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“Maybe you want a family too,” I finished for him.
Fang didn’t respond.
But his silence was telling.
I walked past him and clapped him on the shoulder. If he could admit his truth, then I could too. I’d taken for granted the family I’d had. My dad had died, and I’d never even told him how much I admired the man he was.
I wouldn’t do that again. Not with the family I was creating for myself. “Me too, bro. Me too.”
He glanced at me. An understanding passed between us in the early morning light. He poured two mugs of steaming dark coffee and handed one of them to me.
We were completely silent when a noise came from the front door and both of us looked over to see a white card fall through the mail slot.
“No fucking way.” Fang slammed his mug down on the kitchen counter, not even wincing when hot coffee sloshed over the brim and onto his hand.
I dropped mine into the sink, not giving a shit when the telltale sound of broken ceramic echoed back at me.
In unison, Fang and I bolted for the door.
Anger raced through me. A complete and utter rage at the person on the other side who dared to threaten my family.
Because that’s what we’d become. That’s what Rebel had made us. The discussion with Fang had just confirmed it.
This shit with the cards and the threats ended here. Whoever it was could balls up and face us like men.
Fang’s legs were longer, and he beat me to it, yanking the door open wide, simultaneously taking his gun from the back of his jeans. “Hey!”
Both of us blinked in astonishment at the face on the other side.
A kid of maybe ten or eleven strolled back to a bicycle that had been modified to tow a small trailer of newspapers. He glanced back at us chasing after him, his eyes wide. He quickly raised his hands in the air. “I’m sorry! I didn’t mean it!”
I didn’t even know what to make of that. I glanced both ways down the street but didn’t see anything out of the ordinary. “Didn’t mean what?”
The boy stared at Fang with pure terror in his gaze.
I glanced over and elbowed him. “Fuck, man, wanna put the gun down? He’s like, ten.”
“Oh.” Fang lowered the weapon.
The kid didn’t look any less likely to piss his pants, though. He focused on me, probably because I was clearly the less intimidating of the two of us. “I didn’t mean to throw your paper in the bushes. My mom said I needed to be more careful and bring the papers to the doorstep, but it’s so much quicker to just throw them.”
I shook my head. “We don’t care about the paper. But that card you just put through the door. Where did you get that?”
Understanding dawned on the boy’s face. “Oh, that man down the road gives them to me.”
Fang and I both turned in the direction the boy pointed. There was no one there.
Fang cleared his throat, his voice low so only I could hear. “Your mom and stepdad live down there, don’t they?”
They did, but this kid could not mean Karmichael was behind those notes. I refused to believe that.
I bent so we were eye to eye. “What does he look like? The man.”
He shrugged. “I don’t know. He had brown hair. His car is nice though. Don’t know what it is, but it was black and shiny with gold wheels. He gives me fifty bucks to just put the card through your mail slot.”
I stared at Fang. “Karmichael doesn’t drive a car like that.”
He nodded tightly.
