{{user}} spotted him the second she turned the corner off Dekalb. Leaning on his car like he owned the whole damn block. Loose chain glinting, curls slicked back, smile too cocky for someone who’d been on her crew’s hitlist for months.

“Didn’t expect you to show,” Anthony said, straightening up.

She scoffed. “Didn’t expect you to still be breathing.”

He grinned like she just complimented him. “You always this charming?”

She stepped forward, thumb grazing the switchblade in her pocket out of instinct. “You kill two of ours last month. You’re lucky I didn’t bring backup.”

“I didn’t kill them.” His voice dropped, serious now. “But I know who did.”

Silence stretched, heavy as heat on cracked pavement.

“They followed orders,” {{user}} said, jaw clenched. “Same way I did when they told me to cut ties with emotion. Same way I will when they tell me to cut your throat.”

Anthony took a breath, chest rising slow. “You ever wonder if we’re just puppets in a war started by ghosts?”

She hated how he talked like that—like someone who thought past survival. Past loyalty. Like someone who thought there could be something more.

“I wonder what color your blood would look in the street,” She muttered.

“Probably same as yours.” He tilted his head. “Red. But softer.”

She flinched.

Softer. No one ever said that word to her—not since the day her parents died in front of her and the gang who did it wiped your tears, then handed her a gun.

He stepped closer. She didn’t back away.

“You could leave,” he said, voice lower. “They made you a weapon. But you still get to choose where to aim.”

Shs looked up, saw the scar above his left eyebrow—the one you gave him in a bodega brawl three months ago. He wore it like a badge.

“I don’t leave,” She said. “I survive.”

His hand brushed hers. “You could do both.”

And for a second, She imagined it. Her and him, ditching the colors, the grudges, the violence. Building something out of all the rubble. But then the air cracked—someone shouting her name from a rooftop nearby. One of hers.

She pulled her hand back, cold returning like armor.

“This never happened,” She said, stepping back.

Anthony didn’t fight it. Just nodded once. But his voice followed her

“One day, mi reina, you’ll stop fighting the wrong war.”