Chapter 10 Mekhi
(A few minutes earlier)
I eased through the hood, eyes wide open as I blocked down street after street.
I trusted my team, but there was nothing like seeing shit for myself.
That attempted drive by from a week ago had me on edge.
I wasn’t a scared nigga—I lived too fast for that.
But I didn’t like to invite death, either, so I needed to be on top of everything going on around me.
My phone buzzed from the passenger’s seat, and I looked down at it.
Seth’s name flashed on the screen, so I picked up through Bluetooth.
“What’s up, nigga?”
“Shit, nothing. At the ballpark. Everybody and their mama out here. It’s like a big cookout,” he said.
“Yeah, I saw that when I drove by.”
“You need to bring your ass through. Kera’s playing and her team is good.”
“Nah, I’m on some other shit,” I declined.
“Nigga, you always on some other shit,” he scoffed. “I gotta go. This girl got me standing in line at the concession stand.”
“Who? Elena?”
“Hell, yeah. I have to come look at that ass in them tight ass softball pants since she won’t let me see it in person,” he lamented.
I shook my head. “Maybe if you got serious—”
“Nigga, I know you ain’t giving relationship advice.”
I shrugged. Elena wasn’t ever going to take that nigga seriously while he was flirting with every bitch in the hood, but I guess he had to figure that out on his own.
“You positive you can’t swing through?”
“Yep,” I said, my mind already on what I needed to do for the rest of the day.
“A’ight. You work too hard. Ain’t nothing wrong with hanging out every once in a while on the weekend. But I need to get off and take Elena her drink. Then I’ma make sure Farrah and Mariah really don’t need anything. Mariah looking fine as—”
What the fuck? I knew I heard this nigga wrong.
“Farrah who?”
“How many black girls you know named Farrah? Farrah Gray, Kera’s bestie.”
“She there?” I asked, slowing down.
“You feeling all right today? See? All them damn numbers got yo’ head fucked up. Yeah, she here. But Steel looking out—”
I hung up on him. Without looking, I made a quick U-turn in the middle of the street, ignoring the horns blowing around me.
It didn’t matter if Steel was there. I told Farrah not to bring her ass back over here.
People didn’t ignore what I said. I was going to have to go make sure she understood that my word meant something around here.
I didn’t say shit just for the hell of saying it.
The drive-by wasn’t a one-time thing. Today had proved that there were niggas out for me and the people they assumed I cared about.
Two hours ago, I had received a delivery at one of the restaurants Seth and I co-owned.
It had no return address, just my name. Inside were pictures.
The ones of my mother and sister didn’t surprise me.
I wasn’t even shocked by the targets drawn on them.
But the last one… a picture of Farrah outside talking to her neighbor the night of the drive-by, her pretty face blacked out by the target symbol, caught me off-guard.
Someone had made a connection between us and even though the shit wasn’t real, it didn’t mean she was in any less danger.
My mother and sister were safe; I had a contact check in on them as they visited Europe.
I’d already had Steel keeping an occasional eye on Farrah this week and I planned to make that more regular, but she was a sitting duck over here in the area where I operated from.
Yeah, she was a target in the suburbs, but somehow, the danger seemed more real in my hood.
I hadn’t planned to even let her know what was up.
My goal was to get this shit figured out as quickly as possible and deal with whoever was behind it.
I didn’t want to freak her ass out or have her in my business any more than necessary.
But now, maybe I needed to make my point clear.
Five minutes later, I pulled up to the softball complex.
It was a Sunday afternoon, so the crowd was ridiculous.
I parked in the first available spot and got out of my car.
I texted to see where Seth was, then started toward the front.
I ignored the side-ways glances and flirtatious remarks I was getting from the women out here with everything on display.
That wasn’t my type of shit. I didn’t expect my girl to be covered head to toe, but I did expect her to leave something to the imagination.
Seth finally texted me back and I tapped the phone to read his message.
While my head was down, I saw a pair of pretty, pedicured feet in silver sandals step in my path.
I let my eyes travel up the long legs, curvy hips, and small tits until I was looking into Samaria’s eyes.
Shorty was going to make me regret ever fucking with her.
We had only been hanging out a couple of months, and she had already started trying to keep up with me, hinting that she wanted to make this situation more than it was.
I looked at her and waited. I knew it was about to be some shit because she had a couple of her annoying ass girl friends with her.
If she put on too much of a show out here, though, she was going to get her feelings hurt.
“You didn’t tell me you were going to be here,” she said, pouting.
Yeah, she was tripping. Since when did I tell her anything about my movements? I moved to step around her. She grabbed my arm. I looked down at her hand, waiting for her to move it, but she was in full show-her-ass mode.
“So, you deaf now, Mekhi?”
“Samaria.”
My voice was calm, and I knew my face was expressionless, but she better get the point and get it quickly. I didn’t like disrespecting women unless they disrespected me. Shorty was definitely disrespecting. Slowly, her hand slid from my arm. She stuck her lip out further.
“You don’t have to be like that,” she whined.
Yeah, if this was how she was going to be, I was going to have to set her straight immediately.
I would never understand why chicks got so possessive over niggas who made no promises to them.
I kept it one hundred with Samaria—the only serious relationship I was interested in was the love affair I had with my money.
“Will I see you later?”
“No,” I said truthfully.
I mugged the silly bitches with her who giggled.
They stopped. Samaria clearly needed better taste in friends.
She was old enough to figure that out on her own, though.
Walking around them, I continued toward Field Six where Seth said he was.
I didn’t even pretend to look for that nigga, though.
Instead, I scanned the crowd for Farrah.
It took a minute, but I eventually saw her sitting a few seats up, laughing as the girl I guessed was Mariah danced.
I jogged up the bleachers, not stopping until I stood right in front of her.
She finally looked up at me, and I watched as the smile slowly disappeared from her pretty face. Good. She knew I meant business.
“I need to talk to you for a second,” I said, not bothering to say hi or no shit like that.
She frowned. “I need to talk to you, too. But later.”
“Nah, shorty. Now.”
Turning, I walked down a couple of steps. I didn’t get the sense that someone was behind me, so I turned around. She was still sitting in her seat, looking at Mariah like I hadn’t spoken. This girl is tripping, I thought.
“Ay, I know you heard me. Getcho ass up and come on,” I told her.
Farrah switched up on me so fast it was almost funny, chin tilting up, eyes narrowing. I guess she’d officially shifted into bougie mode, looking down her nose at me. “Mekhi, I don’t know who you think you are—”
“I’m the nigga you got like five seconds to follow or you gon’ have issues.”
The words came out low, calm, but my blood wasn’t calm at all. It was still running hot from the fact that she was even over here.
And from the way she got all stiff and stopped smiling when you walked up. You ain’t fooling nobody, nigga, an internal voice said. I shut that shit off immediately.
“Is there a problem here?” Mariah cut in, wide-eyed and messy, looking between us like she was ready to insert herself in business that had nothing to do with her.
“Mind yo’ business, shorty,” I said without looking at her.
I heard her kiss her teeth. “Nigga, I am. She’s definitely my business.”
I almost laughed. Almost. But my attention stayed locked on Farrah. She was still sitting there, acting like she wasn’t bothered, like she wasn’t about to get dragged off this bleacher if she didn’t move willingly. I lifted my hand slow and held up five fingers.
“Five.”
She blinked at me like she really couldn’t believe I was doing this in front of people.
“What is that for?” she popped, looking clueless and innocent.
She was bluffing her pretty ass off. I lowered one finger, my gaze never leaving hers. I wanted her to understand I wasn’t playing. Couldn’t play. Not when something was off.
“Four.”
“You don’t scare me, Mekhi.”
Maybe I didn’t. That wasn’t the point. I dropped my ring finger.
“Three.”
She crossed her arms over her chest, frowning like she was trying to hold the line. But her foot tapped. Her jaw tightened. Little tells she couldn’t hide from me. I raised an eyebrow as I put my middle finger down.
“Two.”
She sucked her teeth, loud and dramatic. My index finger descended.
“One.”
Her mouth opened, my name spilling out. “Mekhi—”
She sounded somewhere between irritation and disbelief. I didn’t care. I started to bend my thumb. She shot up out the seat so fast the bleachers rattled. “Ugh! You make me sick!” she hissed, stomping down the steps like every metal ridge was personally responsible for ruining her life.
Behind her, Mariah leaned forward. “You okay, Cousin?”
“It’s fine,” Farrah snapped. But her voice wasn’t as sharp as she wanted it to be. Shorty knew. “I’ll be back.”