Delaney and I had rushed downstairs shortly after Rafael's announcement. When we got downstairs, everyone was standing in the living room staring down a shaking kid. He had to be no more than sixteen years old. There was blood all over his shirt and he was sobbing. I took a deep breath and went to stand beside my friends. I looked to them for some kind of explanation, but they just stared at the kid in confusion just like me.

"Hey, kid. What happened? Why is there blood all over your shirt?" The kid covered his face with his hands and plopped down on my white couch. I cringed. He was going to get blood all over it. Well, at least it wouldn't be the first time. I had to shoot a guy in my own house once and it took me forever to get the blood stain out of the damn couch. Maybe I should just exchange my furniture for darker colors. Wait, why I was thinking about furniture right now? There was a crying kid in front of me.

"I-I don't know. I walked into the house and he was just laying there. In the kitchen. Food still cooking. Blood everywhere. Lots of blood." I looked towards my friends and they just shrugged their shoulders. Poor kid was so shaken up, I didn't know how I was going to get anything out of him.

"Who was laying on the kitchen floor," I asked as softly as possible. I crouched down in front of the kid and he removed his hands from his face. His brown eyes were still overflowing with tears. His lips quivered as he looked down at me.

"My dad. His name was Craig."

"F-ck. Craig Langley? You're his kid?"

"Yeah." The kid broke down in tears again and I stood up straight. How could I not have noticed? He looked just like f-cking Craig. I put my hands on top of my head and tried to gather my thoughts. Craig was our main drug packager. He had a simple, easy job and he hardly ever had to encounter violence. All he did was pack sh-t out to nice enough quantities and handed them to the dealers to sell, so who the hell would kill him and why? He was as innocent as it got in the Family. He was just a single father trying to make ends meet for him and his son.

I let out a deep breath and began pacing. "Where is he now? Where is his...body?"

"It's home. He always told me if anything happened to him to never call authorities. He told me to come to this address or to one of the clubhouses. I decided to come here since it was a shorter walk and-"

"You walked here in blood stained clothes?!"

"I'm sorry, I just-"

"It's fine, kid. It's just you could've got into big trouble. I tell you what. We're going to go check up on your father and we're going to find out who did this. In the meantime, I need you to stay here. Take a shower. I'll get you some fresh clothes. Craig told me he didn't have any family but you. You can stay here for a while and we'll figure things out soon. I promise. What's your name?"

"Kris."

"I'm Andy."

I escorted Kris to a guest room, gave him some fresh clothes and my phone number. It kind of wasn't wise to leave him alone but no one wanted to stay behind with him. Even Delaney wanted to go, I wasn't sure how I felt about that. Kris kept saying his dad was really messed up. I'm not sure if she was ready to see a really f-cked up dead body, but I guess she had to get accustomed to it. Especially if she wanted to be a doctor for the Family.

"Damn, that kid is f-cked up," Leo said on the car ride to Craig's place.

"He just found his father laying in a pool of blood and he has no other family. Wouldn't you be f-cked up too," Lin asked. She was at the steering wheel of the Range Rover. Leo sat on the passenger side yapping, while it was dead silent in the back with Delaney, Rafael and I.

"His place is like three miles away. He walked all the way to Andy's place drenched in blood. Do you know how dangerous that is? I mean, we're all thinking it. He's black. I'm surprised the cops didn't go crazy and shoot him down with the way things are going nowadays. It's a fucked up reality," Leo continued talking.

"He wasn't thinking rationally. I can't even imagine what's going on in his mind. He talks like his father was in a bad condition," I defended Kris. At this moment, I doubt the kid cared rather he died or lived but he did have to be more careful.

"Remember when one of our guys got drunk and got into an accident? Delaney, it was so disgusting. The guy got decapitated. Andy had to hold his head and put it in a garbage bag." I gagged at remembering that time. It was one of the most horrific moments of my life. Why the hell did Leo bring that up? "What if it's worse than that?"

"I doubt it's that bad. He probably just got shot a couple of times," Rafael added in his input.

"Wait, why were you guys at the scene of the crash," Delaney asked, bringing us back to the traumatizing decapitated story.

"We have special IDs that we keep on us that shows we're in the De Palma Family. When one of us dies or gets hurt, if the ambulance are first on the scene they usually call one of us up. Then we send in our medics or get someone to pick up the body. It just makes things better and less sloppy. We don't like getting the general public caught up with the violence and wasting hospital beds," I explained.

"So, you could be five minutes from death, the ambulance could save you but you have to wait for your people to get on the scene?! That's f-cking crazy!"

I really didn't expect Delaney to understand. It was pretty crazy and kind of f-cked up, but it was just how things went. "Sometimes they'll just take us to the hospital if it's life or death and if our people can't get there on time. But I don't know, it's whatever. We chose this life and we'll most likely die from the consequences. I'd rather lay there dying and waiting for my people then to be sent to a hospital and waste a bed that could be used for someone who really needs it."

"That's f-cking stupid, Andy. If you ever get hurt you better take the first help you get or else I'm going to kill you. If you die, I'm going to f-cking revive you just to kill you again for being so damn stupid." I laughed at Delaney but she wasn't laughing. "I'm being serious. If you die, I'm going to be really f-cking pissed."

"I'm not going to die, darlin'."

"How do you know!? You already almost died right in front of my eyes! Luckily, we had Shawn close by but what if you get a very bad injury and there's no one around within 25 miles that can help you from the Family but there's paramedics right there. What are you going to do?"

"I'm going to wait for my homies!"

"Okay, and I won't go to your funeral because you're dumb as f-ck." Delaney was seriously getting mad. Her face was turning red and she crossed her arms. "And if I do go to your funeral, I'll show up with someone new since you want to play games."

"I don't care. I'll be dead. You can f-ck someone on top of my casket and I'll be chill about it," I told her with a shrug. "I'm probably somewhere in the afterlife with someone else anyways."

Delaney gasped and punched my shoulder as hard as she could. I grabbed my shoulder and winced. "What the f-ck, Delaney?!"

"Aye, stop hitting my boss before I come back there and choke your little ass out," Leo yelled at Delaney. I don't know if she was joking or being serious, but I laughed which I think made Delaney angrier.

Delaney unbuckled her seatbelt and got up. "I'd like to see you do it," she told Leo as she tried to climb to the front.

I grabbed Delaney by the waist and pulled her down on my lap. "Settle down now, darlin'. I'm sorry. I'll wait at least a month before I start f-cking b-tches in the afterlife and if I need help, I'll get it from anyone just so you don't have to worry about me dying."

Delaney shrugged her shoulders. "I don't care. Since you want to be disrespectful, I can't wait to f-ck someone else on top of your grave."

"Savage," Rafael commented with a howl of laughter. "You two are really perfect for each other."

When we got to Craig's house, there wasn't any more talking, joking or arguing. I think we were all nervous to see exactly what state the body was in. Was it really messed up or was Kris overreacting? Most importantly, who the hell killed him and could they still be around? I took the lead and made Delaney stand between Rafael and Lin in the back, just in case there was a threat in the house. My gun was out as I barged into the house. It was dead quiet but I still yelled, "Anybody here?! If so, I'm about to put a f-cking hole in your skull!"

"Bad ass punchline, champ," Leo commented behind me.

I rolled my eyes and put my gun away. "No one alive is in here. All I feel is a bad, empty energy."

"Are you a medium now or something?"

"Okay, enough with the jokes. We're about to see a dead man who was a staple in our crew. Let's have some respect," I voiced to everyone and not just Leo. My friends and I could get childish at time. Back at that drunk guy's accident, we were literally playing hot potato with his head because no one wanted to hold it. It's safe to say that guy wasn't as important as Craig. I don't even remember the name of the dumb f-ck who decided to drink and drive.

When we walked into the kitchen, we all let out either a gasp or a very, strong, "Damn!" There was blood all over the kitchen floor, the wall, the counter and even in the green beans he was cooking on the stove. Craig lay in the middle of the kitchen and unlike what we thought, he wasn't killed by gunshots. He was stabbed at least thirty times which was visible to see since they had stripped him from his clothes and left him in just his underwear.

Just when I thought things couldn't get any worse, when I looked in his face I noticed his eyeballs were missing. I was guilty of stepping back and puking all over the floor. As soon as I started puking, a domino effect occurred. Only Delaney was able to stomach down the sight which was kind of ironic since the rest of us was somewhat more accustomed to mutilated dead bodies.

"Whoever did this...this is a message. It's a rival gang," I said as I wiped my mouth with my shirt. Now, not only did the house reek of blood but also vomit. It smelled so horrible that it made my stomach hurt.

"There's a note on the kitchen table," Delaney pointed out in a dry voice. How was she taking all of this in better than us? She walked up to the table but quickly jumped back. I followed behind her but did the same thing when I saw the letter. One of the gauged-out eyeballs sat on the paper and under it were the words: see you.

"I see you," I said aloud.

"Either there's a random, sick ass serial killer in Santa Monica or we've got a big problem, guys," Rafael voiced in a trembling voice.

"This is too much. I'm scared. I got to take a sh-t." Leo ran to the nearest bathroom, leaving the rest of us with the body and the creepy note.

"There's another one. It's longer," Lin pointed out as she grabbed a piece of paper from the kitchen counter. "It reads: Dear, De Palma Family, your reign is about to end. We're going to start off small and slowly. I want a good fight. I want you to catch us. In the next few months, someone else will die and then someone else, and another so be on your guard. Each death will be more gruesome than the other. We're going to work our way up until we get to Andy herself. By the way, Andy, congratulations on your new title. Hopefully you're better than Jimmy."

"It's signed by 'an old friend'."

"Who the hell could that be? What rival gang members would be crazy enough to f-ck with us like this," Rafael asked.

"I'm not sure but we have at least a few months to figure this out before they kill again. They want a game. They said they want us to catch them so they'll most likely make it easy for us. We just need to be on our guard. We need to tell our people to be extra cautious. We can't make it seem too much of a big deal though. We don't want our people retaliating and killing every opposing gang they see. We can't cut peaceful ties until we know for sure who it is. We need to be on the defense but act like nothing is going on to our possible enemies faces. For now, instead of issuing a meeting at the clubhouse, we need to spread this by text and word of mouth. The enemy is watching and we can't let them know we're shook about this. If they see a huge gathering at the clubhouse they'll know it's because of this. We can't give them that satisfaction. With that said, someone needs call one of the morticians and have them get the body. Craig won't have a funeral. We'll pay our respects in a different way, once again we don't want our enemy getting any attention. As for the kid, I guess I'll take care of him until we can get him somewhere to live."

"Damn, you really are good at this head honcho sh-t," Leo said as she emerged from the bathroom.

"Damn, fool. Your sh-t smells worse than this body," Rafael groaned as he covered his nose with his shirt.

I smacked the back of his head. "Hey, have some respect."

"I just got off the phone with one of the morticians. He's coming down here with a guard in case whoever did this tries to double back. So can we please get out of here? This place is really giving me the creeps," Lin said as she shivered.

"Yeah, let's go. I better check on Kris."

-

I don't know if you guys read my story "Young & Dumb" but this chapter is giving me those kind of spooky, Pretty Little Liars type sh-t vibes. I hope you guys like it. I doubt you guys have enough information yet but any theories on who could be after Andy and the De Palma Family?