Rabi was eager to see Matthew, but still didn’t dare park close to where they were meeting. Especially with tensions running hot after the election, they had to be extra discreet. And if Eshaan had figured them out, they hadn’t been careful enough, so Rabi wasn’t going to get careless now.
This wasn’t a place they’d met before. Rabi didn’t even think the café was open this late, but Matthew had insisted it was fine.
Rabi drove around a few times, making absolutely sure no one had followed him. Couldn’t be too careful these days. Finally, he found a parking space and stopped.
As the engine idled, he texted Matthew: Parked a few blocks away. On 4th Ave. Be there in 10.
Then he got out and started walking. He’d only made it about three blocks when his phone buzzed. His heart flipped. Matthew wasn’t canceling, was he?
But it wasn’t Matthew’s number on the screen.
Eshaan.
Rabi huffed. He’d talked to his brother enough tonight. He shoved the phone into his coat pocket and kept walking. Three steps, and the phone buzzed again.
Eshaan.
Rolling his eyes, Rabi declined the call. He was tempted to turn off his phone altogether, but he needed Matthew to be able to—
More buzzing.
“Fucking seriously?” With another annoyed huff, Rabi put the phone to his ear. “What?”
“Rabi, where are you?” The panic in his brother’s voice stopped Rabi dead in his tracks.
“None of your—”
“Where are you?” Eshaan pressed.
A voice murmured in the background, and something rustled. Then, “Rabi, it’s me.” Matthew. How the hell was Matthew with Eshaan? Speaking fast, Matthew said, “Where are you?”
“I’m . . . I’m on my way to that café on 12th to meet you.” As soon as the words left his lips, a chill ran down Rabi’s spine. “What’s going on?”
“Turn left,” Matthew said, apparently to Eshaan. “Head toward 12th.” Then to Rabi, he said, “Get out of there. Wherever you are. We’re coming your way, but just . . . get out of there.”
Rabi didn’t question him. He turned and headed back toward his truck. “Okay, so what’s going on?”
“My brothers took my phone,” Matthew said, voice shaky. “They know about us.”
Rabi walked faster, swiveling his head and scanning the street. “What are they planning—”
A car door slammed. He couldn’t quite tell which direction it’d come from—too many tall buildings and narrow alleys creating weird echoes—but it was close. Too close for him to assume it was just a random person who happened to be out late.
“Shit . . .”
“What’s wrong?” Matthew asked. “Talk to me.”
Rabi swore again and was about to break into a run, but then Derek Swain stepped out from between two buildings. A second later, his younger brother, Nate.
“Rabi?” Matthew’s voice was brimming with panic. “Are you still there?”
“Y-yeah.” Rabi gulped, eyeing the baseball bat in Derek’s hand. “And so are your brothers.”
“Hang up the phone,” Derek growled.
“Oh fuck,” Matthew muttered. To someone else—Eshaan, Rabi assumed—Matthew said, “Step on it.”
The engine whined.
Rabi took a step back from the Swain brothers. “How far away are you?”
“Not far.”
“You, uh, might want to hurry.”
“We’ll be there. Just give us—”
Nate Swain lunged at Rabi, and Rabi didn’t bother listening to what else Matthew was saying. He turned, and he fucking ran.
Matthew’s brothers were right on his heels, but Rabi stayed ahead of them. As he tore down the road, he tried to come up with a strategy. A place to go. Some way to fight back. He was keenly aware of the weapon his father had given him for protection on his twenty-first birthday. Of its absence on his person. Of its presence underneath the driver’s seat of his truck. Of the three blocks between him and that truck.
And . . . shit. He was heading into the industrial part of town. Especially on a Friday night, everything would be closed.
There had to be a well-lit, populated place nearby. A restaurant? A bar? Maybe a—
Something hit his calf, and he lost his stride. He stumbled a few steps, then fell hard, crashing onto the pavement as the baseball bat clattered off the sidewalk. The fall stunned him, but not enough to kill his situational awareness, and he instinctively rolled to the side just before Derek would have landed a vicious kick in his ribs. Rabi grabbed Derek’s ankle, gave it a hard twist, and dropped Derek onto the pavement beside him with a pissed-off shout.
Rabi scrambled to his feet. Nate had retrieved the bat, and held it menacingly like he was waiting for a fast pitch.
Rabi retreated a couple of steps, keeping an eye on both of them. “What the hell?”
“You been fucking our brother?” Nate snarled, twisting the bat in his hands.
Any other time, Rabi would’ve had a volley of smart-ass responses. But this was dangerous. Maybe they wouldn’t actually lay a hand on him. Maybe they’d just come to scare him. If they had, they were doing a damn good job. And anyway, the bat in Nate’s hands—not to mention the fact that Derek had thrown the bat to trip Rabi—told him they would be more than happy to rough him up. Only question was how badly, and Rabi really didn’t want to know.
He showed his palms and forced his voice to stay even. “Just tell me what you want, all right?”
“We want you to keep your fag ass away from our brother,” Derek said through his teeth.
“Fine.” Rabi swallowed, patting the air with both hands. “I’ll stay away from him.”
“Oh. Well. That was easy.” The sarcasm dripping off Nate’s words told a very different story. Both brothers came closer, backing Rabi up another couple of steps.
“It’s bad enough having a bunch of terrorists living in our town,” Derek said. “A queer one? Nope. Fuck no. Not in my town.”
Nate sneered. “Got enough diseases around here without some ISIS-mutated AIDS.”
The slurs and venom made Rabi’s teeth grind, but he wasn’t in any position to unfuck their worldviews. And suggesting he might leave town with his father in a couple of weeks wouldn’t help because it would remind them that their father had lost the election.
Shit.
“Derek! Nate! Stop!” Matthew’s voice echoed through the night, along with his rapidly approaching footsteps.
Relief and renewed terror simultaneously flooded Rabi’s body. Matthew and Eshaan were here and might save his ass. But Matthew and Eshaan were also here and might get hurt. Fuck . . .
“What the—” Derek straightened, and his expression turned even more murderous. “Get out of here, Matthew.”
“Like hell.” Matthew appeared in Rabi’s peripheral vision. “Leave him alone.”
“Call the police.” Eshaan’s voice. What the—
“I don’t have a phone.” Matthew never took his eyes off his brothers as he inched into the space between them and Rabi. To them, he said, “You can be pissed off all you want, but this is bullshit.”
“No.” Nate gestured at Matthew with the bat. “You fucking a dude is bullshit, even if he’s not a goddamned Hashmi like this motherfucker.”
Rabi clenched his teeth.
“Damn, Nate,” Matthew said. “Does Mom know you talk like such a good Christian?”
“Fuck you.” Nate closed some of the space between them. “Now get out of here. Unless you want a piece of this too.” He smacked the bat on his palm. “Move.”
“No. This is—”
“You fuckers,” Eshaan snarled. “You brought my brother out here to ambush him? What is wrong with you?”
Derek narrowed his eyes. “Your brother’s fucking ours, and we don’t—”
“It’s none of your business,” Rabi snapped. “And it’s sure as hell not worth beating someone up.”
“Beating you up?” Derek laughed. “This isn’t the playground, Hashmi.”
Nate snorted. “Beating you up makes it sound like we’ll let you walk away afterward.”
Rabi’s stomach dropped. Oh, this was bad.
Eshaan stepped into the middle of the fray. “Get the fuck out of here.” His voice was low and dangerous. The way it was when his temper was hanging by a thread. “You have no business—”
“Nobody asked your opinion,” Nate growled.
And Rabi could feel Eshaan snap.
Rabi turned to tell him to stand down, but he wasn’t fast enough.
Eshaan reached under his jacket, and suddenly everything was happening in slow motion. Eshaan pulled out his weapon. From the other edge of Rabi’s peripheral vision, there was a muzzle flash and the crack of gunfire. The pistol fell from Eshaan’s hand. He clutched his throat, and Rabi thought he heard himself crying out as blood—way too much blood—flowed between Eshaan’s fingers and onto his shirt.
Eshaan took a staggering step back, lost his balance, and tumbled onto his knees on the pavement, choking and sputtering. Rabi hurried to his side, grabbed him, and eased him the rest of the way down. “Eshaan? Eshaan, oh God . . .” The bullet had made a mess of his neck and shoulder. Rabi couldn’t tell if it had gone in through his shoulder, his throat, or the junction between the two—he just took off his jacket, wadded it, and pressed it against the wound.
Moaning, Eshaan feebly tried to push his hands away.
“Stay still,” Rabi pleaded. “We’ll get an ambulance. Okay? You’ll be okay.”
“Give me your phone,” Matthew was saying to someone. “Or you call 911. Come on, somebody—”
Eshaan made a pained noise, and Rabi didn’t hear anything else. There was movement and voices behind him, but all he knew was Eshaan. He touched his brother’s cheek. “Look at me. Come on. Open your eyes.”
With some serious effort, Eshaan opened his eyes. The color was rapidly draining from his face, and when he tried to speak, he choked, sputtering blood and spit. His eyes started to roll back. Then closed again.
“Eshaan, look at me,” Rabi begged. “Eshaan. Come on.”
His brother’s eyelids fluttered open again. His struggling weakened quickly. His chest seemed to sink under Rabi’s hands.
“Eshaan . . .”
Eshaan gazed at him. Slowly, though, the light in his eyes dimmed. Faded. Vanished.
Staring sightlessly upward, he stilled and died right there in front of Rabi.
No one moved. No one spoke. Or if they did, Rabi was completely oblivious to them. He was aware of nothing and no one except his brother lying dead on the pavement.
Until Matthew’s voice broke the silence: “Derek, no!”
The shout was enough to snap Rabi into motion, and he turned just in time to see Derek launching himself at him. Rabi was off-balance. He didn’t have time to move or retaliate. Derek collided with him, and they both tumbled over the top of Eshaan’s body.
Anger surged through Rabi like a shot of adrenaline, and before they’d even hit the pavement, he was swinging. They came together in a flurry of fists and feet. Derek was bigger and stronger, but Rabi was faster and he knew how to fight, especially at close range. Growing up the youngest brother had its advantages sometimes.
He landed a kick to Derek’s midsection, and then broke free and hurried out of Derek’s grasp. As he moved, he caught a glimpse of Matthew trying to break free from Nate, shouting at his brother to let him go.
Good. Stay out of this. Please don’t get yourself hurt, Matthew.
As he was getting to his feet, an odd shape caught his eye, and he realized Eshaan had dropped his gun. Rabi lunged for it.
“Derek, he’s got a gun!” Nate shouted.
Derek was coming in hot, too fast for Rabi to do more than grab the gun, so Rabi did the next best thing—he swung hard and pistol-whipped Derek, catching the side of his face and knocking him sideways. Derek stumbled and took a knee. Rabi seized the opportunity to pistol-whip him again, cracking him in the temple this time.
Derek recovered faster than Rabi had anticipated. He elbowed the side of Rabi’s knee, sending him down, and when Derek tackled him, Rabi lost his grip on the pistol. It clattered to the blacktop. They both reached for it. Rabi elbowed Derek in the jaw, but then Derek kneed him in the ribs and used Rabi as a springboard to launch himself at the weapon.
Rabi didn’t wait to see if Derek had gotten hold of the gun before he attacked. They grappled and brawled on the ground until Derek let his guard down just long enough for Rabi to plant his knee in the man’s crotch. A cheap shot, sure, but at this point, he wasn’t interested in playing fair.
With Derek stunned, Rabi slammed him back, and they again tumbled, this time with Rabi on top. Derek’s head hit the pavement hard with a horrifying crack, stunning him even more than the hit to the balls. Rabi rolled out of the guy’s grasp as Derek flailed uselessly. Derek grabbed for Rabi’s ankle, but he was too uncoordinated, probably from smacking his head, and missed. For good measure, Rabi kicked his hand away and scrambled out of reach and onto his feet.
Derek staggered up, wobbling badly. They circled each other, both shaky and battered. Blood poured down the side of Derek’s head. With rage in his eyes, he looked like a slasher movie villain—all gore and murderous fury.
The gun. Where was the gun? Of course it was black, so it would blend in with the pavement, especially in the darkness, and Rabi didn’t dare take his gaze away from Derek.
Derek spat blood on the ground. “You done, Hashmi?”
“Whenever you are,” Rabi panted.
With an ugly laugh, Derek came closer. He started to say something, but suddenly wobbled. Then he stumbled and went to one knee.
Nate released Matthew and caught Derek as the bloody idiot tried to steady himself. “Whoa, easy.”
Matthew looked at his brothers, then turned to Rabi. “Run!” he shouted, waving Rabi away. “Go! Get out of here!”
Rabi hesitated, terrified and confused as his gaze darted from his dead brother to Matthew’s wounded one. What else could he do?
“Go, Rabi!” Matthew urged. “Please! While he’s still too fucked up to fight!”
Derek was wobbling badly. Nate was trying to hold him upright. At least for the moment, both were too indisposed to come after Rabi or shoot him.
This was Rabi’s chance. Quite possibly his only one.
So he ran.