Chapter 11
The lobby smelled fresh and was all marble and glass with people enjoying the view.
There was a bodyguard posted on the corridor by the elevators, with wide shoulders, a clean face, and looked like he’d been wrestling all his life.
He looked like the kind of man the average person didn’t want to challenge unless you were ready to die.
I stepped up first with my heavy chain around my neck, my coat unbuttoned and my gun flat on my waist because I didn’t care about the location, I didn’t go anywhere unprotected.
We moved through the lobby in a way that had people whispering wondering who we were.
People turned their heads for a second, then looked away like they didn’t want to get involved in, although it wasn’t a scene at all.
They just knew we were somebody important.
The elevator went up. Tone’s voice was low under his breath while he worked through contacts. “He on the beach wing, floor twenty-three and the suite’s got a private terrace.” He handed me his phone so I could see the details.
When the elevator opened the corridor felt narrow although the windows by the stairwell poured in the hot sun.
“Security,” I said. “We here to see Malik Jefferson. Call him and tell him we’re not here to make a scene.
I want him at the door.” I didn’t ask. I stated a fact while letting him know we came in peace… for now.
The security studied me for a long second like he was deciding on if he wanted to shoot or follow the orders and then reached for his radio and made a call.
He came back with the same neutral face.
The door cracked open and a man I didn’t know stepped out first, wearing a suit, with his eyes scanning, and then Malik came through the threshold.
He looked younger than I expected and much taller in person.
He looked us up, down, then straight at me, without showing fear.
“You Dom?” he asked. His voice had confidence in it, and I could sense he wasn’t a pussy.
He didn’t know me, he knew of me and that was the difference.
Tone stepped beside me and folded his arms without saying a word, just allowing his eyes to scan him and his bodyguard.
“You Malik?” I said. “You was at the spot today with my people.”
He blinked and then spoke. “Yeah. I was there eating with some folks. I didn’t know none of that was shit was gonna go down.
” He kept his hands visible where I could see them and his palms open…
nothing about him resembled a threat. It was a difference between respectful and coward.
He wasn’t built like a dude who ran from confrontation, but he also wasn’t stupid.
“Where you from?” Tone asked, blunt as always although he already knew.
“Philly,” Malik said. “I’m Stone, at least that’s what they call me.
” He gave a small smile, like he knew how it sounded when people said it.
He was direct and he wasn’t performing for us.
“I got a couple security outside on rotation and my guy right there.” He nodded at the guard who’d been watching the door.
“That’s all I travel with; I’m not on no bullshit. ”
I watched him while he talked because his body language would show if he was lying faster than his mouth would. He moved like a player that was used to being watched but not used to being questioned in a way that meant his life might be on the line and I sensed that.
“You got ties?” I asked, cutting the bullshit. “You into street shit? Business? Anything that crosses over like that?”
He answered with his eyes first as he shook his head and then with words.
“No. I don’t run with that. I’m not connected in that way.
I got people who do my protection and I pay them.
If someone wanted to get at me, they’d try to rob me.
They’d try to take what I had, not shoot up a restaurant at lunch.
That’s not how people move when they want money.
That’s how people move when they want something else. ”
Tone stepped closer watching the security. “You know that girl O’Shynn?” he asked Malik being straight up and direct.
Malik’s face changed for a second then he got right.
“I know her,” he answered. “She’s not with me in any business way.
We been talking for a few months but that’s all I can tell you.
If I’d known she was part of… whatever that whole thing is with you I still can’t say I wouldn’t have been there.
I fuck with O. I knew she had connections, but I just didn’t know what kind cause she’s real private. ”
“You met her where?” I asked.
“At the club a few months back. Today she wanted to go eat good while I’m in town and I don’t hide.
I go where food is good. I don’t parade around with cameras either.
I eat and I leave. I didn’t move like I was there to be on somebody’s radar.
” He was honest in a way that made it sound like honesty wasn’t a performance for him.
He wasn’t spinning a story, and I could tell he was genuine.
He was trying to keep the conversation straight.
“If folks wanted me bad, they’d try a smash and grab.
This shooting?” he shook his head. “Not how I live and not how my people live.”
Tone tilted his head to the side peering at Malik like he was analyzing everything about the nigga. “You sure nobody pissed on you lately? No enemies? No people who want payback?” Tone asked and his tone was rough because this wasn’t playing time, not when it came to what was ours.
“Man, I got exes who hate me, sure,” Malik replied. “But enemies that shoot at groups of women and babies? Hell nah. That ain’t me and that ain’t my lane. If anyone wanted to test me, they’d do it clean and personal and this ain’t personal. This felt like someone trying to scare somebody else.”
I watched him explain himself and I watched his body for the first sign that he was lying but he was solid so far and his muscles never made a funny move nor did his eyes twitch. He was steady, respectful. He wasn’t lying, he was just a man trying to prove he wasn’t the fire that lit that bomb.
“You with anyone important?” Tone asked because if Malik was close to O’Shynn, that put him in our world by default, and nobody gets pulled in without explanation.
“Real talk?” Malik said. “No, I’m not trying to be with anything that’ll drag me into that life.
I met O’Shynn, and we date. She didn’t give me no manuals, and she didn’t tell me she ran with the big dogs.
She just told me her name, and we took it from there.
I didn’t ask more questions because I liked my peace.
She kept things private that was her choice and I respected it. ”
The fact that O’Shynn had been keeping something from us wasn’t news and it wasn’t easy, but the fact she’d let a high-profile man sit in her lap without giving us a heads up was negligence on her behalf although I get why she did it.
“You’re telling me the truth?” I asked once again for clarity with a hard expression on my face.
His eyes met mine and he didn’t flinch. “I’m telling you the truth,” he replied.
“I wasn’t part of none of that shooting and I wasn’t trying to be.
I know what being around danger looks like.
I wouldn’t put ambush on no one especially when I got a kid and money.
I make it by playing ball and endorsements. I don’t need enemies like that.”
“Aight,” I replied. “I don’t got time to be dancin’ around if you lying. You had your people out today?”
“Yeah,” he shook his head. “My own security which was on the inside with me.” He pointed to the guard who’d been watching the hall. “He was with me. You can ask him.”
Tone looked him over, then told the security next.
Then gave us the same look that Stone had with no change in his expression or body language.
I let the silence linger long enough for shit to sink in.
“I’m not sayin’ you’re clean and I’m not sayin’ you’re guilty.
I’m sayin’ you were in the wrong place at the wrong time and that puts you under my eye now.
If anything, else moves funny, you gon’ tell us everything you know. ”
Malik nodded his head. “Understood,” he said. “I don’t hide shit from honest men.”
Either way, we were in a place that required more watching now than a polite conversation.
I continued to watch his posture through the glass for a second where the ocean met the sky and then I looked back down at him and told him what he needed to hear without sounding like I was preaching because I wasn’t no fucking pastor and far from it.
“If somebody tries to make your life drama, you tell us first. You feel me?”
He nodded. “I hear you.”
We left the security with orders and phone numbers.
Tone and I walked back to the elevator and the start of the ride down felt like the beginning of something we just didn’t know what.
After we retrieved the ride, the Maybach slid back into traffic and Tone drove like he knew every curve and backstreet because he did.
I lit a joint and barely rolled the window down, allowing the smoke to escape.
Stone looked clean in front of me, but it was about what he did after the fact because in our world, respect didn’t equal innocence, it really just meant somebody knew how to be in a room with the right people.
We were still rolling through the streets when Tone’s phone rang.
He answered on the first ring, and the way his voice dropped told me everything before I even heard her.
Shona’s breaths were uneven like every inhale and exhale she was fighting for her life.
She wasn’t dramatic so if she sounded like that pain was bringing something out of her and this shit was real.