Page 26 of Enzo (Redcars #1)

TWENTY-SIX

Enzo

I sat with my back to his door, gutted that I’d messed up, and that the past had intruded. Guilt consumed me that I’d touched him.

But he wanted to be touched.

I hated it that Robbie thought he wasn’t deserving, that somehow he was worse than us, but he didn’t know what we’d done, and I didn’t want to tell him. Not because I didn’t trust him, but because the weight of my past was like a stone in my chest. I’d spent years convincing myself I was different now, that I’d built something better, something solid, a life that wasn’t defined by violence or survival.

I couldn’t shake the fear that if I told Robbie everything, I’d lose him too.

I’d scared him, told him he was small and perfect, and maybe that was a trigger. I swallowed hard, feeling the words’ weight before speaking them. For a moment, memories swelled—Luis calling my name, the cold pavement under my knees, the slick warmth of blood on my hands. I squeezed my eyes shut, forcing myself back to the present. “I’ve killed people,” I said, and leaned my head on his door. Had he heard me? He knew we’d all done time—it wasn’t a secret, but Robbie had never asked. It was quiet from inside and I waited a beat longer. “Robbie?”

“Who?” he asked, his voice distant.

I imagined him on his bed, lost, all because I’d fucked up somehow. How could he feel strong when he never saw that he was better than us in a lot of ways? Surviving what he had and still finding the courage to trust—to reach for something better—took a strength most of us didn’t have. We knew how to fight, sure, but Robbie? He knew how to heal. That kind of strength, the kind that chooses softness after pain, was rarer than anything I’d ever known.

“That’s not where the story starts,” I said, and turned to face the door, legs crossed on the cold floor, resting a hand on the wood. “When I was in…”

“In where?”

“They called themselves Stone Cross, a gang, drugs, guns, intimidation, that was me… I was one of them.”

“Okay?”

“Jesus, I don’t know where to begin this.” I cursed in my head. “The last time I guess. The violence was already spiraling before I even got there,” I said, my voice quieter than I meant it to be, and I cleared my throat and raised the volume a little. “I could hear it before I saw it—the shouts, the sound of fists hitting flesh. The kind of fight where you already know someone’s not walking away the same, and I’d seen it so many times, because that was life where I grew up.”

I paused a moment. Silence.

So I carried on. “The gang was my family. I didn’t have a father. He could be dead. Could be alive. Who the hell knew? My mom, though… her addiction ended up killing her.”

“How old were you when your mom passed?”

That was what he wanted to focus on? What about my admission that I’d killed people?

“I was nine? Ten, maybe? I don’t even know if I remember right,” I admitted, voice barely above a whisper. “Luis was my older brother by three years or so. We didn’t have a home anymore, and we were separated and farmed out to families. Luis had a run of shitty families, and as soon as he aged out of foster care, he fell through the cracks. Maybe deliberately. Maybe no one wanted to see him.” I exhaled. “He got pulled into the Stone Cross, took running jobs, delivering product, watching on corners, that kind of shit. The SC were the only solution for people who couldn’t get out, like Luis, and my best friend Mateo. For them, joining the SC wasn’t just survival, it was protection, a way to have family.” I heard movement inside and a thud against the door—was he sitting the other side of the door to listen?

“But you didn’t join this SC gang?” he asked, and yeah, he was so close to me that if the door wasn’t there, I could touch him. I’d always told everyone I’d had no choice but join, but that wasn’t entirely true.

“Not at first. My caseworker found me a good family—the Alvarez family—who took me in, not just for the money but because they genuinely cared. I fought every step of the way, wanted the respect it seemed my brother had. You know, I did shit. Hurt people, used my size, my brother as back up. Killed a couple for disrespect and… shit… I wasn’t a good person. I’m not a good person.” I stopped, what else could I say? I didn’t want him to think I’d hurt him. “The Alvarez family was on the periphery of my life from fourteen to eighteen, pushing me to finish school, work hard, and believe I could be more than my past if I worked hard. Hell, sometimes I even tried, but the freedom, the cars I could boost, and the protection stuff I did, hell the money was more in one job than I could make in a month washing dishes… Momma and Papa Alvarez wanted normal life to work for me, but Luis was my brother, and my best friend was in the life, and I wanted what they had.”

My breath stuttered. The chair scraped inside, the door opened, and I scooted to one side, so I didn’t fall in as Robbie slipped out to sit opposite me.

“You don’t have to tell me it all,” he whispered.

“I do, I need you to see all the bad bits of me, of who I am, so you can see that however we got here to Redcars, not one of us had a journey as bad as yours. Okay? I want you to see how strong you are for surviving whatever happened to you, how far you’ve come, how much more you could do.”

He wouldn’t meet my gaze and then he shrugged.

“Mateo called me and said he and Luis needed help, that they were backed into a corner. What could I do? I couldn’t leave them hanging; when I found them, things were bad. There was this fight between the Stone Cross and some startup MC shit who called themselves the Devil’s Drift for God’s sake, and this one asshole biker—Spider—was beating on Mateo, and Luis was in a standoff with a gun at his head. Everything happened so fast. I tried to pull Mateo out of the fight to get him away, y’know, to regroup and shit, but Spider came at Mateo with a knife, and we both grabbed Spider’s wrist and turned it on him,” I whispered. “I felt it too late. One second, I was trying to help; the next, Spider was bleeding out on the ground, and everyone except for Mateo and Luis ran. Him and Luis had already done time, seen trouble. I made them leave, I told them to run.”

“You took the fall.”

Silence stretched between us. Robbie wriggled forward until our knees touched, and then he held out a hand, and we laced fingers.

“I took the fall, yeah, feeling like a goddamn hero. Hell, I wiped off the knife, then held it so it was just my prints.” I sighed; some of the weight of what I was telling him eased. “I was charged, and the photos they had, the blood, and what I’d done…” I rubbed my hands down my face. “Self-defense didn’t hold up, not with my brother’s record and who he ran with, and despite how many lies the Alvarez family told about how I wasn’t gang-affiliated. Fuck knows why they were telling the cops lies because I wasn’t a good guy. The law dealt with me as connected with the gang, and the DA offered me a plea deal—ten years reduced to five if I pleaded guilty. With a public defender who barely looked at me and no real way out, I signed the papers, and that was it. I never admitted shit, but I never named Luis or Mateo.”

Robbie shifted, pressing his lips to my shoulder. His voice came out choked, thick with emotion. “Fuck, I’m sorry.”

I let out a breath. “Me too.”

“Mateo is still in the Stone Cross?”

Robbie’s question was innocent, but it hit like a punch to the chest. My breath caught, and I swallowed hard and forced the words out. “Mateo was a legacy, his dad led the gang, still in and running the whole show now his dad is gone.

“And Luis?”

“He was killed a month after I got put away, drive-by shooting. Retaliation ‘cause they couldn’t get to me I guess, or maybe it was other shit my stupid big brother thought was cool.”

Robbie let out a soft sound, tears in his eyes, but he didn’t pull away. He held my hand, stayed close—that was strength, too. Then he moved into my lap and kissed me, slow and sure. I kissed him back, letting the chaos in my head settle.

When we broke apart, the silence between us felt steady, not heavy. I thought of Luis—my brother, my protector—already lost long before he died. But my family was here now. In Robbie. In Redcars.

Robbie had earned his place. He trusted me, even with the worst of my past. His strength wasn’t loud—it was in staying, hoping, refusing to let pain close him off. That kind of bravery? It was fierce in its own way. Certainly braver than ours.

Robbie settled against my chest again, making my heart ache with how right it felt. He was warm and snug in my arms, his breath slow and steady. I wanted to wrap myself around him, sink into this moment, and never let go. He shifted off me, took my hand and tugged me up to the apartment, then waited for me to sit on the sofa before climbing onto my lap.

I pulled a blanket over us, tucking it around his shoulders, sealing us into this small, safe space. He sighed in contentment, his fingers drawing lazy patterns on my skin. His touch made me forget anything outside this room existed.

I could stay here forever, my hand running up and down his back in slow, soothing strokes. Just the two of us, locked away from the past, nothing but warmth and quiet between us. He shifted slightly, pressing in closer as though he could burrow beneath my ribs and stay there.

“You okay?” I asked, wondering if this was the calm before the storm and if he’d walk away as soon as he processed what kind of man I was. “You’re very quiet?—”

“How did you end up here at Redcars?”

That was the easy part of my story. “Tudor took me in.”

“Yeah, but… how did you meet Tudor?”

I let out a dry laugh. “Momma and Papa Alvarez never gave up on me. They genuinely saw good in me, tracked down this man in Echo Park who took in ex-cons with a knack for learning, and they told him about me. Told him I worked hard in prison and that I had a gift for engines. They said I deserved another chance.”

Robbie lifted his head, looking at me in the dim light. “They were right.”

I huffed. “Did you forget the part where I killed someone?”

He smiled, pressing his forehead to mine. “No.”

“Yeah, well, when I stepped out after five years, I was a different man, new tattoos over the Stone Cross, new anger, the weight of doing my time was dirty and hard. The world had moved on without me, and I didn’t know where I was supposed to fit or where I’d go. But there he was. Standing by an old truck, hands stained with oil, white hair curling slightly at his temples. Tudor Barrera.” He’d seen beyond the tattoos, the prison stink, and the fight that still drove me. Almost as if he understood what five years locked up could do to a man.

“What happened then?”

“He didn’t say much at first; he just gave me a once-over, and all I could think was that this was a setup. In prison, trust was low—too low to survive without suspicion. Every offer or smile came with danger, and I thought he was some asshole looking to take advantage of me.” I paused. “He said he had a safe place for me to stay, and of course, I got defensive and told him my ass wasn’t for sale. He rolled his eyes at me and was all, ‘do I look like I want your ass?’. There was also some punching, from him not me. Anyway, I took the keys he handed me, climbed into the truck, and drove.”

I didn’t know where I was going or what I’d do. I’d turned twenty-four inside, and stepping back into the world felt loud, sharp, and fast. I got to Redcars, met Logan, had a chance at a different life, end of story. I’d spent so long believing I was just another lost cause, another name in a system that didn’t care whether I made it.

I glanced up at Robbie. “He saved me.”

“Can I ask you something?”

“Sure.”

“Do you still speak to the Alvarezes?” he asked softly and yawned, burying his face in my neck, growing heavier as he relaxed into me.

I swallowed hard. “Papa A died soon after I was inside,” I said quietly. “Pancreatic cancer, quick. Momma A died not long after. Her sister wrote me a letter to tell me. Said she passed and called it a broken heart.”

I paused, catching my breath. “I wrote back, but her sister never answered. I guess… I wasn’t part of the family after they’d gone. But I have Redcars, I have my brothers. And now…” I stopped, uncertain. “I have you?” It was a question.

Robbie shifted and chuckled. “The demanding little brother you never knew you needed.” His weight grew heavier against me, breath slowing. I felt the exact moment he gave in, falling asleep in my arms like he belonged there, but he didn’t let go of my shirt.

“No, Robbie, not my brother. You’re more than that.” I tapped my heart, then his. “You’re in here. Mine.”

I sat a moment longer, listening to the soft rhythm of his breathing, committing it to memory. Then I stood slowly, careful not to jostle him, and carried him downstairs to his cot. He curled into the blankets without waking and I tucked him in, smoothed the hair from his forehead, and pressed a kiss there—a promise I hoped he felt, even in sleep.