Street Love (An Interracial Love Story)

Chapter 8

Tony's POV

As soon as we enter a dark room, Paulo shoves me to the ground. I know this is only a test and immediately bounce back up. I glare at him and he smirks. He pops the cigarette out of his mouth and blows the smoke at me.

"¿Listo?" I try not to cough and nodd.

Paulo flicks on the lights and the room is good sized. At one end there's a table with two chairs set up like an interrogation. I'm at the opposite and with Paulo and behind us is a wall lined with mirrors on either side of the door. I look at my reflection and stand up a little straighter.

This doesn't look too bad.

"First step is easy." Paulo motions to the interrogation table. "Siéntate Tony." I sit on one side and Paolo sits on the other. "I just have a few questions for you."

I nod, knowing I don't speak unless asked a question directly.

"Why do you wanna join Pandilla?"

I relax a little in my chair. This isn't hard at all. "It's a brotherhood," I start. "Yo no tengo hermanos o un padre and I know Pandilla can look out for me in a way my dad never did. Plus I've always—"

"Aye cabrón. Your answers are too long. Let's keep it to one sentence si?"

I nod. "Si. Lo siento."

"What colors do Pandilla rep?"

"Negro, blanco y gris."

Paulo nods. "Si. Si. Now let's talk about loyalty. You know our motto correcto?"

"Si. Pandilla es familia. Cuando falla la familia, Pandilla se eleva."

"Bueno." Paulo smiles. "¿Tienes preguntas para yo?"

I shake my head no.

"Bien." Paulo stands up. "Wait here for Smiley. He'll be in as soon as I leave."

I nod my head a little. True to his word, Smiley walks in a minute later.

"Little Antonio. Here to make some extra cash huh?"

"Yes sir." I look Smiley in the eye.

"Good. As you know, there's two more steps to this initiation. One) you gotta complete a favor and two) my boys gotta jump you in. That cool with you?"

"Yes." I nod again, keeping my answers short.

"Okay. Since I like you a lot, I'm gonna let you choose which favor you wanna do aight? The first one is a little sticky. You know little Miss Burberry down the street?"

My mind wanders to the little old white lady who must be in her 70s. She always wears lady suits when she goes out and has her hair all done up like some freakin' Republican. We all know she got bank. She only lives here to keep tabs on her granddaughter who ran off with a black kid at our school. Nearly killed her to know her granddaughter wasn't as racist as she was. Hers is the nicest house in the neighborhood.

"Sí. La conozco."

"Bueno. So favor one is you rob her. You don't touch her but I had Lorenzo follow her to West Side the other day and she picked up a pearl necklace worth over 10 Gs. And she got a bunch of other nice crap too. You gotta steal at least 50k worth of stuff from her tonight."

"And the other option?"

Smiley throws his hands on the table. "Please don't interrupt me Tony."

I apologize.