Chapter 45
I was still talking shit to Seth as we made our way home from the hospital.
I was ready to get back to Emancipation.
My little thug was no doubt worried. I’d tried to call her from Ajani’s phone after we got discharged, but she hadn’t answered.
I was shaken up from the accident—I had hit my head hard enough to black out for a minute, but I hadn’t planned to tell Farrah until I got home.
Seth’s big mouth had blabbed to Kera who had texted Farrah.
Wasn’t even shit wrong, except with Seth’s car.
That bitch was a goner, totaled. That’s what his bad driving ass got.
I was probably slightly concussed, but they had released us, no problem.
I knew something was off the second Ajani pulled into the driveway. It wasn’t anything overt, no smashed windows, no alarms blaring, no neighbors screaming. I just had a feeling, quiet and wrong. My stomach tightened. Hard.
After the meeting with Black, I should’ve been thinking about leads and locations, about disrupting the trafficking pipeline, about Trell and the havoc he was wreaking.
Instead, all I could think about was getting inside and seeing her.
I couldn’t lie; I wanted to hold her for a second, let myself breathe. I didn’t even make it to the door.
Steel was outside, stiff and looking dazed. That was the first punch.
He tried to straighten when he saw me. “Khi—”
“Where’s Farrah?” I asked.
“Khi, your mama—”
“Where. Is. She?”
Jarell limped into view, blood on his forehead and his shirt ripped down the side. The sight made my world tilt. My heart dropped.
Seth cursed, coming to stand beside me. “The fuck happened?!”
Ajani’s hand hovered near his gun. “Who hit you?”
I didn’t move. I couldn’t. Somewhere deep inside me, something cold had already settled.
“She left with your mama,” Steel said, gaze locking with mine. “Ms. Gillian said it was an emergency. Said you were in the hospital and needed Farrah immediately. We couldn’t get you or Seth—”
My brain snapped in half.
“My what?”
Steel didn’t flinch, just kept explaining. “She said they had taken your phone. That you kept asking for Farrah. That she needed to come—”
“You let her leave with my mother?” My voice was too calm. Too flat. Like it was coming from someone else’s throat. Of course he had. He didn’t know what I knew about Gillian. It wasn’t the kind of shit you wanted to tell anyone.
“We followed, knew something was wrong when we walked into the lot. Someone was there, waiting. They drugged us,” Jarell said. “Sprayed something in our faces. We tried to fight, but that shit was strong. I woke up twenty minutes later. She was gone.”
“We just got back here,” Steel picked the story up. “We couldn’t get you—”
“We didn’t have our phones. Then they died,” Seth said.
Something in my chest tightened until it felt like my heart might break my ribs.
Seth stepped closer. “Khi… breathe, bruh—”
I wasn’t worried about breathing. I moved quickly into the house. Her blanket and textbooks were on the couch. She never left messes. She must’ve been worried out of her mind. I gripped the back of a chair, my knuckles losing color.
My mother.
My own mother handed her over.
The betrayal hit so fast it almost buckled my knees. She kept doing that, had apparently been doing it all my life. Gillian was a traitor, and Farrah was paying the price. I knew without a doubt Trell had her. The room blurred for a second, then came back together with a sudden clarity.
Seth came in behind me. “Khi… say something.”
“What you want me to say?” I asked quietly. “That I’m good? That this ain’t the worst fucking thing that’s ever happened to me?”
He swallowed hard. “We gon’ fix this.”
“No.” My voice dropped, low and lethal. “I’m gon’ fix this.”
I closed my eyes, just for a second. The last time I saw Farrah, she’d been laughing with Mekhayla over a Spades game. She looked unbothered despite everything going on outside my doors. Because she trusted me. She trusted me to keep her safe.
And I failed. Again.
“This my fault,” I whispered.
“Don’t do that,” Seth snapped. “Don’t start that shit. You ain’t put her in nobody’s hands.”
I opened my eyes. “Yeah,” I said. “I did. Let this nigga play in my face too long. Let Gillian play in my face too long. I knew my mama was lying,” I said. “I knew she was hiding shit. I knew she wasn’t right. And I still let Farrah breathe the same fucking air as her.”
Silence.
Ajani spoke softly. “We gon’ track them. We gon’ find Trell.”
“Yeah, and I’m gon’ kill him.”
Even my voice sounded strange to me. But I was focused. Farrah was the one studying forensic psychology, but I knew a little from living the life. Predators get sloppy when they think they’ve won.
Trell thought he won.
Good. Because I was about to show him what losing felt like.
Seth placed a hand on my back. “Khi. Bruh. Listen to me. We gon’ find her. We gon’ bring her back. Don’t lose your head.”
I turned to him slowly.
“My head is the only part of me that ain’t gone right now. Because my heart, my soul? They’re in the hands of that lunatic.”
I pointed to Steel and Jarell. “Go home. Get checked. Don’t come back til I say.”
I turned to Ajani. I respected this man, knew he didn’t usually take orders. But for his blood, he would. “Get Prime on the phone. I want every camera, every tracker, every drone ready in the next ten minutes. Eyes on all those locations Black told us about.”
He nodded and walked out.
“What you need from me?” Seth asked quietly.
“Tell me you riding,” I said.
It was a simple request. He didn’t hesitate.
“Nigga, I’m already in the car.”
I nodded before walking back outside, surrounded by the humid air. Somewhere, Farrah was scared. She could be hurt. Probably felt alone.
But not for long. I would burn this whole fucking state down before I let anything happen to her.
I didn’t remember choosing one of my cars. I didn’t remember driving. I didn’t remember hitting the gate code or slamming the door behind me when I walked into my mother’s home.
All I remembered was that Farrah was gone, with a man who caused women’s disappearances.
Over and over.
My mother was in the kitchen when I found her.
She was standing at the counter slicing lemons, probably about to make her nightly lemon drop.
She was humming some old Luther song she used to play on Saturday mornings when she cleaned the house.
It was almost peaceful. She was acting like she hadn’t stabbed me in the back, again. Somehow, she didn’t hear me come in.
“Where is she?”
The knife slipped. Lemon juice splattered across the cutting board. Slowly, she turned.
“Mekhi,” she said, forcing a smile. “You scared me, baby. I wasn’t expecting—”
“Where,” I repeated, stepping closer, “is Farrah?”
She moved away, backing against a wall. Her eyes flashed. It was just a second, but it was there. Fear. Guilt. Resolve. I saw it all.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said lightly.
“Don’t lie,” I said, the calm of my voice not matching my feelings.
“I’m not lying, Mekhi. Why would you—”
I moved fast.
My hand slammed against the wall beside her head, the impact shaking the carefully hung picture. She didn’t flinch—Gillian never flinched—but her breath caught in her throat.
“Ma,” I said quietly, “I told you last time. Don’t play with me.”
“Mekhi… you need to calm down.”
“Calm?” I leaned close enough to see her pupils constrict. “You turned my girl over to a psycho. Tell me where she is before I stop asking nice.”
Her lips parted in offense. “Your girl? Your—Mekhi, she ain’t even—”
“Say something else stupid,” I warned. “I dare you.”
She pressed her back harder against the wall, chin lifting like it held that old steel she used to cut people with.
“Watch your tone,” she said. “I am still your mother.”
I stepped even closer until our foreheads were almost touching.
“You stopped being my mother,” I whispered, “when you let Trell put his fucking hands on Farrah.”
Tears filled her eyes instantly. She looked away—and that alone told me she was guilty.
“He wanted her,” Gillian said finally. Her voice was soft, like she wanted it to land gently. “He promised to leave you alone if he could have her. She wasn’t worth risking you for. Nothing is worth risking you for.”
“You traded her for me? Mama, you—”
“You don’t understand the rage that boy has toward you. You don’t understand… He said you were the reason he lost everything!” she shouted suddenly, eyes blazing through the tears. “His life! He said you took the wealth, the happiness he should’ve had—”
“That wasn’t me,” I said through clenched teeth. “That was you. You and Medgar.”
Her face twisted. “We made mistakes—”
“Mistakes?” My voice cracked, incredulous. “You call fucking my father’s brother a mistake? You call killing my father a mistake?”
She flinched back like I’d hit her. “I didn’t—”
“Don’t,” I warned. “Don’t lie to me again.”
Her shoulders sagged. She looked small, then, like she was fragile, worn down by years of guilt she hid behind silk blouses and expensive perfume.
“I didn’t mean to kill him,” she whispered. “He was so mad, Mekhi. I thought he was going to kill me. I watched him beat Medgar’s ass. I knew where the gun was.”
My jaw clenched until it hurt, leaving me unable to speak for a minute. Finally, I regained my composure.
“You killed our father, then you isolated us,” I said. “You made sure we had nobody but you. Not your parents. Not Daddy’s family. Nobody. You chose that. You made us think they forgot us.”
She shook her head wildly. “It wasn’t like that—”
“It was exactly like that.”
“I was… ashamed.”
“You should be.”
Her knees buckled. She walked to the counter, grabbed it like the words hit her physically.
“You don’t understand,” she said again, weaker. “Trell’s been hurting for years. Pain festering, all directed at you. He wanted to kill you; he told me he would stop if I helped him. If I gave him one thing.”
My chest tightened. “One thing? She’s not a thing, Gillian. She’s… she’s everything.”
“I thought giving him Farrah would… would satisfy him. And then he’d let her go.”
I stared at her in disbelief. My own mother. My own blood. Talking about my woman like she was a bargaining chip.
“You thought he’d let her go?” I whispered. “Do you know what that man does to women? Do you really think he was just gon’ scare her?”
She covered her mouth. “I didn’t, I didn’t think—”
“Stop lying,” I snarled. “You always think, always calculating what will gain you the most. Bitch!”
Her tears flowed freely now. “He said he wouldn’t hurt her!”
“He lied,” I said. “That’s what he does. You of all people should understand. You gave him what he wanted and now he’s gon’ take it out on her. On me.”
She started really crying then, sobbing messy, ugly tears against the counter. I felt nothing for her. Like she’d felt for Farrah.
“I’m sorry,” she cried. “I’m so sorry, baby. I thought—I thought I could fix it. I thought if I gave him what he wanted, he would stop—”
I grabbed her chin, forced her to look at me. “You gave him me,” I said. “And you didn’t even know it.”
She shook her head, sobbing harder. “Please… Mekhi… I didn’t mean—”
I let her go.
She crumpled to the floor, hands covering her face, shaking as she wailed. I didn’t move. I stood there, cold all over, my chest hurting. I didn’t believe the theatrics. I’d never believe her again. After a long moment, I spoke.
“Tell me where they took her.”
Her crying slowed. She wiped her face with her sleeve.
“Mekhi… I don’t know. He didn’t tell me the location,” she whispered. “He just told me to bring her to the car. He said he’d handle the rest.”
Emotion returned immediately after she spoke. Rage, pure and white hot, exploded inside me.
“You just handed her over and hoped he’d keep his word?”
She nodded miserably. Lying, because she didn’t give a damn if he kept his word.
“That was the last lie,” I vowed.
“What?”
“That was the last lie you ever get to tell me.” I stepped back toward the living room, then paused when I realized she was following me. “Did you even know I actually was in an accident tonight?
She frowned, rushed toward me until I put up a hand to stop her.
“No! Baby, what happened? Are you okay?”
Shaking my head, I laughed. Bitch had hit the lottery on luck tonight. It was like fate conspired to bring everything together for her. That was okay; I was going to tear it all apart. I opened the door.
She called after me, voice trembling. “Where are you going?”
I looked over my shoulder and gave her a small smile. “To do what I always have to do; deal with the fall out of your ‘mistakes,’” I said.
Then I walked out, leaving her crying against her kitchen counter.