MUD

Chapter 23~ Two Birds, One Stone

"Yo get up man before you bleed out. We gotta get that stitched up," This comes from my cousin, Marco. Marco is Gabby's brother.
Grunting, the other two males start to chuckle, then burst into laughter.

"Yo Marco! This mo'fucker must have been frightened as hell! He didn't see us comin," the biggest guy says.

"Haha! Ayo check if he's pissed his pants!"

At this point I'm not even amused, and I start to limp towards home. I'd just gotten a surprise visit from the Draqs.

"Man come on put your hand over my neck before you fall down," Marco says a little more seriously. The other two are still laughing.

Reluctantly I rest my weight on my cousin's shoulder. I haven't seen him since I was a teenager, when we were both running the underground money.

"You are lucky I didn't have my fucking gun all three of you would be dead right now, I swear."

"So you don't think we have our guns? We just didn't come to kill you!" one of the other Draqs say.

"Yo! Because y'all came to play!" I shout, "After I got the first blow I woulda shot y'all square, no questions asked if I had it on me. Y'all should be careful."

As we get to the more lit up part of the street two cars pass us by, going to the smaller area of the neighbourhood. As each one passes the passengers inside gape at the four of us and at the blood on my T-shirt.

"You can still throw hands though, I can tell your pops that," Marco says.
I look over at the gang member to my right who is in a dark green shirt with a black jacket over it, and leather jeans. The other is just behind us, and appears to be Latino.
"So who are these boys?"

"Bryson, they family. If you was around you wouldn't have to ask no questions. I'm laughing with you right now but I got a deep grudge against you man. This is Ace, and that's Juan back there. Been with us for about two years," Marco tells me.

"Aight then. We're here by the way."

I open the doors and lead the crew to the part of my house that nobody ever goes.
I hand Marco my enhanced first aid kit and sit on top of one of the tables; Juan and Ace make themselves comfortable, taking in the room.

"Which one a you punks stabbed me? Y'all didn't have to do that,"

"Well you probably would have broken my leg if I didn't, and that woulda been harder to fix right," Ace says.

I get my stitches and all the while I'm getting asked about my life in the UK. But I don't entertain them much, because now I can find out what really happened with Alison and Siria. Now is my chance.
"Listen I don't know if it was y'all or if it was some other members but I know you know about the two bodies that got dropped here not long ago. Why?" I question.

Ace and my cousin look at each other, hesitant to answer. Then Juan takes the role of chatterbox,
"That Alison chica? She was problems. Knew too much. And the Russian? That puta was here trying to take residence."

"Know too much? What does he mean?" I ask Marco.

"Basically, Alison was messy because she talked to the wrong people, who was coming back to us. Check this, some girl comes out of nowhere sayin she's our family. Damn, we thought it was Gabby playing games cause we already know that! But she was her twin, saying she was abandoned by this family and been through the worse...she was tryna talk to your father, he wasn't interested in taking in a stray. Alison felt like we owed her, like we should take her in as family but that's not our job and your father wasn't fucking wid it. So she threatened to dig on us and tell the cops everything. Unless we got her in contact with Petra," he tells me.

"She didn't know never to threaten Archer," I say. But was it that serious though? He didn't have to kill her. He could just let her contact her mother. My father just doesn't put himself in people's business.

"She wouldn't let it go man, she was even watching you!" Ace says.

"Well what about Siria?" I ask.

"Siria Dargis and her parents are trying to turn over F.A. from the top. She was friends with Alison a long time ago and Alison told her about the organisation. They wanted her to hookup with one of our boys, and start to turn everybody against your pops one by one. Her parents want ownership of the whole mafia. So Alison thought her friend was just helping her get dirt on us for the cops but Siria had her own motive," Marco tells me.

Whoa.

After a few moments I realise that all along these two girls weren't really victims. They were just too nosy.

"Anyway," he continues, "we didn't come here to talk about them. We're here to take you home. Your father is retiring, and you're the one to take over."

"Fuck no, you're joking" I laugh.

Ace folds his arms and shakes his head, "He wasn't joking when he sent us back here."