Chapter 7
SEVEN
Iso
Watching Liora walk out of that door didn’t sit well in my chest. Like I knew she could handle herself, and would if need be, but that didn’t stop me from considering just how big her world was and what she might or might not have been up against. The only thing that soothed my worrying was the fact that she said oversight, meaning niggas wouldn’t be shooting at her or coming for her head, or so I thought.
I didn’t know shit about her world because she never really talked about it and I understood that.
Real life was less sitcom-ish. Real life was heavy, hard, and every moment counted.
“Where you know her from?” Lucky asked after a silent five minutes. He was touching up my lining.
“Why?” I asked, my eyes studying him in the mirror.
I felt a certain protectiveness when it came to Liora.
Even though that was the last thing she needed because baby could definitely take care of herself.
It didn’t mean I didn’t have her though.
As the man in her life I was lowkey up for whatever she needed.
I didn’t have to say that for her to know it though.
“Just asking, nigga. You fake your death then come back all loved up with some chick. I gotta ask.” He fidgeted, then looked away from me.
“She’s good people.”
He tried to joke. “Bet she is. You tongued her down before she got outta here. Must be great fucking people.”
I shrugged. “What my lil man been on? He giving my mama the flux?” I hoped he accepted the subject change and understood Liora wasn’t a topic I was up for discussing with him or anybody for that matter.
Lucky laughed. “Man, what? His little ass be running circles ’round her but I help out as much as I can. I’m headed that way after I leave here. You coming through or—”
“Nah, I don’t want anybody else knowing I’m alive. I still have some things to take care of.”
“Like what? I’m still lost on how you’re even alive. Nigga we had your funeral, buried an empty casket.”
I didn’t respond, thinking about that myself. I wasn’t one for talking. About my plans, I had never been. I handled business on the silent side and let the news put things together and tell the stories.
I listened to him talk for a while longer before it was time for me to head out. The sun had fully risen and it wouldn’t be long before he started getting customers. The last thing I needed was somebody seeing me here. I told him I’d be in touch and left out of the side door and went to my car.
I pulled out of the lot with my mind lowkey on Liora. She’d slipped off hours ago, and like a bitch, I just wanted to hear her voice and make sure she was fine.
I hooked a left, about to hit the next expressway entrance, when I peeped I had a tail. I hooked a left, then another deeper into one of the most abandoned blocks in the area. I stopped right before I reached the freight tracks, mashing on the brakes with a quickness.
Just my luck, the train was coming. I heard it from afar. I shifted gears and hopped out of my truck with my gun pointed. I rushed the black Challenger, following my gun aimed at his head.
“Don’t even fucking try it,” I said the moment I reached the driver side door.
“I wasn’t. God, I swear.” His hands were up in surrender on the sides of his face.
“Who the fuck are you and why are you following me?” I asked, ready to vent his head.
“Posydiann wants a meeting. He sent me to com—”
“How the fuck you know where I was?” I asked, not even asking the bigger question. How the fuck did he know I was alive?
“Right place, right time. I was coming down the alley when you came out.”
“Who else you told you seen me?” His life depended on his answer.
“Just P.”
“Aight. Where he at?” I asked, expecting him to give me some in the cut location, but what he said had me giving him a double take.
“He’s at Briar South Memorial.”
“What?”
“Yeah. Shit hit the fan. Yo, you wanna lower your gun? You see I ain’t on nothing?”
“Nah. ’Cause I’m still wondering if I wanna leave your young ass leaking right here. You don’t follow nobody that fucking close unless you wanna lose your life out here.”
He nodded.
“You been up there to see him?”
He nodded again. “Yeah.”
“Aight, gimme your guest pass and ID.”
Confusion swept his features.
“Hurry up, lil nigga. I ain’t got all fucking day.”
He did as I asked, handing me the piece of paper and his ID.
I stepped back. “Aight now bust a U and get the fuck outta here before I change my mind.” I for sure didn’t have to say it twice because he backed away and busted the instructed U-turn without a second thought.
I was back in my truck busting the same U-turn a few seconds later. This time I was on the way to the hospital instead of home because what the fuck did Posydiann want?
When I pulled into Briar South Memorial in Lower Briar, I grabbed a baseball cap from my back seat and threw it on.
This was one of those hood hospitals, so they didn’t pay much attention to who was coming in or out, but they collected IDs.
Adrian had Junior here and it was so fucking unprofessional that I swore I wasn’t coming back in here.
I approached the front desk, immediately asking ol’ girl what floor Posydiann Murphy was on.
Dressed in zebra print scrubs with pink lining and a pair of big ass glasses, she popped her gum, typing on the computer.
“And you are?” she asked, never looking away from the screen.
“His cousin, Trey Dunning.” I gripped ol’ boy’s ID and the visitor’s pass. I’d studied it before getting out of the car. The last thing I needed was to walk in here and be remembered. “I was just up here yesterday, shorty. Is there a problem?”
She looked me over, then shook her head. “Nah, handsome, it’s not. Do you have your pass from yesterday?”
“Yeah, it’s right here.” I held it up.
She nodded. “Okay, let me just scan the barcode and your ID to check you in. He’s on the fifth floor, last door to your left.”
It took her about thirteen seconds to get me…well, Trey checked in, then she pointed me toward the elevator.
When I stepped on the elevator I was glad I was alone. Though the light flickered above, it was a smooth ride. I stepped off and followed the directions I had been given to Posydiann’s room.
I stepped in the doorway and immediately the nigga’s eyes were on me. He was serious for all of fifteen seconds, looking like he’d seen a ghost before a big ass grin filled his features.
“Yo, who the fuck you feeling like? Nick Fury. Out here faking your own death and going to the service.”
I laughed hard as hell, unable to hold it back because for a serious nigga he could crack a joke and break all the seriousness in every moment.
Posydiann and I had come up together, same block, houses three doors apart.
For about three summers when we were shorties, it was me, him, and Akillah getting into any and everything that had our mama’s ready to knock our asses off at the end of every night.
Lucky ended up moving in with us a little later, as his mother had OD’d in Chicago and his pops was nowhere to be found when it was time to step up.
“But nah. I’m glad I was right. I told Akillah your ass wasn’t dead. That’s why I didn’t show up to that sad ass funeral.”
“Motherfucker was sad, wasn’t it?” I shook my head.
“Mama Gloria know you moving around here like a ghost?”
“Hell nah. I gotta handle everything and make sure everyth—”
“Say no more. I get it. They safe though, not a soul is stupid enough to make a move on her or your youngin. They’re protected while you figure this shit out. Been protected since the day that news dropped. Believe that.”
I nodded. We didn’t talk every day nor did we hang out in the same circles, but I knew him and he knew me. I would have done the same for him if needed. “You saying all that, but what the fuck happened?”
My eyes went to the bandage on his chest and the couple scrapes on his arm.
He laughed. “Same thing that happened to you. That nigga you share fraternal blood with had one of my regulars set me up in my own fucking hood. Believe that?”
“He really thinks he’s like that. Using chicks to do his work. You got a lead on him?”
“Nah. He’s hiding out. Akillah been turning shit up and down, nothing’s come up. I wouldn’t be shocked if he’s sitting in one of those bunker type things they found Saddam Hussein in. A fucking spider hole, I think that’s what they called it.”
I shook my head.
Silence filled the space.
“Look, I ain’t tryna overstep or be in your business but it’s some shit you don’t know.
I know we ain’t close like we used to be, and shit, I’m speaking ain’t been vetted, but I’m hearing that mess with your setup went deeper than just your baby mama.
Blood ain’t that thick, if you know what I mean. Niggas took a bands off your name.”
“I know. I heard.”
“Just making sure you know. Handle that, ’cause last thing you need is another attempt and they succeed. You know they say if a nigga can’t kill you he’ll put you behind bars. Niggas be envious of what they ain’t.”
I nodded.
“Keep your head on a swivel, bro. If I get that rat first, I’ll definitely be in touch. Lee, right?”
I grinned. “Old man knows his shit.”
“Damn right.”
He and I talked for a little bit longer with nothing being serious, a couple latent childhood memories but that was it. Kicking shit with Posydiann reminded me of childhood, life that felt like a lifetime ago. Life that wasn’t as difficult as it seemed to be now.
“You wanna tell me what has your mind so occupied?” Liora’s voice interrupted my thoughts.
Posydiann’s words replayed in my head and I couldn’t help but feel like there was a riddle somewhere in them, like maybe I felt like I knew everything but then again I didn’t.
I never considered RJ my blood, so who else was he talking about?
Posydiann’s words didn’t start replaying in my head until I really thought about it.
Not only that but I was home and questioning my next move.
“Nothing, something that was said to me a few days ago.”
“Oh, you wanna talk about it?”
“Nah, I’d much rather focus on you.” I pushed hair from her face.
“What about me, Iso?”
“Just you, Killa. You been sticking this shit out with me. Cooped up inna crib with no complaints.”
She laughed then sat up. “It’s not cooped up when it’s how I am normally. I don’t do much outside or anything extra. I’m boring.”
“You far from that, but I fuck with it.”
“You fuck with it because you’re boring too. If all this hadn’t happened to you, where would you be?”
“Streets,” I replied, watching those lips of hers curve with curiosity.
“Fair. Are you going back to the streets when all of this is over?”
“Nah, there’s more to life. I gotta be better for my son. Create some passive income and work on my raggedy ass car.”
She laughed. “Will you get bored?”
“Nah.”
“You sure about that?”
“Nah, I’m at a place in my life where I’m craving the purest fucking peace known to man. When all this shit is over, I just wanna be left the fuck alone.”
“And you can have that, as long as you finish everything you start.” She leaned down and pecked my lips after her statement.
“Can I also have you?” I asked, on some straight corny shit.
She grinned hard, which meant her little hard ass was on the same corny stuff. “Who’s to say you don’t already have me, Iso?”
“Do I?”
She nodded. “You do.”
“Good to know. Now show me.”
The way Liora had me was a way no other woman could achieve.
She had me wide fucking open, and she probably knew it, but I didn’t care.
She was the moment right after a storm, untouched, ethereal, and most of all, inaccessible to anyone but me.
She belonged to me and she knew it. She accepted it, even with all the chaos that ensued.
While she lay next to me asleep, I couldn’t help but let my mind roam, settling deeply on Posydiann’s words, especially about blood. At the moment I just knew he had been talking about RJ, but shit, what would blood have ever meant when it came to that nigga?
“Why aren’t you asleep?” Her sleep laced tone caught me by surprise
“Something Posydiann sai—”
“The same thing that had you looking crazy earlier,” she interrupted.
“Yeah. Are you able to run some financials for me?”
“Yeah, it’s just a financial analysis. For whom? What am I looking for in particular?”
“Lucian Bell. I need to know if there were any large deposits around the time I got shot or after. Can you do that for me?”
“Yeah, bu—”
“My mind is everywhere right now, baby. I’ll explain it to you as soon as I know what I’m thinking ain’t flawed.”
“Okay. Remember what I said about your vegetables.”
“I know.”