Chapter 33 #2
His shoulders lifted the slightest bit. “A while.”
“How long is a while?”
“Since y'all started tryna run him crazy!” he spat defiantly.
I smiled. “What you mean?” I asked, faux-innocently.
“Yeah. Y’all thought y’all handled that situation cute. Wait til—”
He stopped abruptly. My eyes narrowed. I stared at Kemp for another second.
Then—
“Who are the Russians?” I tried again.
“I DON’T KNOW!”
This time when I hit him, his head bounced off concrete hard enough for everybody to wince a little.
“Fuck you yelling at?” I demanded.
“Okay. That might’ve been excessive,” Braeden commented.
“Nah, I like that one. Way his head moved? It had rhythm, almost a mini-dribble.”
Kemp’s breathing turned shallow as he struggled to hold onto consciousness. Finally, he mumbled, “They said they still got unfinished business with yo' people.”
Everything in the shed stilled. Prime rubbed a hand across his face.
“I'm guessing yo' Pops and Maxim not gon’ enjoy hearing this,” he observed.
“Nah,” I agreed quietly. “They won’t.”
Kemp looked between all of us, panic finally creeping up on him fully.
“I told y’all what I knew.”
I nodded. “You did.”
“You gon’ let me go then?” he tried to bargain.
The entire shed burst into laughter. Kemp’s composure cracked completely after that.
“Aw, hell. He serious. This nigga bout to cry,” Juvie teased.
I stood slowly.
“You walked up on my wife, tryna scare her,” I reminded Kemp in case he needed his memory jogged.
Fear immobilized him better than the zip ties.
“Y'all gon' kill me?”
Ajani pushed himself out the chair. “We not killing nobody on my Granny Nette's property.”
“Absolutely not. That lady terrifying,” Prime agreed.
Relief surged through Kemp so hard his body looked like it folded in on itself.
“We have a wedding rehearsal to get to. No time for murder today,” I said, smiling. “Let's take a ride.”
His eyes flew to my face. Something about my expression had his fear spiking. He immediately started panicking.
“Nah—hold on—”
“See? Now this fool wanna negotiate,” Juvie sighed.
Prime and Mikhail grabbed Kemp beneath each arm and hauled him upward. His shoes scraped across concrete as they dragged him toward the door.
“Targen!” he screamed.
I tilted my head slightly.
“What you... just let me go here. I can get home. I can–” he gobbled.
“I'm way too generous for that. I arranged for you to be here. The least I can do is get you to your people safely,” I said.
Chauncey's mother, Kemp's Aunt Virginia, was building a new house.
Hyacinth said she'd heard Virginia complained that the old one held too many bad memories for Chauncey.
But this was the perfect example of karma and of human's planning and God's unplanning—one thing after another wouldn't allow the house to be completed.
I had my suspicions about human intervention, too, but Ajani and his team were tight-lipped about that.
Today, the building delays were working out well for us.
Prime had brought in some of his team to be builders while we were in the shed.
They'd worked quickly, laying brick and mortar. I watched as they finished laying the latest row, shaping the brick wall that would frame the soundproofed room’s fireplace, according to the “borrowed” blueprints.
But what was more interesting to me was what lay behind the red bricks.
There, between two of the studs, chained against the plywood stood a terrified Kemp.
“What the fuck… what is this? What is this?” he demanded shrilly.
“I believe that this is called immurement,” provided Mikhail.
“I believe we call it sealing that nigga in the wall,” Juvie countered.
Kemp’s wild-eyed gaze darted around the room. “You said you wasn’t gon’ kill me. You said—”
Ajani shrugged. “I mean, technically, he ain’t. Time and neglect gon’ do that, unless your auntie comes to check on her house. Then, this just becomes your own lil’ story for Halloween.”
“But you know. You know! Why else you doing that?” Kemp wailed as Braeden coated the floor around him in a thick layer of lime.
“Looking out for your family. They get to have you with them forever, and they ain’t gotta deal with your funky ass. Told you I was generous,” I said.
“You said… you said…” Kemp’s words dissolved into screams.
I listened dispassionately as he wept and begged while Prime’s men worked. Finally, Braeden snapped.
“Jesus Fucking Christ,” he mumbled, stepping forward while there was room and plunging a syringe into Kemp’s neck.
He was out fast, long enough for the temporary builders to finish most of their job, including applying more lime and covering much of his body in insulation.
“Is that really necessary?” I asked when Juvie suggested it.
“Least you can do is let the nigga die warm and cozy,” he argued.
“And full of fiberglass?” I challenged, but I let him have it.
When there was only space for six bricks left, Brae shot Kemp again, reversing the effects of the earlier dose. He woke with a sharply drawn in breath. Shaking his head, he peeked out the space allotted.
“Please—” he began.
“No. You tried her twice,” I said as the impromptu bricklayers worked around me.
“Targen, man. Not like this. Just shoot me. Please, shoot me.”
“That’s too easy. I want you to wake up in hell every day and think about what you did wrong,” I denied him. “I warned you a year ago. You had a choice, Kemp.”
“Where’s my third strike?” he sobbed weakly. “Please, I swear—”
I took a final brick from one of the men positioned closest to me. “You were out the first time you fucked with her,” I told him before sliding home the last brick to seal in his body.
And his fate.
I walked out of the house, a burner phone already in hand. I dialed a number that rang twice.
“Who is this?” the woman who answered asked, voice cool and clipped.
“It’s Targen Sidorov. I was checking in on the car.”
Rogue laughed softly. “I can work miracles, Targen, but I don’t always work them fast.”
“Yeah. No rush, I—”
“I remember it’s for your girl’s grandpa. I promise I’ma get you right. Old Chevies are close to my heart. He’ll be more than pleased. I understand how important it is,” she promised, sounding softer than she had initially.
I sighed. “Yeah. I think it’ll make her happy and that… making her happy…”
My voice trailed off. I didn’t have the words to convey how important making her happy was.
“I know,” Rogue said, before disconnecting.