By the time I made it into the south side trap house, my adrenaline rush was fading. I gasped for air. My eyes roamed around the room. I was shocked to find it empty. The silence was eerie.

I stepped across the room and sat down on the couch, placing my head in my hands. I took a couple of deep breaths as I tried to ease my racing heart. Fear rushed through me in the alley. It was an emotion I had been forced to bury deep inside myself and, for some reason, it escaped to the surface.

The last time that soul-jarring emotion bubbled through was the day my mother left me alone with my father. I hadn't known what the future held for me. As the years passed, the fear that life would never get better had crept into my mind, but when I was sixteen it all changed.

The streets were covered in a light snow that night. After battling with thoughts of suicide, I had managed to stumble down my fire escape into the alley. I walked into the darkness alone, searching for anything to give me a sign. A simple sign that there was a better life for me. That was all I was searching for that night when Cayden came across me. He took me in and showed me the brotherhood. The Southside who became my family. They made me feel like I belonged. They gave me what I thought was a better life. I ran my hands through my hair. My eyes scanned the vacant apartment.

The room was dark. Thick black curtains blocked out the light. The only exception was the couple of light bulbs that worked in one fixture in the kitchen. The wall in the far back corner heading to Cayden's room had a single bulletin board on it, which I had never noticed before this moment.

I pushed off the couch and made my way over too it, instantly curious as to what was on it. My fingers ran over a couple of pictures held firmly by colored pins. The pictures were old, their edges ruffled and partially turned to ash as if someone had tried to burn them.

I stopped and let my hand linger on one specific photo of James, with his arms around two younger kids. The kids were similar in age; one was dark skinned, while the other child was white. I figured the white child was Cayden, but I couldn't decipher who the other kid might be.

That was when I noticed that each picture tacked to the board had James, Cayden, and this mysterious boy. The pictures captured the boys as they aged through the years.

I knew I shouldn't snoop around James' room, but I couldn't help the curiosity that filled me while I was here, alone in the apartment. James' door creaked as it swung to hit the wall. It was dark, so I pulled out my phone light, swiping it on. I hesitated.

I shouldn't do it.

My feet didn't listen as they carried me forward. I made my way across the room until I reached an old desk, turning on the lamp that sat on top of it. I flicked my phone off as the dim light cast shadows around the room.

Everything was still intact. Nothing had been moved, and no dust had been disturbed. It was like the room was preserved in time.

The only furniture in the room was a king-sized bed, a desk, and a small box T.V. that was from the 80's or 90's, at least. I looked through the desk, pulling out different drawers and analyzing more pictures I found. Each picture was of James and the same two kids.

Apparently, they'd spent a lot of time together over the years. There were photos of them playing basketball together, swimming in a lake, and climbing up trees. One of the pictures was of them posing in front of the school on what appeared to be their last first day. Just from looking at the pictures, James must have been very attached to Cayden and this other mysterious boy.

There was some unspoken bond that had lasted for a while. That must have been why Cayden had been so distraught the day James died. It also would explain the bond Cayden has with me. It is what he was taught by James.

I pulled open the last drawer on the left side of the desk, and inside lay a small book with a dark leather cover. I pulled it out, wiping the dust off it to see if it had a title, but the front of the book was just blank, solid material. I opened it and pieces of loose newspaper clippings fell into my lap. They were articles about Southside gang activities and the work the police had done to cut the crime rate. I gathered them and laid them back in their place.

I turned my attention to the journal in my lap. I laid it on the desk in front of me and turned the page, reading through the dates until I found one that peaked my interest. I leaned forward to read it in the dim light.

September 21st, 1988

I met two young boys today. They crossed paths with me in the alley on their way home from school. Cayden was bouncing a basketball and his friend, Jeff, said they were headed to the court if I wanted to come with them to play. They couldn't have been older than eight. I decided to go with them because I didn't think they needed to be without supervision in a territory like this.

I stopped reading and sat back in my seat. I looked up from the journal to one of the pictures on the desk and a when realization hit me. The mysterious kid was. . .

Suddenly, I caught movement in the doorway and slammed the journal shut. I turned to look at who entered the room. Cayden was propped against the door with his arms folded across his chest. He had on a dark hoodie with the hood over his head. My dream flashed through my mind. A shiver ran down my spine, raising goosebumps along my arms.

"You read anything interesting over there, kid?" he asked his cold eyes on my face.

I nodded my head as I watched him. "Is it all true?" A feeling of betrayal washed over me. How dare he never mention he was close with the police chief.

"It's true. Every single word of it. Jeff Jackson, the Chicago Police Chief, used to be my 'gang brother,'" he said, the words getting stuck in his throat as he forced them out.

He grunted and glanced at the ground. "James found us on the way home from school. Jeff and I had met on the playground that day, and we'd decided to play basketball together after school. We'd both lost our fathers recently. We each needed a father-figure in our life. We needed that protection." He looked up to me.

I remained silent.

"James took us in without hesitation; he raised us. My mother was a junkie who spent most of her nights in the streets to feed her addiction. I made the decision to move in with James, and found out she died of an overdose two weeks later. Jeff chose to continue living with his aunt and would sneak out at night when we needed him."

He folded his arms across his chest and leaned against the door creaky door frame. "James initiated us together, too. We became his sons. We were his loyal followers. We did whatever he asked us, too. It didn't matter how horrific. We wanted to make him proud. He had us on a rope, Spencer. He manipulated us so easily. Two young boys." He shook his head. His face looked disgusted. His eyes grew dark and distant as he seemed to remember something awful.

I rested my elbows on my knees as I leaned forward. Cayden walked over beside me, his hand reaching down to touch one of the pictures on the desk. I recoiled away from him. His words from my dream echoing in my mind. I kept my eyes on Cayden as he grimaced before he started speaking again.

A heavy sigh escaped his chest. "That's when the beatings started. The abuse was constant. It was some new excuse every day. Some new reason to lay into us. The physical abuse was tough, but the constant verbal abuse. . . It is hell."

His eyes remained focused on the picture of the three of them. "Shit, it plays games with your mind. You get confused. You forget who you are inside, and you learn to be who he tells you you are. I wouldn't be who I am today without James, though. He made me strong. He taught me how to survive anything."

I stared at him. It took me a second to find the words to respond. The gang's secrets were coming into the light, and my dream resurfaced in my thoughts. Cayden viewed James the same way I viewed him. "Why did you stay? If he started mistreating you, why not just leave?"

He laughed menacingly. "Just leave, Spencer? You think it's that easy to just leave the Southside? Once you go through initiation, it is inside of you. You become the Southside, and it becomes you," he growled, reaching forward to touch my chest.

I look up at him and the hairs on the back of my neck stood up. "You didn't seem to hate James when he was alive. Why now?" I asked cautiously, noticing the hatred in his eyes.

His finger brushed over Jeff's face on the picture and lingered a moment. "I don't hate James. He might have hurt me, but he never left me. He was always there for me. My hatred resides with Jeff."

"Why?"

Cayden cleared his throat, and a deep laugh erupted through his body. He closed his eyes and leaned his head back. He scowled at the picture on the table. "Why do I hate Jeff so much? Where do I even begin? He was James's favorite from the moment we were initiated, and you could tell too. Jeff didn't even live with the gang, but he got a pass for everything. He never got punished. He never got disciplined. He was perfect. Me, on the other hand, one wrong move, and I got the shit beat out of me to the point where I couldn't get out of bed the next day." Another chill blew through the room causing a shiver to run down my spine.

Cayden slammed his fist onto the table. It jolted it against the wall. "James put Jeff as second-in-command of the gang and left me at the bottom. He said I didn't deserve a spot at the top because I was worthless. I couldn't stay out of trouble. He called Jeff his son and treated him like royalty, like he was this blessing to the gang. He left me in the dark. He left me alone."

My eyes fell back onto a picture of James, Cayden and Jeff.

"The reason I hate Jeff is because he allowed James to do it. He saw it happening, and he never did anything to stop it. He was my brother, and he let me down. I resent him for that. It's something I'm never going to be able to forgive him for—ever," he finished, his voice dripping with pain.

I nodded, and, for a small window of time, I felt sympathy for Cayden. He didn't have an easy life, and every person he thought he could count on had let him down. He was lonely, and he was angry. That's a dangerous combination in a person. It is enough to teeter them off the edge, but then the woman's face from the deli filled my mind. Thoughts of Maria came to me as well. Cayden's influence on me had caused the loss of two innocent lives, and the sympathy was replaced with a rigid anger.

I watched his face as he sat, silent and unmoving like a statue, against the edge of the desk. "Why isn't Jeff still in the gang if he had it so good?"

Cayden came back to life. He made his way into the middle of the room, flicking a lighter on and off. The flame sparked and then went out, only to be sparked again. He watched the flame like a pyromaniac. He sat on the bed behind me. The flame lit up his face and gave him and evil, almost ghostly look. I stared at him from my spot in my chair.

Cayden's eyes never left the flame. "One night, we were running patrols along the boundaries of our territory. James intentionally put me in Jeff's group, just to get under my skin. He told me I needed to take notes and learn from the best," he scoffed and shook his head.

"At that point, I was fed up with his Jeff-obsession. I wanted to get rid of my problems. So, I'd made a plan that night to take out my own brother. I'd inserted a small pipe bomb underneath a car he had to investigate, hoping to blow him up and end my problems for good; however, that had backfired on me whenever Mark ended up checking the car instead. The car exploded, and Mark was severely burned down the left side of his body. He spent two months in intensive care, but he never fully recovered," he seethed.

My eyes followed Cayden as he paced the room. "Meanwhile, the explosion had alerted the Northside. They know we were close. It set off a war with them that night. We lost plenty of members. The police were on us in no time, and we scattered. They caught Jeff that night, and I was thrilled my plan ended up working out. I knew without a doubt he would spend the rest of his life behind bars. He would be punished."

"Was he?"

Cayden shook his head. "I was wrong. The police gave him a chance to bring his life out of the gutter. They gave him a chance to start over, and he was willing to take it. He joined the police academy and passed with flying colors. He ended up getting a scholarship and going on to attend college and get a degree. He came back here, though, and they voted him to chief of police."

I tilted my head as I waited to see if he was done speaking.

Cayden allowed the flame to flicker out. "He somehow always ended up better than me."

The room was dark again, except for the dim desk light. "So, how did James react to him leaving?"

Cayden grinned in the dark, and all I could see was the white of his teeth. The silence accompanied by the darkness in the room made the hairs on my neck stand on end. I was in the room with a man full of resentment and hatred. My whole body tensed. I watched Cayden's figure, and he remained silent.

The suspense was choking me.

"James had a suspicion that someone in the gang had set him up. He thought someone had called the police and planned to have him arrested. He was furious. He aimed all the blame at me. He didn't even give a thought to it being someone else. It was all my fault, as always. . ."

"Did he—" I started, but he cut me off with an the answer to my question.

"No, the cycle didn't change without Jeff here. He brought me into this very room. He beat me until I couldn't stand. He threw me into that mirror—" he said motioning to the broken mirror still hanging on the wall before continuing,"—and shattered it, leaving glass in my arms and my stomach, not even bothering to help me pull them out. He choked me until I blacked out, not once, oh no, but twice."

His jaw locked as he pushed the hood from his head. "I felt death multiple times that night, and I was so close to an escape. He forced me to tell him I hated Jeff, which was the truth, but I still hated myself for saying it. He was my brother. He was my gang brother." He sighed and hung his head.

I leaned back in my chair and folded my arms across my chest.

His dark piercing eyes landed on me. "James tortured me in this room that night. He tied me to that chair you're sitting on carved an 'X' into my back, letting me know I had one strike. Three strikes, and my life would end. He lashed me with a belt over and over and over. He was relentless. That was how he continued to punish me until he moved me to his second-in-command a few years back."

"So it ended?"

He shook his head. "Not quite. He still punished me if I made a mistake. All the pain and the suffering was caused by Jeff. He was to blame, and I will never forget it," he growled, clenching his fists together in front of him.

I stood up from the chair I was sitting in after he finished and moved to the middle of the room. Fear returned to me. My palms were sweaty, and my heart beat unevenly in my chest. Cayden reached beneath the bed and slid out a belt that was covered with dried blood. The blood was layered on the belt. I stepped back, my eyes on him.

Cayden had a sickening grin on his face. "Chill, Spencer. I'm not going to use it on you, but James would if he knew you had been snooping around his room."

Cayden was relieved James was dead because that meant his torture was gone, but that didn't mean he would be any less angry. He still hated Jeff, and now, he had no one to control the rage inside him. He was out for revenge, and he didn't care who stood in his way. I was just a pawn in his sick game. My chest tightened as the realization set on me, but I had to maintain control.

I remembered the reason I was here. "Chicago PD is moving into our territory. They sent in an undercover agent today." My eyes were stern as they fell on his face.

Cayden lurched at me. I stepped back, tripping over some boxes in the floor and falling to the ground. He hovered over me. His expression was furious. "Who?" he snarled, grabbing my shirt and lifting me up, forcing me back against the wall.

"The police. They sent in some girl named Catherine. Rodney fell for it, and they ambushed him and some other guys in the alley off of Bell and 2nd."

Cayden growled. "That fucking idiot." His fist slammed into the wall.

Doubts crept into my mind, but I still owed Cayden my loyalty even if I didn't trust him. Did I still want to be his OG? I wasn't sure, but this was my chance to take Rodney out of the picture. "Rodney should have notified you. He sold to her without consulting you. He wouldn't have opened up the opportunity for them if he followed the rules. What kind of OG would he be?"

"You're right." He placed his hand on his chin. "Rodney is too disobedient and quick to act."

"He's a liability more than anything."

Cayden released my shirt. "I'll handle Rodney later. Did anyone get caught?"

I shook my head. "No, not that I know of."

I watched as Cayden walked over to the window by the desk. After a few minutes of silence, he turned to look at me and grinned. By the look on his face, he'd come up with a plan and unfortunately, I was part of it.