I was livid, to say the least.
My father. My dad.
He was the one behind Raine's kidnapping. Her almost demise.
I knew there was no way the Guillianos could enter our turf. He had given them permission. A reason way too stupid for my mind to comprehend.
Can't he understand that I hated the gang life?
Is he this delusional?
He tsked, pausing in his stride whiles looking down and shaking his head. When he looked back up, I couldn't recognize him anymore.
This man was not my father.
"I have been in this gang for 20 years and counting. I have worked my butt off to get where I am." he pulled off the beanie tucking into his jacket's pocket. " The Oscuros doesn't pass down the title of king to generations. No. They believe in "you work for it, you get it."
That was something I was fully aware of. The Oscuros was firstly run by Hispanics. However, it has been run by every other nationality after that. African, American, Indian, you name it. Anyone who was qualified- or should I say, cruel enough to run it.
The only thing that made the families similar besides being vicious was that they had to know Spanish.
"When I felt the power of what this gang can give you, I wanted to share it with someone. My very own. I picked your mother for that. She was pretty enough and smart. I didn't care what she gave me. I was gender-equal after all" he shrugged.
I kept Raine behind me.
Today was one of those days that I felt myself crashing and I was fighting my all just to stay afloat.
Earlier, I had met my mother.
The woman who I thought had died. The woman who I thought hated me. The woman who I hated too.
"When she had you, I was happy. I was ready to have you trained as soon as you can walk, but your mother, she was soft. She begged me not to. That you were too young. That you didn't have to be in the gang. Blah blah blah. It was annoying. She was a one night stand that took way too much of my time."
If my bones can become anymore harden I would break.
A one nightstand?
My mother not wanting me in The Oscuros was confirmed true now. She mentioned it before at Allana's house. I just didn't understand if she was so hell-bent on not having me in such a ludicrous group, then why did she still leave me?
"Her disappearing was the best thing to ever happen to me. I didn't care to find her again because she left what I really needed from her anyway. Plus, she was an Oscuros herself. If the gang needed her they would find her and possibly kill her. Really didn't matter to me."
My dad shrugged. The way he talked about my mother had me so confused. He makes it seems as if she was nothing to him. A one nightstand?
It makes the images in my head popped up when they would take me to the park together. The days they would cook in the kitchen with me. That couldn't be a lie. Could it?
"You're lying. You loved her"
My voice didn't sound like my own anymore. It sound broken and in so much disbelief, it whispered. I felt Raine's hand smoothing over my back, trying to calm my nerves. To comfort me.
My father laughed, shaking his head in humor. "How many times have I told you that love is a weakness. I have never in my life displayed that absurd feeling." he calm down in a split second, continuing his steps around the room.
Raine and I was now in the corner of the room. A corner away from the door and he was in the corner away from us. Matt and Flint flinched as he passed them. They weren't his target.
"However, you," he growled out. "You're just like your good for nothing whore of a mother. Your hearts are soft. Weak. You can't do anything without feeling as if you need some affirmation. It's sickening." He pulled his jacket back, pulling out a gun, but not pointing. I tensed.
"I wanted you to become just like me." he was staring down at the gun. Intrigued by it. "I wanted you to become a king, but you're weak, Lucas" he looked up at me, pointing the gun in my direction. I heard Raine gasped and pulled me closer to her. "You're just like your mother," he said.
I closed my eyes, spinning around to clutch onto Raine as I heard the gun fired off. If I was going to die, at least I would be holding onto the person I have truly loved in my life. She didn't move, her hands holding tighter and her head buried deep into my chest.
I knew life was not my forte.
I was too damaged to be repaired. Too bad to have anything good. I got Raine, but look how long I had her.
In the short time I have known her, she made me want to right my wrongs.
Fire. It was my hobby to burn things. It calmed me and soothe me. I did it for good things, like my mother's belonging when she left. Or, to my father's first cars because he wouldn't tell me where she went. I did it for bad things too. Like the Oscuros trade building, my father took me too. It was abandoned, but the pleasure I felt watching it burn satisfy me the same.
I did it to things I regret, like the park for my father. He wanted evidence to be erased. However, when I saw the look in Raine's eyes when I admitted to her that it was me who did it, it hurt me.
I had realized that at that time, that my love for fire and my love to see her smile was running a competition and the latter had won.
I wasn't changing to be with her. I was changing because of her. Because, somehow in all of my bad doings, she still sees the good in me. She still saw something that I thought was lost on me along time ago.
I waited, squeezing Raine to my chest. But, I could still feel my heart beating. It was loud and hard.
I popped my eyes open to see Raine staring at me in confusion as well. I pulled back, looking over my shoulder to see my mother-Leslie, standing by the door her hand holding a gun as she stared at something behind me. I span further to see my father's body laying on the floor gathering a pool of blood.
I looked back at her she was blinking over and over, before I saw a hand appeared behind her and pushed the gun down. It was Allanna.
She took the gun from my mother in her gloved covered hands and then disarmed it. When she was finished, she looked over to us. I saw her visibly sighed in relief when she saw Raine.
I pulled Raine from behind me as her mother comes running full force to us.
"Baby girl" she cooed when Raine was wrapped in her arms. I blinked at them, thinking that they should have this time to themselves, I walked away. However, the sight of my father had me stopping again.
He was actually dead.
There was blood pouring from his chest. His eyes were closed and his skin was starting to go pale.
My mind couldn't help but wonder if the man that I called my father was ever there to begin with. He was someone that I actually looked up to at the beginning of my life. I wonder what had change?
What made him this heartless?
He claimed he never had any to begin with, but I just can't override the times he was actually a dad to me. Those memories were engrained in my mind. I couldn't get them out.
I felt a hand clasp onto my shoulder and then before I can look up to see who it was, they were hugging me.
It was Flint.
He was embracing me so tight, blocking the view of my father and telling me something. Encouraging, I would assumed.
I felt another hand wrapped around my back and then my feet were moving. That was Matt, he was turning me away from the scene.
They didn't want me to see that.
They knew out of everyone in the world how I felt about my father. It was a hit and miss relationship. They knew I loved him, but they also knew I hated him. They didn't really try to convince me on what to do. They just understood and moved along with it.
I guess it was because they both were in similar situations.
I wrestle to get my head above Flint's shoulder and my eyes landed on my mother. She was wrapped in the arms of Levi, but her eyes were on me.
The same blue eyes that I looked at every day in the mirror were staring back at me with an emotion that I haven't experience in a long time.
Unconditional love.
The feeling was something I hadn't experience in so long, I didn't even know how I picked it up. I remember it when I was younger. She would give me those same eyes when I would draw her something. Or, I would put on a little show of reading my poems to her. They were amateur, but she stared at me like I was the greatest of them all.
She pulled away from Levi, her footsteps proceeding to come my way, but I shook my head.
I wasn't ready to talk to her yet.
I knew I had to, but right now, I couldn't. I had too much to say and I didn't have the energy to do it right now.
I needed time.
"I need you guys to get out right now, because the police are going to come and they are going to ask you guys questions that may get you into trouble" Allanna's voice broke through the silence of our shock.
She had Raine took neatly into her arms.
"Raine and Valclear will need to stay here" she continued, looking over to where Matt and Flint were, her eyes went over their hands to see them gloved and nodded. "Great, no evidence. I need all of you to go now"
I didn't even notice Justus was here until, he ran over to Raine and kiss her on the cheek. He wrapped her in his arms and whispered something in her ears into which she tapped her heart.
I was the last one to leave. Hearing the sirens off into the distance was when Raine reached out and grabbed my arm. "I am here for you" she said.
I couldn't phantom her statement. She was the one who was kidnapped and about to be killed, but here she was presenting herself to me as a shoulder to lean on.
I pulled her in, hugging her tight to me before kissing her on the forehead. "I love you," I told her.
Then, I was gone.