Of course I’m not going to turn either of you over, but Gianna is a problem right now. Shooting at a cop, losing a recruit, it all attracts a lot of eyes, and Kitchen can’t do what he does with too many eyes on him. And without Kitchen telling them our hands are clean in the gun game, life gets a lot more complicated for all of us. Worse, he’s getting nervous he’s going to be at risk of exposure, and the way Gianna is acting is making me think he’s right. He’s not the type to take that sitting down. I’m worried he might try to grab you or Gianna on his own, be the big hero, get clear of any suspicion he thinks is meandering his way.”

  “He has to know what will happen if he moves on us.”

  “He does, but he’s got his whole gang behind him. The Hijos de la Santa Muerte have a lot to lose if the detectives figure out Kitchen flipped. He’s more than a resource for them now, he’s high enough in the ranks they’ll spill blood to protect him.”

  “They’d go to war over a cop?”

  “He hasn’t been a real cop in a long time. He was for sale even before he went undercover with the Hijos.”

  “They still can’t possibly think they can trust him,” Anna said. “He’ll do whatever he has to to save his ass. The second shit gets real he’ll try to crawl back to the protection of the police department.”

  “Look, I don’t know their inner workings. He’s obviously done something convincing for them. The point is they’re at risk of exposure and if it happens they’ll blame Gianna and all of us will have to answer for it.”

  “I don’t know what you want me to say about it. What happened happened, and if we go to war, we do. Since when are we afraid to spill blood? Gianna would do that for any one of us if it was the other way around.”

  “I need to know what Adrienne knows.”

  “What?” Anna resisted the urge to wipe the sweat from her palms. “What do you mean?”

  “Gianna said Adrienne doesn’t know anything she shouldn’t, yet she’s acting like a rabid dog about finding her. Sitting in plain sight in a cop’s parking lot, driving by the police station, stupid stuff, the kind of thing you do when you’re scared someone is going to keep talking. Sure, she could be lovesick, but does that really sound like Gianna to you? She’s either lost her fucking mind or there’s a much more urgent reason to find Adrienne than she’s admitting.” Marco was average height and very thin, yet he had the presence of anyone with power, the ability to make her uncomfortable, to make her heart race under the pressure of his heated gaze.

  “Adrienne betrayed her,” Anna said. “She left Gianna for a cop and then she told them I was in the car the night of the shootout. Isn’t that enough?”

  “To be pissed off? Sure. To order a hit? Absolutely. To personally stalk a cop while every cop in the city is trying to pick her up? Doesn’t make sense. Look, Anna, I need to know. How bad can Adrienne hurt us? What is Gianna trying to stop?”

  Anna was well aware Adrienne did know Kitchen was on the payroll and that Gianna was trying to conceal that, but with Adrienne actively snitching the way she was, in all likelihood Kitchen was already exposed. Anna had always trusted Marco, but if Gianna had lied to him about what Adrienne knew, revealing otherwise would get Gianna in even deeper trouble. If Kitchen really went down because of Adrienne and it got back to Los Hijos de la Santa Muerte, it might even get her killed.

  “If Gianna said Adrienne doesn’t know anything else, then she doesn’t. She’s not a liar.” Anna could barely breathe. Her whole life had been about loyalty, but what was loyalty now? She had to lie to the gang’s founder or betray her best friend, endanger the whole gang or put Gianna directly in the line of fire.

  “Don’t make me look like an idiot, Anna,” Marco said. “If there’s something I need to know, you need to tell me.”

  “Gianna loves this gang,” Anna said. “She can be a little wild, but she would never do wrong by us. This thing with Adrienne is personal, but it’s also serious. She named me, Marco. She told them I shot at a cop. Who knows who else she’ll name. I’ll talk to Gianna. I’ll tell her to be more careful, but we can’t sit on this Adrienne thing, either. She needs to be killed.”

  Marco nodded. “I gave Gianna the address today. She knows where to find Adrienne. Let her handle it.”

  “I’ll help.”

  “No. I don’t want you anywhere near it. There are cops surveilling the place.” Marco held up his hand when Anna started to protest. “She knows that and she’s a smart girl. She needs to clean up her own mess. I don’t want her putting anyone else at risk. Like you said, Adrienne named you. You’re wanted for crimes that will put you away for life, and that’s if they don’t just shoot you. That’s Gianna’s fault. That might not be how you see it, but it’s how I see it and it’s how the rest of the gang sees it, so you need to let her fix this if you want to see her come out of this with a shred of respect.”

  Anna sighed and nodded. Gianna did need to redeem herself. The angry chatter at the funeral couldn’t be ignored. Even Celeste and Christina had doubts, and that was dangerous. Not to mention Anna wasn’t thrilled with Gianna at the moment anyway. She hadn’t taken their fight that seriously at the time, but it hurt to think Gianna had really said those things about her to Marco. She almost couldn’t even believe it was true, but she recognized Gianna’s style of speech as he’d relayed it. Yet Anna had still lied for her. She owed Gianna a good sock in the jaw the next time she saw her.

  Chapter Twenty

  Adrienne rested her feet on the railing of the balcony outside their hotel. She scanned the property line, the bushes, the streets. For the first time since leaving, she had to admit she missed Gianna. She knew she could never go back, knew it had been years since Gianna was the person she missed now, but she couldn’t help the dull ache, the longing for the familiarity of Gianna.

  In some ways, she and Kaia went back so far she felt like family. In others, she was a stranger. Gianna had been a steady presence in her life for years.

  “You okay?” Kaia opened the door and stuck her head out. Adrienne could read everything on her face. She knew something was wrong, was trying to give her space, but wasn’t comfortable with Adrienne being outside alone.

  “Come on out,” she said.

  Kaia sank into the lawn chair beside her and took her hand. “What’s wrong?”

  Adrienne wanted to tell her, but she didn’t want to hurt her. She knew it sounded insane to outsiders. She knew she couldn’t explain how she could love someone who had hurt her so much. And she couldn’t deny she knew Kaia had feelings for her. She wasn’t sure what Kaia wanted, if it was their years apart or their years together that were pulling them to one another now, but in any case she wouldn’t want to hear Adrienne still had feelings for Gianna of any kind, even if Kaia did know on some level that five years couldn’t possibly just vanish overnight. When she looked at Kaia, her eyes were warm and compassionate, like she already knew everything.

  “Gianna will come here,” Adrienne said. “This will work.”

  “Scared?” Kaia asked the words, but Adrienne knew she knew that wasn’t it.

  “I just feel like I’m ruining her life. I know I have to, but it’s still hard.”

  “If there was another way, I’d help you,” Kaia said. “If you could be safe, I’d find another way.”

  “I just don’t understand how it all went so wrong. How we ended up such different people. Who will we be in five years, Kaia? She was nothing but loving for so long. How do I trust again knowing what that can turn into?”

  Kai
a squeezed her hand. “I can’t promise we won’t change, but I can promise I will never, ever hit you.”

  Adrienne smiled weakly. That should be a given, but it wasn’t anymore. Promises felt so empty. How many times had she heard Gianna swear she’d never put her hands on her again? How many times had her mother said her love was unconditional when it really wasn’t? She felt betrayed even by herself. How many times had she told herself she deserved better only to chicken out at the threshold? And now, after all the promises of undying love and loyalty to Gianna, after all her words of scorn toward the idea of being a rat, her pledged alliance with the Wild AKs, what were even her own words worth?

  Nothing was permanent. What she’d meant with all her heart then felt like a sham now. How could she expect Kaia or anyone else to hold true? Why was everyone so intent on commitment and forever when all life wanted to do was tear it all apart? Everyone was hunting for the one love that would be strong enough to be exempt from the dominating condition of life that is change.

  She remembered Kaia’s hand in her own and looked down. Kaia’s hand in hers after all these years. The same hand that had traveled under her comforter and found her skin, pulled her closer. The same hand that had touched her face with infinitely gentle love. The same hand that had smoothed back her hair when she cried. Now that hand had touched others, it had pulled a trigger and ended a life, it had put handcuffs on Gianna. After all that, it was back in Adrienne’s hand.

  Kaia had changed. She’d become her own person, and her beliefs and desires had taken turns they might not have if Adrienne had been by her side this entire time. But Kaia had never become a bad person, and Adrienne couldn’t believe she ever would. She just didn’t know if she could trust herself to be a good person too. She’d followed Gianna places Kaia would have never gone. She’d fallen into traps of naiveté and anger and resentment. She’d let her surroundings mold her. She’d hated police, she’d enjoyed crime, she’d accepted abuse, she’d hurt others in the name of loyalty. Where had her loyalty to herself been? She’d soaked up a mentality she should have rejected, and now she felt weak.

  “I should go to jail too,” she said.

  Kaia shook her head. “No, honey. You can’t control someone else. What Gianna did wasn’t—”

  “I was in the car the night Gianna and Anna shot at that cop car.”

  Kaia was plainly confused and just waited.

  “The gold Corolla. It was ours. Gianna switched the plates, but it was us. I was the driver. I was with them.”

  “Why?”

  “They asked me to and I said yes.”

  “You had to.”

  “No,” Adrienne said, tears coming to her eyes. “I tell myself that, but I didn’t. I could have said no, but I knew she wanted me to. I was thinking about joining the Wild AKs. Even after you showed up, I still considered it.” She could barely breathe. She waited for Kaia to pull her hand back. To storm away, but she just sat.

  “I just drove,” Adrienne said. “I didn’t go inside. I don’t even know what happened in there. They went to get money from someone and came back with thousands of dollars. The cop pulled up behind us and they told me go, so I went. I couldn’t lose him. I kept trying but I couldn’t, so Anna shot at him. That’s when he stopped.”

  “Anna was the shooter?”

  “Yes. Gianna was in the front with me. Anna shot from the back window.”

  Kaia squeezed her hand again. “She didn’t hit him. He’s fine.”

  “I know, but what if he hadn’t been? I’m no better than they are, Kaia. I don’t know why you want me.”

  “You are better.”

  “How can you say that? I’m telling you I did it because I wanted to. I bought into their loyalty and family bullshit. I was a heartbeat away from jumping in.”

  “Why didn’t you?”

  “Because.” Adrienne’s tears spilled over. “Because I thought about you. About if it had been you in the car, if she’d shot you, and I couldn’t handle it.” Adrienne wrapped her arms around Kaia and held her tight, as if she was still afraid Kaia was hurt. Kaia held her, rocking her slightly.

  “That makes you different,” she said.

  “No, it doesn’t. It just makes me lucky. If I’d grown up like Gianna I would have ended up the same. I was only in that neighborhood a few months when I started dealing. Imagine if that had been my whole life.”

  “And if I had gone through what you did I probably would have ended up the same,” Kaia said. “It’s not about judging them, Adrienne, it’s just about stopping them. I can’t let them hurt you.”

  She touched Kaia’s face. “And I can’t let them hurt you.”

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Gianna was staying east of WAK territory in South Shore in a shithole that didn’t care if you lived, died, or shit in the hallway as long as you paid rent. It was a normal rate, and the only people who would pay it were people like Gianna, people who paid with dirty money and wouldn’t answer questions.

  Anna went down the back steps and waded through beer bottles and thousands of aluminum cans. She pounded on the rotting door.

  “Yo, open up.”

  Celeste opened the door.

  Anna craned her neck. “She here?”

  “She’s here. Christina too.” Celeste let her inside. “I need to talk to you all.”

  “I know, I got your message. We have business first.”

  “Anna, wait.”

  Gianna walked around the corner and held her arms up. “What, bitch? I’m right here.”

  Anna charged her and shoved her into the wall. Christina leapt from the couch to get out of the way. Anna swung, connecting with Gianna’s face. Gianna hit back, going for the body, working her solar plexus and organs. Anna shoved her head into the wall and elbowed her in the mouth. Gianna dug her foot into the floor and pushed her, sending her several feet back. Anna had felt Gianna’s strength many times, but she refused to be intimidated by it.

  It was much better to go down swinging than back down. Her refusal to show fear had always won Gianna’s respect and she needed it again.

  “Guys, wait!” Celeste yelled.

  “You told Marco I’m a nerveless pussy?” Anna yelled over Celeste. Christina was starting toward them to help break it up but put her hands up and spun the other direction when she heard that.

  “Yeah, I did,” Gianna said. “Because you are.”

  Anna punched again, throwing her weight at Gianna. She shoved her toward the furniture, trying to take it to the ground, but Gianna was a brick wall. She whipped Anna around and pushed her back again.

  “No matter how pissed I am at you I always have your back,” Anna yelled. “Even when he told me about you.”

  “That makes you stupid.”

  “No, it makes you a double-crossing bitch. See how far that gets you. I’ll tell them all they can’t trust you, see what happens to you when no one cares anymore. See how you do alone.”

  “I’m already alone, punk. I’ve been alone!” Gianna landed a punch to Anna’s jaw. “I take the big risks, I take the heat when it doesn’t work out, and I handled that judge alone while you hid. The fuck you want me to call you? You’re a pussy.”

  “Bitch, I didn’t go anywhere. Just because I didn’t run in there like some stupid ass bull. That’s not tough, it’s dumb. No one wants to follow you anymore because you keep running at gun barrels face-first like a moron. You’re going to get people killed.”

  Gianna swung at Anna and grazed her ear, making it ring. “It’s not my fault that recruit got popped. You all act like that’s never happened before, like I did some horrible thing when all I did was go after someone who was coming for us. I was there too. I was shooting too. I could have died too. I’m there to handle myself, not to be some bulletproof vest for newbies. I don’t have time for bitches. You’re down or you ain’t.”

  “I’ve been down since we were nine years old,” Anna yelled. “How dare you question me. How dare you act like you’v
e ever had to do anything without me.” Anna backed her into the wall again and hit as hard and fast as she could, holding nothing back.

  Gianna’s arms wrapped around the backs of her legs, lifted her, and slammed her to her back on the ground. She straightened over Anna and punched. Anna grabbed a decorative statue from the table and swung at Gianna’s face. It connected and sent her reeling backward.

  “Guys! Stop!” Celeste screamed. “It’s Marco!”

  Gianna wiped blood from her mouth, moving sluggishly. Anna struggled to get her breath back from the slam. They looked at each other, deciding if they were finished. Anna could tell the statue had rocked Gianna. She offered her a hand. Gianna stared at it, then accepted and pulled Anna in for a hug.

  “Crazy bitch,” she said.

  Anna laughed. “Big brute.”

  “Motherfuckers, can you not hear me?” Celeste yelled.

  “God damn, what?” Gianna laughed.

  “I have to talk to you. Sit your immature asses down.”

  They each settled on the couch, touching their burning wounds, checking for blood. Christina walked back to the couch and sat beside them, always calm and unfazed.

  “You guys know Ron?” Celeste asked. “Marco’s security?”

  “Black guy? Mans the door?” Gianna asked.

  “Yeah. He told me some shit you need to hear.”

  “Girl, why are you talking to Ron?” Anna asked.

  “Don’t worry about that. It’s not important.” She blushed.

  “Oh God, you’re hooking up?” Christina laughed.

  “Shh!”

  “It’s just us here, you know,” Anna teased her.

  “Fine, yes, we are. But that is so far from the point. This is serious. Can we please focus?”

  “How is he?” Anna asked.

  “Marco is setting Gianna up.”

  “What?” Gianna stood up but was dizzy and sat back down, holding her head.

  “Ron heard him talking to Kitchen. Kitchen says the detectives are really pressuring him to turn some information over, pushing harder than usual. He thinks it’s because they know or at least suspect he’s not one of theirs anymore. He thinks someone snitched and it must have gotten back to him that it was Adrienne. He wants Marco to take you out of the picture. He thinks it’s your fault.”