No More Tears In The End

I stayed low and made my way into the kitchen. I stood up to get a shot off, but he shot at me, and I ducked back in the kitchen. I held up my weapon and shot back blindly.

I could hear shots bein' fired. I yelled for Rain, but she didn't answer. I peeked around the corner and saw one running for the door. I hit him in back before he got out there. I stood over him and put two shots in his chest.

There was still shooting going on in the back. I kicked his gun away and started moving toward the hallway. I heard footsteps coming at me. It was the doorman, only now he had a gun. Rain came out of one of the rooms behind him. I aimed and fired at him, and he went down from one to the head. I kicked his gun out of the way as Rain walked slowly toward me.

“You all right?” I asked and Rain stopped right in front of me.

She was breathing hard.

So was I.

I could feel my heart pumping blood through my body and for the first time since Freeze died, I felt good. Felt alive.

“Yeah.” I could tell that Rain felt it too. I should see it, it was written all over her. She was practically glowing.

“Any more back there?”

“No. I got his ass.”

“We should go. Come on.”

Rain and I left the building the same way we came in, down the stairs, and out the front door with a group of residents. We took our time walking to my car; neither of us said a word until we were out of Co-op and on I-95.

Rain let out a deep breath; it was more like a moan. “Hmmm.” Like the experience was almost sexual to her. It wasn’t that good for me, but I did need to get some of the rage that I was feeling off of me.

I was starting to like Rain.

I didn’t trust her, but I was definitely starting to like her. But I wasn’t about to tell her that.

I was more interested in finding out why we just wiped out Nacho and his crew. “You wanna tell me what just happened.”

“Family business, Nick. Nacho was a snitch and had to be dealt with.”

“You need to come a little better than that, Rain.”

“You mind if I smoke?”

“Go ahead. Just tell me why we-and I do mean we-why we just killed Nacho.”

Rain lit a cigarette and rolled down the window. “I had to take care of him for my father.”

“What does JR have to do with this?”

“A couple of days ago, my father told me that he was worried about Nacho.”

“Why?”

“He said that Nacho called and wanted to come by to talk ’bout the money he owed him. Only Nacho don’t owe Pops no dough.”

“What did JR think he really wanted?”

“He thought Nacho was tryin’ to set him up.” Rain took a deep drag from her cigarette. “You see, my father is a silent partner in a porno flick company with a guy named Paul Gaggiano. Well, a couple of weeks ago, Nacho was there to see one of the chicks in the movie. The cops raided the set and Nacho gets arrested along with everybody else.”

“Was your father there?”

“No. But Jeff Ritchie was. Jeff Ritchie is a freaky fuck. He goes there all the time to watch. He was arrested too. But Nacho was back on the street before Jeff Ritchie even got his one fuckin’ call. You know what I’m sayin’?”

“Nacho gave the cops something.”