Chapter 10 : The Enemy You Know

Holy shit. There were only two options here. Someone from Taddeo's gang snuck in here and somehow got in the room, or someone from our gang did it and was working with the enemy. It was immediately clear which option scared me more.

Option two.

It was better to know who your enemy was than to have them in your house, pretending to be on your side.

Then, I heard a sound that made my heart feel like it was about to beat out of my chest. Jace started humming the Rugrats theme song.

Shit.

That was the signal. It meant someone was coming. It could even be the traitor…but I didn’t have time to think about that. I looked around wildly and made sure everything was exactly the same as when I entered the room. I shut the lights off and left the room, making sure to lock the door behind me.

Jace was looking at me, his eyes wide with fear of being discovered. I could hear footsteps coming down the stairs. I grabbed his wrist and pulled him to hide in the corner beside three storage bins stacked on top of each other. I put one finger to my lip, indicating that he should be quiet. My best friend nodded.

We held our breath as we watched Uncle Gabriel come into view. He glanced around before putting his key into the door of the room I had just left. He walked in, closing the door behind him.

Jace and I shared a worried look.

Gabriel, my own flesh and blood, couldn’t be the traitor…

Right?

***

I was in my room, sitting on the bed and staring at the wall, deep in thought. Could my uncle really be betraying our gang? Our family? My immediate thought was of course not.

Uncle Gabriel always looked out for me. He was there for me many times growing up. Because of my father’s job, he was always busy, so Gabriel was a stand-in parental figure for me, especially since I neer knew my mother. He was dedicated to the Molton Family as much as I was.

Wasn’t he?

My conscience reminded me of the looks of jealousy I had caught my uncle throwing at my dad when he thought no one was looking. It was no secret that Uncle Gabriel had always been jealous of his older brother. He was always power-hungry and resented the fact that my dad was given the position of power just because he was older.

But would he betray our gang, our family, just to have a taste of the power he always craved?

That was the question that kept running through my mind.

Someone knocked on my door, pulling me out of my thoughts.

“Come in,” I called.

My stomach turned upside down when Uncle Gabriel walked in. Automatically, my mind jumped to the worst-case scenario. He knew that Jace and I had seen him go into the basement and he was going to confront me about it. I studied his face and when I saw he was wearing a calm expression, my body relaxed.

You’re being paranoid, Daniel. He’s your uncle. He didn’t come to silence you.

“Good afternoon, sobrino,” my uncle said. He walked over to my desk and sat in the black swivel chair.

My uncle always called me ‘sobrino’ which means nephew in Spanish. My father and he grew up speaking both Spanish and English, both of them having thick accents from my grandfather who had grown up in Spain and moved here at eighteen.

My father had been too busy to teach me much and my uncle was always trying, but I never paid much attention because I preferred to play video games with Jace instead. Now that I was older, I wished I would have let him teach me.

“Hello, tío,” I said in greeting. I always called him uncle back.

“Why weren’t you at the meeting this morning?” he asked with a disapproving frown, already getting to the reason for his visit.

“I slept in,” I admitted, feeling guilty because I couldn’t think of a better excuse.

“Ah, how will you become our new leader if you don’t show up for meetings?” he scolded me gently. “How will the rest of the gang trust you if it looks like you aren’t taking things seriously?”

“I do take the familia seriously,” I murmured. My uncle had the ability to make me feel like a young boy, not the twenty-eight-year-old man I was.

“I know you do,” he agreed. “But you have to prove that to the rest of us. A leader is nothing without the support of the people who follow them.”

“Even if I do earn the rest of the gang's trust, my father doesn’t trust me to take over. Even though he took over for Grandpa when he was twenty-one,” I pointed out, crossing my arms.

“Come on, sobrino. You know that isn’t a fair comparison. Our father died and your dad had to step up. He had a lot of responsibility thrust upon him when he was still figuring things out.”

His words made me feel shameful. I did know that and I shouldn’t have brought it up knowing it would remind my uncle of his father’s death.

“Your dad does trust you,” Uncle Gabriel assured me. “He just wants you to be truly prepared. He doesn’t want you to have to take over our gang too soon and feel overwhelmed like he did.”

This made me feel better about the situation with my dad. I’d been feeling inadequate and like my dad didn’t believe I could be half of the leader he was. I needed to remember that it was my own insecurities telling me that.

“Grandpa was shot during a deal gone wrong, right?” I asked him after a moment. "With the Taddeos?"

Uncle Gabriel nodded. “Yes, from what we know, their leader shot him. They were arguing over territory, but my dad was trying to smooth things over since a lot of people from our gang were dying. There were so many drive-by’s happening. It was a dark time back then.”

His expression darkened. “That’s why I always argue with people when they tell me they think we are at peace with the Taddeo Family. Some things can’t be forgiven. Besides, their leader now, Aaron, is the son of the man who killed my father. I don’t see how your father can have peace and make deals with him.”

My mind reeled with all the information he just gave me. First, I couldn’t believe that the Taddeos were making shady deals so long ago. Whatever was happening, whether it be a set-up or something else, had been going on for a long time.

Also, just by the look on his face, it was hard to imagine my uncle working for them because of his hatred for them. But he also didn’t agree with the way my father ran things sometimes. He was also jealous of him. Could these things make Uncle Gabriel want to betray us?

My head hurt just thinking about all the information I’d learned in such a short amount of time.

“I’m going to help with dinner. Do you want to come down with me and lend a hand, sobrino?” he asked me and stood up.

“I actually won’t be having dinner here. I’m going out,” I told him, grinning.

My uncle laughed. “Ah, to be young again. All right, just don’t break too many hearts,” he said before leaving.

When he reached the doorframe, he turned back around and caught my eye. “No matter what happens, you know you have your familia, right?” Uncle Gabriel lifted his shirt sleeve, pointing to a tattoo on his upper arm.

Every member of the Molton Family had a tattoo of the word ‘Familia’ somewhere on their body. Mine was on the inside of my right wrist. Whenever you were officially conducted into the gang – for me that was when I was eighteen – you got a tattoo. My father had started the tradition. He wanted us to not think of each other as gang members but as family.

After Uncle Gabriel left, I got up from my bed. Despite what he assumed, I wasn’t about to have a wild night on the town. I needed to see Audry and tell her everything I found out today. From my discovery of the tampered document to my suspicions of my uncle, and how long the shady dealings with the Taddeos had been going on.

Part of me didn’t want to tell her about how I suspected my uncle because I felt like I was betraying him in some way, but I knew I should. Audry and I were partners in this. She needed to know everything in order for us to succeed with our mission. If I left something out, it could bite me in the ass later.

I changed my clothes to black pants and a tight black shirt since I would be on the streets at night. Even though I was part of a prominent gang, it wouldn’t be smart to wear red and attract unneeded attention to myself.

After I was done changing, I took my hair gel out of my bathroom door. But before I squirted the sticky gel into my hand, I stopped, looking at myself in the mirror with disgust. Why the hell was I doing my hair to meet Audry? This wasn’t a date. We were working together on a dangerous mission and we were partners in crime. I needed to think of her only in that way. I needed to treat her like I treated Jace.

But the problem was, Jace didn’t have those curves. Or those plump pink lips that would look so good wrapped around my dick. Or those long-toned legs that, despite her small frame, seemed to go on for miles. Or her blue eyes that showed exactly what she was thinking at that moment. Or that wit of hers that surprisingly turned me on.

I looked down at my pants and saw that I had become hard just from thinking about Audry.

Damn it.

Get a hold of yourself, Molton! She is just another woman.

But deep down, I knew she wasn’t just any woman. Audry was something more. It was like she was put on this earth for the sole purpose of tempting me. It wasn’t fair that she was exactly my fucking type and her personality was even more enticing than her looks.

I left the house in a grumpy mood.

I needed to think with my head and not my dick, or Audry and I wouldn’t achieve anything tonight.