“No, you’re going to college. That’s the plan,” I bite back at him.
“I’m not. I dropped out of school a month ago.” My jaw hits the floor—this was not our plan.
Not our plan at all.
How could he do that to me? To us. After everything we’ve worked for.
“Chanel.” He says my name and stands. Brody’s taller than me now, and not so much my baby brother anymore. Though he will always be to me. “I can help. Let me help now.”
“I don’t want this life for you. It was meant to be different for you,” I say on a broken whisper.
“There’s no escaping this life, only surviving it,” he replies. I want to argue with him and tell him how wrong he is, but the words get stuck in the back of my throat. How can I tell him he’s wrong when our mother and father couldn't escape this life no matter how much they tried? It seems our chances are slim to none.
No matter how hard I try to change Brody’s path, it seems that it’s impossible, and I hate that fact. I hate that for him, and I hate that for us.
We didn’t plan it to be this way. But somehow, we haven’t been able to crawl out of the hole our parents left us permanently buried in.
I try to remember good memories of both of them, but every time I do, all I remember are bad ones.
The only good memories I have are of Brody and me.
It’s just us.
Always has been.
“I’ve been doing that. Surviving,” I say quietly. “For the both of us.”
“And now you can stop doing that and only work at the boutique. I can earn cash, and we can both pitch in, instead of just you.”
“I can make ends meet on my own. Go back to school.”
He shrugs. “Can’t. Got kicked out.”
My mouth drops open again. Seems I am doing that a lot as I learn more and more about what Brody’s been up to. “What for?”
“I may have run a guy’s head through the bathroom wall.”
I…I don’t even know what to say to that. How on earth…
“Why?” I manage to ask. He rubs his hand down his face and looks away, mumbling something unintelligible. “Brody,” I push through gritted teeth.
“Because he called you a whore.” I step back and sit on our ratty old chair. I can’t say I blame him. I’ve beaten people up for less than speaking ill of my brother.
“Well, that sucks.”
He turns away and looks back to the television. “Yep,” is all he says in return.
I sit there watching Brody for a while before my mind drifts to him.
Lucas.
I know he’ll make me pay for what I did. No one threatens him, let alone makes him bleed.
Stories are told all over the place regarding Lucas, and trust me when I say none of them are ever good. He may not be the leader of the mafia, but that does not make him weak. He runs our part of town with an iron fist, everyone knows his name, and everyone knows not to be anywhere near him.
Women who have supposedly been with him have turned up dead. They say that his bedroom antics are rough and not for the faint-hearted. He likes blood, he likes to tie his women up. I’m sure there are many other things too, but that’s the main gist of what goes around about Lucas Rossi.
A fist bangs on my door, and both Brody’s and my eyes snap to our entrance.
“Bitch, open up.” I watch as relief surges through Brody, then he gets up and walks to his room, shutting the door. Standing and kicking off my heels, I pull the door open to find my friend, who is also a hooker, waiting there. She flicks her braids behind her ears and steps in, looking around. When her dark eyes land on me, she purses her lips.
“You had to go and be a complete idiot.”
News spreads fast around here.
“What?” I ask her, feigning innocence. Merci and I have been friends for as long as I can remember. She lives in the same apartment building as us. If you can even call them apartments, more like shit boxes. When I had to go to work, she would come over and sit with Brody. Merci has her grandmother, and that’s it. She didn’t start hooking until way after I started, and that’s only because her granny took ill.
“Do not ‘what’ me, woman. What the fuck? Everyone is talking.” I sit back down and lay my head in my hands. “He doesn’t play, girl, you know this. He’s a serpent. Evil as they come.”
“He doesn’t know who I am.”
She throws her head back and laughs. Her dark skin has body glitter spread all over it, making her shine beautifully.
“Oh, he does. It’s why his car is parked out front right now.”