The Prettiest Outlaw

Chapter 1

My mother’s illness was unexpected. One day, she was fine. The next day, her body started giving out on her. Nah. The truth was that things hadn’t gone bad overnight. She just never told me that she was having health problems until she couldn’t keep it to herself any longer.

She was dealing with renal failure. She was in renal failure due to complications from unchecked diabetes. I didn’t understand it, because as far as I knew, she took care of herself. She worked out and monitored her diet. That was what she always told me. But according to her situation, that had all been a lie.

I wanted to call her out on it, too. I wanted to say the shit that she used to say to me and my little brother, Donovan, when we were growing up.

Her favorite thing to say was, “You can say you’re doing your homework, but the report card is gonna tell me the truth.”

In this case, renal failure told me the truth. I didn’t rub it in her face or give her a hard time about it, though. The truth of the matter was that I was too scared to play in her face. I wasn’t trying to lose anybody else, particularly my mother. She was the only parent I had that was worth a damn. She’d been the one to raise and pour into Donovan and me. She was the one who showed up for us, prayed for us, believed in us, encouraged us, and fought for us.

Our father, Briscoe “Coe” Hill, had been an absentee father. He was the father that we knew and could point out to people, but he very much stayed on the periphery of our lives… until and unless he needed something. So, Donovan and I didn’t have anybody, but Bianca Russo and each other. And she didn’t have anybody, but Donovan and me.

Both my brother and I were “affair” babies. My mother was one of Coe’s mistresses for years. Dude had a whole wife when he took up with my mother. She was a beautiful, young, and na?ve church girl who had fallen for his pretty boy looks and his fake charm. When she became pregnant, the church turned their back on her. They couldn’t support a pretty, young thing who was willing to take up with somebody’s husband. The church women had husbands. What would stop her from running through the church, sleeping with husband after husband?

Soon, the embarrassment of the church’s response trickled down into her biological family. She was shunned, labeled the black sheep, and became an outcast. She didn’t let that bother her because she thought Coe loved her. She expected him to marry her and whisk her away from her current life. She found out just like anybody else who had intimate dealings with him. The only person Coe Hill truly loved… was Coe Hill.

She was coming out of her brownstone when I pulled up. I parked my Mustang. I always drove my Mustang when I took my mother to church because my other vehicles sat too high for her to climb in and out of comfortably.

I jumped out of the car and ran up the stairs to assist, not that Donovan needed my help. Our mother was a short woman at barely five feet tall, while Donovan was well over six feet tall. I jumped out to help because she was my mom, and I loved her.

I met them at the top of the stairs. Donovan was locking her door, while I bent to greet her with a kiss.

“Hey, Ma.”

She rested her hand on my face as she proffered her cheek to me for a second kiss.

“Good morning, son. As I told your brother here, this is the day that the Lord has made. I will rejoice and be glad in it.”

I gave her a grin. “Amen.”

Donovan mumbled something that was basically unintelligible, but if I had to guess, it sounded like, “Fuck this day.”

He’d been mad at the world since he’d lost the love of his life to a tragic accident at their joint bachelorette and bachelor party. His fiancée, Nevaeh, had lingered in a coma for years before her parents decided to forego the extensive measures being taken to sustain her and removed her from life support.

It had been almost a year since she’d succumbed to her injuries, and Donovan was still in the same dark place he’d been when the accident first happened.

We helped our mother down the stairs with one of us holding each of her arms. Once we reached the bottom, I held the door of the car open while Donovan got her situated inside.

She kissed his cheek noisily before she spoke, “One of these days, my baby is gonna join us at church, Nico.”

I cut my eyes at Donovan.

“Don’t hold your breath, Ma. I ain’t really messing with Big Sandals right now. If that ever changes, you’ll be the first to know.”

“I’m praying that you’ll soften your heart, baby. Missing Nevaeh’s presence on this side is a real thing, but God’s grace is sufficient. If you let Him, He’ll be a comforter and a keeper for you.”

“Well, right now, that nigga is the grim reaper for me. So, respectfully, fuck him.”

“Donovan!”

“Later, Bro,” I called out before he closed my car door with a resounding thud.

I shook my head at his back because he knew that was one of the easiest ways to get Ma in her bag. Now, I was going to have to listen to her go on and on about how blasphemous it was for him to say that… and on a Sunday, the Lord’s day, no less.

My mother turned her gaze on me. “I’m praying for your brother. He can’t stay where he’s at. I understand grief and mourning, but what he’s doing isn’t healthy.”

“It wasn’t healthy when she was alive in that coma. Donovan hasn’t been operating in a healthy manner since Nevaeh’s accident.”

“You’re right.” She nodded her head in agreement. “I tried to give him space and not speak too much on his situation. I mean, I don’t know what it’s like to watch the love of your life linger in a coma for years. I wanted to be respectful and supportive. I don’t mean to compare your situations?—”

“Please don’t, Ma.”

She ignored me and continued talking. “You mourned Emerald. You grieved. It didn’t look anything like what Donovan’s doing?”

“Everybody mourns differently. There’s no right way. There shouldn’t be comparisons.”

“But what about when it’s not healthy… and it goes on for years and years? We’re more than three years out from the accident. He’s still in the same place.” She set her lips in a determined frown. “It’s time for him to come out of this pit. I don’t care if I have to stage an intervention.”

That made me laugh aloud. “An intervention? With two people? Me and you? Who all do you think is gonna show up for Donovan’s sour a—self?”

She chuckled softly because she knew I was speaking facts. “I’ll get some of the prayer warriors from church to come.”

“Good luck with that.”

Because of Donovan’s disposition about church, God, and life in general, when my mother’s condition precluded her from driving herself, I hired a health care aide. Lana, the aide, took care of my mother at the house and also drove for her. I didn’t want my mother to lose her independence, so she was still able to do her errands and make her little runs. She just had to do them from the passenger seat.

On Sundays, Lana didn’t come until the evening. I refused to have my mother take a rideshare to and from church every week. That meant that I had to make myself available.

Initially, spending Sunday mornings at church was the worst couple of hours of my week. Getting up at the crack of dawn to get my mother to the 8:00 a.m. service then sitting in an uncomfortable suit for hours only to have to spend another hour mindlessly busying myself while my mother conversed with her friends sucked.

Lately, it hadn’t been so bad. One thing about Faith in Harvest Church was that they had a young, dynamic preacher in Royal Sharpe Jr. Pastor Sharpe brought the words in the Bible to life. He made walking with Christ about more than sin, hell, brimstone, and fire. He made it sound like a friendship, like a relationship. So much so, that a week earlier, when he opened up the doors of the church, I found myself having an out-of-body experience where I stood from my seat, walked down the aisle, and joined the church.

* * *

The following Tuesday, I was at my auto body shop. As a youngin’, I spent my time running the streets. My mother did the best she could, but the calling to jump off the porch was stronger than her desire for me to do the right thing.

Vehicles were my passion. I loved them. I loved to drive them. I loved to race them. I loved to dismantle them. It was no surprise that my first “job” was stealing them for the owner of an underground chop shop.

My father was a career criminal, who operated within a syndicate of criminals that provided services in different industries. My family, The Hills, specialized in cybersecurity. My father had groomed both my brother Donovan and another one of his sons, Dorien, in tech, coding, and intel.

Kenny “KG” Garfield, my first boss, specialized in automobiles. He ran a chain of chop shops cleverly hidden in plain sight throughout the Chicagoland area.

KG liked to employ younger dudes as thieves because he felt like it was less risky. Young dudes went to juvie, not to prison. I stole cars for him for six years—well past my juvie stage.

Funny thing was, when I was a kid, I never got busted. The year I turned eighteen, I got busted three times in one year. The final time, I could tell that the judge wanted to throw the book at me. He knew I wasn’t going to stop. He knew that I didn’t feel remorse about the cars I was taking off the streets, but Gianni Outlaw stepped in and saved my life.

Gianni was another one of my father’s associates. He wasn’t a lawyer or anything like that, but Gianni was the man. He had judges, politicians, and corrupt cops in his pocket. After a week in the county, I was free to walk. and my record was clean like none of my run-ins with the law had ever happened.

Gianni was a cool dude. He wasn’t like some of my father’s associates who would’ve held the fact that they got me sprung over my head and would’ve made sure that I understood that I was indebted to them and that they could call in that debt whenever they pleased.

The only thing that Gianni requested of me was that I leave KG the fuck alone. Told me if I needed a job, he would put me on. By that time, I’d been making money like crazy working for KG. I wasn’t a flashy dude, so I’d saved a pretty penny. I didn’t need a job. All I needed was an opportunity and my freedom papers from Kenny.

When I went to talk to KG about opening up my own shop, a place that was legit, he wasn’t sad to see me go. After getting popped three times by the cops, I was a liability. I made his “workshops” hot as hell. He let me go with absolutely no strings attached.

I went legit and never looked back. My shop, Emerald City Auto Body and Repair , was in the black before the end of its first year. I was good at what I did. I was honest, and I had the backing of Gianni Outlaw. Clients chose my spot because Gianni recommended it. As my reputation grew, I was able to get clients without a word in the right ears from Gianni. Soon, women realized that my shop did honest business with them. It wasn’t long before women became my largest sector of clients. They appreciated that I didn’t hustle them, tack on fake charges, or try to convince them to pay for work that their vehicle didn’t need. I wasn’t surprised that I was successful.

“So, how long you think it’s gonna take for me to get my car back?” The young lady standing in front of the customer service counter asked my head cashier, Kayla Davidson.

I liked Kayla because she was easy-going, polite, wasn’t intimidated by other pretty women, and kept a calm head when customers tried to make waves.

Kayla looked down at the service order. “Umm… Khalil is working on your car, and he prides himself on being quick… but very thorough.”

The young lady in front of her smiled, as her head nodded.

“But it says here that we have to order the part?—”

The customer’s smile fell as she cut Kayla off. “Ugh… Here y’all go with this shit. Whenever they start talking about ‘ they gotta order a part,’ that adds ten days to the week y’all was already gon’ keep it.” She sighed heavily. “I can’t be without my car for a week. I work out by Six Flags… and I live in the city.”

Kayla was about to respond when I cut in.

“Aye,” I said, waiting until I had her attention.

She looked up at me, craning her neck due to the differences in our heights. “Yeah—Oh.”

Kayla chuckled.

I didn’t change the expression on my face because I was used to that reaction from women. Not to be an asshole or conceited, but I wasn’t an ugly dude. The fact that I was over six feet tall and had arms as big as some women’s thighs only seemed to add to the appeal. As a younger dude, I exploited the hell out of it. Because my father was a serial womanizer, I wasn’t a cheater. But the fact that I did honest business never stopped me from taking a female customer down. I was fixing their vehicles and blowing out their backs at the same time.

“I don’t recognize you, so I know you’re not a regular here. I’m not sure what kind of experiences you’ve had at other shops. We don’t play the types of games you’re talking about, lil mama. I have a certain amount of space to store vehicles while we work on them. If I’m holding cars and bullshitting with them, that means I won’t have room for additional vehicles.

And for me… ‘vehicles in, vehicles out’ is not just a motto. It’s what puts bread in my pocket. So, we ain’t trying to hold your car. When we get the part, Khalil will put it in your car. While he waits for the part, he’ll fix the one thousand other issues your shit has.” I gave her a cocky grin. “If you know your trap ass car has to make it all the way to the Wisconsin border every day… take better care of it. Do regular maintenance.”

“You’re right.” She returned my grin. “You’re right.”

“Now, stop giving my employee a hard time, and pay the deposit so Khalil can start on your car.”

I walked away before she could respond to that, but she was still smiling while she swiped her bank card for the deposit.As I headed for my office, a voice called out to me from the waiting area.

“Brother Hill.”

That caused me to turn around and look because who the hell was calling me Brother Hill? When I found the culprit, I shouldn’t have been surprised. It was Brother Reedy from church.

I made my way over to him. I didn’t really know him, but he taught the new members class. I had spent two weeks learning the ins and outs of Faith in Harvest Church under his tutelage.

“Brother Reedy.” I proffered my hand for a shake.

“Brother Hill.” He pumped my hand up and down before releasing it. Taking a look around, he said, “This is a nice establishment you have here.”

“Thank you.” I could feel that my eyebrows were furrowed in confusion, but I tried not to let my face go into a frown. “You looking to get some work done on your vehicle?”

I didn’t know anything about Brother Reedy. He could’ve been a public transportation bus pass carrier for all I knew. I was grasping at straws, trying to figure out why he was in my shop. How did he even know I owned a shop?

“Umm, maybe.”

That threw me off even more.

“Actually,” he continued, “I’m here at the request of Pastor Sharpe.”

My eyes went large. I didn’t even know the pastor knew me. “Word?”

Brother Reedy chuckled. “Word, young man. As you know, our pastor emeritus, Pastor Creighton, had certain relationships with businesses in the city. Pastor Sharpe has decided that some of those relationships are not as… advantageous to the church as they might have once been. He’s looking for a new mechanic, someone he can not only recommend to the parishioners but that would also service the church’s vehicles. You know we have several school buses, several charter buses, and a few cars and trucks.”

“Advantageous?” I repeated, hoping the good reverend didn’t expect me to agree to service the church’s vehicles for free or at a deeply discounted rate.

There was no way I would ever agree to that. I was trying to build a relationship with Christ, but if Jesus knew everything, He already knew I was a street nigga at heart. Even the pastor of the church wouldn’t be allowed to play in my face.

Brother Reedy studied me. “Aye, is there someplace we could talk?”

“Yeah.” I started walking. “Follow me into my office.”

Once we got to my office, I took a seat behind my desk, and he took a seat in front of it.

“Listen, young man. Now, we all esteemed Pastor Creighton when he was the senior pastor of Faith in Harvest… we still do. However, Pastor Creighton had a way of doing things that don’t line up with the man that Pastor Sharpe is. Some of the things Creighton was willing to take on … Sharpe is not willing to engage.” He cleared his throat. “So, umm, we had a member who provided auto body services to and for the church, but Sharpe is looking to go in a different direction.”

“Not a direction where he expects me to service the church’s vehicles for free or at a deep discount, right?”

Brother Reedy chuckled, but I kept my face serious.

“Nah. Nah. Nothing like that. The person the church was using was used to getting kickbacks and favors from Creighton. He was used to trading on Creighton’s name around the city and in… religious circles. Sharpe don’t want nobody trading on his name.

“I have a background in security… getting information about people. The pastor asked me if I knew of any members that might be connected to an auto body shop. I remembered you from our new members class. I checked you out. I saw how you got out from under KG’s thumb to open up your own business and run it legitimately, and I appreciated that. I know KG. He’s a dirty motherfucker. I’m not sure anybody ever got out from under him with as clean of a break as you had.”

I met Brother Reedy’s gaze head on. I knew what he was asking me. He was asking two questions. One was if I was really out from under KG’s thumb. Was my business really legitimate? The other was if I owed KG anything in return for him letting me go.

“A couple of things happened to get KG to let me go. The first was the fact that I got popped for grand theft auto like three times in one year. He was either gonna have to let me go or move me to another arm of his operation. I was single-handedly making his block as hot as fire. The second thing was a word from Gianni Outlaw in his ear.”

Brother Reedy nodded, indicating that he was familiar with Gianni Outlaw as well. “Say less.”

I never would’ve guessed it, but clearly, Brother Reedy was a reformed street dude.

“So, I’mma go ‘head and get the word to Pastor Sharpe that you’re the man I’m recommending for the job. I’m sure he’ll bring you in and speak to you about what he’s looking for. Expect to hear from Sister Paula. She’s the church secretary. She’ll call you to set up a meeting with Sharpe… if you’re interested.”

“The church seems like a good account to have.” I nodded my head. “I’m interested.”

“Good. Good.” He held out his hand for me to shake. “It was good speaking with you, young man.”

“Same here, Brother Reedy.”

I walked him back out past the work bays to the customer waiting area.

“You take care now, and expect that call.”

“I will,” I assured him. “You do the same.”

“What was that all about?” Kayla asked when I joined her over at the front desk.

“I don’t know yet, but we might’ve just picked up a new account.”

* * *