Bare Trees

Chapter 29

Riley's POV

I've been at Fin's for a week now. It's been cool hanging out with Fin, Skylar, and Ash. They're a beautiful family, they remind me a lot of Aria, Josh, and me.

They've got this huge mansion, so many rooms and like two pools. I know I wouldn't ever be famous like that, but I hope to provide for Aria and Josh enough to have our own, nice house one day.

The house now is temporary. I just want to be the man I always wanted to be for them.

"Alright man, we'll be here when you get back. Let me know if you need something today." I nodded and shook her hand.

"Cool. Thanks again, for everything. It's crazy someone would just help me and don't even know me." She shrugged.

"You're my brother. Imagine how close we could've been if we'd been adopted together or even stayed with Annie." I smiled and nodded.

"We still got time." She grinned.

"Right. See ya later, man."

I went to my bike and began the drive to meet Malcolm. He was cool; someone I wish I met years ago. Really could've been great.

He's so similar to Dad, yet... so different.

In terms of the will, we'd figured it all out. Dad left me his clubs to run, and all money that came from that. I guess since it is the most legitimate thing he had.

He left Malcolm the house and his cars, saying that he knew it would not be used for any gang purposes and he'd keep the gang away from it.

Malcolm was fine with that, as he has his own money and didn't want anything from Dad.

He had keepsakes from his childhood and even Marcus that he left to the both of us to look through.

I got to see all of the pictures of my Dad as a kid. I saw pictures of Malcolm and Dad with their parents. Their dad seemed very strict.

Malcolm was leaving to go back home today, so he and I were meeting once more before he did. We went downtown to the park to play basketball.

"You know, hanging with you feels like I was brought back in time to chill with Damon again. I didn't expect you to be so much like him, with you only just meeting him."

"Yeah. I guess maybe we just both had rough lives."

"Maybe you're right. I know he never told you about our childhood." He wiped the sweat from his brow as we walked to a bench for a break. "But it was shit."

"How so?" He looked away.

"Our father was tough. He was abusive, not only to the two of us, but also to our mother. One night she stood in front of him, beating Damon. He was bloody, I didn't think he'd get off of him. When she stepped in front of him, it flipped to her. He killed her, with his bare hands. In front of the both of us. We couldn't do nothin about it. We tried, the both of us. I was only twelve and Damon was ten. Not much we can do to a man at our age." He sighed, turning to me. "Damon ain't take none of that well, he was real quiet after all that. Didn't talk much to anybody but me. When Marcus died, he turned to violence. I guess he was tired of people taking people from him."

"Damn, that's crazy. Right in front of yall?"

"Yeah. Our mother was lovely, really. She was beautiful, sweet, she loved us more than anything. Needless to say our father went to jail. Whole family didn't care bout us, we went into foster care. Nobody wanted us, we didn't get adopted. Stayed in there until we was eighteen." I frowned, nodding.