Armani’s POV

  I thought being Bryan’s right-hand man and spy would be killer. I pictured myself in gunfights, pulling off impossible missions, and exchanging nods with important, dangerous men. Just like the legends Kevin spun.

  Every night, he'd sit on a tree log outside the boys’ house with the campfire dancing across his face. We'd be all crammed onto the other three logs, or even sitting on the muddy ground, invested. Kevin's stories were epic: fighting big men, running away from the police with a stolen car (thanks to Lazlo’s talent in picking car locks), crashing rich people's parties to quietly spike some dude’s drink. The two boys were always right there, beside Hunter and Bryan, during sit-downs and splitting the score. I didn't get what their roles were, but it seemed like they were doing something really cool.

  Hunter. He was a legend to us back then. The big boss. The most respected and feared man in both the city and the suburbs. We all dreamed of becoming him.

  Lazlo, who always sat next to Kevin, chugged down a can of Dr. Pepper and waited until his friend finished telling his adventures. He’d often take over the mic to tell us how chill Hunter was—how he’d give orders in a calm voice and actually listened when they spoke. Unlike the asshole Bryan who never heard a word but his own and curses our entire bloodline just to say good morning.

  Jaiden and I always squeezed onto the log directly across from them with the campfire flickering between us. It was the premium spot, the best seat to get fully immersed in their worlds. Every time Kevin dropped a bombshell of a story, Jaiden would jump in his seat, his grin stretching wide. He’d whisper to me, over and over, how badly he wanted to be like them, fighting big guys and beefing with the cops. "Me too!" I’d always whisper back, convinced we were the next badass duo. And of course, we dreamed of getting those right-hand tattoos to join the fun.

  After some quiet conversation between Kevin and Bryan, Kevin told me the good news: I became Bryan's new right-hand guy, just like him.

  I felt a bit guilty. I couldn't leave my buddy behind. I begged Kevin to talk to Bryan again, and he did. In the end, Jaiden got the snake tattoo, but he got the left-hand one. He didn’t seem to mind the tattoo placement; he was amped when he got it.

  The moment the ink dried on my wrist, I braced myself to become the ultimate bad-boy gangster. But the reality of being Bryan’s right-hand man turned out to be lame. I poured his drinks. Every. Day. I did his laundry, folded his clothes, and cleaned his room. Every. Single. Day. I made him sandwiches, heated his sad microwaved pizza, and put the right amount of spicy sauce over his instant noodles. In the end, I’m not the right-hand guy to a mob boss—I’m his wife. I'm surprised he didn't fuck me as well.

  Kevin wasn't much better off either, but he wasn’t good with cleaning and Bryan wouldn’t trust him near his food.

  Perhaps the single most interesting part of the job was going with Bryan to the city and joining his meetings. I’d sit in the corner, eating a greasy hotdog, and watch him have sit-downs with dangerous-looking people. But even then, no one ever took me seriously. They dead-ass thought I was his son.

  Bryan would then look me up and down, every fucking time someone said it, pulling the most disgusted face his features could make.

  "This guy? My son? Nah, his mom was too old to fuck."

  If that man was ever good at anything, it was making jokes of my mother. Like, bro, grow up. She’s been dead for ages.

  On the bright side, I make some good money off Bryan every week. On the dark side, I can't object to anything he says.

  Like that one day when he made me wear new pants and a white shirt, showered me with perfume, and put my hair up in a neat bun. I thought I was auditioning for a movie because of how squeaky clean I looked. Instead, I found myself being driven through the fancy city streets toward a place called Riley’s. It was this massive, ridiculously expensive hotel that had just opened a new alcohol-free lounge for people my age, separate from their adult lounge, where a drink costs about as much as my heart on the black market.

  He was setting me up as a part-time waiter (but I prefer calling myself a host) there. I wasn’t in it for extra cash; I was going to be his eyes and ears inside one of Cyrus Leonardo’s big-ass businesses.

  That day, he brought along two of his closest men: K.A., a black guy with braids. Nothing else interesting about him, just another asshole. Then there was Bulldog, a big, fat black guy who loved volunteering his time to educate illiterate peasants who don’t go to school (aka me). Most importantly, he’s Bryan’s left-hand man. I’ve never seen this guy doing anything but shoving burgers in his mouth—no wonder he’s a whale now.

  The whole ‘right-hand guy’ and ‘left-hand guy’ thing was confusing at first, but it turned out to be a pathetic joke. Bryan has Bulldog as his left-hand man. Why left hand, not right? Because the asshole’s left-handed, which means his left-hand man is the important one. So funny. Jaiden is truly missing out on this dry humor.

  I didn’t want to take that job for Bryan. Kevin had been arrested a couple of months earlier, and I still wasn’t over it. I was deeply depressed. If it weren’t for Jaiden and his family letting me stay at their place, as well as our other friends, I’d have killed myself—and probably Bryan, too.

  Bryan kept rambling about how he assigned me to Riley’s early (for a summer job, he said) because he wouldn’t find a place for me once summer started, or whatever half-assed reason he gave. I wasn't interested in acting normal at that time. After a while of talking nonstop and barking orders, Bryan finally tore his eyes off the road to complain.

  "Are you even listening?" he snapped. I could feel his anger rising. "What’s wrong with kids these days?"

  "I bet he’s still thinking of Kevin's dick," K.A. said, poking me from the backseat. "You got nothing to suck on now, huh?"

  I took a deep breath and held it. If it weren’t for Bryan and his shit temper, I’d have punched the black out of that guy.

  Bulldog spoke with food in his mouth, "Stop with the gay shit."

  K.A. laughed it off. "Come on, tell 'em that you missed Kevin's dick," He poked me again. "We all know that you and Kevin were fucking."

  After a moment of cold calculations, I realized that fighting with him would only make him bully me more. So, I turned to him with a forced smile.

  This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

  "Yeah, I missed him," I said. "He used to fill my both holes with his cream, now I feel empty on the inside."

  His smile dropped so hard that I could hear it. "What the fuck?"

  Bulldog threw his burger back into its bag. "I was eating, man!"

  Bryan’s voice roared, "Hey, you two! Stop this disgusting shit right now."

  The three of them went silent, and none of them mentioned Kevin to me ever again. I won, but at what cost? They now think of me as a faggot.

  Bryan parked the car a good distance from the hotel and its security cameras. Only Bryan and I walked in, heading straight for the manager's office door.

  We stood there, and Bryan elbowed me as he spoke under his breath. "Say something about us being a gang, and I will snap your neck."

  I nodded, quickly checking my right hand to make sure the bandages were tight and the tattoo was completely hidden. I just hoped to get this done as fast as possible. I was not in the mood to play nice that day.

  He knocked, then glanced at me and gave me an even harder jab with his elbow. "What the fuck is wrong with your bitch-ass face? Smile, motherfucker." he hissed, his fake smile stretching painfully across his face.

  A woman’s voice came from inside: "Come in."

  Bryan opened the door and we walked in. The woman behind the desk looked up from her laptop and gasped. "Oh my god, Mr. Black!" She stood up to give him a quick hug.

  She looked a bit too old for my taste, but those huge boobs pressed right into Bryan’s chest and her round, fat ass perked up as she leant even more over her desk to rub his back. Lucky asshole!

  He broke the hug to look at her happy face. "Long time no see, Mrs. Fox. How are you doing recently?"

  She snorted. "Ugh! Work never seems to end. I’m working around the clock."

  "I know, it’s tough lately, especially since you’re expanding Riley’s."

  She looked over at me. "Hey there!"

  Bryan gave me a death glare. I didn’t know what I was supposed to do, so I forced a smile.

  She offered me a hand. "What’s your name?"

  His glare got even more threatening. I hoped I wouldn't get my ass beaten the minute we walked back out.

  I flashed the woman a large, friendly grin and took her warm hand for a quick shake. "Armani."

  "He’s my friend’s son," Bryan quickly said. I think that time he forgot to add that he was too disgusted to fuck my old mother, and that's why I'm not his son.

  "Nice to meet you, Armani. Sit down, please." She sat in her chair, and we followed.

  I looked at Bryan again; his face was tense. Yep, I was definitely getting my ass beaten afterward.

  "How are your girls doing?" Bryan asked with a smile. "Annie and Lauren, right?"

  Girls? My lips stretched into a real smile this time.

  She chuckled. "Laura," she corrected him. "They are doing great. They are helping me out in the new lounge, and they seem to be enjoying it, especially Laura. She can’t stop posting every tiny detail about the place on social media."

  My heart knocked on my insides. I could picture a younger version of that hot woman inside my mind, wearing a skin-tight dress or whatever they wear, and making a dangerous pose to the camera that could kill any guy’s sanity. Oh my, I was getting a bit too excited.

  "She’s doing free advertising,” Bryan laughed. Mrs. Fox laughed as well. Was that a joke? I didn't catch it, but I laughed just in case.

  "Actually," He cleared his throat, "I came here after seeing Laura’s pictures on social media."

  Mrs. Fox nodded, a proud grin on her face.

  "I was talking to my friend and suggested that this guy," he pointed at me, "take a part-time job after school instead of playing video games all evening. I told him I have a good friend who won’t turn me down if I asked her to take on this young man."

  She didn’t hesitate. "Of course! I’d be happy to have him work with my girls. I’m sure the three of them will have a great time. Also, don’t worry, we have security cameras everywhere, and he will be safe here with us."

  Poor woman. She thought I wouldn’t feel safe with them. She had no idea they were the ones who weren’t safe around me.

  "Thank you, Mrs. Fox. I knew you wouldn’t turn me down," Bryan said.

  The two had a brief, lame moment of mutual gratitude, tossing compliments and nice words back and forth.

  Mrs. Fox finally turned to me. "How about you go meet the girls? You’ll find them in the lounge."

  Bryan looked at me to give his approval, but I was already out the door and in the corridor, searching for the lounge, and most importantly, the girls.

  When I actually got to know them, my excitement didn’t just die—it got fucked so hard that it went to kill itself. Laura, the one with the fine, curvy body and big boobs, was older than me and not interested in me as a potential boyfriend. And Annie, the foreign girl my age who was head-over-heels for me, has a body as flat as a plank of wood.

  At first, I thought they were just good girls. We became close friends shortly after, and I introduced them to Jaiden. It only took Annie a couple of weeks to confess to me. I didn’t turn her down because she’s cute, or maybe because I didn’t know what having a girlfriend felt like.

  But honestly, the main reason I couldn't say no was because she works as a guard on the roof of Riley’s. Most nights, she'd be standing at the top of the building, binoculars pressed to her sharp eyes, inspecting the area. If she suspected anyone, she’d shoot with one of the sniper rifles she kept up there. But she preferred a smaller rifle she’d painted pink, calls it Katya, the one she used to kill two men already. Saying no to that girl risked having a bullet between my eyes.

  As for Laura, the one I thought was perfect, turned out to be a heavy smoker and a crackhead, which led to nonstop problems with her mother, Mrs. Fox. Jaiden and I, of course, were still busy selling drugs and stealing whenever we were in the mood for some fun. And because the four of us were equally bad, we became the perfect friends' group anyone could ever dream of.

  It didn’t take long until I led the girls into working for Bryan with Jaiden and me. I naturally took the lead, becoming the one who gave orders when Bryan wasn't around. They soon found out about our snake tattoo and loved it. We pulled off many fun jobs: spreading viruses made by Hunter, spiking food and drinks with Bryan’s chemicals, and stealing important papers and cards from rich people. We ruined countless businesses, shut down locations, kidnapped political figures, and defamed famous people. Most importantly, we teamed up with Raymond Malcom (Hunter’s boss) against Cyrus Leonardo (the guy the girls technically work for). They didn’t seem to care; they were in it for the fun, and the money. We always finished a job and celebrated with pizza and alcohol, and of course snorted a line of coke or smoked weed. Getting wasted almost every week has become routine. Mrs. Fox still has no idea what’s going on in the empty security room behind her office; she trusts me and Jaiden with her daughters, and we're sure that if she ever found out, she wouldn't report us. Worst case? Getting fired.

  Although we have been close for months now, I'm suspecting each one of them since I got shot this morning.

  It’s painful to even think about it. I stare at our group chat and see them rambling, making fun of rich kids and complaining about studying. I sigh and turn off my phone. I’m not thinking straight, I need a bump. It must be Zoey who shot me, just like Laura said. Who else could it be?

  But if it was really Zoey, would she miss her shot?

  I've never used a gun, but I remember Kevin often missed his shots, so yeah, people miss sometimes, right? I’m sure that girl is hiding a gun somewhere in her room. Especially after missing me, she’s probably hiding it somewhere no one will ever find.

  I’ve texted Bryan right after returning to my dorm from the nurse’s office and told him that I got shot.

  "As long as you’re alive, don’t complain." That was his only reply. Sure, I’ll text him when I’m dead. Maybe then he’ll care to move his fucking ass to protect his guys.

  Anyway, I’ll get Zoey to talk, no matter what it takes—even if I have to fall for her, or throw down with her.

  When to put backstories/ flashbacks?