Chapter 6 Bishop #3
“Bishop?” Asante addressed me without his eyes ever leaving the man. “Make a choice and do it now. Do you want me to kill him?”
“Nah.” I reached for my phone immediately and dialed Rook who answered on the fourth ring.
“What’s up?”
“Little Cortez just pulled up on me. If you want him, come get him from the club. Now.”
“I’m on my way.” The line went dead and I looked from Cortez to Asante and back.
“Rook is on his way.”
“Alright.” Asante adjusted his hold on his gun and I took a step back when he closed the space between him and Cortez, put him in a headlock and took a few steps back to drag him off his knees.
Cortez started kicking immediately and his hands rose to Asante’s arms. He dug his nails in and Asante hissed through his teeth. I watched his muscles flex and it was over as quickly as it started. Cortez went limp in his grasp.
“Open the trunk,” Asante said simply.
I grabbed my keys and popped it open. Asante lifted Cortez up, walked him over and tossed him in. He slammed the trunk shut then looked at me.
“You good?” he asked. He closed the space between us and looked me over, his hands frantically rushing over my arms and chest.
“I’m good.” I nodded.
I couldn’t even think about the fact that Cortez could have killed me. All I could think about was that Asante had been willing to put a bullet in someone’s head for me without question.
“You got a cigarette?” he asked.
“Yeah.” I quickly got one for him and he took it in exchange for both guns, Cortez’s and mine.
I lit his cigarette for him and he took a few steps away while he took his first hit. He walked a short line, back and forth while he smoked and I just leaned against my car and watched him. I knew he probably had a lot of thoughts and concerns but I didn’t know how to alleviate any of it just yet.
When he finished smoking his cigarette, he walked over and leaned on my car beside me. We stood there side by side in silence until Rook showed up. He whipped into the parking lot beside us and hopped out.
He looked between us but didn’t ask any questions.
“Pop the trunk,” I instructed.
He did as he was told and I popped mine. Asante moved Cortez from one trunk to the other.
“You good?” Rook asked.
“I’m good.”
“You sure?”
“Yeah. I’m positive.” I cleared my throat. “Can I uh, holla’ at my brother alone real quick?” I asked Asante.
“Yeah. Sure.” Asante exhaled and walked off.
I watched him as he headed toward his own car in the parking lot.
“Cortez pulled a gun on me while my back was turned. Asante got the best of him.” I spoke with my eyes still planted on Asante. “He was going to kill him.” I pulled my eyes to Rook. “I want to tell him what’s up.”
“You trust him?”
“I trust him.” I nodded once.
“Then tell him and if we have to fake a vote later, cool. I’ll vote with you.”
“You sure?”
“Yeah. I trust your judgment, B. Do what you need and I’ve got you.”
“Alright.” I dapped Rook up. “If you need me, call me.”
“I won’t,” Rook said immediately. “I sent Syd and ole girl home. I’m gon take care of this and I called Bear and Ren up on my way out here so they’re expecting the call for clean up.
King and Knight will find out what happened after the fact and won’t get the chance to ask where you are or what you’re up to. It’s cool on this end.”
“Alright.” I nodded. “Thanks.”
“I’ve got you.” Rook stuck his head out the window. “Have a good night, Asante!” he yelled.
Then, he threw his car in drive and peeled out.
I watched him leave the parking lot. Then, I shoved a hand in my pocket and trekked over to where Asante was. He turned to face me and I met his gaze.
“You were going to kill for me?”
He scoffed and looked off. He exhaled then looked back at me.
“Yeah. If you told me to kill him, I would have killed him.”
I nodded at that. “We uh, we need to talk.”
“Yeah. We do.” Asante glanced off again. “We’re not going to do it here,” he said simply. “Get in your car and follow me.”
I nodded at that. There was something different about Asante and I wasn’t sure how I felt about it. It wasn’t standoffish like he’d been in the gym after I’d ghosted him. It was a different form of him trying to read me and it made me feel vulnerable in ways I wasn’t sure I liked.
I got in my car and followed him out.
I chain smoked as I drove.
His house wasn’t too far away. It was a nice spot in a nice neighborhood. I hadn’t expected anything less. I parked behind him and sat in my car until he waved me over.
Once he let me inside I stood near the door and took everything in from the random little picture he had up on the mantle above his fireplace to the pictures he had on the wall.
Asante exhaled as he kicked his shoes off.
“You can sit anywhere,” he waved around and I nodded. “You want anything to drink?”
“Nah. I think I’ve done enough drinking for tonight.”
“Is it cool if I drink?”
“Yeah. Go ahead.”
“Alright.”
He pivoted around and headed out of the living room and I walked further into it.
I took a seat on his couch and checked my phone.
Rook hadn’t gotten home, which was expected.
I checked his location and saw that he was at one of the warehouses where we occasionally took care of business.
I shot him a text just checking in and he responded quickly telling me everything was going good and he’d be home a little bit after sunrise at the latest.
I thought carefully about what I wanted to tell Asante while I had the time to gather my thoughts.
I was going to tell him the truth, but I wasn’t sure how much of it.
I wanted to be honest with him but I also had my brother’s lives on my back and didn’t have their approval to be opening my mouth to even start off with.
He could have died for me though and was willing to kill for me.
I wanted Asante in my life for as long as I could have him. If being honest was the best way to keep him safe in the meantime, then that was what I needed to do.
I sat up when he entered the room, a short glass of brown liquor in one hand and the bottle in the other. He sat beside me on the couch, set his bottle on the coffee table and collapsed backward. He took a long sip from his glass, then exhaled with eyes closed. We sat in silence for a little.
It was Asante who broke it. He took another sip from his glass and let his head lull to the side so he could look at me.
“You ready to talk?” he asked.
“Yeah. I’m ready.” I nodded once.
“Alright.” He tilted his head back to finish his drink off. Then, he exhaled again, sat up and set the empty glass on the coffee table before turning in toward me. “Let’s hear it.”
“Alright.” I leaned forward and clasped my hands together.
My eyes stayed focused on them instead of Asante even though I was sure he was staring at me.
“You know my family doesn’t really just deal with art right?”
“I had my suspicions,” he admitted.
“Alright. Well I’m confirming them. We sell stuff but it isn’t art.”
“So, drugs?"
“Passports.” I sat up and met his gaze.
“Passports?” he repeated. “And there’s a market big enough for your entire family to live well off of that.
” He didn’t paused before he slid into the next thought, one after the other the words falling out before he could filter them.
“Or you’re working with people who will pay whatever to get them because they’re doing illegal shit.
That’s what it is, right? You uh, you make passports to help people get smuggled in and out of the country? ”
“Among other things,” I nodded once.
Asante nodded too. Then, he plucked up his bottle and refilled his glass.
“You all do that?”
“Yeah. It’s a family business. We’ve done it for generations.”
“So what was up with the guy with the gun to your head, Bishop? You fuck up his passport or what?”
“I head my family’s security. I don’t actually make the passports, but no. He uh, he was looking for us because we had an altercation with his brother.”
“What kind of altercation?”
“The kind that ended with him dead.” I swallowed.
“Look, I want to be honest with you so I’m asking you to not ask me anything that you don’t want a real answer to,” I said carefully.
“I care about you and maybe I shouldn’t be telling you all of my family’s deep dark secrets but I respect you and I feel like you’re worth this even if it makes you tuck tail and block me and ban my family from your club. ”
“That’s what you think I’m going to do?” Asante scoffed.
“I was ready to kill a civilian for you tonight, Bishop because the thought of something happening to you was scarier than looking myself in the face and knowing I’d taken a life,” he said.
I just stared at him unsure of what to say to that.
“So, the dude I put to sleep… Your family is going to kill him too, right?”
I didn’t hesitate. I nodded.
“Yeah.”
“Alright.” He tilted his head back and finished his drink off. Then he tossed it on to the coffee table.
“Where’s your head?”
“I don’t know,” Asante admitted. “I know that I care about you and that I’d kill for you.”
I nodded at that. “I care about you too. I want you to know that. I want you to know that I didn’t go to my brothers and ask for their blessing to tell you this. I’m just doing it because it feels right and because I trust you not to get me or my family hemmed up or killed.”
“You can trust that,” he assured me. “Whether we see each other after this or not, your secret is safe with me.”
“Is that a possibility?” I asked.
“What?”
“Us not seeing each other after this.”
Asante scoffed and shook his head. He reached over and gripped me by the back of my neck. My eyes went straight to his.
“As long as it’s up to me, that isn’t a possibility.”
“Good.”
I leaned into him automatically, my breath hitching the closer I got.
“What about your arranged marriage shit? Is that real?”
“Yeah. I didn’t lie about that. Our uh, our family pairs us up with other people who have old money and deal with society’s underbelly.”