It was dark outside by the time we all gathered in Julius' office, sitting around the big desk he had there. I sat between Julius and Gat, with Mister King on the other end from Gat on the other side of Julius. Their conversation was pretty civil for a couple of gang leaders who had plotted to take one another down, but I supposed those plots were more from Julius' side. There was, of course, also the face that these guys had grown up friends.

"Lookin' good, Ben," Julius said as he sat down in his large chair on wheels.

"Been a long time, Jules," King replied, allowing friendly tones to accompany the beginning of the business we were bound to discuss tonight for fear of Tanya or Warren (if he was still alive) of making a move against King while we recuperated.

"Sorry 'bout Anthony."

"That was business," Mr. King assured him with a casual wave of his hands to signify it was no big deal, "Let it go."

They traded nods and Johnny nearer to my end of the table spoke up when silence fell to ask, "So what's the plan?"

"We kill Tanya and I get back to business," King said simply, but Julius had shaken his head before his long-time friend could even finish his sentence.

"I don't think so, Benjamin."

King narrowed his eyes, "iWhat?/i?"

"I said no," Julius said, placing his hands firmly on the surface in front of him to better get across just how serious he was about that, "You're alive, we straight, but the Vice Kings? They're through."

"Then kill me," he tossed that suggestion in the pot all too casually, "An' quit wastin' my goddamn time."

Julius hadn't seemed too keen on doing that because he followed up with, "Well, you got a choice. You can keep your fuckin' pride and die right now, or you can be a man and walk away."

That was followed by a period of stone dead silence in which King stared into space before him, seeing through the heavy table and through to the ground and beyond as he fell deep into thought. I wondered for a moment just how valuable pride was to a man like Mr. King. It must be, because he seemed to conduct himself in a much more civil and professional manner than anyone else I'd seen calling themselves a VK. In the short time I'd known Benjamin King, I had learned that he was a man who certainly was worthy of pride and respect, and after seeing how he had handled himself in the presence of an enemy gang member, meaning myself, I had developed a bit of admiration for the man.

Mister King laughed and looked up at Julius, shaking a large finger at his friend. "Where did you get the balls, Jules?" He asked, and I realized that King was more likely to make the smart choice than keep a pride he could always build back up by other means.

"What's it gonna be?"

He stayed quiet for a split second, once more staring into space before giving his final answer, which destroyed every opinion I'd had of him with ease.

"I ain't walkin' away."

"Fair enough. Johnny," Julius said, whipping his head to look at Gat who had shot up in his seat, a VICE 9 drawn and aimed at Mister King's head. He didn't open fire though, probably until Julius would give the order, which I assumed was after he would be given the opportunity for his last words.

"I ain't walkin' away," King said again, but this time, he quickly added on, "Until I deal with Tanya."

Julius cocked his head as he searched King's face for a moment, an awkward smile forming on his lips until it spread into a large, toothy grin.

"My nigga," he said, pleased, as he and King both reached across the table to slap their palms together and hold it for a second before everything was settled. Gat, however, didn't take this as his cue to put his weapon away and Julius had to order that it be done. My trigger-happy psycho friend did so reluctantly, but I was sure he'd get his fill of murdering done soon.

Julius picked business back up again, "Now you understand this ain't just about Tanya, right? We're finishing the whole damn crew."

"Yeah, I know."

"So let's get to it," and addressing the room, he asked, "Plan?"

"I know where all them fools hang," King said, leaning forward to draw a map on the table with his finger, "All we gotta do is roll up in there and get their attention, then lead them to the cops. They'll take care of the rest."

"Alright, Playa," Julius turned to me and I remained attentive, "You gonna be King's wheelman."

I nodded, and looked to Mister King when he asked, "You ready for this, little girl?" and I gave him a small smile saying that I was.

We exited the church together and got into a car owned by another Saint who refused to let me take his vehicle without coming along as supervisor. Lucky for me, though, King convinced the loser otherwise and I was allowed to borrow it for the day. It was at times like this that I desperately missed my car—or well, the car that I stole but loved. When we were settled in, King got down to business immediately.

"Aight, let's get this shit started right. One of the safe houses is at the north end of town."

I turned the car around and headed there, deciding not to slam on the gas this time since I knew that last time he had been somewhat uncomfortable inside the car with me.

"So," he started to make conversation, "Does Julius ever talk about growin' up in Sunnyvale?"

I shrugged as I thought, but I couldn't think of having heard anything mentioned on Julius' part about that sort of thing, so I finally shook my head.

"What, you thought he was from the Row?" admittedly, I kind of had, and I smiled, listening as I expected King to tell something of a story as we crossed the bridge, "The problem with buryin' the past," he said, "Is that you forget about it, you know what I'm sayin'?"

I almost froze where I was, but I kept my cool. King had a point. Three weeks ago, I'd left everything I'd known for this, and now look at me. It's not only like I'm another person, it's like my entire past happened long ago to another person and grew fuzzier and fuzzier the more time I spent with people like Johnny Gat, Benjamin King, and the rest of the Third Street Saints.

Beside me, King smiled, seemingly alright that I had chosen to extend my understood vow of silence, "I bet Julius gave you the 'I don't care what flags they're flying' speech," he said, and I remembered the meeting I'd attended before taking the first Vice Kings job from Johnny. "I wrote that shit years ago," he told me, "And that motherfucker hasn't forgot it."

I gave a little laugh at that, and thought about how early this morning I had been planning on putting a bullet in Mister King sometime and quickly I felt the guilt wash over me. He wasn't half as bad or nasty as the picture Aisha, Gat, and Dex had painted for me.

"You're easy to talk to, you know that?" I was surprised since most people felt pretty awkward letting me pass by in silence as they carried on half of a conversation, "I don't gotta worry about you interruptin' me or nothin'. And that was Warren's problem. That motherfucker never knew when to shut the fuck up and listen…" He paused for a long moment, slightly digressing from the conversation to say, "You know that even if you wipe out the Vice Kings, it ain't gonna be over, right? There's always someone lookin' to take what you got… some punk ass who wants to make a name for himself. Some girl you fucked-," he looked over to me when he said this, probably wondering whether or not to correct himself before he continued, "And never called back… hey, up here, there they are."

I looked to where king was pointing, looking at all the people wearing yellow with their car parked in an alley between two restaurants. A lot of them were outdoors eating or talking, but once they saw King and me, I they swarmed to their car and went for their guns. King laughed, and now to play a game of chase to lead these assholes to the cops who were hidden four blocks away.

I kept the VK at an arm's length, but not literally of course. This way I'd make sure they were always on my tail, so understand that I had to restrain myself from flooring it, but also had to make it look like I was itrying/i to get away. They came at us with their automatic weapons firing into the night. Neither me nor King drew our weapons so we would be allowed safe passage through the police ambush if giving the appearance that we were being attacked without provocation. This would be the routine with the two other crews to follow, and overall this shit took me an hour and a half to do, what with all the slow driving. I hoped this was as much as I was required to restrain myself for the rest of the night.

"Way to go," King said when we were finished, "It's a shame Julius found you first. We coulda owned this town… now this should do us good for a couple of days. You just keep your guns loaded and don't get yourself killed before we go after Tanya. I'll see you then."

I nodded and drove back to the church in silence, dropping king off before I made off with the 4-door purple sedan to my apartment. It was a cheap thing to do, but I was sure I needed the violet Thunderbird more than the other guy did. The owner would probably find me tomorrow and I'd be forced to give it back anyway.

It was around two o'clock AM when I crawled into bed and melted into the old mattress, and about twelve o'clock noon when I rose from the temporary grave it had served to be for myself. Over tired, groggy, and smelling of early afternoon sleep, I stepped into the shower and washed away the sleep that remained. I decided to head to the church after dressing myself in the clothes from yesterday that seemed clean enough to wear again—everybody else seemed to like wearing the same clothes for a week straight, so I just got lazy and mimicked them, though I wasn't one to keep on when my clothes got even a little smelly.

Even if Julius and King were going to call me when I was needed, I could always busy myself with whatever job Dex had for me, so of course when I rolled up to the church in my 'new' car, I stopped in to see him first, walking in on a conversation taking place over an overhead view of some building, though I wasn't sure which one, between Dex and Troy, who was pointing out positions in the city.

"What if we came from here and here?" He asked, puffing on his cigarette free-handed.

Dex thought for a moment, but quickly he was able to shoot it down. "No," he said, shaking his head, "They'd just see it comin'. Cops try that shit all the time and it never works."

"Shit. You're right. Well, what ishould/i we do, then?"

"Well, we icould/i-," Dex interrupted himself to turn to me and nod me over when he heard me approaching, but he never finished what he was going to say because that was Troy's cue to explain the entire deal to me.

"I got a lead on where the Los Carnales cut all their shit," he said, and I assumed that meant drugs or the money earned from drugs.

"iThe/i Carnales," Dex corrected.

"…Wha?"

"Rio Grande River. Jesus."

"What the ifuck/i?" I busied myself with a pebble near my feet, concluding that Troy didn't appreciate being corrected much, especially on something as little as that. I wasn't too bright when it came to speaking Spanish with correct grammar anyway since the last time I sat in a language class was my sophomore year of High School.

"It's not iThe/i Los Carnales, it's just 'The Carnales,'" Dex explained, getting only a blank look from Troy in return, which pushed him further, "Los means—Fuck it. Like I was saying, we're not gonna raid the factory right yet."

"Why not?"

"'Cause I'm not a gun-totin' psychopath named Johnny Gat."

I frowned at that because while Gat's method did get him a 'shitty leg,' as Anthony Green had called it, they worked at least, even if everything was a tad chaotic sometimes. The way Johnny Gat ran things though, it was a chaos that was easily controlled by the people creating it.

"Fair enough," Troy said, satisfied now that the spotlight was off of his grammatical faults, "So what's the plan?"

"One of my boys called and said they saw a truck with a heavy LC escort leaving the factory district. It's probably loaded with drugs, but that's just a bonus. Our target is the truck itself. I need it brought back to the row in one piece—it's no good to us blown to shit," Dex's eyes flicked to me when he said this, and I again looked at my feet.

"What do you need the truck for?"

"Let's just get the truck, and then I'll tell you the rest of the plan."

Since Dex was planning on keeping Troy and I in suspense, I supposed we should to that as quickly as possible. Troy tried to argue it out of him, but Dex wouldn't budge and I concluded that Troy wasn't a fan of mystery novels by the way he pushed for just the rest of a plan he'd see eventually. But I had to agree with him when he said that it would just be "nice to know."

"Shit, Troy," Dex said, exasperated at how pushy our friend was, "What's with all the questions? Why can't you be more like my girl over here?" He jabbed a thumb at me and I hid a smile.

"Look, Dex-," He'd tried to come over to do what I assumed was give an apology, but Dex ignored him to turn and look at me.

"Could iyou/i go get that truck for me?" I nodded and turned back to take my leave, only to hear him murmur, "See? Was that so hard?" and a heavy sigh escape Troy's chest and his feet dragging on the stone ground after me.

"You heard Dex," he said when we were outside, "Let's just go get that truck and we can hear whatever else he's got planned.

I nodded and jingled the keys to the Thunderbird, piling in and waiting for Troy to occupy the passenger's seat before I threw this baby into reverse. Don't get me wrong, this is a very fine machine, but I missed my silver Dodge Charger which I had decided to lovingly refer to as General Lee II.

"This is a different car from what you usually drove before you started tearin' apart the Vice Kings," he commented, having noticed my admiration for my baby.

"The other one got taken by the cops at the old Police Station."

I backed out into the road and took off towards the industrial district while the conversation ensued.

"Sucks," Troy said, but he could help but not sound at all sympathetic when he cut to business first, "Alright, here's the plan: You get me close to the truck so I can jack that baby. Then you make sure I can make it back to the Row in one piece. I understood alright, and I stepped on the gas a little, but seeing as how I'd made Mister King rather uncomfortable with it before, I decided to slow it down on the highway some to increase our chances of not crashing and dying.

We passed by in silence for a moment or two, Troy lighting up a fresh cigarette and taking a big huff as I took the first exit to the fast lane. "Yo," he started, and I glanced over at him to let him know I was listening, "Just between you an' me… I was fine cleanin' up the Row, but getting' into this drug shit ain't cool. Someone should talk some sense into Julius," and he glanced about the cab as if he was trying to make sure that the boss wasn't around to hear.

"Well… think of it this way: it's like we're getting rid of the drugs—and I know that's not what we're going to do, but who's more likely to make people we sell it do feel like they're going to die? Us or the Carnales? But I understand what you mean… I can't say I'm all that excited to walk into meth labs or anything like that."

Troy nodded, "An' I know Lopez. Once we steal from him, he ain't gonna back off. Either we're dead, or he is."

"Then we plan carefully, we watch our backs, and we kill him as soon as we get the chance."

Troy agreed with me, but we didn't have much time to talk further because he whipped out his pistol as I turned into the industrial district—Carnales Territory. I followed a small vehicle path winding around a factory and drove along the blacktop, searching for the truck. It couldn't be that easy to hide, so maybe I just wasn't seeing it.

"There it is," he said, "Cover me while I get it running," and while we were both still in the Thunderbird, using it as cover, we shot down a few Carnales until there was only a few left hiding behind their bright red cars. We sought them out, using the big purple vehicle we'd arrived in as our cover as bullets ricocheted off of metal and pavement. There was a Carnales diagonal from me across the blacktop, and I fired a few shots at him with my shotgun, but this weapon wasn't incredibly great with range.

I hid behind the car, waiting for him to go behind his hiding place to jump out while he was reloading. I would have had to wait a while if this guy was at all smart, but instead of doing the sensible thing and saving his ammo, he emptied the entire clip at me. I took my chance and ran across the pavement, my shotgun at the ready until I got to the red muscle car he was driving and snuck around it, quickly blowing his head to bits and spraying it all over the car and its windows.

While my shotgun adventure was taking place, Troy had busied himself in the front seat of the truck to hotwire it, mumbling to himself as he struggled to find the right wires. I had no idea how to hotwire a car, so I couldn't pity him. That was why I pestered other people about rides, borrowing cars, or I stole them off of people who still had the keys in their hands.

"I got it!" He shouted, and he waved me towards my car. I saw I was to act as the escort for the truck back to the row. Naturally, I hopped in and turned the key, almost not even waiting for the engine to roll up before I pressed the pedal to the floor and threw the car into reverse so I could turn around and let Troy take the lead.

More Carnales gave chase as we flew down the road, but didn't fare well against the bullets I sent towards their wheels, sending their vehicles spinning out of control at the loss of one at such high speeds. It was easier this way since I had neglected to bring along the assault rifle of Johnny's that I had fallen in love with. Our ride to the same garage I had Aisha's car decked out with explosives was bumpy and full of the music of screeching tires, insults screamed in Spanish, and gunfire.

Troy ahead of me came to a screeching stop once we were in the parking lot, and simultaneously we exited our vehicles.

"Well, we got the truck Dex wanted," he said, "Now all we gotta do is figure out what the hell he needed it for."

The warm sun was shining brightly down in uptown Stilwater, it's golden blanket draped over the three-million dollar house once owned by the late Alejandro Lopez and now passed on to his eldest son Hector Lopez, the present leader of the Carnales.

Outside by the pool, The Lopez brothers and two men, all dressed in thousand-dollar red suits sat around a checked patio table, deep into discussion.

"Angelo," the man in a red suit jacket with his hair perfectly groomed addressed the man to his left, "I want you to go to the lab tonight. One of our shipments didn't arrive and I want you to make sure that no one is skimming off of the top."

"No problem, Hector," Angelo Lopez assured his brother.

"Angelo," a woman who had been sunbathing by the pool sat up in her chair and opened her large brown eyes, "You promised we would go shopping tonight."

"Ah, shit," he shook his head, "¡Mira! Hector, I told Luz I would take her out tonight, can victor take care of-,"

"Is Victor sitting at this table Angelo?" His brother glared at him, making the scar over his left eye and the lack of pigment look that much more sinister as he did.

The younger brother looked over to the man at his left, who only stared back in response before answering, "Yes?"

"So if I wanted iVictor/i to handle it, I could have asked him, right?"

Angelo nodded, staying quiet for a moment. There wasn't any point in arguing this. He was given his orders, and to disobey Hector was to face harsh punishment by Hector's hand. The younger Lopez brother was not too keen on being punished.

"Luz, we'll go out tomorrow."

"But Angelo-," she protested.

He shouted at her in Spanish to affirm his decision. Not even his girlfriend, Luz Avalos, who he loved dearly could sway him to disobey Hector when it was made clear that Angelo would do as he was told.

"Gracias," Hector nodded to his brother.

The man at Hector's right, a balding man with olive skin and a Colombian accent sporting a white suit jacket and a red floral print dress shirt accompanied by a thick gold chain and a large cross spoke up to Angelo. "You should be nicer to the lady," he said, his tone amiable enough.

Victor buzzed something suggestive in Spanish, drawing laughs from both Angelo, and the Colombian, but a displeased expression from Luz, who glared at her boyfriend and spat an insult.

"Luz," he said, still smiling, "come on, mama, don't be so sensitive."

"I'll be inside," she said, turning to head indoors when the Colombian interrupted her.

"Señorita, a moment," he pleaded, and she turned to face him mid-step, "If Angelo is busy, I can take you out tonight."

Her expression softened and her pink painted lips spread into a smile, "Oh, Mister Orejuela, I couldn't," she said, too flirtatiously for Angelo's liking.

"Nonsense, it would be my pleasure," he insisted, his eyes flicking over to Angelo, "That is, if you don't mind me entertaining the lady..?"

Angelo stood up, fire in his eyes and about to protest. Of course not! Why should he let Luz go out with another man while he was working? But he quickly regained his seat after he received the disapproving head shake from Hector. Angelo calmed immediately so as to not invoke his brother's wrath.

"No," he said finally, "Of course not."

"Good," Orejuela said cheerfully, and then to Luz, "I'll see you at eight," She smiled and brushed a strand of her shiny dark-brown hair behind her ear before finally leaving the men to be inside. Mister Orejuela admired the backside of her until she was out of sight, before he complimented her boyfriend with, "That's a lot of woman you got there, Angelo."

"I know," he narrowed his eyes.

"Eh," Hector cut in with a shrug, "I always thought she was a bitch," to which Victor spared a hearty laugh to, only fueling the fire in Angelo's eyes. Hector didn't notice, however. His cell phone sounded off and it took precedence over the mood swings of his younger brother. Hector answered the phone, replying to the caller in Spanish. As it progressed, Hector's featured darkened and his tone more urgent until he was hissing angrily at the person on the other side.

"What is it?" Angelo asked, only to be ignored.

Hector shouted some more before clicking off the phone in frustration. All three men had their brows raised, but only Mister Orejuela had the courage to speak up first when the rather unpleasant conversation had ceased.

"That didn't sound encouraging."

"Everything is fine," Hector insisted firmly.

"Of course it is," Orejuela stood up, unconvinced as he excused himself to check on 'the Senorita.'

Angelo went past the boiling point, and as Orejuela left, biting his thumb at the other man and screaming obscenities at him for being a pervert for Luz.

"Angelo," Hector began gently, "You are my brother, and I love you… but if you let your dick fuck things up with the Colombians, I'm gonna cut it off."

"Forgive me, Hector," Angelo sat back down quickly and lowered his head upon being scolded.

"Don't let it happen again."

Victor spoke up, addressing the deal with the phone conversation now that Orejuela was otherwise occupied.

"Those pendejos in Saint's Row are the ones who took the shipment," he explained now that it was safe, "With the Colombians arriving, we can't show any weakness."

"The Colombians are already here," Angelo pointed out.

"All the more reason to settle this out. Angelo, Victor, gather your men together. It's time to tear Saint's row apart."