Concrete Jungle

by Onkwehonwe Kashatstenhshera

A cartel hitman, an ex soldier, a wayward gunmen with no cause, an ex KGB agent, & a familiar family oriented coke addicted thug find their way to sunny LS finding themselves around similar scum. Immoral car salesmen, low life bangers, king pins, & hackers. When an eventual rift in the friendship divides their destinies, alliances shift & none of them will ever be the same again.

65. Death's Innocent Face

Paul

2009

Carrot Or The Stick

The seventeen year old was shocked to be asked along. But Packie had grown fond enough of him. Packie was driving his red car into Northwood. "So what are we doing, Packie? Why are we going t North Holland?"

"Hey, don't you guys run North Holland these days too? Or at least Northwood?"

"I think that's Dominicans...listen...I can't do this anymore, man. Can you keep a secret?"

"The real question, boyo is can I remember one?"

"Well it's not like you can turn me in for this shit anyway. I'm not the son of a Lord. They just looked out for me. That is, Manny did and the rest just fell into place. I'm from up in Canada..." He told him about what had happened with his father, his mother, he told him of his early teen years with the Warriors playing basketball against tribal police and how he said he was Puerto Rican to protect himself."

Packie whistled. "i gotta hand it to ya, lad. That's a fucked up story. You sure you aint Irish on your moms side?"

"Kraut," Packie stated. "Well shit. No wonder. They don't have happy endings either. Look, it's fine you did what you had to do to stay outta jail but you cant really run from your past or your family, kid."

'Isn't that what you do?"

"Yeah and look how that's gone for me.. I've been in and out of jail since I was a kid. Got a homicidal brother \in the police department that had a low rent goon take out my oldest brother since he was too much of a pussy to do it himself. I gotta stay on the lamb from him so he doesn't try and bring me up on any number of charges he probably could. Gotta watch out for Guineas...I think I'll have my revenge some day but it's hard to get to me brother right now. So I aint pissed you idn't tell me. I'm pissed you'd think I'd snitch!"

"Hey sorry man...I'm just trying to watch my own ass. I read this story about this Mexican lawyer from East LS once who did interviews in the 70's with the father of gonzo journalism. He pretended to be Samoans sometimes to protect himself cause he had people he had people trying to kill him."

"Well played. You're a pretty good liar for a teenager. You kinda remind me of me. When I was your age. I think that's why we get ...if you trust me, you gotta trust my partner. Or he won't trust you."

"You mean...?"

"Yeah..."

They arrived at Dwayne's place. A lot of African Americans gave them stares and some Dominicans did as well but he wasn't sure if they were staring at both of them but for sure they were watching Packie.

They went and knocked on Dwayne's door. He answered. "What's up, Patrick. Who's that?"

Packie looked at him. "It's time to be a man...Dwayne here? He can't rat you out either. Cause he had the same guy that killed my brother kill his former friend..." Dwayne looked at Packie. "Son, what the fuck are you doing telling this kid my business?" He had an Uzi in hand. "Man, get in here! Both of you!"

Paul looked at Packie's eyes as he tok his shades off. "You motherfucker! You've been snorting yayo! I just told you my lifestory when you're most likely to run off at the mouth?" Dwayne looked confused. "Both of ya'll need to tell me what the fuck is goin on."

Packie said, "Pablo...Paul...chill out. Dwayne is a friend. It's not like I told a stranger..."

"He's a stranger to me!" Paul said. He then told Dwayne who he was and what he'd done. "Aight...you killed your pops...I killed my old friend...and this cokehead killed an a guy with a gun in a bank..." He then looked at him and said, "Wait, aint you Pablo? Now that you mention it when I got outta the joint, Playboy X mentioned something about a Puerto Rican kid in Bohan at the club."

"Yeah, that's him... Packie said. "And sorry it took me so long to get here but I had other pressing business. Italian business."

"You should have come here straight and sober, man. But you're here now..."

The thirty six year old blacl male stated, "This motherfucker...this wigger motherfucker, son. He kidnapped my girl Cherise. I heard about this shit going down between him and Niko when he met her on the streets...he had killed somebody for me that had her with him. But Niko spared her. Then he saw her later and she was with some white dude that beat her. He told him to leave her alone but he got himself a little crew of his own. He kidnapped Cherise only I don't think he's trying to get any ransom for her. I think he's just a crazy motherfucker that thinks he owns her."

'Jesus! Christ if I'd known that was what was going on I'd have come over sooner!" Packie exclaimed. Paul had question. "So she's not in danger? I mean in the time since he took her and now?"

"Naw. Not of death anyway. At least i don't think so but the word is he's got her sewed up in his spot. He won't let her leave the apartment."

"Alright so where we driving to in Northwood?"

Dwayne got on his lap top. "He's somewhere either in Northwood or North Holland. I got this Trackify app for her phone but I don't know where she's at."

Packie told him, "Move over. I'll see what I can do..." He worked the app and found it. "It's in this building. At least the last place her phone was..."

He dialed her number. It rang four times and a male answered. "Bueno..."

"Who is this? I'm looking for Cherise..." He turned to Dwayne. "I thought you said he was white?"

Dwayne shot him a look of confusion. Dwayne took the phone and demanded, "Who are you and what have you done with Cherise? You with that redheaded bitch?"

"I don't know who you're looking for manito but I just found this phone the other day, brother man."

"Where?"

"Fuck you! It's my phone now."

He hung up. Dwayne dialed the number again but there was no answer. He tried a third time and it went to voice mail. He went to the Trackif app site again and sent it to Packie's phone. "Alright well...this asshole is in the building somewhere. Sounded Dominican."

"Fuck, son I aint trying to start a war with them just to get my girl back.I just want to know where the motherfucker got the phone."

"Fuck him. He mouthed off. At the very least he's got an ass whooping coming to him."

They headed up two flights of stairs as Packie and Paul and Dwayne made their way up. Dwayne handed Packie a Uzi as well. He spotted two Dominicans standing outside the apartment. They were around the corner and Packie told Paul, "Hey if you go up to them you can get them by surprise. They might draw on us but a teenager is less likely to set them off."

"I don't know about all that, Packie," Stated Dwayne. "Son is pretty big. Like a football player."

Paul walked up. One of the Dominicans had brown skin with shiny jet black wavy hair and a five oclock shadow in his early 20's standing at five nine wearing baggy blue jeans and a cap that had the colors of the Dominican flag, a Swingers jacket over a white t and Hinterlands. The other wore a green bandanna and a blue neckerchief and a red t shirt and a blue jacket and black jeans. This one was a black Dominican. "Hey have either of you seen my phone?"

"What phone?" Demanded the first. "My dads just called."

"Dads?" The black Dominican asked. "As in plural?"

"Yeah. I'm the son of two fags. Big deal. It's 2009, dude. I got a hundred bucks for whoever gives it back."

The black Dominican sneered. "I make that in a hour manito. Fuck outta here..." The other stated, "Naw, chill Oscar. Maybe we got the phone. But let me see the money."

Just then the other Dominican recognized him. "Hold on!" He pulled out his machete and put it against Paul's throat. "I recognize this maricon! This Puertoriqueno is a Lord! He was a friend of Manny Escuela! I seen him doing business with him and Elizabeta Torres in Bohan before he went missing and she got pinched! Gimme one good reason I shouldn't open your throat right now?"

The other Dominican forced him against theh wall pulling his wallet out. "This motherfucker barely has $50!"

Paul withdrew his pistol and said, "But i got this..." He fired striking the one with the flag hat in the chest. He held his chest clutching his wound. He fired another shot. The man fell back. Oscar tried to swing his blade at him. He ducked and it went into the wall. He pulled it out and Paul staggered accidentally dropping the pistol. Packie came out from around the corner as did Dwayne with weapons drawn. "If you don't want to be swiss cheese I suggest you drop the fucking blade!" Packie growled. Marco stated, "This is my hood, you're outta your element, blanquito!"

"Naw, this is my hood," Dwayne stated. "I run uptown. The Trinity's just live here."

"This aint '98 no more, mang. It's a new day."

Packie fired a burst of rounds into Oscar's left leg. "Hijo de puta! You motherfucker! Manitos get out here and fuck these assholes up!"

Two Dominicans tried to come out the door but Packie fired at the door frame hitting a shorter man in the face and a taller man in the neck. They both collapsed on top of each other sideways. Dwayne smacked Oscar in the face with the automatic. "Big man, pulling a machete on a youngster, huh?" The Dominican howled in pain, "That motherfucker's built like a full back he aint no kid! He a punk ass Lord!"

"I'm not a fucking Lord I just did business and lived with them!" Packie forced Oscar to empty his pockets. He found the phone. "Oh wait you're the guy on the phone, huh?"

The Irishmen dragged him down the hall. Two more Dominicans came up the hall but Paul had his pistol out and started spraying. He hit the first with four in the abdomen while the next ducked back into his apartment but fired from cover with an Ithaca 37 and it barely missed Paul. Packie threw oscar down the stairs and Dwayne rushed down the stairs and kicked the Dominican in his leg wound and then his abdomen. "WHERE THE FUCK YOU GET THE CELL PHONE, SON?! YOU BETTER TELL ME!" The Dominican coughed. "My boys...gonna kill you...fuckin bitches! I aint telling you shit!" Dwayne stomped on his wound and as three Dominicans tried to come up the stairs, he fired striking them and they fell down the stairs. Twenty two rounds went off. He put the smoking weapon up to the Afro Dominican's shin. He screamed as theh skin sizzled over the bullet wounds.

"It's only gonna get worse from here!" The gangster screamed, "I just fuckin found it, man! Over in East Holland!"

"Bullshit..."

"Alright...alright!" I bought it off some blanquito, man! Some redhead! The projects out there!"

"That's all I wanted to hear," He hit him in the face. He knocked him out. Packie aimed the Uzi at him. "I say we finish him off here and now. This guy could be trouble down the road," Paul had some blood on his neck from the nick. He aimed the 9mm at the unconscious Trinity ready to shoot as well but Dwayne shook his head. "Naw, son. We're not here for these guys. We're trying to get Cherise back."

"D, you're fucking up, man. This guy lives through that shit he's gonna come back on all of us someday..."

"Naw he can't fuck with us. Paul will be safe in Bohan, I can always find a new spot in North Holland and you got your place in Dukes."

Paul and Packie got into the Comet and Dwayne got on his NRG-900. They began to drive to East Holland. Dwayne called Packie on speakerphone as he drove there. "Yo son. We need to be careful, b. It's rough in East Holland and I might have once run things out there but as I came back that's the part of Holland that's always been hostile to me. They even hated Playboy X."

"Why? What's that about?" Asked Packie. "The usual hood bullshit. East Holland crews don't like us. Been that way for years. They resented when I was on top when I was twenty five and they resented Playboy but with the chaos that was going on when Niko got into town it's like they think they can test us."

"Can't be an East Holland drug crew," Packie stated. "I remember Niko told him me brother sent him in there to deal with a smack dealer in there and they were fuckin hostile to him the second he came on the property."

Dwayne told him, "If there's one thing I learned since I got out the bin, son, it's that times is changing. And what might have been uncool yesterday goes today and what flies today might not no Playboy got killed, I remember thinking...I deserved my rightful place at the top and it hurt but it went back to being business as usual. But nowadays the more motherfuckers try and take shots at me, the more I aint even sure I want this empire. Hell, Playboy could have had all this shit but he tried to have me killed."

They arrived in East Holland at the projects and Dwayne pulled up alongside three gang members. "Yo son, you seen a short haired high yella sister around here accompanied by a white cat? She might look a little beat up?"

"Dwayne? Nigga get the fuck outta here, b! You don't run shit around here no more, man. Get ghost before I turn ya ass into on for real," Stated a light skinned black male wearing a white long t shirt under a black puffy jacket and red and black track pants.

"You serious? You forget I'm the one who put ya'll up on game, right?"

"Yeah but since yo ass turned prison bitch it was the homie Playboy that kept the peace around here between our side and yours. He got more of a head for business than you do with your funky ass. get up outta here while we still willing to let you."

"I'm just looking for Clarice. Tell me where she's at and I'm gone."

"Hold up, nigga... you trying to tell me you let a motherfuckin devil steal your bitch? You must really not be hitting it right..." He would have kept his eye on Dwayne and would have seen Dwayne reaching for the Uzi if not for Packie pulling up revving the engine hard on his Comet. "And what the fuck is this?! Hey where you from?!" He screamed starting to make way over there when Dwayne's Uzi rattled off and he emptied the magazie into the man and his two homies. Packie got out firing his Uzi as well striking a dark skinned man of Haitian descent with a shaved head standing at five nine wearing a white t shirt a gray puffy jacket and baggy blue jeans and Hinterlands. He struck the man with nine rounds in the gut. The next man to get it was a moderate skinned black male of about six three with ornrows and bright brown eyes wearing a black wife beater and baggy blue jeans and Hinterlands who was smoking a Redwood.

Packie and Dwayne ducked behind the Comet to reload while Paul held off reenforcements with the 9mm. Three men tried to cross the street but Paul fired at them forcing them into cover behind a parked gray Patriot. "Two motherfucking crackas and Dwayne Forge aint this a bitch?!" Screamed one of the men. "Nigga, the kid is a motherfucking Rican I swear that nigga's a Lord and that bitch in green is a motherfucking Mick. Mick-Reary!" Screamed a black male in a dark blue and black track jacket and white and black track pants and a white do-rag while the man who had first insulted Paul, a dark skinned black male with dread locks wearing a red t shirt and a black parka and gray jeans fired a .380 at the three. Packie and Dwayne came up firing.

They both hit the male in the track jacket, six from Dwayne and nine from Packie with the latter hitting the man in the sternum while Dwayne hit the man in the waist. Paul fired striking the other shit talker striking the man in the right shin before he could get back to cover. Though Paul had no problems with African Americans, he was starting to learn they were very different from Afro Canadians and a lot less perceptive about the races that were neither white or black. "I wish you had stayed white!" Screamed Paul. "Cause your mama should have swallowed you, bitch!" The guy cried out and Packie yelled, "Pablo! Nice one! I can see the Bohan public school system has given you the right kind of education!"

"Man, shut the hell up you fuckin leprachaun!" Screamed the black gangster. "You jigs think everybody that aint black is white!" Yelled Packie back. Dwayne turned to Packie. "Fuck you just say?"

"Come on, Dwayne you head him insult me and the kid! i got a right to throw it back at him."

"D youse a house nigga, mayne! Fuck you rolling with Ricans and Irish for? You too good for Holland, baby?"

"You the one protecting some redheaded pimp!" Dwayne screamed back. "And North Holland is the real Holland! This is Spanish Holland. Ya'll will be overran by Lords and Trinity's any day now!"

Packie ran around the side of the Patriot the man was ducked behind. Paul saw the gang member reloading and cursing at the pain in his leg. Paul fired into the back of his head. He now took cover behind the Patriot while Packie and Dwayne maintained cover behind the Comet as two gangsters were firing at the street with AK's from the projects. Dwayne sprayed blidnly with eleven rounds and hit one of the men who did this with at least four rounds in the right rib cage. Packie came out blazing striking the other in the stomach with nine rounds and as he fell he hit him with another eight in the back. Packie went to scoop up one of the AK's when suddenly the door to the building burst open and a gangster wielding an Itchaca 37 came out. Packie sprayed with one hand at the man and Dwayne with both since Packie was midway grabbing an Assault Rifle and the gangster fell over with five rounds in his chest and Paul squeezed off several as well missing most of them but at least three hit him, two in the left leg one in the right foot.

The gang member was bleedin out and Dwayne stated, "Where's Cherise? Don't make like you don't know what I'm saying..."

"She's up on the fifth floor, man...fourth door on the left, aight? Damn Dwayne...don't you know this motherfuckers the brother of a fed, nigga? And you..." He said looking at Paul. "I seen you cooling with Manny a few times. Man both of ya'll fucking up riding with this motherfucker...he don't know about the struggle of these streets...Uptown...Bohan...Broker...he don't know what we know...this bitch from Meadows Park and his old hood be Purgatory...that shit aint hood...ya'll killing me...for what?"

"You was about to do the same to us, so don't give me that bullshit, son..." Dwayne stated. "Yo...fuck i care about some girl fo...? Or the motherfucker that's tryna turn her out? All i see is three crazy motherfuckers coming up in the hood blazing the fuck I'm supposed to do...? Man...you know his brother Francis sent some bitch to pop Clarence...?"

"So? Clarence was an asshole..." The gangster coughed up blood. "Think what that means, son...! The feds can send anybody down here to clean house! This motherfuckas brotha is a snitch, man! Derrick...snitched on his own peeps. His brother up in the bin and this motherfucker still on the street...how that aint happening if it aint cause he work with LCPD, dog...?"

Packie pointed the Uzi at the drug dealer. "SHUT THE FUCK UP!" He screamed. "You don't talk about my family that way!" Packie said hitting him. "Go ahead...pull the trigger...you don't run this town...not no more...uptown cats can easily treat you Upper West Side bitches...and any of the faggots from Meadows..." The gangster looked at Paul. "You in over your head lil nigga...you mixed up with the wrong types that's gonna bite you in the ass one day..."

Dwayne said, "Packie, come on. We got the address. Let's leave him. We aint here for him."

"Fuck that! I want to kill this bitch. You go! I'll cover you from down here."

"He's a waste of a bullet," Paul stated. "He's gonna die anyway..."

A minute later, Paul followed Dwayne up the stairs. Dwayne let the rounds fly as a gangster wearing a red do-rag and a yellow jacket made his way down the stairs with two Glocks. He was struck in the left shoulder, the right thigh the chest and the stomach. He fell over bleeding collapsing down the stairs. A door opened on the floor they were on. Paul fired striking a man who was black but about the same shade as Paul wearing a yellow and gray shirt. He stuck him in the right ear. The guy collapsed dropping his .45 and the dealer cried out, "MOTHERFUCKA YOU TOOK MY EAR!"

Paul fired the rest of the magazine into him and a man who was coming behind with a 12 gauge. The man took two rounds one in the right cheek one in the right eyeball. He fell over dropping dead. Paul was out of ammo. He grabbed the shotgun from the deceased man. Dwayne made his way up to the floor they were meant to be on. Paul racked the shotgun and fired at the door knob and Dwayne came through the door and spotted the man that Niko had beaten up. He saw Cherise and that she had a black eye. The white New Holland resident pulled out a switch blade and pressed it to her neck. "You must be Dwayne. I saw that bitch Cherise get a ride from that Russian fuck and I know he's your boy."

"And you running the drug crew out here. So you could have any woman you want. Why you fucking with her?"

"I could say the same thing to you, man! You're the man running uptown. Forget this bitch! I aint running nothing!"

"That's bullshit, man! Why did people try and kill us when we're here for you if you aint running things?"

"You came into my hood spraying! Of course they're gonna try and get you!"

. Paul got an idea. He ran out to the fire escape and Packie came to cover the door to make sure the man didn't try and escape. Paul hopped to the balcony nearest the fire escape. He hopped from deck to deck until he got to the one just outside the man's place. He saw the man still had his blade to the woman. Dwayne was about to drop his weapon. Paul knocked on the deck window he knew it was a risky move but it was the only play since he couldn't shoot from the outside without also hitting her.

The man turned around and the knife cut her neck slightly but it wasn't a fatal wound. Paul forced the door open and the man lunged at him but Paul hit him with the shotgun in the face. Dwayne grabbed the man's hand disarming him taking the knife and he broke his left thumb with a sickening pop. "FUCK!" Screamed the man and Dwayne handed Packie his SMG and Dwayne punched him in the face drawing blood on the first blow. The man's head snapped back as he hit him and the man came back with a left hook to Dwayne's jaw. "Fuckin bitch!" Screamed the woman beater.

Packie noticed something as the two men were beating each other, something neither Paul or Dwayne could have noticed or at least less likely to happen with Paul or Dwayne because they had only known him a short time. This man Dwayne was fighting voice wise sounded a bit like Gordon just in the way his voice sounded only Gordon was not a white guy trying to act black. He was Irish and proud. Dwayne's lip was bleeding from a blow from his rival. "Straight, bitch son! Dudes that hit women can't go head up with a man!"

Dwayne grabbed the man and slammed his head into the coffee table busting his forehead wide open. "Dwayne, stop! you're gonna kill him!" Cherise tried to stop him but Packie pulled her back and Paul was not sure if she wanted him to stop because of concern for her abuser or if it was out of concern that Dwayne would have left evidence all over him. Nothing could stop him, however. Packie stood back holding Cherise back with a sneer. "Sweetheart, we're past the point of no killing. The three of us had to lay out a lot of people just to get to didn't matter that it was a woman beater in here. They saw it as an invasion of their neighborhood."

Paul knew he was right. If anything, even if the East Holland Drug Crew was to hypothetically say that they could have handled a man like that on their turf their own way, that would be just an excuse. it wasn't like they weren't aware he was living here already and it wasn't like they weren't racially hostle to guys like him but he must have moved in all though he had already been living uptown if he had run ins with Cherise before. Paul couldn't figure if based on where he lived and the way he talked he was another white guy too slow for white flight or if he was a gentrification type. Though they were usually hipsters, there were some that tried to adapt to the neighborhood lingo and style of dressing. It seemed the white birds had flown north for the spring.

Paul had turned up the man's sound system to drown out the noise, not that it mattered much now since there had already been a shootout in the halls. The song Empire State Of Mind by Jay Z played. Paul hated that song and pretty much all Jay Z songs. Despite living on the east coast, he was not much of a fan of east coast rap. But it sounded like the kind of song a douchebag like this guy would listen to. He also went to the cupbard and got some bleach and amonia and began using it on everything that had been touched. He would have to do more once Dwayne finished the fight.

The man was still putting up a fight. He kicked Dwayne in the stomach forcing him off of him. He then followed up with a left foot to the forehead. He got up grabbing a lamp. "Motherfucka! Come up in my crib!' He swung it hitting Dwayne in the back and partly in the head. Dwayne fell over caught off guard and the man proceeded to grab a shard of glass from the shattered balcony sliding door. Cherise stomped on Packie's foot with all her weight and grabbed Paul's 9mm from his waistband. She pulled the trigger with both hands gripping the pistol tightly and she fired two shots. The first one hit the back top of the man's head and the second hit him in the brain stem. The man's brains exploded. "Oh god...I can't believe I just did that...!"

Dwayne stood up and she started to cry. He got up and hugged her. "Hey...you saved me...and i came to save you...that's all that matters..."

"But Dwayne...I aint never killed nobody before! I don't want to go to jail!" She sobbed. "Well if you're gonna start, he's not a bad first one..." Paul said. Dwayne looked at Paul and said, "Really son? Is this the time to be talking like that?"

"I didn't want him dead...not by your hand or mine...or Niko's...this is so fucked up!"

"Yeah but Niko spared him only cause you told him to. He would have dealt with it his way...our way if you would have let him. And i aint trying to blame the victim or nothing but him being alive was part of the problem."

She sobbed. "Dwayne...when Niko helped me he told me...I should stay away from dating and that when I gotback to it not date drug dealers. But you're more than that to me..."

Dwayne said, "Look we can talk about all this later...for now we gotta get up outta here..."

Packie said, "Wait. He'll have some of your flesh under his finger nails and even with the bleach, they'll still see signs of a struggle..."

"I mean...what you want from me, son? I'm not a miracle worker, man."

"I got an idea. Paul, gimme that shotgun..." Paul handed it to Packie. Cherise gave Paul the 9mm back. "Take it...I don't want it. But thank you...whoever you two are..."

Packie took the shotgun and fired it twice destroying both of the man's hand in a blast. "I don't know if that'll work but...it was worth a shot. Oh wait. One more thing. We'd better take care of the dental records too. Plus they could find skin from when you hit him on his face."

"Packie, let me see that, man..." He handed him the shotgun and put it in the deceased man's mouth and Packie told Cherise, "You might want to look away."

He fired until there was nothing left resembling a face and his teeth were broken and scattered among the broken skull and brain matter. In fact, one of the man's molars was now attached to a piece of what had been his temporal lobe. They looked down and saw the police had arrived at the front of the projects and several officers were running inside with Handguns, Shotguns and Assault Rifles. N.O.O.S.E had shown up too. "Those fucks are gonna cover the exits!" Packie stated.

"Let's just hop down..." Paul said. He lowered himself down to hang off the deck and let himself fall and caught the balcony on the next floor down. "Come on, man!"

Packie asked, "How the fuck are you not afraid of falling?"

"I've never been afraid of heights. Besides, I'm more afraid of getting shot!"

He dropped down to the next. Packie began to do the same. "Dwayne, I can't! I'm scared of heights!" Cherise stated. "Come on, girl, I got you!"

"We don't have time to fuck around! Both of you get the fuck down here!" Packie snapped.

"Hold up..." Dwayne dropped to the deck below and he said, "Cherise...just hang down and I'll catch you...I promise."

"I can't, D! I could fall!"

Dwayne told her, "Look in all the time you were with me danger came it was just part of living out here but didn't I always protect you when I was around? Didn't you always trust me to keep you safe from danger or get you out of it when you were in it?"

She sighed. "Yeah..." She said in a shaky voice. She hung down and she let him pull her legs down to him. "You did good...now we gotta do the same thing again...come on, baby just three more..."

She did and they got down to the second floor. Despite most of the cops and N.O.O.S.E members getting inside the building going up the stairwell, two officers spotted them. "Hey!" Packie yelled to both Dwayne and Cherise, "Fuck! Both of you duck down!" They took cover inside. Paul and Packie fired at the officers who were firing on them. Packie sprayed striking the first officer in the chest with multiple rounds. The officer's best took most of them but three hit him in the left arm and he fell over. Packie let another barrage into the same place and they went through. Paul fired the shotgun hitting a cop in the stomach, an officer of Puerto Rican descent. The blast also hit the officer n both thighs and he was bleeding badly.

The officer Paul hit scurried to cover returning fire. "Taking fire...! Requesting back up! Officer down at..." Two more officers came, one white and one black the first had a standard firearm the other had an M3. They fired at Packie and Paul who took cover behind one of the squad cars. Paul fired as well sending one shot their way. Dwayne sprayed his SMG over the side of the balcony shooting down into the parking lot. He struck one of the officers with six rounds in the right elbow badly wounding the officer as he not only broke the arm in two ways he also caused a compound fracture.

Packie approached what remained of the downed officers. He took the shotgun from one of them and pressed it to the skull of the man and pulled the trigger. The man's brains exploded in a burst of gray and red. He approached the next cop, a wounded black officer he had shot with seven rounds in total divided up between his two legs. The officer was too weak to fire his gun. "McReary..." The man groaned. "I know that's you...you piece of shit...getting a kid involved...fuck's the matter with you...? Old school Irish mob wouldn't have used somebody that young. Your father had some class..."

"You're right. My dad wouldn't recruit somebody his age. He was too busy touching them. And what did you fuckin fucks ever do to stop him? You booked him so many times but not for that! And now you work for me brother...you aint taking us in. You just lost your life for nothing..."

"Francis...is the only decent McReary left...after your poor mama and Katie."

Packie smacked him hard with the SMG. "Kate was the only one that was ever decent among us. And ma was a prisoner in her own home and marriage! you wanna know the difference between a McReary who's a cop and a McReary who's a robber, piggy?"

"Not really..." The officer said wincing in pain. "But I'm sure you're going to tell me."

"The difference is the cop knows he aint decent but he pretends he's the only McReary man who is. Where as we'll tell you none of us are decent..." With that, he pulled the trigger shooting the officer in the collar bone targeting his artery. "I just hope your widow gets to have my weasel brother handing her the American flag. That way she'll know who's responsible for killing her husband. And I'll know where to aim."

The man got a worried look on his face as he breathed his last in silence and Packie took that to mean that he thought he would shoot his wife but truthfully he didn't know or care who the pig was married to. He meant he'd be aiming at his big brother. preferably with a Sniper Rifle. The same one that was used to kill Derrick."

Dwayne finally got Cherise down. Dwayne had Cherise get on the bike with him and Paul got in Packie' Comet. "Shit...! We need a place to lay low only I don't want to bring the heat back to where Gordon is and it's too far anyway from here. You got a place we can go? We need to lay low a couple of days..."

"My place is too small..." Cherise said.

"Where I'm staying...Bohan is too far too..." Paul added. "I got a spot we can go to...but you won't like it...It's Niko's apartment that used to be Playboy's. He only stays there a couple days of week I checked with the doorman. He don't know nothing about your falling out with Niko. We can just say we're surpising him. Besides, my reach still means something uptown."

"Fuck, you're kidding..." Packie said. "It's either that or prison, son. I know you want to see your brother again but do you want it to be that way?"

Paul told him, "Think of it this way. You can eat his food and bomb his toilet before we leave."

"When you put it that way...you lead I'll follow."

He drove out of there. They got into Playboy's old apartment an were able to get in with no trouble. As they sat down Dwayne said, "Packie we gotta talk about something. What are you teaching this kid, man? I heard you say jig back there. What kinda shit is that? We're suppose to be friends. I thought you were more open minded like your brother Derrick you told me about ot like Gerry."

"We are friends, Dwayne but if some fuckers knocks me heritage I go tit for that. It's not like I called him that first. The only people I always make fun of with or without provocation is wops and limeys but if somebody's intolerant to me what am i supposed to do just call him an asshole? Cause I know society says to but it's just like a fight to me. If they start it, you have a right to finish it."

"I don't think he's a racist, D or he wouldn't have helped you help me..." Cherise said. "But it aint cool either. You asked what are you supposed to do in that case? Well I've had white homegirls get called a devil by sistas. Why not just say fuck the insults and just go straight to taking off on them? That's not taking it laying down but it aint stooping to their level either."

"I'm Irish, lass. Insults and punches go hand in hand. We fuckin grow up with it."

"Yeah but still. This dude is a youngster what example is that showing him?"

"Paul? He gets along with everybody for the most part as long as you respect him."

"And i aint a kid. Seventeen is a man in most cultures..." Paul said.

"Yeah but your brain doesn't stop growing till you're 25. We're just saying. There's a lot of good and bad you can learn on these streets but how to be ugly in that way aint something you should learn," Though neither Dwayne or Cherise would say it they didn't hate Niko the way Packie did and they saw him as an outsider that had helped them so they saw the good in that an in trusting outsiders if they earn it. "Look, it's better than what Gerry told him when black kids in South Bohan someties calle Paul a cracker. Even though he's fuckin pecan shaded."

"What'd he say?" Dwayne asked. Packie said. "Since Paul's half Irish it's enough for Gerry to care a little. He said to call them n...hell you know what I'm saying. i'm not even telling Paul to do that myself if it happens to him. I'm just saying don't take it laying down and with me, somebody pisses on me I want to hurt em verbally and physically."

He then said, "Three of us got a lot more in common than you realize. All of us had abusive dads."

Dwayne got a look on his face that looked sad. "What's up, man?" Asked Paul. "As much as I tell Packie not to be teaching you the wrong shit...i kind of envy you for something only if I tell you why, I'd be setting just as bad an example as he is. Not just with the way he talks but snorting too. I used to have habit but I kicked it."

"What are you talking about?" The 17 year old asked. "i kinda envy you. You got to be the one that killed your pops. I wished I could have done that to mine..." Packie agreed. "Yeah...I was gonna leave that unsaid too but I've thought that too. My da was a fuckin bastard and I never got to pay him back for what he did to me but Gerry made him pay. He kille him and made it look like a suicide. That's part of why I look up to him. You got closure, got to pay him back."

"I didn't do it out of revenge. I'd wanted to kill him at times but at that moment I just wanted to stop him from hitting my mom. Maybe I even only wanted to just hurt him. Maybe cripple him..." Paul then said, "I wish I could trade places with both of you..."

"

Later, the four took their turns showering and they let Paul take the bed for now while the three of them tried to find something on TV. Paul needed a nap but as he lay down, tears ran down his cheeks thinking about the past

Mai

Baby Face sat on the porch of Romeo's place. It was just before 5 in the morning. "Romeo here?"

"Nah. he's at one of his girls houses up in Vinewood. I came here cause I can't sleep at my place, I was bored, i don't got cable cause they shut my shit off and I came here to watch then I couldn't sleep or pay attention to anything i tried to watch."

"Hey...about before..."

"Don't..." He said in a harsh tone. "It's bad enough we had to bury my homie and we haven't put the bitches that did it under yet. I don't want to listen to your shit too. It was a stupid bet and anybody that stood to collect anything either way got their blood all over it. It was at turkey shoot."

"You're embarassed you lost to me."

"You know there's such a thing as a sore winner too..."

"Look, in the Army they teach us to take down men twice our size. You did better than i thought you did. I could show you some moves."

"Fuck that. I aint learning shit from you. You might be the OG's daughter and all so i ..won't try nothing against you but you can't make me listen to you."

"Actually," She chuckled. "Based on what we saw before, i can."

"That right? Let's get something straight. I can still shoot you. And I'd have to shoot your pops too obviously. And I know how dangerous your fists and his are so I'd have to make it really good. So maybe I can't outfight a martial artist. But I can outshoot you and him if I get the drop on you."

He pulled the slide on his Glock 40 back. "You'd do that? Kill the daughter of an OG? Kill the OG himself?"

"I mean...fuck it why not? The dude that founded the Families got faded by another dude from another Family hood"

"Orange Grove, right? Yeah and they've been the most hated Family set ever since they're not even seen as Families."

"Still...whoever popped that dude...you know he had to have stripes in his hood."

"Far as I know from talking to Lamar nobody knows who actually did it. Just that a car shot him and it was probably from Orange Grove. Guys back then didn't talk about what they did. Not like today. And there's a difference between shooting somebody from another hood and shooting somebody from your hood especially somebody that founded this. Orange Grove was a thing before they jumped onto the Families card so they were able to just go back to being independent. If you do that though, you'd have to make it a secret..." She said walking towards him. "Stop..." He ordered.

"Why? Why don't you stop me? You're a gangster. Do it. Just tell the homie the Psychos did it. You know they'll believe you. We've done them harm before. We killed a shit load of them when they hit our hood up. And even though that doesn't make sense from a revenge perpective to get revenge on us for killing them while they attacked us, if somebody from their side lost a friend in that attack, it won't matter if it's offense or defense. Code of the street. You avenge him, right?"

She unbuttoned her shirt revealing her cleavage. "Girl, what the fuck are you doing?!"

"You got your guns...I got mine..." She pressed the crease in her breasts against the barrel. "You're crazy!" Mai snarled back, "And you're all talk!" She jerked her body in such a way that she was able to take the gun using her cleavage to snatch it. It wasn't like it was the most perfect grab but it caught him off guard long enough. She got his pistol and pressed it under his chin. "Or maybe...you're not all talk...but you are when it comes to me. You see me as one of you. Or...do you just...want me?"

He asked, "What are you doing?"

"Or it really could be that you respect my dad. And I may not talk like you. I may not have grown up here but I was born here. Which means I was in this neighborhood when the Da Nang Boyz was started and my father started it. He's the last one of a bunch of Vietnamese refugees that banded together. I was a toddler around here when you weren't even born. So like it or not..." She grabbed the side of his face. "That makes me hood royalty. You think you're hard?"

She pressed him against the wall of the house. She disarmed him. She felt something against her waist. "Oh, you ARE hard...you want me...?"

"I...no...i can't..."

She pulled him inside. "Yeah...you want me..." She rubbed her ass against his groin. "Yeah...you do..."

She kissed him and pushed him down into the chair. She began to undo the buckle of his pants. "Oh shit..." He said.

Ivan

The Boogeyman, Buddha and a Monster Walk Into A Bar

He'd dropped in on the Cambodian neighborhood and found himself in a circle of smoke as the East Asian gangsters were smoking weed. Buddha passed Ivan a blunt. It was a strain of DJ Short Blueberry. He was seemingly not about to take no for an answer. Despite his pushiness regarding weed, of all the gangsters here, he liked Buddha the most. Certainly more than Monster. Ivan took a toke. "So I've kept my ear to the streets, bro," Stated Buddha. "And I didn't hear anything good. You got the war with the Petrovic's which is your business but now I hear that the Markovich Family is split in two. Where does that put us with our deal?"

"The deal still stands," Ivan stated blowing smoke. Monster shook his head with a laugh. "Man, I've seen some family drama but that's some heavy shit. I've went and headed up with my pops. But stabbing him? Now that's fucked up."

"Grisha attempted to take it all from his father. This is true. But his sister is at least on the right side. Same with Vasily..."

"Do you think his old man is gonna have him killed?" Asked Sly.

"Truthfully? I don't know. Markovich is former KGB same as me. We're taught to not get emotioally attached. That the missio matters more than anything. But some of us started families in the States and that is just how deep undercover we were. But Markovich was not in the west for the duration of his missions. As a matter of fact, the majority of his missions were in Russia itself and later in Afghanistan but also in the United Kingdom in the 70's. But part of your cover being living like a normal western family, the way mine was, well...even if two operatives who started out not loving eac other married and pretended to,...it was like an arranged marriage, yes? Both your culture and mine had it. Most cultures if not all had it. You marry first love later. And this happend with my family. Markovich is a man with a heart of ice but somewhere perhaps there is the tiniest little spark. But what his son did...this won't make him anymore human. It'll only make him more angry and bitter."

"That kind of gives me a weird question," Stated TJ. "If that's your son and he stabs you, it's like should you even kill him for it? I mean I get that he fucked up majorly doing that but that's still your legacy. You kil your son at that age you probably aint having anymore kids so it's like yeah he's fucked up but is Grisha stabbing his dad anymore fucked up than probably anything his dad did in the KGB?"

Monster back handed TJ. "No more bud for you, fool. You're retarded enough as it is. Asking stupid ass questions like that."

"With a man there is no biological clock. He could probably get a Bravta mistress pregnant if he wanted to. But at his age it's unlikely Mr. Markovich would be up to raising a child seeing as he is the age of a grandfather now. And he wouldn't likely survive to see that child become an adult. So a question like that, TJ, you would have to ask Markovich himself but I wouldn't if I were you. That's going to be a sore subject for a long time. My best friend, Vasily? He believes we should kill Grisha. I'm not going to do it unless his father asks me to. As ruthless as he can be, I don't think he would be able to kill his own flesh and blood himself. He would most likely want somebody else to do it. But I won't unless asked. We're not like you street gangs. Some people...we can't just kill on a whim. And if we are asked to take out Grisha it's not a request we take lightly."

"Baba Yaga you didn't have to answer my cousin's retarded question, bro! But uh...maybe he's taking compassion on the mentally disabled..." The other Psychos laughed at that but Ivan and TJ did not and neither did the Thai gangster that was older in years or Buddha. "Well, you know what? i got an idea. A way we can help each other besides just us buying guns from you. This can be just a deal between us as fa as the money i'd put in your pocket cause i will but it comes with strings attached. But at the same time, you'll make big bank from this.I'm talking twenty five g's."

"What is it you want done?"

"First...I think your homeboy...you just said his name not too long ago...Vlad?"

"Vasily..." The gang leader nodded. "That's the one."

"What about him?" The gangster replied, "I think your boy is betraying you guys. As in he defected to Grisha's side. When i went to cop some loud from one of my boys i did time with, he was saying how he knew about our deal and what went down with the Bravta and he saw him talking to Grisha."

"Where?" Demanded Ivan. "Somewhere in Morningwood. He got a text from a client of his on the west side that got a taste for what he's got. He goes back with the dude. Anyway yeah he saw Vasily. At least that's what he said."

"And you're just telling me this now why?" Sly stated, "Not our business and besides you're KGB. We thought you would know it by now."

"Vasily and me had the same training. He has training in counter surveillance. It would be hard to do but he could lose me if i was tailing him and I could do the same. That's not to say we couldn't find each other later but that's another story. No, I didn't know about it. Is there any way to confirm this?"

"I mean I can text him and find out if he sees anything but like I said, i'd need a favor from you first. Today. For thirty large. Thirty large and information, man. You'd be a fool to throw that away."

"What's the favor?"

"A guy I did time with. Monster's second cousin. He's doing a major deal with the Dragon Circle. Buying some Charley. But a deal that big has a chance of going wrong. Monster was thinking shit would go south either from the pigs or somebody else. We want to make sure that doesn't happen. We got one major enemy up there."

"Cineza, huh? In that case, we'd better hit the road now. It's a four hour drive up there."

They did exactly that. Mikalya loaded up an AK-74. The Filipina wore a dark gray halter top and a black pair of jeans but her hair was curly this time around. Lana was there and so was Win and Jada. Lana had an M3, Win carried two Sig MPX's. Jada had two FMG-9's.

Monster carried a Beretta Cx4 Storm. TJ had a Beretta 93R with the three round burst. Sly had a Calico M960. Buddha had a CF-05 SMG.

As the eight of them rolled out, Ivan couldn't help but observe, "You must be expecting some kind of trouble to go down if you're packing shit this heavy."

"We always leave that possibility, man," Buddha said. "I mean it's better to be prepared you probably know that better than anybody, dog. Think about it."

"And if nothing does happen, cool. If it does, we blast whoever tests us."

"I'm not saying you shouldn't. It's a good policy to have. The Markovich Family is the same way. I'm only making an observation. And this is a little heavy for helping in a drug deal. Wouldn't your cousin have a bunch of soldiers too?"

"Look, he is my cousin..." Monster stated. "But he knows the turf up there better than me and a lot of his boys got pinched in a raid from FIB when they tried to make a run outta town so he's out a few soldiers and a lot of his soldiers got eyes on them by the feds. He's managed to stay off the pigs radar that way but that don't mean he don't need this deal to go down."

TJ leaned in and asked Ivan, "Hey you lived in Russia, right? You'd have to with your accent."

"Yes. From 1989 to 2008. But I did travel to other places as well. Why do you ask?"

"I just thought it might be cool to visit there some day. I like history and well...with the Cold War and all I know it's over but I kind of want to see what it's like there now. They say the country has changed and gotten a lot better."

"It has..." Ivan admitted. "And between you and me, all though I hate our president over there, that has no bearing on the fact that the country is in better shape than it was when I first went over there. As much as I was a Communist and in many ways still am, I can't help but wonder if I backed the wrong side."

"Yeah...you know we met with the Markovich Family a few times when you weren't there and I got the feeling that Grisha didn't like the old country that much. I mean it's like he did and he didn't. He wasn't feeling it in the early 90's until it was already starting to be capitalist."

"Yeah, I feel you, man...It's kinda tough to believe you were right about something your entire life and then just...find out it was wrong you know?" TJ whispered to him, "Sometimes I feel like I did that here but I gotta live where I do you know? So I did what i have to to survive."

Ivan understood. TJ wasn't a natural born fighter. He wasn't big and he wasn't strong. In fact most of the Asians in the car were not big and Ivan was the largest one there but at least the others were stronger. The irony was, as much as TJ had joined the gang for protection as had many who couldn't fight, if he was to end up in prison which was very likely, he would get fucked up. Sure, there was the chance that he would have protection due to status within the gang and who his cousin was but that didn't mean bigger and meaner inmates might not try him. It didn't mean there wasn't infighting. Even among the various Asian ethnicities. They wouldn't bunk a Japanese and a Chinese person together in the San Andreas prison system. Even if the two wouldn't try and kill each other as the state assumed they would, the state wouldn't take the chance but in a prison with so many enemies there was only so many places to be.

The Asians and Samoan gangs could hand the Vagos their asses on the streets of Cypress Flats but all that meant nada in the joint. "I understand..." Ivan told him. "We're all just trying to survive a war zone. In one way or another. Tell me something...and I ask this because you are Hmong, yes? I had a friend that was Hmong..." Ivan leaned in himself and whispered, "But she was from the other side of the tracks..." TJ's eyebrows raised but he said, "Go on..."

"Were you born in the states like she was?"

"I wasn't but we left Thailand when I was too young to remember any of it. I was raised in America. Why?"

"Growing up...I thought I was American and we grew up hearing about those scary evil Soviets. Then I learned that I was Soviet...so this thing you say about everything we have been lead to believe before being wrong? This was a lessonn I learned a long time ago. Before the Soviet Union fell. So...if there is any lesson I may have learned about my ways of Communism being wrong or if I learn it now or if I haven't fully learned and I learn it in the future...the same shock won't be there. But as much as it shocked me to learn how much everything they said was against people like me and my parents...I had to relearn everything from the opposite perspective."

"So what did you do?"

Baba Yaga sighed. "When I went to the Soviet Union and started training to be what I was...the fear that everything we all know could also get destroed not by a revelation of truth but by nuclear fallout...that fear I had from living in our Nation's capital...it didn't go away. Not for the next two years. The only thing that changed was what side of it I was on. But then I realized neither side was safe and the future is not assured. I still believe that the US was wrong and i still do. But just because they are wrong...does it take away from the fact that we are also wrong? Whether we are a Soviet Union or a Federation? Both countries are responsible for so much death. Killing so many in our attempts to annex neighboring countries.I still want what's best for Russia but these days I'm not seeing that much of a difference.I still want to undo a lt of things about US imperialism. But sometimes I wonder...as bad as things have been in my country from 1918 to '91...and even now with new problems on the hotizon...having invaded Checnya and Georgia...I sometimes wonder if as much as our forefathers complained...maybe we were better off under the Czar after all."

They pulled up a couple hours later. Monster introduced them all to the gang member that was his cousin. He was named Roach and he was in his early 30's with golden bown skin, a Hmong like TJ and Monster. He had a buzz cut and a goatee and a scar on his right cheek from a razor blade that he had been cut with in juvie.

Just then the truck with the Dragon Circle Triads showed up. The Triad who was meeting them walked up. "I'm Sun Kang..." The gang member said. "You ready to do business?"

Meanwhile...

G Note was on top of Lamar thruusting kissing him as they were fucking inside her crib. He had her mint green bra off to the side with the cups as he kissed thrust up into her rolling her nipples in her hands so her breasts were only partly bare as they peeked out but her ass and pussy was bare and her ass bounced as she rode him. Her hair was messy and over his face and she kissed him feeling up his chest. He gave her ass a smack and she let out a cry as he poked up into her. Her breasts bounced too as she rode him and his big manhood throbbed inside her womanhood that was tighta and welcoming. She cried out, "LD...! Yes baby...fuck...hit it daddy..."

"Go on girl...throw that ass back..." He growled. "Uhhhh!" She wailed as he strummed her clit. She then cried out as she felt an orgasm coming and she squealed as she rode it out on his rod taking him inch by inch her lips quivering and her walls pulsating as her juices wettened his member. He took her left breast in his mouth as he thrust up into her and he kept pounding her and he felt the smoothness of her thighs as his balls slapped into them.

He turned her over and began to drive into her fat swolleen lips from behind gripping tight on her hips as she rolled against him purring. He drove into her again and again but within five minutes he felt himself lose it. "Ahhh shit!" He cried as he exploded."Damn girl...i'm sorry...it's just when that ass is wilggling and bouncing in front of me...i can't help it..."

"It's all good..as long as I got mine you can get yours..." They cleaned up and lay beside each other. "Yo...Danielle...i got a question and I want you to keep it a hundred with me."

"Fo sho. What's up?"

"Do you think I'm stupid?" She laughed and he got offended. "i'm saying I'm tired of everyone thinking I am like I don't got plans and i don't know nothing. I must know something or I'd be dead!"

"Look...you can be. You can also be smart when you want to be. But you push that aside with your macho hood bullshit. The bravado. You gotta quit worry about what people think about ya ass. I mean it's like this...you got the potential to be smart...I'vve heard about some of these jobs you give people and honestly it's good ideas and some of them work...but that shit with D and Franklin? That was stupid and you know it. So was the dope deal on Grove Street. It's like..the differece between if you stupid or smart is when and how much drugs you do. You gotta lay off the blow. you got the potental to go places...beyond Strawberry if you want to. But you can't just be snorting coke like it's Vice City in the 80's...or doing molly like a white breezy. That shit shorts the brain."

"You don't fuck with none of that? Not even lean?"

"Just drink and bud for me and even that's in moderation. That's what it's about."

"Wor...so you think I'm smart?"

"I said you CAN be..." She said with a smile. He pulled her close. 'Girl you gonna make a nigga sprung raising a homie's confidence and shit get your ass over here. Long Dick's ready for round 2!"

Packie

He was driving with Mai to Del Perro to meet Lamar. The ones who had worked with her before were injured. Mahana had been stabbed in a fist fight with a rival gang member and was in the hospital, Cherry had to be on bed rest after her gunfight with the Vagos and the Psychos and Ulu had been arrested for unpaid parking tickets and he was in the county for the weekend.

""So I don't get it. Why exactly aren't the four of you getting along? Aint there some way you might ever fix that up?"

"It's not likely. I did something wrong...really to Neto and Ivan and well...it's not related but Ivan tried to kill me."

"What? I slept in the same roof as that motherfucker and he turns on friends like that?"

"No, t's not like he meant to kill me specifically. He thought maybe I was an OG chick in the hood and we were on opposite sides of a gunfight. He meant to kill who he thought I was bit not me exactly. Neto and Ivan fought over that but then..." She sighed. "They both found out something about me that turned them against me."

"What did they learn?" He asked. "They learned I was the daughter of the man that founded the Da Nang Boyz or at least was one of several who founded it. A gang that's tried to kill them both," She lied. In a sense, Mai was telling the truth because that was problematic as well but it wasn't the reason why they were on bad best lies were half truths. "Come on..."

"Ah. That sounds like a mess. But then why is Paul pissed at you and Ivan?"

"He's not at Ivan. They were friends in a way but the two didn't bond like me and Paul did and me and Ivan did and me and Neto did to a point. I think it might be the age difference. Even though Paul gets alog with people older than him more than his own age, I think the age difference between him and Ivan was just to big to relate as much even if they had proffesional respect for each other, there's like a twenty year difference in age so even if you're an old soul like Paul or a pretty hip guy like Ivan who's been in both Liberty City and LS's urban neighborhoods, there's still going to be a gap. i guess in a way me and Neto were like the middle between the two of them. Me Neto and Ivan all had being a soldier in common."

"Irish neutrality. It's a hell of a thing. I'm not one to judge though. I lost touch with one of my friends and we tried to kill each other. He was my best friend at the time but he's not anymore. He killed Derrick..."

"Your brother...I'm sorry..."

"You know I spent the last few years unsure if he survived. I didnt hear from him on the streets of Liberty for years but then I found him on Life Invader. He retired. He got to live happily ever after while i got to lose my brothers and my sister."

"From what you told me about him...it wasn't happily ever after, right? Wasn't he dating your sister?"

"She got killed with him. I get the feeling that I could have protected her if I'd been there. But there was no reason for his cousin to have invited me the way he did Katie. His cousin knew everybody that was there and he called Kate to be Niko's wedding date. If it had been Niko's wedding maybe I would have been invited but it makes sense I wouldn't have been there. Except, I don't know...given the way trouble followed him as much as me, I wis I could have insisted on it. I'm her older brother I should have protected her. Anyway,that Serbian fuck is a scumbag. He's probably long forgotten about her and she gets to rot away in the ground. He's with this chick that used to be my brother's lawyer. I guess she stopped caring about his whoring and cheating. Though in his defense it might not have been cheating. It might have just been that he wasn't exclusive with her but if he had dated Katie full on, I wouldn't have stood for that."

Mai frowned and put a hand on his arm. "I'm sorry. Nobody should have to go through what you ...let's talk about this in a bit, okay? I'm here for you if you need to talk but we got a job to dThey parked up near the Del Perro pier. Lamar was there to meet him. It was raining heavily and yet Lamar was in shorts. "Hey whats happeningloco. You know the homie Vernon? From the OG's? You know what I'm talking about dude who's always flab mouthing the old days? You know ugly ass Vernon."

"I remember you mentioning him but we didn't have a face to face. Also you said loco instead of loca so you couldn't be talking to me. Do you know him?" Lamar nodded. "Yeah he did some jobs with the homie Franklin but the boys retired from the did a few things here and there for me. Jacked a few trucks, you feel me? Capped a few bitch ass motherfuckers."

"Anyway, dude got wind that I was talking about my imminent promotion, right and somehow thought me being the absolute ruler of everywhere is going to insult him. That's some bullshit. Look, man we gotta send this dude a peace offering or something,man and nothing says 'I love you brother Vernon for and I thank you for your years of wisdom and guidance but there's a new dog in town' like taking care of a man's legal problems!"

Packie laughed. "You actually clapsed your hands together when you said the part about wisdom and guidance and that you love him. Maybe you should send him an XOXO in a text message. I'm sure that'll work."

"Man, fuck you this my town. Stay in your lane dog and listen up! Come on man look here the thing is this aint even like no fuckin job! It's like you're doing your boy a favor, man. Come on man, all you gotta do is deliver the cars and that's man it's gonna be cool."

"I don't see how delivering cars is gonna help his legal problems, but okay."

"Man ya'll stressing me out LD don't do stress he do regalness like a real king. Now the cars is over there, dog all you gotta do is get them and take them to this buyer he got that's gonna get them overseas before the motherfucking cops seize them for some totally unrelated crime that he allegedly did and the key word is allegedly. Come on man this is nothing. This is easy, man! Shit."

He took off in his car and Mai went for the red one. "Dibs!" She cried out with a grin and got in. Packie had tried to race to it. "Ah you fucking bitch. You gave me the car with the color purple!"

Mai was in the Red Voodoo while Packie drove the Faction which was purple. "Hey, Paul would disagree with you there about purple being a gay or womanly color. Also why do straight guys always compare gays to women? You can't be trying to say that we're like them so you must be saying they're like us and in that case that sounds like projection of deep seated homosexuality since you as straight men want to fuck women yet you say gay men are not like men so they're more like women."

"Hey Susan, B? Get off your high horse. My country had a female president before yours did," Mai said, "You know I was born in the States right?"

"I know! I was referring to that."

"But you're from Dukes."

"It doesn't matter where an Irishmen is from. He's still an Irishman. At least we know that back east. I haven't seen any enclaves out purple might be masculine for Paul but green is for me."

"But St. Patrick was British."

"Yeah and the South Vietnamese were on the side of the Westerners so shut it!" She chuckled. "Touche. Relax, Packie I'm just messing with ya."

"Well we're on the job and I'm coming down off chop so don't."

"Aye,boyo, don't ya know nose candy turns you into a feckin retard?" Mai said with a smile on her face. "So does feminism."

Lamar chimed in finally on their head sets. "You need to get them over to the buyers in Cypress Flats but uh...the cops is looking for them. I mean like really looking. If they even see your ass we fucked."

Packie followed Mai off the pier and he noticed in the rear view that the back window had the words Eastside on the window. "Well well well. Maybe Los Santos's lowrider culture isn't so bad after all if they got anything paying homage to the east coast."

"I actually don't like the cars that hop up and down. I mean the rides are nice but the hopping is stupid. Not that I can complain too much since the guys I hang with in the Flats have cars with spoilers on them. But as far as East Side I think it means South Central."

"Hey, these cars are pretty nice. And I have to admit Neto was somewhat right about these things being cool. So was Hector. You just don't see that much in Liberty City. It's weird when you think about it since there's been cars in every major city and you can't tell me we didn't have cars from the 40's to the 70's but lowriding just wasn't big out there. Our Hispanics are Puerto Rican. They drive cars with big spoilers too that say Orullo on the back."

Mai got onto the freeway while Packie was taking side streets and alleys and decided to head through the Vespucci Canal area. Mai put her radio to Los Santos Rock Radio and the song Animal Instinct by The Cranberries. Packie put his to Channel X and the song The Warrior's Code by Dropkick Murphy's played. "Get this my niggas. The Ballas made an offer for the cars."

"We could always stop off in Davis..." Packie said. "And I do got a purple car."

"Knock it off nigga. Like no matter how desperate we are we aint doing no business with the Ballas. When I'm king Ballas gonna be illegal. And taxes too. Or maybe I'll just make a Baller tax. Ah whatever. I'll work out the details when I'm running the streets."

AFter a half hour of driving and avoiding cops they arrived. "You're coming up on the deal. Should be a couple of Korean homies waiting there."

They pulled up and saw the Koreans. "Sweet rides, homies! We're gonna get so much beaver in SK!" The Korean leader stated which lead to Mai's confusion. She thought she would be dealing with Khangpae and these guys were talking like somebody that would hang out with Lamar. Like a Da Nang Boy. "I'll tag you in a Snapmatic post in Seoul. We'll have the whips there in like two weeks."

"You did say, 'we' right, amigo?" Packie stated. "Cause I'd love to get some beaver from the girls over there. I'm a team player. I'll even do it in one of these cars for product placement saying 'if you ride in one of these vintage cars from the states that only Ese's seem to like anymore, you can get crazy amounts of snatch in countries where niche cubsultures are still popular' getting me into the country could be tricky though cause I don't have a passport. But seriously, if you can get me next to Kalina Li and Lucy Thai I'm your fuckin slave."

Mai rolled her eyes "Why are you fetishizing us, dude?"

"It's not that. Unless you count the liklihood of a hairy pussy being fetishized then yeah...guilty as charged."

"Can't men think about anything but their dicks?" She asked with a scoff. "Gee, I don''t know Ms. Thu. Let's ask our space program, the majority of scientists, and pretty much every major prophet of every major religion including the two faiths you were brought up in."

Just then Lamar sounded off, "Hey, man, shit! The Ballas found out about the deal! They gonna boost the rides!" Mai went to the trunk of her car and got the Colt M4 Carbine which she had purchased from Romeo for a few g's plus some extra cash since she wanted a little something extra. In this case, it was a double magazine giving her sixty rounds and Packie had an AK-74.

As Baller cars started pulling up, Mai began to unload on them catching the first one with a twelve round burst at their windshield and their front windows. The two up front were hit and she killed the driver instantly with a head shot blowing his left eyeball out. He was a dark skinned African immigrant who had chosen to bang for the purple in his hood so as not to be a victim of the dominant African American gang in his neighborhood. The youngster had been about twenty three with long blondish dreadlocks a white long t shirt and purple gym shorts. The next baller, his homie, an African American with skin about Mai's tone and wavy black hair wearing a purple and white Varsity jacket and baggy blue jeans and a burgandy neckerchief came out having taken four slugs in the left ribcage but he was already spraying his Uzi as he got out of the SUV. Mai finished him with a burst of rounds to his heart.

One of the Koreans, a man tall and blue clad returned fire with his own Handgun as a purple Stallion pulled up and two Ballas got out. Packie struck the first man, a dark skinned black male with cornrows wearing a Panics jersey and a Boars cap on backwards who stood 5'9, with ten rounds before he could clear his weapon as he got out of the car. An eleventh round struck him in the left wrist that had gone through the car door and it struck him as he fell over clutching hopelessly at his wounds with one hand.

The driver carried a Mac-10 but he was struck as the Korean gangster fired seven rounds and five of them hit the man. The man's triumph was short lived as a Baller car pulled up and the driver sprayed an SMG out of the window striking the blue clad Korean man with fourteen rounds in the back.

One of the Koreans yelled as he fired back, "Families for life, homies!" Mai shouted to that man, "What's wrong with you? Have you forgotten what gang you're in? Just shut the fuck up and help us kill these assholes or your bosses aint getting these cars overseas!" Lamar warned, "They're coming into the foundry, homies!"

Packie also had an AA-12 and he fired off five rounds striking three Ballas as they tried to advance and he got each one of them. He saw two were alive havin been hit with leg wounds but he knew they weren't long for this world. Mai let out a heavy burst as a Felon pulled up and four Ballas got out. One of them had an AK which he fired striking the Hmong woman in the chest. She fell over ducking to cover behind the blue van the Koreans had arrived in. Packie yelled, "Hang in there, sister i got your back!"

He fired the last of his AK magazine switching back to it and hit the baller who had hit her in both legs including the thighs and the rounds also swept up two more of theh Ballas killing one, a Belizean gang member with short dread locks and a purple and black striped t shirt and skinny blacks jeans killing him as half a dozen rounds hit him in the stomach. The other was hit with just one round in the right shoulder and he was a shorter African America of about 5'6 but with a muscular build and he ducked behind the Felon while his friend covered him spraying an M4 back at Packie and he managed to hit the Irishmen as he ran back to cover ten rounds getting him in the back but the body armor helped him but he fell over as the rounds had thrown him off balance.

Mai smiled at Packie, "You see me as a sister?"

"Don't read too much into it. Just an expression. Nobody's my sister but my sister."

Mai chuckled. "We're gonna talk about that, later," Lamar then warned them, "The fence! They coming over it! Make sure they don't get these rides!" Packie reloaded and said, "Working on that, broham! That's easier said than done!" He fired striking two as they hopped the fence striking one in the left thigh and chest the rounds hitting him in different places because of where Packie aimed and where he dropped. The other fell mid hop over the fence. "Did I mention I fuckin hate foundries?"

Mai stated, "You hate a lot of things but I don't think that's ever come up, no!" Packie shot back, "Well, in case I don't make it let it be known!"

"They got dudes on the roof!" The Ballas were indeed firing upon them and another Korean was dropped taking several rounds in the stomach. Packie fired and hit one Baller in a purple dorag wearing a white baggy shirt and he hit him in the face opening up a hole in his right eye socket and left a hole about half the size of an orange. The man's copse tumbled off the roof. Mai had reloaded a well and she fired a heavy burst. Three more fired at her and two rounds hit her in the left side grazing her. She popped her own trunk grabbing a M82 and she got a bead on a Baller as she took cover around the side of the car. She fired striking a curly haired Baller taking the top of his head off with a pop and watched the blood spray from the wound like a fountain of Hawaiian punch. She cleared off the rest of the Ballas from the roof with several more shots.

Packie fired at the adjacent bridge. "Fuck you guys! This is not how you make a deal!" He got his AA-12 back out and emptied the magazine dropping five Ballas and Mai saw one man's intestines hanging out of the hole in his shirt as he fell dead. With that, this left them all dead.

The Koreans that survived took off. "Man, there's no way way we can sell Vernon's ride! The whole thing's messed up! He's gonna understand right? Man ima come holla at you."

Lamar pulled up in his black Emperor. "Like I said guys...not a big deal, right? Vernon's gonna be real pleased with this. You guys did a great job!" He said with a seemingly nervous childlike tone. It then turned to anger. "Man get the fuck outta here with that bullshit! Ya'll fucked up! Vernon's gonna be pissed. Ok..I'm tripping...look you tried and you failed misreably as fuck. But like a wise boss that I am i forgive your bitch ass...I'm outta here man I'm about to get some trees in..."

He got back in the car. Mai walked up to the window. "Hey Lamar! I'm sorry I let you down...normally I'm kind of an asshole to you. And I'm sorry. But this time you get to be pissed at me. Granted, i didn't want a bunch of psychos on violet shooting at me but this is a job oppurtunity and I did take it so you did give me a chance. I appreciate it. And you actually did give us a hell of a heads up every time the Ballas came. I mean if you didn't give us a heads up me and Packie could have gotten shot. We would have just tried to let the deal go down and be none the wiser. So thank you."

"Yeah yeah...whatever girl get the fuck outta here..."

Later that day after they'd shaken the spot, as they drove back to the apartment since Packie was her last and only room mate he checked his bank account. "Hey he still paid us."

"What?" She asked looking at him. "Yeah! He just wired $12,710 into my bank account. You should see if he did the same for you."

Mai pulled the Kuruma over and checked. "Yeah he paid me too. Wow...i guess even though we failed he thought we deserved something for our troubles. It's not like I can control a bunch of guys shooting up some very nice cars. Maybe I was wrong about him."

"You gonna fuck him again?" Packie cracked. She flipped him off and said, "I just mea he's not completely incompetent. Maybe there's hope for him as a gang leader yet. I still think he's a bit young to do that and he doesn't have the right mind for it so I don't know about this Forum Drive shit but at the very least he should get to be a high ranking lt. But then again, Romeo, my friend in Cypress Flats is younger than Lamar and he ran a gang before my dad came back."

Paul

Outside Teranto, Canada

January 1,2013

He arrived back in the area where the Warriors were hanging out. Dawn and Aila seemed to be in thplhe middle of an argument. He hadn't seen either of them in several months and it seemed that Chogan and Shep were there arguing too. "Why are you all looking at me like I'm some kind of traitor? Or a slut?1" Screamed Aila. "I'm not the only rez girl to have some fun! I'm not the only Warrior to do that."

"Yeah but first you were with that black guy four months ago. Now you're with some white boy?"

"I told you that we broke up!"

"Get outta here...you know you were callin that faggot babe on Bleetter in pictures. That motherfucker was like 30. You got serious stockholm syndrome, Aila. You can't sit there and say you're proud to be Mohawk and Miq'maq and then try and date some white boy from the city."

"Oh please have you ever been to the rez' out west? You got rez dogs with white girls all the time!" She yelled. "And what about in America?"

"Yeah but in America the outmarriage rate is 57% for men and 64% for women. Women are the bigger traitors."

"You know thats bullshit you act like men don't betray us?"

"We fuckin do..." Chogan said. "But it's OKAY to call men traitors. But if you call a woman a sellout you're both racist and sexist. It's bullshit. We may have had scouts in th King's army but you were the first ones to lay with those devils. What's the name of that Mexican chick the first one to sleep with a Conquistador, enit? The first traitor of the Native race in the Americas was a woman."

"So you see that as a reason to be sexist?" Aila asked. "No, I see it as a reason to call a spade a spade."

"You know, it's not like First ationsmen are blameless. You don't all do it and most don't but a lot of men have molested and raped..."

"When did the white boys and the Nubians stop doing that? Look at some statistics. Most rapists and pedophiles are white. Paul, you're from down south right? Aren't blacks the most likely to abuse their spoues since black women face the most domestic abuse as in beatings while native women get raped and killed the most?"

"I honestly have no idea...but I agree with what you're saying about outmarriage being bad."

"It's also a statistical fact that 75% of HIV carriers are black..." Stated Shep. "That just sounds like propaganda that was used against them...I get it Shep you hate anybody that aint Indian cause you went to prison. Well im not that way. I'll fight whoever I have to but if I start being as hateful as the whites were no better than they are. I don't have fucking aids!"

"Since when did wei nvade europe?" Asked Chogan with a beer in hand.

"And is it a racist stereotype if it's true?" Shep asked. "Especially when it was a black Muslim inmate in the library that was showing it? He was showing it as an example to educate young men about STD's and some kind of horse shit about no sex until marriage. I normally didn't talk to them in there but we agreed on some finer points. A thing mixed is a thing weakened. And he said that he thought Allah gave them such a high STD rate due to their men being the epitome of racial treason. Lusting after white women and every other over their own and their women were because they weren't modest and conservative anymore and didn't wait until marriage. He also agreed with me that our people's problems are many but one of them is outmarriage and assimilation. So if what I'm saying is so anti black why did a black guy admit it and speak as if he wanted to cjange it? And this isn't just coming from him or me. This is what the World Health Organization said. It's actually validated."

"Paul, how can you say that? It took that to create you. You may not agree with your white side but it took that to create you. Even if if it didn't last your parents fell in love at first, right?" Paul snorted. "What are you kidding me? They didn't love each other. Maybe they convinxed themselves they did but the truth is the only thing they had in common is they both had abusive parents. If you're looking to use my fmily to prove some point, don't."

Aila growled, "Chogan, Shep you want to kick me out of the crew cause of what im not even doing anymore but you're both selling drugs how are you any better?"

"We do what we gotta do to survive. Even if we make questionable choices to help our rez. You slept with the enemy. Are you forgetting how the Angels even came to be? They targeted us! But you know what? Whethe you call me a sexist or not the fact remains women didn't have to face Angels in prison."

Dawn sighed. "Well I agree with you and I'm a girl, Shep...I can't believe I ever did anything with this skank..." Aila flipped her off. "I'm only saying every now and then with our people I notice sometimes our men are braver and sometimes women are. In the 70's it was our women facing against the FIB. Our men were cowards hiding. But nowadays our women have lost their heart. If i call a woman out on her shit, aren't I doing it for her benefit? Is it better ti just let her fuck up?"

"OH MY GOD...it was a few months...then he turned out to be married...he even hid that Bleeter account from his wife."

"Yeah but not only did you sleep with him, we don't know what secrets you told him. I don't think you can be trusted."

Natalie and Raymomd thought they were being too hard on her. "Look we all make mistakes..." Ray stated. "She's been down for us."

"Yeah," Natalie said. "It's not like she's with him now. Or the black dude and that guy was more like a one night stand. Some biker dude of all things..."

"What do you think, Paul? Should we kick her out?"

"No..." Paul said. "I don't agree with it what she did but...no. She has proven her loyalty. I can separate the person from the action."

"Alright...since Paul has proven himself and he did go through some shit we'll keep you in but it's going to take time before you're respected again..."

Hours Later

"I appreciate you standing up for me...even if you don't agree with what I did...you were gone and...I just...those guys i got wit...they didn't drik or do drugs and the only other person I knew of was you that didn't. And Vincent but I think he doesn'tlook at me that way hes got his own woman and Danyen I never see him," She tried to kiss him but he stopped her. "What's wrong?"

"I'll still be your friend, Aila...but as far as what we had...whatever you want to call it...I'm not doing it anymore...look I'm realistic...i know you weren't a virgin before but you've been with..."

"Are you serious right now? Are you that insecure?"

"You know...that's what Apples love to say. And the non Indians that lust after Indian women. They think Indian men that are against it our insecure but in truth we'd be insecure if we were for it. It's an act of treason. You're right I'm a half breed. I can't do shit about it. I look at you now...and I think...it'a Mohawks like you who are the reason why I cn't live on the rez."

"Yu know that law is bullshit! It divides families and if it has to be enforced it should at least let the Native parent get to keep the kid and stay there..."

"You know, I hear all this faggy crap about free love. But what part of Mohawk love do you people not understand? Non Natives aren't supposed to live on our rez. Regardless of who they shack up with."

"You people? you of all people shouldn't say that to me how much shit did you get for being mixed?"

"YEAH AND I FUCKING DESERVED IT!" He roared making her jump a bit. "And so do you! I passed my test of loyalty. You didn't have shit to prove, Aila. You're a slut for Non Native men. You're full blooded and you called some white asshole babe when he's like ten years older than you. And as much as I don't have any problems with them...what Shep said about HIV...I looked it up. It's true. Something should be done to help those people but that shit is gonna get worse if they spread it around. They got a higher rate of it than gays. Gays, Aila!"

"Wow...you became just like Shep...I defended you and you become like him when he insultted you."

"Yeah and I had feelings for you! I didn't come back here right away because my fucking mother was killed you BITCH!"

Aila had tears in her eyes. "The only reason I'm not punching you in the face is because I know you lost your mom. But what the fuck, K:or...do you hate her now too? Or because he's gone now you just hate every anglo? Whether or not we ever get along with them we all were made by the creator...and yeah...I know you were hurting okay...? But I was lonely too...I needed you and I wanted to be there for you but you ran away...this is so unfair..."

"I don't hate my mom She's gone. But I hate my dad. He was an Apple and so are you."

"You said you loved me when it was just us between the sheets. You can't deny you love me..."

"That was before..."

"So you don't love it? Then at least have the heart to tell me you don't!" She said, her lip trembling and her voice cracking. He looked at her his eyes cold. "I don't,"

He walked away and she yelled, "FUCK YOU!'" She wouldn't bash him for being mixed no matter how she felt he deserved it and she knew that what she had done amounted to the same thing but she yelled, "You fucking retarded piece of shit! Take your autistic ass back to Liberty City!" She sat down in tears cursing herself for crying but she couldn't help it.

Two Hours Later

There had been no talk bettween them since the fight but Shep came out and summoned everybody together. "Look, Aila...just because we don't agree with what you did doesn't mean that you're not still one of us. I admit i lost my temper. We all did. And I may not agree with what you did but well...a lot of skins have done it. Man and woman. It doesn't matter what you did then...just what you did now. I mean besides the fact that the guy was white...he was also married. You gotta think about how that looks. He's married to a white woman and goes home to her but he was with you in secret mostly. They pretend to be our friends but the truth is, these pink faces want to have a 'squaw' just to show they can. We're all objects to them. Those blonde whores in the rich part of Teranto want a muscular dark skinned long black haired buck to take them to pound town and their men want a raven haired 'exotic' woman when they're bored with their own."

"Can we just...not talk about what I did? I have to live with it. I'm begging you, Shep..."

Paul and Aila avoided each other's gaze. "Yeah...sure. Anyway, just because I did lose my temper, we all did...you still need money. And you're still a Warrior. I wouldn't have really thrown you out. I had to test you. Of course if you were still with old Johnny Smith we would have..." Aila glared. "But...we all got something to do. A way to make money. First, we need to find those Triad faggots that attacked you and went back on our deal. They gotta pay for that."

"So what do we do, big man?" Asked Danny. "They're in charge of a brothel in Chinatown. They're real discreet about it and it's been their way to make money and not have any attention come down on them for it. But we're gonna make a move on them. Then...after whatever heat there is from that dies down, we got a shipment of smokes we gotta take down to the border. We'll be going through Akwe so we may want to have Vincent along for this since he knows that rez plus try and get a hold of Danyen..."

"You mean Karikon:ki..." Paul corrected. "Hey I'm just going off what he says to call him."

"All right...we're gonna take the smokes and we're going to go from the rez at the border to Mount Royal."

Shep got into a white Glendale with red doors and Chogan and Little Joe got in. Shep told him, "Paul! You're with us..." Dawn and Raymond would be riding together while they got to the rez and Aila would be riding with Danny and Natalie due to the words exchanged with other gang members. Despite the fact that Ray did not judge Aila, he was riding with Dawn and she had.

The second car was a gray Bobcat and Ray was driving. The third was a beat old old rusty brown Greenwood. The drive was 455 KM which meant that it would take about 4 hours and 39 minutes to get there. Shep had phoned ahead of time to make sure that both Danyen would have the truck full of smokes ready. Vincent Windstrm couldn't make it. He and the Redrum MC were on the road across the country. It was still night. When tehy finally got there, Paul woke up.

Danyen was waiting. He had a light greenish yellow Walton with a blue tarp over it. Under it was all manner of cigarette cartons. Danyen made the Warriors all kinds of money when he ould sell tobacco to non Natives off the rez. Paul had too but he didn't ge to do it as often and it was really only once in a while when he was back here.

"Oh niyohtonha'tye? Skennen'ko'wa:ken?" Paul asked Danyen. (How are you doing? Do you have the great peace?)

In the context since the great peace referred to the great law of peace of the Iroquois nation it also had more meaning in that the greeting was a way to say hello and ask how you were. To ask if you have the great peace was a way to ask if you were doing well. "Hen, skennen'kowa. ok ni:se. Skennen:kowa'ken?"

(Yes I have the great peace. And you? Do you have the great peace?)

"Hen..." Paul started to say yes but then said. "Yah yah, tewakatshonnoni..." (No I'm not happy.)

"What happened, man?" He looked and seemed to sense that something was wrong between him and Aila.

"Forget I said anything. Ok'sha. Enionkwa'nisko..." Paul said.

(Hurry. We'll be late.)

He got into the truck with Danyen as he was supposed to. "We're gonna get there when we get there. We've been friends a long time. Tell me everything..."

They began to drive to the agreed upon spot in Mount Royal. This would be an hour drive and forty minutes. The sun was starting to come up. Paul told him everything. "Look...I get that you two had a fight and I even get that you'd be jealous from what happened...but she's still a person with feelings, man. You can't just...toss her aside like that."

"So you're taking her side?" Dayen shook his head. "No. I don't have a side in this. I'm just calling it how i see it. She was wrong for what she did and you were wrong for how far you took it. We're a hurting people and there's no so many of us left that we can afford to hate each other. Isn't life in Canada hard enough?"

"It's not that. I get lonliness...I just...it feels like she went off the rez outta self hatred. I get that. And granted that's not even her rez or mine she just stayd around there and I worked out there but she could have gone to a rez or even got with a city skin that was sober. We do exist. It's a myth that we're drunk and all addicts I mean yeah you could say that about Chogan and Little Joe and them but statistically I found out we're more likely to reframe from drinking on a monthly basis than whites are."

"That's true...it's just a thing of timing. Maybe she felt like things were rez does have a way of smothering you. And a lot of rez dogs look at it like racial betrayal because you go off and you're around other people but should we really look at it that way? We were never meant to be locked up in a rez. Whatever yourviews are about what she did,we aint supposed to be in reserves. It's like blacks in the ghetto."

"Yeah but the ghettos were built. Government housing and the first ghettos were in Europe. Plus with us the rez is much older than that but it's still soverign land..."

"I get that, man. And you and me we're both the same nation but two different rez's. I'm just saying it's all Onkwehonwe land. We don't need to box ourselves in. Rather than get mad at Aila, you should try and find what it is that made her seek out the rez."

He then added, "Itsounds to me too like she would have stuck to you like glue if you had been around. You might be mad at her now and she's mad at you but she sees you as a sign of strength. Half breed or not she sees you as guy that rejects booze, drugs, all of the white man's vices while others in the Warriors are slaves to it. It might not even be so much self hatred on her part so much as..." He took a second to think. "You look at mixing as suicide despite being mixed right? Even though it created you you also worry for the future and that's good. But she sees what they're doing as another form of suicide. I think...that Aila thinks...whatever drugs Choga and Little Joe are on...and probaly Shep to...she sees that as self destruction and it's to a point where if we're going to destroy ourselves from within...what's the point of fighting the RCMP? Or the Angels? Or anybody?"

Paul was speechless. "You gotta look at the silver lining of this or at least what could have been the silver lining. She might have gotten with a black guy in some bar and some white dude that she actually shacked up with a few months that was using her...but the thing is...how do you think she must have felt after that? She never saw one guy after that and mybe she understood it was just sex but you can regret it after doing it. And then with the older guy...she felt used. For her body. Taken advantage of. Her feelings were hurt by that. And...you hurt her feelings more."

"That's bullshit...those tears were fake. Women use tears to get out of anything. And she's known as Lollipop. I don't think a woman who has partners more than one is a slut if it's within the same culture I mean men do it why can't they but...for her to have feelings...I mean...she's all about her sass her wit. She is a shit talker herself. So the idea that I hurt her feelings is a joke."

"You did...she had bags under hr eyes. I saw them. You don't get that from faking it. She might have a reputation as a girl who loves sex. And maybe she even enjoys threeways. Thats her choice her body. But that doesn't mean she doesn't have feelings."

"Hey, Danyen...are we on the set of your talk show?" Paul asked. "Hey, you wanted my advice I gave it. You can take it or leave it, man."

"I get it...but I'm just...i always have to be the one that apologizes. Even when I'm not wrong I've done that with women. In High School, to preserve friendships. I told her that we can stil be friends but I don't know..."

"Look nobody is saying you have to ever be with her in that way again. But if you are meant to be together, the shit she went through...? And especially if she din't get pregnant or an STD, this would be just an excuse to throw a good thing away."

"A good thing? We haven't even been on a real date. We were bored and lonely and we fucked. It's that simple. And yeah I did care for her..."

"How much did you care for her if something like this is all it takes to be done with her? You know, I knew you the way you used to be before your dad pulled all his shit. You were a happy kid. But for a long time you've been angry. It's gonna kill you. You gotta have joy too."

"Man, you sound more like Buddha than a Warrior. I'm just saying..." Paul said with a smirk. "Besides, do you even have a woman?"

"I don't. There's been women in my life. But right now I'm just on my own journey to find peace and a good life. There's nothing wrong with enjoying the journey you're on along the way.

"Man, if Chogan and Little Joe heard this they'd probably think we're a couple of fags..."

"It doesn't matter. Truth is they got their own pain and they're trying to dull it with chemicals. You and me we make questionable choices but we understand our body is a temple. So we still have brains clear enough to think about this kind of thing."

Finally, the two arrived as did the others. They were in a mostly empty parking lot. The Warriors mostly left their weapons in the enough, other people started to come. A caucasian male with a man bun and a blonde neckbeard wearing glasses sipping a soy latte walked up. "Can I get a carton of Debonaire?"

He tossed a box down. The man paid Danyen. An Asian female, clearly an exchange student of Chinese descent said, "Athena 200?"

"Hey, K:or. Toss one of those pink ones down here..." He did.

Next was an Afro Canadian male wearing a T Rex cap on despite the city they were in. He was tall and lanky about 6'5 "Can I get some homies?" Paul tossed down a carton of homies.

Next was a Caucasian female with red hair and blue eyes standing at 5'7. "Can I get a carton of Redwood?"

Paul tossed her a carton. Next came a man of East Indian descent. "Cardiaque, please?"

Three Hours Later

They were busy selling and had sold a lot and were getting ready to move on when three cars pulled up. A dark gray Oracle, a red Admiral and a white Voodoo. A Caucasin male with light brown hair and blue gray eyes got out of the Voodoo and was wearing a leather jacket. He looked to be in his late 20's and he stood about 5'10. Paul was taller by a few inches while Sheppard towered over him but the man walked up anyway. "What are ya selling, chief?"

Shep ignored the comment. "You looking to buy or you just window shopping?"

"Depends..."

"We're selling smokes..." Danyen told him the price. "$19 for a carton. That's better than any deal you'd get in the US and up here, you'd be paying $12 just for a 25 pack. I'm always saying that this country is too expensive. Charge you more for tires, cigarettes, you name it."

"How about you give us ten crates and we let you all walk outta here in one piece?" The guy said to Danyen. "Hey, why don't you just get back in your cute little car and we'll forget we saw you."

"You don't get it. You're on our turf motherfucker. You want to operate out here you gotta pay up!"

"You know who you're talking to?" Paul asked from the truck. "You better walk away before..."

"Yeah I know who I'm talking to. Some low rent redskin door to door salesmen selling stolen smokes. Time to close up shop, asshole!" Suddenly the Admiral revved and the guy yelled, "Alright guys, lets have a fire sale!" Paul saw one of them had lit a Molotov and tossed it at the truck and he was already jumping from it. It ignited. "What do you say to that?!" The man taunted. Danyen withdrw his M9 cocking it before getting it to eye level and he pointed it at the gangster. The man's eyes widened as Danyen pulled the trigger striking him at point blank range with a round in the forehead. As the man's boy fell, the other gangsters got in the car. The three cars split up. Dawn and Raymond went after the Voodoo which headed south, Danny, Natalie and Aila went after the oracle and Shep, Chogan Little Joe and Paul went after the Admiral which headed east while the Oracle that was headed north.

Shep yelled, "Danny! Get Ace on the phone! Find out where these sons of bitches lay their head!"

As they drove, he ordered, "Floor it, Chogan!" Chogan replied, "I'm going as fast as I fuckin can, Shep!" They got on a freeway but a semi got in the way and they lost the car. Just then, Shep got a call from Danny. "Yeah! You lost him too? Well did you at least talk to Ace? No shit...all right. Yeah. Call Ray and the others and we'll meet you there."

"Who the fuck were those assholes?" Paul asked. Shep told his brother, "We're going to that foundry west of town. That's where they are."

"Who?" Paul asked again. "The West End Mob, man. A mix of micks and Frenchies. Unlike down in Liberty, the Irish don't have as much problem with La Cosa Nostra. You know. One little dick sucks the other. The wops suck on their stubby shileleigh in the hopes of ending their little Irish curse and those freckled gingers suck off their little mini pasta bottles. At least down there you get to watch them killl each other. These fags up here are more worried about profit."

"Isn't that the smart thing to do, bro?" Asked Chogan. "Yeah it is for them, baby brother. But for us we don't want that."

They pulled up to the Foundry twenty minutes later. They all arrived and so did Ace and three more Warriors. Ace was a tall and lanky Native standing at six feet. He had medium length jet black hair and was always wearing sunglasses and a black jacket no matter what kind of shirt under it he always had the same jacket. He wore blue jeans and an arrow head necklace. He was of Inuit ancestry and he was the one who had been wounded by the OP gang members. He walked up after Paul was introduced. "So this is the guy I owe for helping take down Post Op's while I was laid up, huh? Good to meet you man. I appreciate you taking care of business with that but don't get the wrong idea I'm still gonna blow off some steam with them myself. And it's gonna make what you did look like the peace corps. No offense."

"None taken..." Paul said. Shep walked up. "Well?" Ace and his boys all had baseball bats. "They're all in there. We got guns in the car just in case but I say we crack a few heads."

They banged on the gate and it was opened by a white male. Ace hit him in the face with the wooden bat busting his nose. Another one, a bald man said, "How'd you get in here?!" Before one of Aces boys, a First Nations man who was Metis wearing a red bandanna and a red and white plaid shirt and blue jeans standing at 5'8 hit him in the right arm with the bat. The man screamed and cried out but the other two went to work on his ribs. "Next!" Ace shouted. One of the Warriors, a young man of Mohawk descent that had light brown skin like Paul and stood 5'11 and had a crew cut and had both arms tattooed including a wolf clan tattoo on his left forearm shouted, "They got guns!"

They ran to the cars taking cover those that didn't yet have one. Those that did began engaging in the gunfight with the West End Mobsters. Chogan handed Paul a C3 Rifle and he said, "Shep wanted you to have this."

"If i didn't know any better, I'd say I'm starting to grow on him!" Dawn stated, "Don't kid yourself. That mean motherfucker is just practical. That's all! He doesn't like anybody outside his family! And women. He seems to really hate dudes mostly..."

Paul shrugged. "Whatever the reason, I'll take it."

They ran in through the now open gate. Aila had two Mac-11's, Chogan had a Remington 1100, Dawn had a P90, Natalie had an AK-47 with dual magazines so it would have 60, Danny had an M4 carbine, Ray had an AR-15, Danyen had an AN-94 and Little Joe had two Uzis Ae carried a Spas 12, and the Mohawk dude with him had an MP7 while the other two, the next being a Metis man of Wabanaki descent of the Seven Nations, carrying an AK like Natalie. He was a light brown skinned man standing at 5'9 and was 20 years old just like the Warrior with the H&K. The third of these was a longer haired gangster with his hair tied back in a was Menominee, from Wisconsin, had four sisters and was the black sheep of the family. He carried a Stryker.

Paul drew a bead on one of the men, a Caucasian wearing a white t shirt under a gray parka and blue jeans, a man of French ancestry. He fired striking him with seven rounds in the chest. The man fell on his side coughing up blood as he writhed in agony but his pain was ignored as more people soon joined him. Aila raked the SMG's across the lot striking down two mobsters with about two dozen rounds. He felt her rage was maifesting in the fight as she screamed. Natalie, meawhile, caught one man as he tried to flank Shep from cover with a shotgun but she hit him with eleven rounds in the back.

Danny layed on the trigger firing nine rounds into the back of an older mobster in his late 30's a man with a blonde ponytail wearing a gray blazer and blue pants. He fired a tenth round into the man's brain stem. The three of Ace's men mowed down four gangsters betwen the three of them and forced two more to cover around a corner. Ace went around said corner. He had an M3/ He struck one man in the face taking half his jaw off and the other he shot in the right rib cage.

Dawn exchanged rounds with an Irish male of about 29 or so at the far end who was shooting an M4 from cover. She fired twenty rounds and managed to hit him in the right leg and the left foot just below the big toe. He staggered out from cover and she fired another burst and the five round burst hit him just behind his left ear as he fell. Chogan was blasting through two men on his way through the foundrt the first, a black haired man of Irish and French ancenstry with blue eyes and thick black facial hair fell with his guts hanging out. The next man, he hit in the right elbow. As the man's arm barely held together Chogan put another blast right between his wide open screaming mouth until he didn't have one.

Shep and Ray covered their rear as two gangsters tried to come around the side but Ray hit the first man, an Irishmen in the left and then the right knee and sent more, six more to be exact, into his aorta. Shep on the other hand, was not even caring to use a bigger gun. He was using the M9. He fired striking the man, a man of French descent twice in the collar bone once in the chest and the round exited his shoulder blade and twice in the skull.

As another came around the corner trying to tackle him, Shep wasted no time. He emptied every round into him and then used his limp bleeding body as a shield as he reloaded and then let him collapse. Danyen caught a man in the right eye as he took two shots at him with a 12 gauge and he killed the man instantly. "You want to fuck with our business?! You want trouble? We'll bring it to you!" Screamed Shep as he fired six rounds into a Caucasian male with blonde hair and green eyes in a brown leather jacket a black sweater and gray jeans. Paul fired at a man who was already wounded courtesy of Ace's three men. The man had been hit once with the shotgun in his left foot and twice in the abdomen one from the other two men's weapons. Paul finished him with a headshot as he was puking blood.

Little Joe ran out spraying at two mobsters as they tried to get into their oracle and after twenty four rounds both men were dead where the lay, in the front seat of the car. "Warriors for life, bitches!"

But the Mob was not going out without a fight. One man in his early 40's a Caucasian with graying brown air and an already gray beard and brown eyes in a tan leather jacket and a red shirt and blue jean and cowboy boots fired a 20 gauge and hit he Warrior with the UMP in the back. The gang member fell coughing blood. Due to the nature of that wound there was no way he would make it. The man was hit however with the Stryker and the top of his head was taken off. Before the Warrior with the Stryker could shoot anybody else, he was riddled with ten rounds from an AK-47 as a mobster with blonde hair and blue eyes in his early 40's sprayed at him. The man was a Brit, unusual but not impossible to be in the West End Mob.

Paul fired hitting that guy in the chest and then focused on his heart emptying the magazine and reloading. He hated Brits. It didn't matter if they were from over there or living right here. They had broken the Two Row agreement. They were his enemy.

The next to go was the third man with Ace. He was hit by a gangster carrying an MP5. Twenty rounds struck him down. Ace fired hitting the man in the shoulder on the left with the Spas 12. A hole the size of an orange was opened up and Paul could see bone. The mobster fell over going into shock.

Finally, the rest of the wounded were brought out. There was only two left. The rest of them, including some of those who had been in the cars that had been there when their smokes went up in smoke, were killed in the firefight already. One of the men wounded, however was a man of mostly French but some Irish ancestry a blonde haired male who was thirty standing at 5'11. He lay wounded from gunshots caused by Dawn. Both his knee caps were shot out and he had two more bullet wounds in his right hip. Shep told his two younger brothers, "Chogan, I want you to pop the trunk. Joe, i want you to get in the glove box and get my salt outta there. Chogan, I want you to bring me my...tool..."

The other wounded man had been shot but Paul was not clear who had wounded him. He turned to Ace and said, "Get rid of him..." The Inuit replied, "With pleasure," He emptied the shotgun into the man's bowels through his spine through the muscle tissue large and small intestines, his spleen, his liver and kidneys until it was a straight hole front to back.

Shep was brought his salt as well as a blow torch. He pulled out a hunting knife and began to heat it up with the blow torch. He then began cut into the remaining West End Mobster's left knee. "NYAAAAAAAAAAGHHHHHHHHHHHH!" He roared loud enough to wake the dead. "Sir! Sir!" Shep stated. "I'm gonna need you to try and hold still! I'm new at this so I don't want to fuck up!"

He dug the blade in deeper and he screeched louder. "Alright, get this fucker some booze!" Ace found a 12 pack of Pisswasser in the man's car. "That''ll do!" He opened a can and poured the beer all over the wounds and he kicked and screamed. "Now sir...sir...I didn't graduate medical school! I only worked in the medical ward a little bit..." Shep stated with an evil snicker. He cut into the wound deeper and blood and the smell of alcohol mixed as the blade went deeper into the man's patella. "YOU FUCKNG INDIAN PIECE OF SHIT!" The guy screamed. Shep took his salt shaker that he normally had if he felt fries at fast food drive thrus were bot salty enough. "You know they say you Frenchies are a bunch of snails. I can understand that. You're disgusting, slimy and just have bad hygeine in general. I read up on just how much the average European showers over there. Well you know what they say...want to kill a snail? Just add salt..." He poured it into the wound and the man screamed, "JUST KILL ME! FOR THE LOVE OF CHRIST!"

He dug in deeper with the blade and Paul was shocked he didn't pass out from the pain. "Oh, I see the problem! Sir, it seems you've been shot!" Shep said with a grin. He got the slug out. He then forced the West Ender to swallow the slug. "Eat it!" He growled. The guy whimpered. "I'm sorry, but I gotta cauterize the wound."

With that he took the blow torch to both knees. This time, he did pass out from the pain.

Later that, night they divided up the earnings. It didn't matter much to Paul. Whatever he made he would exchange for US dollars anyway when he got back home. He didn't want to be in Canada anymore.

As he was getting ready to leave he Danyen had to go and he said, "Listen brother, just think about what I said, alright? You don't know that Aila isn't one of the greater ones...you might be letting go of her too easily..."

Meanwhile, back on the rez, Aila was chilling with Little Joe. "Hey...you've proven yourself to be a man...you want to make it official?" Paul suspected that she was just doing it to get back at him. He didn't care. If Little Joe was aware he was being used at all, he didn't seem to care. "Shit, lead the way!"

As this happened, Natalie asked, "Bro are you gonna let that happen?"

"I don't care. And honestly, it's better for Joe if he does lose his virginity anyway."

"Look I get that you see it as differet to sleep around with your own and you're right it is but...Little Joe is a friend of yours. If you ever do change your mind and want her back, you can't unring that bell."

"I don't want to. We were never a couple anyway. I mean her fuckin name is Lollipop. That's a nickname she earned by getting around. You can't turn a ho into a house wife."

"Is that how they're teaching you to talk aout your own women down there in Bohan? If it is you're hanging with the wrong crowd. And that's not true. Everybody has a past. But men don't get called out for being sluts the way women get slut shamed."

"I consider my father a traitor."

"And he's dead. But Aila's alive. You know the average lifespan for a Native male is what, 45? You really want to spend life regretting what could have been over your pride?"

"Look, I'm not saying that women shouldn't come back to their own. Same with men. But only Natives who ormerly dated outsiders should be with each other. They should stay away from nons to show they're sincere but also stay away from us. If we have any purity in ourselves even those of us who aren't pure in blood, who have nevermixed out...if I ever had sex with Aila again...I would be dirtying myself."

"You sure this isn't insecurity?"

" if it is, then the same is true for Native women that don't want a Native man that has fucked other kinds of women. Maybe some insecurity is rational. I'm not racist. I have friends of every race. But the kind of shit I had to put up with as a half breed? Subjecting a new generation to it is cruel."

"Yeah but times change..."

"No they dont. Laws change. There's always gonna be somebody who gives half breeds shit. And why wouldn't they? We're walking between two worlds and our loyalty isn't assured."

"But look,...I know you're down for us and I consider you a homeboy. I mean so what you're a half breed? You aint first and you won't be last."

"Till half breeds run out and it's down to quarter bloods and the full bloods are gone..."

"That won't happen. As long as there's some that stays with our own we'll survive. You know...even though I only like women...I still want to see our people survive too but two spirits...we gotta decolonize too..."

She then said, "Listen...maybe you're looking at it the wrong way. Maybe it took Aila dipping her toes in other waters to see that she still liked Red men the most. I disagree with what she did but she didn't get an STD, they used protection and she didn't get pregnant. If she's willing to overlook that you're mixed you should forgive her for this. We...we talked about you when you weren't here. That is she did. She misse you when you leave. She has feelings for you."

"I told her I didn't love her..."

"That was a lie, then."

"No. It isn't. And she doesnt love me either."

"Yes she does. I've seen the way she looks at you. If you don't see it you're blind. You two have a lot in common. If you were to have kids with her they'd have a clan."

"Why do you care? You're a lesbian. My favorite lesbian but still."

"Because, A I've been with men before. And B I love you both like family, stupid!" She smiled. "Don't...push her away. Little Joe and Chogan are good dudes but they're not sober. She could get back into huffing and drinking around them. Even if she's taking his v card, he still does drugs. He hasn't learned."

He looked to the place wher she and Little Joe had gone. "I can't be the one to save her from addiction. She has to do that herself...and besides...it's too late. You take care of yourself, Natalie. I love you too, sis."

She hugged him and said, "You're gonna see I'm right some day...you'll see and I won't have to say I told you so."

2015

Paul had finally arrived at the rez. He was remembering the past and he almost felt like crying. One later after he had left Canada as well as Liberty City, when he was running around with Neto, Mai and Ivan, Natalie had been killed. They had found her beaten and raped and she had died. The West End Mob had retaliated and kidnappped and beaten her and raped her. They'd hit her in the head with a crowbar.

Paul felt so bad. He had considered Natalie a sister. He knocked on the door to Chogan's place. He expected to see the three Cree brothers but instead it was Aila and Dawn. They both had tears in their eyes at seeing he was alive. They squealed with joy hugging him and pulling him inside. "Sweet beefy! You're alive!" Screamed Dawn. She kissed him on the lips. After a lot of them crying and hugging he finally told them everything he had been up to all this time in Los Santos. And in prison. He even told them about Tanaka.

He then looked at Aila. "Can I talk to you for a minute?"

Dawn said, "I'll make u some food."

He looked at her and said, "Aila...I'm sorry...for the way I acted the last time i saw you. I was an asshole. I...I haven't changed the way I think about that kind of thing but...I feel terrible the way i left things...an I'm sure you're in a relationship now...but...i shouldn't have said all the things I said..."

"I cried my eyes out when I thought you were dead. All the fighting we had you and me...it didn't matter anymore once I thought you were gone forever. And I know you were hurting when your mom died. Believe me we're still after the Triads for that...but... i did...me and Joe..."

"I figured as much."

"No I mean...we're not together but we did date for a while. He's matured. He's actually off everything but weed. He grew the fuck up. Listen...before about what I did...I almost wasn't gonna tell you I mean I wasn't gonna tell anything and yeah...most of my friends judged me for it but it's not like I didn't do wrong myself. With that biker I didn't even know his name. I guess it was...curiosity...on both sides."

"That old cliche eh?"

"It's not what you think. The first guy was about average but...it hurt a little bit cause he went a little too fast and it was missionary..." Paul held up a hand. "I really didn't need to know that..."

"And with the other guy...it wasn't anything special either. Nothing spectacular. It was more what we did together than anything else. He tried to teach me French. Said he wanted to take me to Paris...he was so full of shit...so...as much as you guys punished me just with the shame I was more disgusted with myself. But...what Natalie told you...it's true I mean...your sobriety...I always loved that about you. But like you told her...cause she told me...you can't be my reason to get sober. But you can inspire. And you did. And then I did with Joe...

"Well if that worked out why didn't that last?"

"We're still more like siblings than anything else."

"Would that be southern siblings?" She chuckled. "Shut up!" Smacking him on the arm. "I missed you..." She said. "Did everybody else...start to treat you okay?"

"Yeah...over time...but we've been busy with the war with the Dragon Circle. And the Angels and the PO's. And IC."

Just then Dawn came in with a blunt lit. "Neither one of you consider weed to be substance abuse. Take a hit..."

Paul took a puff. "Haven't had one of these in a long time..." He passed it to Aila. "It's from the earth..." She said taking a toke. Soon the three were smoking and laughing again. "Geez, Paul you're fuckin ripped ,man...prison did you good. Not an ounce of fat on you..." Dawn stated.

"Yeah he's like a butterfly..." Aila said with a smile.

Just then, Aila grabbed a sleeping bag and went int the kitchen. She began to roll around in the sleeping bag. Paul laughed. "The fuck are you doing?!"

"Doing the cattepillar dance ya know? Ya gotta be a cattepillar to be a butterfly..." Dawn found this amusing and she got one too and started rolling joining the Miq'maq woman on the floor in silliness. "Come on, Beefy, you're out and you're ready to be a butterfly but you gotta do the cocon dance!" They both laughed wildly. He chuckled. "Fuck it..." He began to roll on the floor too and they all laughed. Later that night Dawn was in the shower and it was getting late. Aila and he were holding hands. "Hey.. when I said...I didn't love you...i lied...what I said was wrong. Can you forgive me?"

"I can...if you forgive me."

He nodded. She kissed him. He was unsure at first but he let it happened. With that, she laid her head on his shoulder. They held each other keeping warm. She fell asleep on him and he didn't mind. But as Dawn showered and Aila slept, he thought about getting revenge for Natalie.

After she got out, Dawn came out in a towel and got dressed. He looked at her and she said, "It's not like we haven't seen each other naked..."

"I know...I just been inside for two years."

"Bet you thought of us in there a lot huh? We had some good times..."

"Yeah...hey Dawn...I didnt get a chance to say it because...when I was here last it was a fight between me and her. But..I do care about you too. i hope...that you've been trying to get sober too."

"I have...but you didn;'t have anything to do with that. No offense."

"None taken. That's what I would prefer."

"I just got tired of it. I felt suicidal when I drank or huffed. But I couldn't go through with killing myself."

"I'm glad you didn't...I know it doesn't matter anymore...but I love you too...even if it has been two years. I wished I could have taken you to San Andreas with me."

"I would have loved to see it..." The Cree girl admitted. "But i can't ever go back...I'm supposed to be dead now..."

She said, "I'm glad that didn't happen either...I missed you...is your...view on Aila different now?"

"I mean...I don't hold any anger towards her now but...I'm not sure i should ever do what we did before with her. It's not that i see her as 'tainted' anymore...it's just that i I did say it's all good now...I'd be a hypocrite if I gave in to my desires."

"I like sex myself but...I don't want to do it if I'm not in love..."

Paul asked her, "Do you love me?"

She looked down. "Y...ye..." She started to say but looked down. "What's wrong?"

"I just...we thought you died. We still weren't over it and now you're here..it's all very real. But...if I give my heart to you...with or without her...couple or throuple...how do i know you won't leave again?"

He told her, "I got nothing for me in Liberty City...and I can't go back to Los Santos...I'm not going anywhere...and if I do...you're coming with me.. I know you and Aila want to travel...you never been to the states...maybe if I do what i do with Tanaka...for Tanaka...I can get a fresh start...and i can show you two what the US is like..."

Dawn smiled. "I'd like that...listen...you should stay here for the night. The others will be happy you're here. Shep and his brothers are out in Lightning Bay for a few days. Everybody should be glad you're here. We were angry at you when you left especially the guys. But nobody wanted to see you dead...so...stay with us...because when you show yoursself back to them again it'll be back to business and that can get bloody...I just want to enjoy...this for now...as long as we can."

He kissed her luscious big pink lips. She kissed him back and he ran a hand through her hair. "Can you just...hold me...? Even though I've been good lately...I think about Natalie around this time of year...winters...and I miss her...we've lost more people from the streets..." He nodded and let her settle in on his other shulder, They did not go to the beds. They stayed on the couch one under each arm. They didn't need a blanket. Their warmth was enough for each other.

Neto

They were boxing but Felix's heart was not in it. "Why aren't you concentrating?"

"You think maybe i don't want to fuckin spar with you? I don't like you. I never have. You might have done some good for the neighborhood but you also caused a lot of problems out here,"

Neto lowered his fists. "You know what? You're right. I killed Cheetah right? I killed Isabella. I put Loka in the chair. I took that BSU placa off you. That was all me."

"Are you gonna deny what you did?"

"No. But I'm not going to take the heat fo shit I didn't do. You don't like me pues? I don't like you either. You're one of those vatos that are with us more out of identity crisis than true faith. I don't want anybody on our side that was forced to be here instead of choosing to be. But I'm not from New Austin. If Santana shows you pity that's on him. Cruz too. But you better start growing some fuckin pelotas. Because I know about your little fight with Lee you challenged him too. You need to train with somebody who has beaten him. Because if you don't beat him...I'm gonna kick your fuckin ass even worse. We're supposed to be some of the best boxers. So if you lose to that Bullshiter faggot I'm gonna fuck you up even worse because you are an embarassment to the varrio you grew up in. You want to earn some juevos? Then beat the man who attacked you blaming you for something you didn't do."

"Yeah, some motivational speaker you are..."

"i'm not here to fill you with have a size advantage over Lee. That doesn't decide a fight but it can help. Mark always tries to use it when we fight. If you don't take advantage of having longer arms then what's the point? You want me to get you some fuckin panties homes? Maybe send a real man like Adayh in there? Cause he'd fuck Lee up. Even Mark, every time he's fought him hasn't been dead on. He's always grabbing something."

"Mark learns from the IAA, He doesn't fight to fight a fair fight. He fights to win."

"Yeah but that's an excuse. It's YOUR responsibility to make sure he has nothing to grab in a fight you're supposed to dominate the fucker and you're around the same size he is That BITCH got lucky he choked me out but more importantly than that? He threw a gator at me."

Neto had that backwards. Mark had in fact thrown him to a gator but that was semantics. "Point is, I soldiered through that shit! He might have won that fight but I wasn't going to make it easy. But you aren't going to follow my example against Mark. You're going to set your own example and beat Lee. You know his moves. And I can show you what kick boxing moves he used on me. You'll know what he's bringing to the table and he thinks he knows what you got. I can show you the martial arts I used on him and Ana."

"Yeah, i guess to beat Ana you had to lose to Ana, eh?"

Neto glared. "All that...? it don't matter now because they pissed Ivan off. They didn't just start a war with him. They'll have the Markovich Family after them if this doesn't get resolved soon. And unlike me, Ivan wouln't fight Mark for fun or keep him alive for fun. He wouldn't torture him. He would cause him a painful death but he'd make sure it was done quick enough to be a sure thing. But don't get me wrong though. If Ivan's pissed I mean really pissed he can be sadistic. Only he wouldn't torture Mark publically the way i would. He'd do it somewhere secluded and he wouldn't leave a trace for Mark's friends. Truth is Ivan's been killing since I was a kid. So if I don't get to get back at Mark for what he did this time...it doesn't matter. Ivan will rain hell on him."

"You almost sounded like you were trying to motivate."

"The motivation is this. Fight twice as hard as you normally would. Or youre going to get beat twice as hard. And i hit harder than that bitch Lee does.I might even accidentally kill you. I don't tolerate chavalas."

With anger, Felix went back to sparring. Within a half hour, Neto would start to show him the Mayan martial arts moves.

---

This was a tender moment with Paul and Aila and Dawn after such an ugly moment two years before. The reason why I had Aila have had a one night stand plus a relationship with an outsider are hard to explain but it's a thing that Paul is not really cool with (And i changed it so that he got with Infernus not Nikki so that cant be counted against him) but it serves as a strain on their relationship plus Aila is a likable character but no relationship is perfect.

As for Aila and Little Joe, slight spoiler he didn't actually screw her that night he lost his virginity to that rez drunk lady but Paul thought Aila did him all though they did go out with each other for a time too. I wanted to also show Paul as both reasonable in that fight but also have aspets of that that are understandable. If you're not Indigenous though whether you agree or disagree with mine and Paul's stances on that, you just can't understand how it is if you're not First Nations. You can't see it from the perspective of an endangered people. But as far as paul and aila mending fences do you want to see them be an item again he will for sure be with Dawn in a way. But I did have an idea for a lemon I was gonna do with Aila but whether Paul decides he wouldn't be a hpocrite if he did give in and do her or not i wanted to have him have a solo lemon with Dawn first but I don't have it in me to do this chapter. This chapter was going to be a bit longer but it's already pretty long.

As for Mai's thing with Baby Face that will continue into the next chapter but i admit it was kind of a middle finger to my fans. Sorry i will continue it next chapter my hands are just very cold thats why this is a mostly lemon free chapter.

I'll also show what happens with the drug deal next chapter and also the same Triad that Ivan and Buddha and Monster was meetin is the same one Paul had tried to do a deal with in Canada. How do you think the war between the Warriors and the Dragon Circle Triads will come into play?

And sadly, Natalie is gone initially i was going to have it be the Angels that did that to her but decided to go another way plus it was mentioned to me about the West End gang and because of zilla i put this in there. Also that mission was based on the wild ones chapter of Mafia 2.

Next chapter Paul will in 2015 target he Dragon Circle at one of their businesses. But that could be a while want to let Zilla get caught up and though this served the plot this will be my last mention of Danyen fr now all though it's Zillas character he hasnt featured much in new arcadia but he has here as a testemant to his friendship with paul but i figured his last time here until zilla mentions him again he can offer some insight.

As far as those statistics, that actually is backed up by WHO Id heard it said before and thought it was a stereotype but I didn't see the source now i have though.

Honestly down the line though speaking of pobles between races though Paul would admit that he wishes the Native suicide rate was as low as black and I'm trying to decide what character I would have him discuss that with like have a black character ask him why Natives kill ourselves and blacks don't despite both facing historical trauma. I could decide on oe of m ocs but honestly mark would be an interesting person to talk to as wel because mark and paul are about equal in intelligence and they have not yet met.

Also the methods of torture which Shep do are as sadistic as joker yet hes atually a better person than Joker in regardless of who it was done b Joe is now a man.

And he's sober all though Chogan is spoilers lets just say Chogan will have to go through a lot.

Also what do you think Tanaka will want paul to do in canada as a price for getting him out?

Next chapter also, Mai will hit back the psychos in the 2014 storyline and iva and that drug deal will be interupted and later after that he will find out that thing regarding a problem that the Psychos discovered.

I should also say that the lemon Mai will have with Baby Face will also involve Jill. And i ealized i need to show Clyde again but also next chapter, Lama, G Note, Big Sway, H Bomb, Stone and his Ballas will ride against the Aryan Vanguard.

There was not much lemon except the mini lemon with Lamar and G note ill try and do that later on a longer one. But what was more important than the lemon was the convo between Lamar and G Note. Anyway, hope you enjoyed.