Chapter 6 #2
“I ain’t paid them niggas yet. Shit, probably why they’re still here.” I looked in the direction of her people sitting at the table a few feet from us, then glanced down at my watch. It was time for me to give her the first of a couple surprises tonight.
She laughed. “Well.”
“But before we get into that, I got something for you in the house.” I stood and extended my hand for her.
“Wedding gift… Another house?” She accepted my hand and got on her feet as well.
“Nope, it’s better than that.” I locked eyes with Shawn and Jordan, her security, before nodding toward the house.
“Where are we going?”
“It’s a surprise.”
From the moment she told me she feared for her sister and wanted her at the wedding, I vowed to make that shit happen.
While Nic thought Paige had missed the wedding, she had been here all along.
She watched her sister get married and not from the fucking video call I told her to say she’d tune into.
“Is it another house?” she asked as we entered the room where I had Shawn lead her sister.
“Nah, something better.” My eyes landed on Paige and I moved out of the way, allowing Nic to see her.
“Oh my god, you’re here, like really here and not in Boston.” Nic was hugging her sister before I realized she was no longer holding my hand. “How are you here?”
Paige smiled with tears also in her eyes. “Thank your husband. He did it all. I’m pretty sure you give him a hard time, but he isn’t so bad and damn sure not the same asshole from childhood.”
My wife turned and looked at me with a smile and tears in her beautiful eyes. “Thank you.”
“Anytime, Nic. I’ma give y’all some space. Ain’t nobody coming in here. Shawn and Jordan are outside the doors. Let them know if you need anything.”
Nic nodded, giving me a look before she verbally responded. “You have your phone?” She was still a little shaken up from earlier, but that was to be expected.
I nodded. “Yeah, I told you that you’re good.”
“Okay.”
Once I left the room, I looked at Shawn and Jordan before I spoke. “Nobody in that fucking room. Anybody try to get in, shoot them.”
Both of them nodded and I moved out of the double doors to the patio where the party was still going on. As soon as I stepped out, my brother approached with a drink extended.
“You know you’ve been under my sister-in-law the whole night. What, you finally came up for air?”
I sipped from the drink, eyes scanning the room. “Nah. Typa shit happens when you married nigga.”
“You’re five minutes married and now you wanna talk some shit. Fuck outta here with your sprung ass.”
I chuckled. “Ma ain’t found you a wife yet?”
He shook his head. “Nah, not yet. She’s feenin’ though. Fuck, you spoke too soon. Here she comes.”
I chuckled and looked up just in time to see my mother approaching.
“Hello, my sons.” My mother smiled then looked at me. “Please go pay those people, so they can leave. Their energy is off and they are just sitting there awkwardly. You already didn’t let the man walk his daughter down the aisle.”
I was about to respond, but Otto spoke before I could. “He’s letting them marinate, Ma. This is why I never played hide and seek with him. He is too calculated.”
My mother shook her head. “Well, considering that’s his wife’s family, I would hop—”
“They ain’t nothing to her anymore. She has us.
” I didn’t give my mother a chance to respond, but instead walked over to the O’Leary’s table.
This was my wedding night, but the snarls and heavy stench of hate coming off the patriarch of the family and Titus didn’t make for a good party in any space.
“Is there something either of you gentlemen need?” I asked, eyes locked on Shamus. He called the shots in the family, even though he was said to have stepped down a couple years back.
Shamus grinned. “No, taking in the festivities. It isn’t every day that my eldest granddaughter is married.”
I nodded, then looked at Titus. “You’re missing a security guard, ain’t you?
” I didn’t have to ask. I already knew the answer, seeing as I’d had the cameras checked.
The only problem was there were four main families here, so the dead man could have belonged to anyone.
However, my gut told me he belonged to them.
Given I had no beef with the other families, I had no inkling that they were up to anything.
He shook his head without speaking, but Shamus spoke for him.
“No, we got everything we came here for, except that payment for Patience’s hand in marriage. I assume you have that check handy.”
I laughed. “And you don’t even want a picture with your daughter or your granddaughter?”
“We abide by the rules of our agreements. She no longer belongs to us, so we don—”
“She doesn’t belong to anyone. Yes she is my wife, but she is not fucking property.”
Shamus laughed and Titus grimaced. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say his paper bag skin ass was turning red.
The air was thin and the tension in the space was heavy. The O’Learys used to be a very respected family in our circles, but then shady business practices and a few rumors I was seeing firsthand to have true qualities tanked them.
“Didn’t say she was.” Shamus then stood.
I looked him up and down. “Good.” I reached into my pocket, pulling out the check I had already written. Something told me they were hard up, so they wouldn’t be above collecting at the wedding.
I handed it off and the old man smiled. The first genuine one all night. It was something about these motherfuckers that I couldn’t put my finger on. Then Nic’s words from a few weeks back floated into my mind.
“O’Leary women don’t live long, by blood or married in…it’s a family full of men. The only women alive are myself, my sister who is not here, and my brother’s new wife. No aunties, mothers, or grandmothers.”
I stood there watching them leave before I felt a presence at my side.
“Be careful when it comes to them motherfuckers. I refuse to believe everything that’s been said over the years is untrue.”
I turned and looked at Tylon, son of Willis Jackson, one of the founding families of Briar’s freight industry.
His father had stepped down about a month ago and he stepped up, sure to fulfil all obligations Old Man Willis had taken part of.
Unlike his father, Tylon was a loose cannon and definitely a YN though.
He was smart, and damn right business minded, so I kept my business with him.
Because loose cannon or not, the young nigga had an eye for the paper.
“I hear you.”
“How do you marry the daughter and piss all of them off in the same night?” Otto asked, walking up on the side of me.
“’Cause I don’t trust them.”
“You shouldn’t,” my brother responded.
“But fuck all that. Congratulations on your nuptials. I’m tryna be just like you when I grow up.” Tylon drank from his glass with a big dumb ass smile.
I laughed. “Ah, yeah. Then stop hanging out with this nigga.” I pointed at Otto who laughed.