Kade
When Cassian called me and told me we had a problem, I didn’t think he was talking about his stupid little girlfriend.
The bitch had wrecked his house, left a cryptic message blaming everybody but herself, then disappeared off the face of the earth.
Now he was calling me sounding like somebody had shot his damn dog, rambling about what she knew and what he feared she might do with it.
I was already irritated having to climb out of bed from being wrapped up with Ysis.
We’d tracked Sera’s phone, called Yayo, and were headed toward the last location where the signal pinged.
The situation felt like a giant waste of time when there were bigger problems sitting in front of us.
Marius was still breathing, half the city seemed connected to his bullshit, and now we were chasing a woman who had decided to lose her damn mind.
“This bitch got to go,” Yayo said, sounding every bit as serious and irritated as I felt.
Cassian leaned forward from the back seat. “What chu mean? I love her. She not gone talk.”
“I love her,” Yayo mocked. “Nigga shut up. You sound like a hoe back there. That bitch talking about burning everything you love to the ground and you trying to spare her ass. Nigga, if you don’t handle your business, somebody else eventually will. And by somebody, I mean me.”
Yayo wasn’t fucking around, and we all knew it.
Cassian sank back into the seat and dragged a hand over his face.
The look on him was enough to tell me he already understood how bad this situation had become.
Sera wasn’t just hurt. Hurt people cried, screamed, and threw things.
Hurt people didn’t disappear, carrying information that could destroy multiple lives.
The farther we drove, the heavier the silence became.
Pulling up to the motel, I understood why she chose it.
The place looked forgotten. Half the lights were burned out, the parking lot was cracked to hell, and the surrounding neighborhood wasn’t somewhere anybody with options willingly stayed.
It was the kind of place people came when they didn’t want to be found.
“Of all the places in Memphis,” I muttered.
Cassian stared through the windshield. “She probably figured nobody would look here.”
“Smart,” Yayo replied. “Too bad for her we got her phone location.” I killed the engine and looked over the property one last time before opening my door. The motel sat eerily quiet, almost like the entire place was holding its breath. Something about it immediately put me on edge.
Cassian climbed out first, moving faster than the rest of us.
He was still holding onto hope that he could get to her, talk some sense into her, and somehow fix everything before things got any worse.
I understood why. Love had a way of making otherwise intelligent people believe they could solve problems that were already out of their hands.
The problem was this situation stopped being about love the moment she ran. Standing there staring at that rundown motel, I couldn’t shake the feeling that whatever waited for us inside wasn’t going to make any of this easier.
Walking into the office, the clerk seemed far more interested in her television show than the people standing directly in front of her. Yayo held up a picture of Sera and waited while the woman barely glanced at it before turning her attention right back toward the screen.
“Aye, have you seen this girl?”
“Maybe. You got something for me?” she asked, rubbing her dirty fingernails together and exposing a row of rotting teeth.
“Bitch if you don’t tell us what room she in, I'm gone push yo shit back.” Yayo pointed the gun at her, loosing his patience. The second she saw three irritated men standing in front of her, her entire attitude shifted.
“Room 117,” she stammered, pointing toward the back of the property.
“Give us the key.”
She tossed it across the counter without another word.
We headed toward the room in silence. Cassian moved faster than both of us, hope and panic fighting for dominance across his face, as Yayo walked beside me shaking his head, already irritated that we’d spent the last hour chasing somebody determined not to be found.
Reaching the door, I positioned myself on one side as Yayo and Cassian took the other.
On the count of three, I slid the key into the lock and pushed the door open.
We rushed in, but were halted in our steps. Coming behind us, Cassian fell to his knees as tears formed in his eyes looking at Sera dangle from the ceiling.
“Well, that’s another way to go.” Yayo said, tucking his gun back in his waist.
The room wasn’t abandoned, but it wasn’t right either.
The bed was unmade, clothes were scattered across the floor, papers covered the small table near the window, and a voice recorder sat beside a stack of documents.
A purse had been overturned near the dresser, one shoe lay near the bathroom door, and the television was still playing some daytime talk show as if somebody had walked away in the middle of watching it.
“What the fuck?” Cassian breathed. Yayo started searching the room while I walked toward the table.
“There’s a recorder.” Pressing play, we listened as Sera’s voice filled the room.
She dropped names. Mentioned crimes she shouldn't have know about, referencing people who were no longer alive.
This little bitch had connected dots she had no business connecting.
The longer the recording played, the worse it got, and by the time it ended both of them were looking at me. I dropped my head.
“This bitch was gone sing like a canary,” Yayo muttered.
“Turn that shit off.”
Yayo began gathering documents while I scanned the room again. Cassian looked like somebody had punched a hole through his chest.
“Cassian get up and let’s go. Ain’t shit you can do for her now.
” But he didn’t move. Snatching him out of his trance, I walked over, yanked him up off the floor, and dragged him out of the room with all the damning evidence in tow.
With all the bullshit we’d seen over the years, this nigga had really gone into a state of shock.
Forcing him inside the car, I told Yayo to grab the camera footage from the office and meet us outside. Neither one of us spoke while we waited. Cassian just sat there staring straight ahead, completely disconnected from everything around him.
I know it was said that people should respect the dead, but Sera was truly the dumbest bitch on earth and the way I saw it we were better off without her ass.
The bitch had crashed out and thought she was gone leave behind a bunch of shit that would’ve had all of us implicated and fighting for our lives in court.
Obviously she forgot who the fuck she was dealing with.
After Yayo got what he needed, we left. Dropping him off at home first, me and Cassian rode in silence. The engine hummed beneath us as the city lights blurred past the windows, but he never once looked in my direction.
“Come back to my house, bruh. I know you fucked up right now, but you don’t need to be alone with your thoughts.” He didn’t respond. Just stared out the window while we drove, looking like a man who’d left a piece of himself back in that motel room.
When we got home, he still didn’t utter two words.
Not when we walked through the door. Not when my mother tried talking to him.
Not even when Aretha asked if he was alright.
The nigga moved through the house like a ghost, completely detached from reality, before disappearing into one of the spare rooms and locking himself inside.
There was a part of me that felt bad that he had to witness losing the only woman I’d ever seen him openly love, but there was another part of me that always felt like she was never good enough to be with my brother.
It was the same reason I’d never pursued her myself.
Cassian saw something in her that I never did.
Maybe it was because he needed saving just as much as she did.
Maybe it was because he believed love could fix things that were already broken.
Either way, he loved that girl harder than anybody realized, and now he was gone have to live with the aftermath of it.
Making myself a stiff drink, I knocked it back and stared at my reflection in the bar glass.
The man looking back at me had everything he’d ever wanted.
A wife. Twins on the way. More money than I knew what to do with.
Brothers I trusted with my life. Yet somehow, despite all of that, there was still so much bullshit left standing between us and peace.
Marius was still breathing, Elias was still walking around free, and secrets were still falling out the sky like rain.
The past year had brought me success, love, and family, but it had also brought enough chaos to last a lifetime.
One way or another, I was ready to put an end to all of it.
Setting the glass down, I headed upstairs and stripped out of my clothes before sliding back into bed beside Ysis.
The second I wrapped my arm around her, she instinctively snuggled closer, still half asleep.
“Everything okay?” she asked groggily.
“It will be.” I kissed the top of her head.
“Sera’s dead.” Ysis immediately rolled over and looked up at me, the sleep disappearing from her face.
“Kade, please tell me you didn’t...” worry filled her eyes before she could even finish the sentence.
“I promise I didn’t, babe. She hung herself.” I kept it simple, not in the mood to share details surrounding a death I really didn’t give a fuck about.
“Shit is sad. I mean she wasn’t close to me or nothing, but damn. I can’t believe she went out like that.”
“Yeah.” I stared up at the ceiling. “Not everybody built to deal with what we going through.”