Chapter 2
Hondo Carter
I was dead tired and had half a mind to go home and get some fucking sleep, but business slowed for no man, and things needed to be handled.
I’d gone from court this morning to her.
She might have seen my appearance as some sort of coincidence.
Nah, it wasn’t. I always planned to go to her, but other things came up.
I told myself and my brother this morning before court I was coming to her.
I knew it was time for me to stop fucking around and man up.
Nicolette had belonged to me since we were young and I wasn’t supposed to know of the arrangement between our two families.
I knew about it though and even found myself a bit annoyed when her pops tried to back out a few years ago, attempting to offer up his younger daughter instead.
I didn’t want her though. I wanted the woman promised to me like a birthright, the one who had to be a siren of some sort because I had been obsessed with her since I laid eyes on her.
He claimed she didn’t live the life we did, that she had distanced herself from the family, and their relationship hung by a thread.
In other words, he didn’t want to lose his daughter by forcing her to marry me.
That was too damn bad, because I wanted Patience Nicolette O’Leary, and I had every intention of having her.
Over the years I’d kept tabs on my future wife, sure to keep my distance and ensure that no nigga she entertained ever made it past six months.
Only recently had I questioned myself on what I was waiting for?
Neither she nor I were getting any younger and nothing was promised to a man living the life I lived.
So the morning before I was scheduled to be in court on a case I knew wouldn’t stick, I put in the call to my father who I assumed called her people.
Of course he asked if I was sure several times before he agreed to make the call.
The ringing of my phone had me glancing down. My brother was calling, nine times out of ten trying to see what I was doing.
“Yeah,” I answered, putting the phone to my ear.
“I thought for sure you’d send me to voicemail considering you finally pulled the trigger on Patience.”
“I just dropped her off. I’m headed to the warehouse.”
“Does she know yet?” he asked.
“Nah, but she will. I ain’t fucking around.”
He laughed. “Yo, how do you even know she’s gonn—”
“I know because even though I don’t know her, I know her. She’s gonna give me shit for a while, but things will iron out, and she’ll see just how good this is.”
“And what if she doesn’t?”
“Not an option. There is no world where she doesn’t.”
Otto laughed. “Are you sure about that?”
“Positive. Are you about to meet me at the warehouse?”
“Hell yeah, because you’re about to give me the rundown. How the fuck did you even get her to agree to have dinner with you?”
I sat back in the car, closing my eyes as a chuckle escaped my lips. “’Cause I’m me. Even though she didn’t have a choice, she had a choice.”
Otto laughed. “I’m inside, let me know when you’re here.”
We hung up and I envisioned her. Nic was about five-six, light skinned with a nice tint and the most piercing blue eyes.
Over the years she’d toyed with the length of her hair, this current one being my favorite.
It was all one length, a bob type blunt cut that encased her beautiful face and naturally narrow eyes.
This morning when she saw me, they nearly jumped out of her face and it took everything in me not to laugh.
Before I wandered into the animal habitat, I’d peeked into her office and saw she had the TV on. Coincidentally, she was on the news channel covering my case. It was funny how fate worked. She ended up on that channel not knowing I was coming to her, while I had every intention of coming here.
I was fourteen when I found out about the arrangement.
My pops kept it a buck with me, while going over family history and obligation.
I wasn’t really too mad about it either seeing as I’d always had a thing for Patience.
Even back then, with her thick ass glasses and being damn near mute around me, I liked her.
I just knew back then that we were young and shit like this couldn’t happen too soon.
The fact that I always knew she was mine was enough for me to keep my distance and for both of us to see what was to life before finding ourselves in this space.
When the truck came to a slow stop, I pushed thoughts of Nic to the back of my head and stepped out of the truck on business.
A little over eight hours ago I was facing jail time over some shit I didn’t remember if I did or didn’t do, but I shouldn’t have been there.
I had enough people working for me to either take the hit or keep their fucking mouths closed.
This time though, it wasn’t a matter of taking the hit, somebody I had ultimately put on sold the play of one of my businesses to the feds.
The funny thing was, I had eyes everywhere.
So even if I had gone down for this, I would never have seen the inside of a jail.
Joe opened the door for me to get out of the truck. Once out, I entered the warehouse, meeting my brother at the door.
“You look like a bitch. Like you just went somewhere and got your feet tickled.,” he said randomly.
I chuckled. “Fetish ass nigga. That’s not me; that’s you.”
“Mhmm.”
“They got it set up in there or what?” I asked, throwing my head in the direction of the closed off room.
“Hell yeah they do. When I said that nigga’s name he was hogtied in a trunk less than thirty minutes later.”
I chortled. “Folks are hungry and they want that couple Gs you put up.”
Otto shook his head. “It was either that or you went to see the nigga’s mama. I know how you run.”
I shrugged. When it came to a rat, nothing was off limits. “Shit happens.”
We walked deeper into the warehouse, hearing whimpering from afar. You couldn’t do what he did and cry like a bitch. It was unheard of, but apparently it happened more often than not. The entire time we walked the warehouse, work was still being done, crates moving and machines beeping.
When we entered the freezer room where I had them hang ol’ boy, I couldn’t help but chuckle. Everything always came full circle. Shit it had to.
“I swear, Hondo, I didn’t have any other option. It was either give you up or take a bid. I have a family depending on me,” Jeremy sobbed.
“Fucking accountant. You coulda made that shit go away or took the bid,” Otto said before I could respond.
He whimpered, dangling from the gambrel hook in the ceiling like a slaughtered pig or cow.
“You know why I paid you so much? Not because you can fucking count or you’re some fucking math wizard.
Not at all, because there is always someone out there who can count better.
I pay you so fucking much so when shit like this arises, you take the bid.
You do a couple years in federal prison and earn your fucking stripes. ”
“But Hon—” He began crying, but I didn’t feel anything for him.
“You are paid to take the fucking fall at all times. But now you're about to die a rat, broke and stupid because you trusted those people who told you they could put me away if you gave them everything you had… which actually wasn’t a lot.”
The only thing heard in the room was crying, a grown man who knew he was fucked. He had found himself on the wrong side of history.
I glanced over Jordan, someone who worked for me and handled the messier things I didn’t want to be a part of. “Make it hurt. Gut his ass alive and then make him disappear.”
I turned and left the same way I came in, mentally closing that chapter.
Now I was on my way home to actually get some rest. I hadn’t technically slept since all this shit happened.
I wasn’t too worried, but the fact that it was all happening made any type of rest impossible.
How could I close my eyes peacefully when I had motherfuckers tryna throw me in jail and fuck up my livelihood?
I woke up still tired as fuck, almost like I didn’t go to sleep in the first place.
When I left the warehouse last night, I came in and passed out after a shower where I busted a nut thinking about Nic.
I had several motherfuckers on standby who would gladly handle that for me, but the closer I got to Nicolette being mine, the less I craved anything from anybody else.
I wanted her, and it made me uncomfortable because I wasn’t used to not having what I wanted when I wanted it.
I wasn’t used to not controlling things.
Titus had asked me to let them break the news to her, and that I would, but I wasn’t the most patient.
Hell, the only patience I planned to have was her.
I didn’t have any business to tend to today, so I dropped by my parents’ house to get whatever Mama was cooking and talk to Pops.
He was never the type to hover or anything like that, so when he gave me the reins, he stepped all the way back.
Because, one, he trusted what I could do, and two, he was actually done.
“Have you spoken to her yet?” he asked, cutting his eyes between the door my mother had just entered and me.
“We had dinner Friday.” I nodded and drank from the glass of brown liquor in my hand.
“And you’re sure you want this… her?” He peered at me.
“Never been so sure of anything in my life. She’s mine, isn’t she?” I asked, summoning a chuckle from him.
He shook his head. “You’ve been in love with that girl since before I told you. I guess I’m just shocked it took you this long.”
I shrugged. “She needed time to grow into who she was meant to be and so did I.”
“You sound like your mother, son.”
“Probably, but I’ve thought about this over and over. Had those charges stuck Friday, the only thing I would’ve regretted was that I didn’t go after her sooner.”
“And what if she’s in a relationship? Or sh—”
“Nah, she isn’t. Made sure of that.” I laughed.
He shook his head. “Well, I hear you, the only thing I can warn you about is allegiances and direct business with people like Shamus O’Leary. You may be a part of the same circles, but you don’t trust him. Nobody should.”
“I don’t trust that old motherfucker as far as I can toss him, Pops.”
“Good. So I guess congratulations are in order, well probably not yet, huh? Given she still hasn’t said yes.” He laughed.
“She’s gonna say yes. Patience has always been sweet on Hony. She used to be so nervous around him, and so cute.” My mother came out of the kitchen holding a pan with a grin.
My father and I both laughed.
“When are they telling her?” my mother asked, letting us both know she had been listening to the conversation way before she responded.
“Monday.”
“Alright, Hondo. You have to be the opposite of them. Take a few pointers from your father. When my father told me I was marrying him, I could’ve jumped out the window.
Not because of him, but because I hadn’t lived yet.
I was a fresh twenty-one with dreams to travel the world, not be tied down to a nigga who didn’t smile.
” She laughed at herself. “But then it was just him and me, and he told me he didn’t wanna be my life, he wanted to be a part of it… the part that fulfilled it.”
“Now don’t steal my game, youngsta. You gotta be original.” My father held his hands up with a close-mouthed grin, proud of himself.
I laughed.
“And you also can’t be one of those men who works too much.
If you’re choosing to get married, then you’re choosing to slow down a little bit and build your home front.
I.e. those grandkids I’m owed. Pretty sure I’m not getting any from your brother.
He hasn’t even uttered the word marriage, let alone that he likes someone. ”
Pops laughed. “First she gotta tell him yes, Alora.”
They both laughed while I waved him off. As far as I was concerned, I had the yes. It was in the way she looked at me at dinner. She wanted me too. She probably just didn’t know how much until the time came.