Dark Horse

by Jessica Gadziala

  So she did what most parents would do in her situation. Knowing she couldn't always be around after school thanks to a schedule that flip-flopped on her, she got Enzo into every after-school program she could. She got him in football and baseball, in basketball and - for a short spell - karate. In the summers when the days were longer to fill, she and Gina took turns watching the kids when the other's schedule was free. On the days when both were working, Enzo found his way into a part-time summer camp followed by the occasional babysitting by Gina's mother, and then Boys Scouts.

  Enzo simply didn't have time to fall into gangs.

  And by the time he was in high school, showing definite signs that he might be able to take the basketball thing through a scholarship to college where he could get a good education, gangs were the last thing on his mind. Though, sure, she knew that his dream wasn't to actually get a degree and a corner office, but rather a spot in professional basketball, she was comforted by the fact that even if it did go that route, he would have that degree to fall back on if something went south.

  It was around that time, though, that Paine did fall into the gang- not only breaking Gina's heart, but her own as well since she had long since thought of him like a son too.

  There was a year of bone-deep fear that seeing his brother going around making huge sums of money at too-young an age to know how to handle it, that he might be tempted. But her son, her world in human form, stayed on his path. He spent every waking hour after school on the basketball court half a block over, working toward his goal, upping his game.

  It was all going to plan.

  Until in his senior year, he blew out his knee.

  He had needed four separate surgeries to fix what he had fucked up.

  And he was told he would never be able to play on a team again.

  His chances for a scholarship ruined, Annie had held her breath, sure all her hard work would fall down at her feet.

  But it didn't.

  Enzo became withdrawn, clearly devastated, lost, unsure.

  But he went to school. He put in work. He graduated.

  He could have gone to community college and worked his way up. He wasn't the best student around, but he did well enough. He could have gone that route.

  The problem was, by stealing his sports, by stealing the thing that kept him focused and driven, a part of her son had ceased to exist. The part of him that was excited and enthusiastic and had a thirst for life was no longer there. He was an empty-shell person who got out of school and took a nine-to-five, struggling every bit as much as she always struggled.

  He respected her wishes.

  He didn't join the gang.

  But somehow, watching him walk around like that was pretty much just as bad.

  Eight years.

  Eight years she watched her son bust his ass to make ends meet, and try whenever he could to throw some extra money her way so she could cut back at work as well.

  "Then she got sick," Enzo told Espen, his voice hollow. "The bad kinda sick. The big C kinda sick."

  The diagnosis was terrifying.

  Not because she was scared of an unfinished life, because she knew that six months was... nothing, not enough time to tell everyone how much she loved them, to come to terms with the end. But because Enzo was going to be without her. Because she would lose any chance she had to try to keep raising him up.

  She knew there would be Gina there for him, and the girls who he had always seen as sisters, always protected like the most precious gems in the world.

  He and Paine hadn't seen each other in two years, a choice Enzo had made. But there was a worry somewhere buried deep in her heart that maybe her death would be the breaking point.

  Alas, there was no stopping it.

  Seven months after the diagnosis, she told Enzo she loved him, and she ceased to be.

  If losing his chances at a future at eighteen had been devastating, losing his mother had been completely fucking crippling.

  Nothing in the world had ever hurt even half as much as realizing the woman who had loved you more than anything, who had busted her ass to keep a roof over your head, clothes on your back, and food in your stomach, was gone before you could even attempt to return the favor to her, to make her life better like you had always hoped to do, whose smile you would never see, whose laugh you would never hear, whose table he would never again sit at at holidays, whose love he could never feel warmed by.

  If he thought he had known darkness after his busted knee, he realized there was dark and there was pitch.

  He dived into pitch.

  And he lived there almost three years before it had become not just something that surrounded him, but something that invaded him, that burrowed deep and spread outward, until it overtook him completely.

  Until all he was was darkness.

  Hell, he had lost a good fifty pounds without even realizing it.

  It was then that he walked his ass out of his shitty apartment and down the street and into the apartment building where he had Espen stashed, up to the apartment his brother had, full of shit so expensive that he wouldn't be able to afford it even if he saved for years.

  Twenty-nine.

  He was too fucking old to join a gang.

  But he did.

  And he worked his way up, throwing his darkness around, making a name for himself. In under a year, he was at Paine's side, he was his second in command.

  Then they got word of one of the young bloods roughing up and raping one of the girls - one of the prostitutes - that they were supposed to fucking protect. And they went to handle it.

  See, Paine froze.

  Because the guy ended up being a kid. Maybe just shy of sixteen.

  And that fucked with him. Maybe because Paine was in leadership, because he knew that his operation had drawn this kid in from another path and turned him into a pimp and drug dealer.

  To Enzo, well, the fact that he was a kid meant dick.

  He was a rapist, plain and simple.

  So he pounced, thinking the whole time about the sisters who he was no longer allowed to see, about how a shithead like him was on the streets where they walked, how it could have been them.

  He had to be pulled off the kid before he killed him.

  And, though he didn't make it clear right that second, it was the turning point for Paine.

  He was out.

  "The problem was, it wasn't a goddamn country club," Enzo said, shaking his head. "The only way out of a gang, when you are leadership, is in a box. Paine knew that. Maybe he could have run. But he had his family here. And even though Gina wouldn't let him near those girls while he was running shit, he knew he could never leave them."

  "What did he do? He's out now, it seems."

  "Three weeks later, he goes on a spree."

  "A spree?" Espen asked, brows drawing together.

  "Almost every member of his gang ended up with knife wounds or bullets."

  "Including you," Enzo half-asked, half-declared.

  "Right here," he agreed, touching his shoulder. "In my mind, I stopped having a brother that day."

  It was one thing to want out. Hell, he understood that since he hadn't truly wanted in until there was no other way to turn his life into something else. He knew Paine just wanted a chance at something else, that he had run Third Street for a decade, that in that time it had eaten away at him bit by bit.

  It was another thing to shoot your own fucking brother.

  And while it was only the shoulder, it had done some decent injuries to his tendon that needed surgery, leaving him in the hospital for two days.

  The physical wound, whatever, it healed. It ached occasionally in the cold weather. No big deal. He was a mess of scars.

  The emotional ones, though, that was another story entirely.

  He was his brother.

  And he shot him.

  True, the act had seemed like a surefire way to get him in the top position in the gang, everyone thinking that Cain and Ab
le shit was Biblically awesome and violent, so he got their respect. But that didn't mean it didn't cut deep, it didn't eat at him.

  A while later, while sitting on his couch, minding his business, he felt the cold muzzle of a gun against the back of his neck.

  "Sell my sister smack again, and you won't live long enough to regret it, Enzo."

  It was the first time he had heard about it. About Kenzi buying smack. Or, more accurately, Kenzi's friend Cassie buying smack from one of his guys. And, true, he didn't do the sale directly. He would have thrown that girl over his goddamn shoulder, and hauled her home to drop her at Gina's feet in fact, if she ever asked him for drugs. But it happened on his watch. It happened when all his men, no matter how green, should have known his sisters were off limits. For both drug sales as well as dating.

  He had let the ball slip.

  He didn't even blame Paine for using the gun that time.

  Especially if Kenzi ended up taking the smack.

  It turned out, he had learned later, that she had. Twice. Before Paine shipped her off to rehab, and she came back with a new mission in life - building her own boutique clothing store selling her own designs.

  The next time he saw Paine was a while after that when his buddy, Shooter - a nickname since he hated his real one, Johnnie Walker Allen - had a girl that got kidnapped by one of his suppliers. It wasn't a warm reunion.

  The next time after that was when his world went to hell.

  "What do you mean?" Espen asked, half bringing him out of his memories.

  Shit had gotten fishy with Third Street. He could never seem to put a finger on it, but there was something there, simmering under the surface.

  See, being a good leader wasn't just about making sure the supplies came in so they could go out and everyone got paid. It wasn't just about beat-ins and beat-outs and beating the ever loving shit out of people who tried to threaten the gang.

  All that was bravado. It was chest puffing. It was show.

  What really made someone good at leading a group of lawless men went a lot deeper than that. It went to the core. It went into the hearts and souls of all the men he led. So he became good at reading the mood, the morale, of the gang. He knew when there were whispers of discontent or dissent in the ranks. He knew when someone was getting too goddamn big for his britches, and needed to be brought down before trouble started. He knew when one of his men needed a hand and a leg-up in life.

  Not knowing what was going on was a problem for him.

  It ate him up inside.

  His cleaning habits - which had started right after he had joined the gang, and he figured had a lot to do with feeling dirty for going back on his word to his mother about never giving into the streets - had become frantic. He scrubbed until his fingertips bled, until he was calloused, telling himself that he thought better when he was cleaning.

  But in reality, he just couldn't fucking stop.

  It was compulsive.

  And then one day, he walked out of his apartment, then onto the street.

  And his men surrounded him.

  And beat the ever-loving shit out of him.

  "Wait," Espen cut in, brows low. "Gang leaders don't get beat-outs. Jail or pine boxes," she added, shaking her head.

  "Yeah, that shit made no sense, right?" he agreed, smiling a little even though there was still at least a small bit of bitterness surrounding the whole thing.

  See, he had no fucking idea what was going on, just that someone else had taken his gang - and the loyalty of his men - right out from under him.

  He didn't know what the fuck went down until a few days later, when he was staring down the barrel of his brother's gun yet again.

  But this, like the last time, wasn't personal.

  Hell, he didn't even hold it against them.

  Apparently, some of the men he thought he had been in charge of - in particular D and Trick - had been chasing a woman down the street one night, leading her almost literally right into his arms. And he went ahead and did the savior shit, falling for the pretty blonde chick from the right side of the tracks, and inheriting her problems with, well, no one knew who, except that D and Trick worked for them.

  He didn't know until he got there that Enzo got beat-out, so he came in hot, ready to plug his brother again if he needed to to get information to save his woman who had been kidnapped.

  Enzo had even come to help the rescue attempt, finding out who had de-throned him, but finding suddenly that it no longer mattered.

  Shit changed after Paine got Elsie back.

  After it was clear that Enzo was out of Third Street for good.

  The biggest change was, suddenly... he had his brother back.

  And when he got his brother back, well, he got his sisters back as well.

  Nothing, nothing had ever felt more right.

  Being at Sunday dinner with them again at Gina's place was like someone had finally, fucking finally, struck a match deep inside him, chasing out the darkness.

  It was just a flicker at first.

  Shame and guilt and disappointment in himself had kept him down while he healed, even as his brother, Gina, Kenzi, and Reese all tried to convince him that it all was in the past.

  "I know you feel like you've let down Annie," Gina had said one night as she baked desserts for the upcoming Sunday dinner, doing so ahead of time to avoid the wrath of Kenzi who could be a bit of a bear in the kitchen, barking orders at everyone. "And I know how much she wanted to keep you off the streets, Enz. But you have to let that guilt go. She wouldn't want you to ruin your happiness because you're worried what she would think of you. She wasn't that kind of woman. Just let it go. Move on. Make a better life now."

  "So you did," Espen concluded.

  "I'm working on it," he amended.

  "How long ago was this?"

  "The beat out was just, a couple weeks, maybe two months tops."

  "You heal fast."

  "Had my ribs bruised up just like you. That pain is still fresh on my mind."

  "It's getting better," she said, shrugging.

  "Couple more days," he agreed. "Alright, well, you're up."

  "I'm up?" she repeated, brows low.

  "I showed you mine. You show me yours."

  "Enzo..."

  "Your story can't possibly be more embarrassing to tell than a former gang affiliation."

  "Embarrassing?" she asked, looking confused.

  "I prostituted women and sold drugs, honey. Yeah, that shit is fucking embarrassing to me."

  "Did you beat the women who worked for you?"

  "Of-fucking-course not," he said, shocking back like it upset him that she would even ask that.

  "Did you hold people down and force them to shoot drugs into their veins?"

  "No," he said begrudgingly, knowing where this was heading. "But I beat the shit out of people, Espen. Some of them were hardly more than kids."

  "I think we both know they stopped being kids the moment they decided to join a gang. It's a different world. And it has its own rules. I'm not going to fault you for following them if the only people getting hurt were ones who knew it was part of the gig."

  He knew she was right in a lot of ways.

  Hell, Paine ran Third Street with an iron fist for a decade, and he was one of the best men that Enzo knew. He loved his mother; he took care of his sisters; he was head-over for his woman. He was a good, loyal friend to Breaker and Shooter. He was a model citizen since he got out.

  You could be a good man who had once done bad things.

  It was possible.

  Maybe, given enough time, he could start to think of himself as a good man again.

  Hopefully.

  "Alright, stop evading," he demanded, giving her a small smile. "Give me your story."

  "My story isn't nearly as interesting as yours," she hedged.

  "And yet I still want to hear it."

  She sighed out a breath, shrugging her shoulders slightly.

  "I was
pretty much raised by a single dad."

  "What happened to your mom?" he asked, wondering if he was going to have to pry every last bit of her story out of her.

  "Ah, that is a tough subject. I honestly didn't get a straight answer from my dad about her until I was almost a teenager. All I knew when I was younger was that she smelled like vanilla and chamomile, and that she wasn't around. I found out later that she had left us. She didn't ever really seem to take to the mothering thing and didn't like that my father's job was taking off because it meant he didn't have as much time to coddle her. So she split to find someone who would do that for her, and get free of a kid with sticky fingers and perpetually bloody knees, and all kinds of needs because I was too damn young to take care of myself."

  "Shit," Enzo said, shaking his head. "Sorry your mom was such a flake. I can't imagine that."

  She shrugged it off, though he suspected it did impact her, even if she didn't fully realize it. You couldn't hear the story about being unwanted... and just move on from that. "I think it hit my father hard. It's why he has never settled down. He married his work instead. And, of course, took care of me. Well, he policed me when I got too out of hand, but otherwise kinda just let me do my own thing. A lot of getting hurt in those days. I think we were in the hospital every other week."

  "I'm starting to get you more now," he said when she was silent a second, lost in her memories.

  And he was.

  She made more sense to him, knowing she was raised by a single dad, knowing that women had never been a safe place to land for her, that femininity wasn't ingrained in her from a young age. It was why she was so headstrong, so confident, outspoken. She wasn't raised like many young girls to shrink herself, to be careful of what she said, to be meek so she wasn't called shit like 'bossy' or 'shrill.' It also kind of explained why she didn't cook, and wasn't the most conscientious housekeeper.

  She just never had that female role model to push those things on her.

  Somehow, he was actually rather glad for that.

  "What was your old man like? It seems like everyone in the biz has a lot of fucking respect for him."

  "With good reason," she said, giving him a small smile, showing that, whatever rough patch they were currently in, she still had a lot of admiration, respect, and pride in her father. "He was hardworking. I was a busy kid, always out with the other kids exploring, stretching our wings, and when I wasn't doing that or homework, I was in martial arts classes. So I wasn't around to be missing him all the time, but I was aware of him not being around a whole hell of a lot when I was young. After my mom left. He seemed to throw everything into work. Then, sometime around middle and high school, he really made a name for himself."