Chapter 19

~ Gabrielle ~

Six Years Earlier

I jumped back and bumped into the wall, the breath in my lungs clogging. My heart rate skyrocketed, and shivers of fear slithered through me when the immediate room quieted, everyone focused on Terrell and me. The way he eyed me, a lion ready to pounce on its prey, triggered chills to course through me, commanding me to turn away, but I remained fixated; a deer in headlights, frozen and unable to escape.

His gaze took its time traveling over the full length of me before he broke into a wicked grin and licked his lips. “Girl, you can clean up. I can’t wait to taste you all over.”

Dollar stepped up with Big T, creating a human barrier in front of me.

“Hey now, Terrell, that ain’t cool, man," Dollar said in a placid tone.

“No, what ain’t cool is you interrupting us.” Two of Terrell’s crew flanked him. The group eyed each other, waiting for someone to make the next move.

I cowered behind Big T, thankful his size kept me out of view, but still longing to disappear. The tension oozed throughout the house and everyone stopped to witness the exchange. Kat stood across the room, the color drained from her face and her eyes bright with fear, and I tried to figure out a way to get to her side without being noticed, but then turned back when Terrell spoke again, his tone indicating he was losing patience.

“Why don’t you two move the fuck out and let me talk to the lady.”

“The lady’s not interested.” Big T refused to budge.

“Not interested?” Terrell repeated with a snicker. “Why don’t you let her speak for herself?” He peered over the meaty shoulder of Big T to leer at me, and I shrunk away.

Danny’s voice entered the mix. “Back off, Terrell.”

A new fear, this time for his safety, had my skin flushing hot then cold. “Danny, don’t!” I reached out to stop him, forgetting my wish to stay out of Terrell’s field of vision, because all I cared about now was keeping Danny out of the situation. But Dollar grabbed my arm and pulled me back, his eyes warning me to keep silent.

Terrell spotted Danny and clapped his hands. “My good friend, D. I was wondering where your white ass was.”

Danny situated himself in front of Big T and Dollar, eyeing Terrell and ignoring the two thugs behind him. “This is between you and me. Keep her out of this.”

“Out of this?” He stepped closer, reducing the gap between them. “She right smack in the middle of this shit.”

Danny didn’t back down. “Stay away from her.”

“Says who?”

“Says me.”

“I think she should decide for herself.” Terrell flicked his head in a signal, and hands yanked me out from behind Big T, who reached for me at the same time. I gasped as they stretched my arms like a scarecrow.

Danny grabbed my waist and pulled me away from everyone, wrapping his arms around me. His head whipped around as his gaze bounced from face to face in the small house until he spotted Kat. He hitched his head, and she hesitated, debating, before pushing her way through the crowd. When she was close, he shoved me at her. “Get her the fuck out of here!”

“Wait!” I attempted to wrench out of Kat’s tight grasp. “No, Danny—”

“Go!” he shouted at me before he turned back to Terrell, stopping him in mid-pursuit after me by grabbing him by the collar, which prompted Terrell’s crew to jump on Danny. Big T and Dollar entered the fray, and fists flew while bodies slammed together as people parted, giving them room to brawl.

Just as Kat shoved me out the front door, a gunshot rang out. We both screamed and flinched at the sound before scampering out of the way of the stampede.

“Oh my God!” Stone cold terror flowed through me as I imagined Danny sprawled on the floor in a pool of blood with a bullet lodged in him. “I’ve got to go back in there!” I tried to push through the swarm, but got nowhere.

Kat pulled on me. “No, Gabby! No!”

“I have to make sure Danny’s okay,” I wailed, jerking out of her hold.

She yelled at me to come back, but I pushed forward, my blind efforts fruitless as the emerging wave of people crashed against me, preventing any forward progress. Frustrated, scared out of my mind, and exhausted, I refused to give up, convinced Danny was in trouble and needed me.

The wail of police sirens caught my attention as two squad cars pulled up on the street. They shone their spotlights on everyone milling in front, and everybody ran. One officer emerged from his cruiser and trotted toward the house as he yelled into the radio on his shoulder, but his presence didn’t stop my determination to find Danny first.

The surrounding crowd dissipated, allowing me room to move, but a hand grabbed my upper arm and forced me in the opposite direction.

“Let’s go.” Danny led us through the bushes separating the house from its neighbor, and over to the next street.

Relief washed through me. “Danny! Are you all right?”

“Just move, G.”

We got into his car parked down the block, and he pulled away from the curb. I studied his profile as he drove, and apart from a bloody cut above his eye and another on his chin, he didn’t appear to have any life-threatening wounds. It was then I remembered the pistol he carried.

“Was that you who fired the gun?” I was uncertain if I wanted the answer.

He glanced at me, but didn’t respond and kept driving, the streetlights passing his face in and out of darkness. We rode in silence until he pulled into the park we frequented and turned off the car. He slouched in his seat and exhaled deep before turning in my direction.

“Are you okay?”

“Me?” My voice was thin and rose with the fear tremoring throughout my body. “I’m not the one who got jumped!”

He shrugged as he fingered the cut on his head and peered at the blood left on his fingers. “That wasn’t anything.”

I gaped at him. “That wasn’t anything? Danny, you could have been killed!”

He said nothing and continued to probe around his face, taking inventory of his wounds. I grabbed his hand, stopping him, and forced him to look at me. “Did you fire the gun, Danny?”

“And if I did?”

“Someone could have been hurt. You could have been hurt, or worse.”

“I didn’t aim at anyone. It was the only way to stop everything. It was the only way, G,” he repeated, seeing my skepticism.

Danny, lying on the floor, surrounded by blood, with a gunshot wound to his head flashed in my mind and I rested against the headrest with my eyes closed. I shuddered at the terror of the mental image, horrified how close it had become to being real. “I thought you were dead.”

“Hey.” He reached out and pulled me into his arms. “I’m not dead. I’m right here, baby.”

“I’m not built for this. I was scared out of my mind.”

“That’s what I keep trying to tell you. That’s why I didn’t want you at the party. Shit like this always breaks out.” He leaned back and forced me to make eye contact. “This is the way things are around here. It’s the way things are with me. I keep trying to tell you that.”

“I don’t know how you handle it—”

“It doesn’t matter about me. What matters is you, and if you want to stick around or not. It’s not going to change.”

The back of my throat burned and my heart ached at the notion of not seeing Danny anymore, not being with him. Even with the tiny voice of reason insisting I remove myself from the situation, arguing everything would only get worse from here, I rebuffed any suggestion to being without him.

“I’m not going anywhere.” Frustration etched his face and panic flooded me. “Do you want me to go away?”

“What? No,” he claimed, and I heard the truth in his voice. “The last thing I want is to not be with you, but it worries me having you around this. What if I’m not around to protect you, you know?”

“I don’t understand why I would need protection. Why would anyone care about me? I’m nobody. Unless…” I paused and eyed him. “Is there a reason Terrell keeps bugging me?”

A curtain dropped over his eyes and he hesitated, as if weighing what to say. He gave me a smile, which failed at genuineness. “Because you’re hot as shit, baby. He’s jealous he can’t have you all to himself.”

“Danny, I’m serious. What’s going on?”

“Don’t worry about it. There’s nothing going on.”

“Danny…”

“I’m serious.” He dropped a quick peck on my nose. “He’s just an ass who needs to be reminded of that. He’ll leave you alone now.”

I attempted to read between the lines, but couldn’t decipher any meaning from what he let me see. I trusted him with my life and believed he would do anything in his power to protect me; so, if the situation with Terrell were critical, he wouldn’t hide it from me.

I sagged against him, exhaustion replacing my dropping stress level. “I’m glad you’re okay, and I’m glad you were there.”

~ Danny ~

I closed my eyes and leaned my head back on the headrest, grateful she wasn’t pushing things further. My heart raced, and fear mixed with hot adrenaline pounded through me, making something basic like breathing difficult. I was thankful I’d been there too because I didn’t want to think about what Terrell would have done to her if I hadn’t been. I didn’t want to know what Terrell was planning to do to her, now that he knew she was with me.

I should do the right thing, and the right thing would be telling her the truth about Terrell and getting her away from me. Tell her that her safety was in jeopardy because of me and walk away without a backward glance. But I couldn’t. If she knew the truth, knew that I’d once considered joining Terrell’s gang, had once hung among them, she would fear me as she did Terrell. She would think less of me, pity me that the only family I could have had—might have secretly wanted—was a gang, and I couldn’t have that or go back to life without her.

Things between us had intensified, and we could never be without each other. To do so would be a slow, painful existence. She was my heart, my blood, the air in my lungs, the light of my life, and any other fucking cheesy thing I’d ever heard. I’d never believed people felt that strongly about another, but I did now. Soul mates and all that, and now, after finding mine, I refused to turn away, even if doing so was the best thing for her.

So, I’d keep quiet and do whatever possible to keep her safe until we got out of there. I’d keep my ear to the ground to head off anything before it started. She had to remain untouched, even if it meant me dying. Her safety and her happiness were all what mattered. Nothing more, nothing less.