Chapter 12
Hondo
Days later…
You worried about the people you loved because this was a dark, cold ass world and anybody could do damage.
What you didn’t expect was for blood to be the one willing to do the damage.
Nic and I grew up in different families, because my blood was willing to take blood for me, and I for them…
I for her. I never once expected to have to worry about my wife when it came to her own blood, but here I was.
This was the third fucking time these motherfuckers had come for mine and this attempt was so fucking desperate that they sent a crackhead on a suicide mission.
My eyes landed on the man chained to the ceiling. He was my wife’s brother, a nigga I should’ve welcomed with open arms because we grew up together. But no, I was about to bleed him dry, then send his fucking head to his family.
“Lower him.” I glanced at Steeve, then took my jacket off.
I wasn’t trying to be gone long, seeing as how Amethyst was only gonna be at the house for a couple hours.
She’d come over to work on decorating the movie room with Nic, which I needed.
I needed her mind on something other than the bullshit that currently plagued our lives because that would soon be over and I put that on my life.
TJ was lowered right in front of me, seemingly asleep. That I found to be comical since for the last two days my wife, his sister, had awakened with night terrors.
“Wake this motherfucker up. I don’t have all day.” I set my suit jacket on the end of the chair, then rolled up my sleeves. “You know what, never mind. I got it.”
I sent my fist into his sternum with as much force as a brick dropped from a fifteenth-floor balcony.
He immediately began coughing before his eyes opened. Confusion lived in them because he didn’t know where he was or why he was here. That part was obvious, but I had just enough time to remind him.
“Wh…what the fuck am I—”
“Shhh.” I put my finger to my lip, stepping back. “You don’t ask questions here. You answer them.”
His lips popped shut and his eyes bounced around the room, never lingering too long.
He was still dressed in the attire he’d worn to the gala.
Hell, he had been hanging up here like drying laundry since the morning after.
The stench in the room was rancid. It was a mix between sour body fluids and rotted intestines.
It smelled like death, but I made sure he was alive enough for this moment right here.
“I’m not about to give you some speech about spilling your guts and making it out of here alive because you ain’t and I don’t respect a motherfucking thing about you or your people.
You’re gonna die in here, but you’ve got some control over how fast it happens.
I can make this shit painful, and beat the life out of you while continuously bringing you back, or it can be quick like the snap of a finger. That’s all up to you.”
He blinked several times, tears streaming from his hazel eyes. “I swear I didn’t wanna do it, but I had no choice. He said it was either Patience or my wife. I couldn’t lose my wife.” He sobbed.
I shook my head, then looked at my brother.
Otto laughed. “That’s fucked up because you could’ve gotten married again in this lifetime. Now that shit is over. You came after a Carter, not once, but several fucking times.”
“It was my only option.”
“I’on believe that, but let’s get into it. Why?”
He looked from me to my brother, at Steve, then the ground. “There isn’t a simple answer. He has money on her. She’s worth more dead to the family than alive. Every woman is. Thirty million if she dies, enough to clear the O’Leary debt and make sure the family thrives for another ten years.”
I shook my head, disgusted.
“And your mother? And grandmother?” Otto asked.
“My mother died by mistake. She had an allergic reaction to peanuts. Her death wasn’t part of it.”
“That’s where you’re wrong. Your mother was poisoned at the very fucking Bistro my wife was shot at. Cyanide slipped into her food and was found in her system but covered up by Shamus. He saw twenty-seven million off her death.” I reported the information given to me by my brother this morning.
“So what was that you were saying about a thriving family?
“That’s not true,” he countered.
“Very fucking true. Shamus’s family’s entire legacy is built off this,” Otto responded.
“You were about to knock off your own fucking sister and didn’t know the full history of your people. Stupid, blind ass.” I shook my head.
He looked pitiful and I didn’t feel bad for him because had I not questioned where my wife was when I returned to where she had been standing with Amethyst, things would have gone a different way.
My wife, who I had just found out was carrying our first child, would have been dead and this entire earth would have been ablaze.
“What do you want from me?” he asked after my stare had apparently become too heavy.
Otto laughed. “Damn that was quick. I have one question though. Why go after her before the wedding?”
“Because had she died on his watch and they were not married, Shamus would have seen double, on top of what you already paid for her hand. It was in the contract.”
It all made sense when he said that. I had noticed the death before the altar clause but disregarded it because I didn’t think somebody would come after her, let alone with all the security I had already put on her.
“Slimy motherfucker. And the insurance money too, huh?” I asked, looking him over.
TJ nodded.
“You got any proof of this? Matter of fact, how much is your father part of it?”
He shook his head stupid fast, throwing me for a complete loop. Otto asked before I could though.
“What the fuck do you mean no? He don’t know about none of this?”
“Grandpop says he doesn’t have the heart for the dirty business, so no, he doesn’t know anything.”
“Ain’t this some shit.”
My tolerance for bullshit was low, so I was already ready to get to the business that paid me and not what stressed me. But how could I do that when I had snakes in the grass? When I had motherfuckers trying to take the very person I had waited forever to start my fucking life with?
“You just bought yourself another day on this plane. Be grateful.” Otto laughed.
“Keep his ass alive. I gotta put this shit together right and deliver it with a bow.” With that, I left the structure.
Had I stayed there any longer, I would have killed TJ.
Flashbacks of her standing there with her hands on her face, waiting to die because she was out of options, plagued my memory.
It was fucked up because I had all but pushed her to not think about it, only to be thinking about it myself.
I didn’t think I ever considered how loving another person could affect the mental.
I worried about her more than I worried about anything in this fucking world, not only because her grimy ass family, but because I wasn’t out here clean.
Over the years I had made my fair share of enemies and motherfuckers who would love to find my weakness and exploit it.
She was my weakness and my strength wrapped in one.
In no time at all, the woman I had my eyes on from a distance for years had become my everything up close and personal, and now she was carrying my child… our child.
“You know you could vent his shit and we can get the proof a different way,” Otto said, snapping me from my thoughts.
I shook my head and pulled from the blunt. “Thought about it. Shit, I even thought about cutting his head off, shipping it to the O’Leary estate, and taking the whole bloodline down that same night. Ain’t gonna do shit though. Folks like Shamus gotta be embarrassed, outcast, then killed.”
Otto nodded. “You tell me what you’re thinking. But remember, he has Chief Logan in his back pocket.”
I laughed and extended the blunt. “Ain’t nobody worried about Logan. Not a lick of loyalty lives in BPD. I’ll go see that fool myself.”
Otto shook his head, accepting. “I know you will, but you don’t like him, so that ain’t even a conversation to be had.”
I laughed. He was right. I didn’t like Logan because he was a snake and I didn’t put snakes in my back pocket.
Funny enough, Shamus was a snake, so that was why they got along so well.
While I had the mayor, Shamus always had Logan.
The way I saw it was that I could easily remove the chief and put a motherfucker I wanted in place, but Otto said that was an act of aggression. So that idea stayed a thought.
“I’m serious, Hon. We’ll figure out a way before it comes to the way you’re thinking.” He pulled from the blunt, leaned against the hood of my car.
“Aight. I hear you. Either way O’Leary is outta here.”
He nodded and extended the blunt back, but I shook my head. I rarely smoked, but in these moments, I needed something to ease my mental. “I know.”
“But on another note, how you doing? You good in there?” He knew what I meant when I said in there. I tried to check in with my brother as much as I could. He could always come to me with anything, because even if I didn’t get it, I’d find a way. I was my brother’s keeper in every lifetime.
“Yeah. I’m straight.”
I paused and looked at him, making sure he was for real.
Otto would also downplay what he had going on because he didn’t want to become a burden to anyone.
He wasn’t the type to put his business or problems on others.
We clashed over that often because at the end of every fucking day he was my brother and his problems were my problems.
“I’m dead ass. I’m good besides yo’ mama and this grandchild talk. I don’t know how many times I can stress to her that I’m not on that.”
I laughed. “She’s gonna probably give you a break soon.”
“Why?” Confusion filled his features before a big smile that showcased the dimple on the right side of his cheek appeared. “Already, nigga?”
I nodded, rubbing my hands together.