Page 13

The end credits rolled on the television screen, but nobody moved right away.

I don’t know what made each of us stop what we were doing tonight to join Cruz in the family room while he watched Boyz n the Hood , but here we were.

All four of us silently in thought because this movie was one of Rev’s favorites.

The weight in the room wasn’t just grief, but emotion so much heavier. An unspoken sadness that stretched thinly between us like a rubber band ready to snap at any moment.

Today had been one of those missing-him-too-much-to-function kind of days, proof in the fact that we were all home on a random Friday night.

Cruz wasn’t at any Club Fetish location.

Titan wasn’t at Primal Resort. I wasn’t doing any admin work for the university, and Storm wasn’t preparing for any of his summer enrollment students.

I sat curled into the leather couch with my legs pulled up and my arms wrapped around them.

Cruz was next to me, his broad shoulders taking up a lot of space, but his closeness made me feel all warm and cozy.

His cologne was that same dark, woodsy scent that always smelled like it was laced with a hint of danger and embraced with a hug.

To my left, Storm cracked his knuckles before pushing up from the recliner. “I’m gonna make us some more popcorn.” His usually intuitive eyes seemed tired today.

“I’ll get us more drinks,” Titan muttered, his voice rough like he’d been quiet for too long as both of them headed to the kitchen, leaving me alone with Cruz.

Letting my head fall back, I released a shaky breath as the dimmed TV left only the glow from the lamp in the corner, turning everything into an intimate haze. Cruz hadn’t moved much, but I felt him watching me.

“Growing up, I used to argue with him when he got to the TV before me,” I disclosed, referring to Rev. “He used to play this movie non-stop.”

Cruz nodded. “I remember. Whenever I would go to y’all’s house to hang out, he would make me watch it. And then, had the nerve to say every damn line of every fuckin’ character in the whole movie.”

I laughed, reminding him that, “He even went as Ricky for several Halloweens in a row, and would get pissed when people didn’t know who he was supposed to be.”

“Every Halloween, I used to stop him from running down the street and pretending to get shot like Ricky did in the movie just to prove his point.” Cruz’s chuckle petered out, as his eyes grew deep and reflective.

“Do you think he was so obsessed with this movie because he knew that one day, he’d leave us before we were ready to lose him?” I asked. “That we’d have to go through life without him here, forever broken because of the loss of his presence?”

Cruz held my gaze, an array of emotions crossing his face. “You’re right.”

“That Rev was obsessed with the movie because he felt like he would be the first of us to go?”

Cruz shook his head. “Nah, not that.” Scooting closer to me on the couch, he picked up my hand and held it in his.

I thought about teasing him to break up the tension, but his expression made me pause as I understood why he was being so serious moments before he explained himself.

“Everything Rev told you about The Paradox is true. You know about my Crowne family, right?”

I nodded, not trusting my voice.

“I grew up in the mafia life. Even with my mom moving us to Georgia, I still couldn’t escape it, not that I wanted to.

When you’re born a Crowne, you’re always a Crowne and it’s loyalty above all else.

Betrayal is a death sentence, no exceptions.

However, we don’t just kill our enemies.

We eliminate who we need to in order to protect what’s ours.

Honor is the currency we trade in, and the moment you compromise it, you’re as good as dead. ”

He paused, letting the gravity of his words settle between us. “In my world, if you want to survive, you follow the code. You never question it, not even for a second. Because in the end, it will either keep you alive, or it will bury you.”

My breaths were coming out ragged as everything sunk in. I wasn’t blind. I knew the type of shit Cruz was involved in. Imagined him as the hero in every dark romance I read.

And with Rev, I always knew he fit in with that life even though we weren’t born into it. He was constantly hacking into shit he shouldn’t, and I had caught him and Cruz selling weed on a street corner more than a few times growing up.

I even started to notice when Cruz seemed to get more clout in the streets because suddenly when they came home from college, one of his Crowne siblings or cousins would pop up in Georgia and hang out with us a bit before taking Cruz aside in a way that always looked like they were giving him orders.

And even here in Miami, people talked.

“Rev was murdered on a job, wasn’t he?”

His nod was slow. “He was.”

“Was he alone?” I asked, praying to God that he wasn’t.

“No,” Cruz confirmed. “Rev, Storm, Titan, and I were on a mission together. It was supposed to be a simple hit, and the target was involved in all kinds of fucked-up shit.” Exhaling, he dragged a hand down his face.

“As soon as we eliminated the target, we were ambushed and bullets started coming from every direction. We’d eliminated any lose ends before we even staked out our target, so the shit ain’t make sense. ”

He took a deep breath, but I couldn’t figure out how to breathe myself.

“We were almost in the clear when it happened. Ri, we weren’t lyin’ when we said we’re still tryin’ to figure out what the fuck went wrong. We were betrayed by someone who got wind of what we had planned, and we’ve been following any lead we got since Rev got shot.”

“So he was shot on a Paradox mission,” I affirmed, needing to say it out loud for my own confirmation. “He wasn’t shot during a car robbery.”

Cruz’s eyes saddened before he lowered his head, the tension coming off of him in waves. “I held him until he left us,” he muttered, his words choked with sentiments that triggered my own.

I’d been emotional all day, yet I hadn’t realized I’d released any of the tears I was holding in until Cruz gently wiped them from my face, his hands moving quicker the more I cried.

It’s not fair, Rev. And while in my gut I felt like being shot was how he died, hearing it didn’t make the situation any less painful.

He was my big brother. I used to tease him about our three-year age difference and said he would get old before I did, but that was because I assumed he’d actually be around to grow old with me.

That we’d be in our nineties, arguing about who gave our parents more gray hairs. He wasn’t supposed to die.

Not yet.

Not first .

I thought we’d be the kind of siblings to die together or him after me since he would be better at managing his grief.

“I wish it had been me instead of him,” Cruz divulged.

“Don’t say that.”

“I mean it,” he said. “You deserve to have him here.”

Through my tears, I saw his own sorrow reflected in the guilty way he was observing me, every tear I shed causing him agony.

“Sorry, I hate crying.”

“Come here,” he murmured, uncrossing my arms from my legs and pulling me onto his lap.

“You’re beautiful when you cry. Never apologize for your emotions.

If you feel it, let that shit out. If you want to cuss me out, do it.

Let yourself feel everything that you have to.

If losing Rev taught us anything, it’s that life is too short to stress out and hold shit in. ”

I sniffled back more tears. “I don’t know how to get through this.”

“We do it together.”

“I’m not as strong as you.”

“You’re stronger.” He placed a quick kiss on my forehead.

“Ri, you’ve always been strong as fuck. Way more than folks give you credit for.

But I think sometimes, you hold yourself back from releasing how you truly feel because you are worried about what it will look like to others, or you don’t want to disappoint your parents.

When we were younger, I should have told you more that you ain’t gotta be anybody but yourself.

Rev used to tell you that shit all the time, but you always said he had to say it because he was your big brother. ”

I let out a forced laugh. “I know I annoyed Rev when I used to tag along with y’all. But I also thought I annoyed you too since you never seemed to want me around much.”

He snorted. “Nah, that ain’t it. Never was.”

“Then why were we friends when you first met Rev, but then by the end of high school and college, you pushed me away?”

Cruz’s jaw clenched, then unclenched, his eyes studying mine as he said, “Ri, I had to piss you off and push you away.”

“Why?” I asked, my voice softer than it was before as I finally stopped crying.

“Because if I didn’t,” he confessed, his voice all growly, like he was internally battling something, “I would have fingered you any time your brother wasn’t looking and fucked you every time your parents went to sleep.”

The gasp that escaped my mouth, caused his gaze to drop to my lips in a way that had me squirming in my lap. His fingers were still around my waist, but damn, I couldn’t deny that I wished he was cupping my ass instead.

“I would have watched you shower when you forgot to lock the door and waited in the shadows of your room while you slept wondering if I could slip my dick between your lips as you drooled.”

Oh fuck. I had always wondered if his attraction to me had played a factor because even in my teens, I hadn’t been blind to how he watched me when he thought I wasn’t lookin’.

“I used to catch you observing me though,” he voiced, tilting his head to the side. “Showin’ up places you didn’t belong and poppin’ up at my house when no one in your family knew you were there just to peek through my window and watch whomever was suckin’ my dick at the time.”