19. September
It was a risk and a long shot, but I had to try it. Priest had shared too much with me for me to think that he didn’t trust me. He’d shared parts of himself with me that night that I doubted he’d shared with anyone else. But when he told me his real name, I knew that I had to do something. So, I bided my time.
I waited until he had to return to the clubhouse again. I banked on the discomfort that I’d felt the last time that I was there and the flashback that I had to protect me. I knew that after what we had both shared and how Priest had seen me in a bad state at the clubhouse, he would not force me to return. I was right.
I had overheard him on the phone with Sunny. He had told him that they needed to meet on an urgent matter with the entire council. I also heard him tell Sunny to order dinner because they would be there late. When he left, he told me to cook whatever I wanted.
Priest didn’t have a house phone, but he did have a burner phone that I spotted in a drawer in his home office. The only reason that I had seen it was because one day, when I came to ask him if he wanted me to cook, he pulled the drawer open and handed me a menu. The phone lay inside there.
I took the phone, texted Phaedra, and told her to answer my call immediately. I knew she didn’t answer calls from strange numbers. Phaedra was wary when she answered the call. When she realized it was me, I told her to order me an Uber, and I had given her the address. I begged her not to call that number back, and I promised that I would explain everything when I saw her again. I also asked her not to say anything to my father about the phone call.
“Hello?”
“Phae, it’s me, September.”
“Bitch. Where yo’ ass been? You ain’t answered a single call in almost a month. When I called your daddy, he talkin’ ’bout you needed a break from shit for a minute.”
“Yeah, I needed a break, all right. From his ass, not from you, bae.”
“Where the hell have you been, and what the fuck did he do?”
“Listen, I can’t get into all that right now. I need a big favor from you.”
“What’s up? You know I got you, bestie.”
“I need you to order me an Uber and send it to 3169 Aspen Falls Lane,” I replied, giving her the address that I’d seen on several envelopes.
“The fuck? Where you at?”
“I promise we’ll talk later, but I need an Uber, like yesterday.”
“Okay. Can I call you back at this number after I get it?”
“No. Just do it and trust that I’ll call you as soon as I get back to my phone.”
“You ain’t got your phone? Damn. This shit is deep.”
“I know, but please, Phae. It’s a matter of life or death.”
“Bitch, I’ll come get you.”
“I wish you could, but I’m not trying to put you in jeopardy like that. Just ? —”
“I got you. But hold on. Don’t hang up. I’m about to order it while we’re on the line.”
“Okay.”
My stomach was knotted with worry that I wouldn’t make it out in time. I couldn’t do shit but trust that she had me.
“Okay, it’s ordered and should be there in eleven minutes.”
“Damn, that’s a long time.”
“I know, but it is what it is, bestie.”
“Okay, I gotta go.”
“Be safe. I love you, boo.”
“Love you too.”
The Uber arrived within seven minutes instead, and I was on pin and needles the entire time that I waited. I walked out of the cabin and was partway down the road when it arrived. The Uber driver took me straight home, a place that no longer felt like home. It was built on betrayal, lies, and scandal.
When I arrived, my father had been in his office on a phone call. He was startled when he looked up and saw me, and he immediately ended the call with the person he spoke with.
“Oh my God! September, I wasn’t sure when I would see you again,” he stated.
He grabbed the crutches that were propped against his desk, rounded his desk, and grabbed me into a hug with one arm. It took him a moment to notice that I did not return the hug. He released me and stared at me as if he were trying to assess if any damage had occurred to me.
“What did that thug do to you? I swear, I will kill him if a hair on your head came to harm.”
“No, you won’t.”
My voice was tired and distant, even to my ears.
“What? I would move Heaven and Earth to protect you, sweetheart.”
I shook my head. “I once believed that, but I know that’s no longer true.”
“What are you saying, September? What lies has that bastard fed you? I’ll kill him.”
“Daddy, stop.”
“What’s wrong? Why are you behaving this way?”
“If I meant that much to you, why did you let him take me in the first place?”
“Because I saw his attraction to you the minute he laid eyes on you, September. I banked on that keeping you safe. I knew he wouldn’t harm you because men like Priest like beautiful things.”
I scoffed and shook my head. “Things. Yeah, that’s right. I’m just an object to you.”
“No, I didn’t mean it that way.”
“Then what way did you mean it, Daddy? I recall standing in this same office almost four weeks ago tomorrow, and I recall that you used me as a negotiation tool to ensure your freedom. Daddy, a real father would have done whatever it took to ensure my protection and safety, not used me as a source of protection for himself.”
“A real father, September? You have no idea what it took to be a ‘real father’ these last several years without your mother. You have no idea what it took to be a ‘real father’ before your mother died.”
“Killed her. Say it because that’s exactly what you did!”
“Watch your mouth, young lady. I’m still your father.”
“No, you’re a murderer.”
“I gave everything that I had to provide you with a good life to ensure that you were safe, had everything you needed—the best schools, exclusive vacations, shopping sprees, the best cars, and a nice bank account, and anything else that you could ask for. How dare you question anything that I felt the need to do? Your mother would have jeopardized everything that I built and everything that I tried to provide for you. She would have had both of you in the poor house and me in jail. Then who would have been here to protect you from men like Priest?”
I released a dry laugh. “Men like Priest. Funny, I felt safer with him than I did with you.”
“Impossible,” my father spat out.
“At least with him, I knew where I stood and what his expectations were.”
“Did you whore yourself out to him?”
“I did nothing less than what you expect of women. Nothing less than what you expected me to do when you sold me to him.”
“Where is he now?”
I heard motorcycles in the distance. Fear wove a tenuous thread throughout my body as I knew that Priest would be angry. I knew that he would seek revenge, and I was uncertain if he was the shoot kind and ask questions later, or if he would give me a chance to explain.
“Why? Are you worried that he’s coming back for you since he no longer has me?”
From the sounds of the bikes growing closer, maybe he was here.
“I’ll be ready this time when he returns. It’s time that I disposed of him, anyway,” he muttered.
I saw the moment that he noticed the sound. My father tilted his head to the side and listened. Then he walked back behind his desk and tapped his computer keys. He shook his head, and I guessed that he saw nothing. He made a phone call to the security gates, opened his gun safe, and removed a handgun.
“What’s that for?” I asked.
“What does it look like? He will not come into my home again and take what doesn’t belong to him. He won’t disrespect me or hurt anything that belongs to me.”
“Don’t you mean anyone, Daddy?”
My comment was ignored as he spoke to a member of his security team.
“I need you to check the property. I hear intruders, but I don’t see anyone on camera,” he commanded before he strode out of his office. The sound of the motorcycle engines came from the rear of the house. I doubted they risked a front-of-the-house approach like they had done the last time.
I remained behind for several minutes as I listened to my father’s uneven gait shuffle toward the back of the house. By the time that he returned, I felt secure. I wished I knew how to contact Priest and assure him that I was safe and what my intentions were. As it were, that was impossible, and I had to trust my instincts and his. I had to trust that “unbreakable bond.”
It wasn’t long before we heard gunshots in the rear of the house. My father picked up the phone again and called his security team. When he received no answer, he looked at me mildly panicked.
“Don’t worry, sweetheart. I know that he couldn’t have possibly gotten through them again. The men just have their hands full, that’s all.”
I didn’t say that I doubted the likelihood of that, nor did I say that I hoped that the Immortal Descendents had taken out every one of his men and his ass next. I wasn’t a violent woman. I’d only been in a handful of fights in my life, and all of those were in middle school, with the exception of one high school fight. But armed with the knowledge that my father sent those men to kill my mother had me feeling a way. If I had the balls, I would have put a bullet in his head myself, but I wasn’t that chick. I wished that I were a bad bitch that wouldn’t mind sending his ass to hell, but nah, that wasn’t me.
“Daddy, why don’t you give that man what you owe him and stop playing games?” I asked.
He turned and mugged the shit out of me like he wanted to slap me.
“I called that nigga and told him to meet me almost two weeks after he took you. I told him that I had his guns and the money. He upped the price, September. He demanded that I get him drugs too. Then when I finally got that shit a few days later, he told me that he wanted me to suffer the same way I made the families of those women I took suffer. He said some vile shit about what he would do to you while I sat and waited. I was a man of my word. I came through on everything he fucking demanded of me!” my daddy shouted.
That was a surprise to me because I had never known that Priest changed the request. He had been holding onto me all that time, and my daddy had met his demands. What the hell did that mean?
“So, what did you do, Daddy?”
“What do you mean? The only thing I could do. I sat and waited for him to call me back and let me know what he wanted in exchange for my child.”
I sucked my teeth and shook my head. “Wrong answer, Daddy.”
“What do you mean wrong goddamn answer?”
“You were supposed to fight for me. You were supposed to run his ass down and find him wherever he was and take his ass out. You weren’t supposed to walk away and let me suffer in fear like that,” I replied with accusation in my shaky voice.
“You act like this was easy. You act like you would have known what to do if the roles were reversed.”
“I might not have known exactly what to do, but I would have pulled out all the stops to save you.”
“Yeah? Well, it seems to me like you got what you wanted out of the deal anyway.”
“What? You think I wanted to be held by some stranger and threatened to be violated in the worst types of ways? You think that my dignity didn’t mean anything to me?”
“I know what women say, September, but I also know what they do.”
“Oh, you mean like Katherine Guillebeaux?”
“What the fuck are you talking about?”
The deadly look that took over my father’s eyes scared the shit out of me. He took several steps toward me and asked, “What the fuck did you just say to me, little girl?”
Tears streamed slowly down my face for the woman’s story.
“I heard you and Mama argue about her several times growing up. I heard her talking to Aunt Diane about it too. She told her about how she knew she should have left you when she saw the first red flags all those years ago when you cheated with a younger girl named Katherine Guillebeaux. She said that when you tried to break it off, the girl didn’t take to that too well, and that it not only jeopardized your relationship with mama, but with your job too. Mama told Aunt Diane that she demanded that you ‘fix your problem,’ but she had no idea that fixing it meant that you would go get that girl hooked on drugs. You purposely did that shit to make her go away. Only she didn’t go away, did she, Daddy? That’s the part Mama never knew. She didn’t know that Kat never went away.”
“Shut your filthy mouth!”
“She didn’t know that Kat returned to your job demanding that you give her more drugs and that she embarrassed you on the job.”
My father spoke in slow, clipped, and measured tones.
“You don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about. She didn’t come asking for drugs. She came asking for money. She was pregnant, and she claimed the baby was mine. I didn’t want your mother to know that I’d been screwing that whore again. I chased her off the job, but I did go back that evening to visit her and warn her to stay away.”
“And when she wouldn’t agree, what happened, Daddy?” I asked.
My father’s eyes took on a faraway look, although he stared at me.
“She threatened to tell your mother about the baby she was carrying and that it was mine.”
“Was it, Daddy?”
He shook his head and replied in a distant voice. “I don’t know. There was a possibility, but she wasn’t nothing more than a crack whore.”
“No, Daddy. She was somebody’s mother. Two children’s mother, one of whom you killed when you pushed Kat down the stairs while she was holding her baby.”
My daddy’s eyes cleared, and he stared at me. “How the fuck do you know this?”
“I met her only surviving child recently.”
“Who?”
“David Aziel Guillebeaux.”
My father’s eyes widened. “That little bastard.”
I nodded.
“How did you meet him? Where?”
I could tell by the dark look in my father’s eyes and the way his hand that wasn’t holding the gun curled that he wanted to find the man whom I referenced and take him out.
“I’ve been right here all along, muthafucka,” Priest announced from the doorway where he had taken position several seconds ago.
My father whirled around, raised his arm, and pointed his gun at Priest.