XXI

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"No, Ariana. I'm not coming to your house," I whisper to her over the phone.

It's been a couple weeks since the party and me and Ariana have been seeing each other pretty frequently since then. Alexa had the day off today so we decided to spend it together.

Downside is, Ariana has been calling and texting me since I woke up. I'm surprised my girlfriend hasn't said anything.

"You're so mean to me," I can hear her pouting through the other line, "I'm just tryna see you."

"Yeah, I got that part. Thing is, I can't and I already explained why like thirty times to you already," I told her.

"And I heard you the first five times. I tuned out the rest though," She says with a slight attitude.

"You get on my nerves, I swear. I gotta go tho, I'll talk to you later," I say before hanging up, placing my phone in my pocket and walking out into the living room.

"Sounds like someone finally woke up," Alexa calls out from the kitchen. I roll my eyes, walking up to her whilst she was cooking and wrapping my arms around her waist.

I tilt my head, placing soft kisses along her neck as she giggles, "Guess I am, aren't I?"

Not gonna lie, a part of me feels guilty as fuck for doing what I'm doing just to turn around and play in her face. I know I can always just break up with her but what if this shit with Ariana is just a 'for the moment' type thing?

"You take forever to wake up," She smiles, those pretty dimples of hers making an appearance, "I was starting to think you were dead."

"I could've been, you never know. Just check if I'm breathing next time," I tell her, pulling away from our embrace and moving to sit on the couch.

"Food's gonna be ready soon," She tells me in which I give her a nod in response.

---

"Nice of you to talk to me after all this time," Mac says with sarcasm laced in his voice.

"You snort coke, man. I'm not here for that shit, you know that," I shake my head at him.

I decided to take my ass back home after being at Alexa's house for two weeks straight. When I got here, I just so happened to bump into Mac. I wanted to avoid talking to him but I couldn't grasp the strength.

"Chill out bro, nothings gonna happen to me," He grins along with an eye roll.

"If you die, I'm gonna kill you again when I see you," I tell him sternly.

"I would love to continue this conversation but Quentin just texted me and said that the Latin Kings are back," He looks over at me, phone in his hands.

"Fuck, you guys are gonna get me in prison all over again," I roll my eyes, standing up, "Let's go."

He hesitates but soon stands up, following me out of the house and into my car.

I get the address that they want to meet from Mac and Quentin.

"These fuckers brought us to the middle of fucking nowhere?" Mac shouts out as we pull up, "I'm not going in there. I'm too young to die."

"Stay in the car, I got this," I tell him, pulling my pistol out from the glovebox and opening the driver side door.

"Are you crazy motherfucker? You're gonna die out there and I'm gonna have to be the one to deal with the wrath of Ariana," He holds out his arm to try to stop me only to have it pushed away.

"Not if I play the game right. This is the last time I'm doing this, I gotta be smart," I told him, stepping out of the car and slamming the door behind me.

I look ahead of me into the woods to see a figure standing there, waving me over. Here goes nothing I guess.

"Come here, Papí, there's some things we need to discuss," I recognize the voice to be Santiago's. Shit must've gone downhill if he wants a word with me.

Not wanting to, I push myself to walk into the woods, coming face to face with the devil himself along with his sidekick, Diego.

"What do you want, man?" I question with my arms crossed.

"Heard you went to prison, Blue Jay," Diego smirks. Did this motherfucker just make a crip joke?

"Yeah, what's it to you?" I raise an eyebrow, shifting in my position a little, "Don't think you're gonna keep calling me that too."

"Some of your men got a little out of control while you were gone. Thought they owned the ground we stand on for three whole years," Santiago says to me, "We decided to wait until you came back to handle the issue."

"So, what's about to happen?" They smirk at each other before looking back at me.

And just like that, with the snap of his fingers, Santiago managed to summon at least like six more dudes behind him.

"Also heard you were tryna escape the street life so I brought some friends," Santiago gives me an eerie smile, "You survive, we won't come after you or your people again."

"Let's get it then motherfucker," As soon as I say that, three dudes rush towards me, almost punching my lights clean out.

I start to gain the upper hand but get knocked to the floor with a punch to the ribs... right where I got shot.

Doubling over in pain, I try to stand back up but get sent back down with a kick to my face. The rest of the guys follow in suit, punching and kicking me so hard I felt like there was no hope left.

"What the fuck is taking so long? Let my friend go, she's innocent," Mac says impatiently, honking the horn.

This seemed to be enough to distract everyone, giving me a chance to stand up and make a swift escape while Mac continued his rant.

"Drive man, drive!" I shout at Mac as I got into the car.

He puts the car in reverse, backing out and speeding off. All that was left behind were tire tracks as we escaped with both of our lives.

"You good, Jay?" He asks me, looking over to check on me every so often.

"I'm fucking free man," I smile but stop once I feel the pain setting in, "Can you take me to Ari's?"

He nods as we get on the highway towards Ariana's house.

We got there in under fifteen minutes and I rush out of the car, running all the way up to the front door as Mac pulls off.

Knocking on the door, I wait patiently but also anxiously for Ari to open the door.

"Holy shit, Jay. What the hell happened to you?" Ariana practically screams, letting me inside and dragging me to her nearest bathroom.

"I'm out Ari, I'm free," I tell her, holding her hands in mine.

She furrows her eyebrows, stopping all of her movements, "What?"

"Out of the gang, Moonlight. I'm fucking free," I smile.

---

A/N: I'm gonna try my hardest to update a lot more often so bear with me because my schedule gets a little hectic sometimes. Also, I'm thinking about putting out another Ariana book after this one. Would y'all be interested in that?

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