Chapter 36
Chapter Thirty-Six
He needed pain. The productive kind.
Danger swiped his key card, the lock clicking open as he stepped into the pitch-black gym. He didn’t bother with the main lights; he just threw his bag into the corner and stepped up to the punching bag. He didn’t even wrap his hands.
The first hook exploded against the leather.
Boom. Then another. Quick as lightning and as loud as thunder.
He wanted to lose himself in the rhythm, but the darkness only made it easier for her to creep in.
Zena’s smile. The scent of her hair as she woke next to him.
The sick, twisted reality that the one thing he found that brought him peace, only to learn she was tied to the robbery that cost his mother her life.
He choked back a curse, abandoning the bag, his knuckles already bleeding. He stepped onto the treadmill, punching the speed up to 6.5. He jammed his AirPods in and let the bass from Future and Young Dolph try to clear the smoke from his head.
It worked for two miles. Then the playlist shuffled. It wasn’t trap music anymore. It was an R they clattered across the dusty tile floor.
He stood there, panting, chest heaving, trapped in a sick joke of a universe.
He loved her. God help him, he was in love with her.
But every time he looked at her face, he saw his mother’s casket.
“I knew you had to be dealing with some shit if you beat me here.”
Danger didn't flinch. He knew the voice. Q stood near the ring, dressed in a crisp black tracksuit, holding a steaming canister of coffee. For fifteen years, 4:00 a.m. sharp had been Q's routine.
Q dragged a folding chair over, scraping it loudly across the floor, and sat right in front of the punching bag. “You wanna talk about it?”
Danger kept his eyes locked on the floor, watching his sweat drip onto the tile. “Nah.”
When Q didn’t push, Danger returned to the bag, unleashing a frantic barrage just to drown out the silence.
“Hmm,” Q murmured over the sound of leather on leather.
“I’ll give you a little unsolicited advice, young fellah.
You don’t have to talk to me, but you need to talk to somebody.
When Terry and I went through the divorce, I hit rock bottom.
My teenage daughter hated my guts. I tried to throw money at it, but you can’t buy your way out of a dark hole. ”
Q paused, taking a slow sip of his coffee. “Then the doctor told me I had lung cancer.”
Danger’s fists froze mid-air. The bag swung back, smacking into his forearm, but he didn’t feel it. He turned his head slowly. "What?"
“Lung cancer,” Q repeated, his voice level, entirely devoid of self-pity.
“Had it for about two years now. Guess all those years of smoking finally caught up to my ass. Anyway, they gave me a packet of papers after the diagnosis. Bulletins, support groups, therapists. I ended up calling this woman, Dr. Amaya Kincaid. Broke me down, man. But she did what nobody else in my life had done in a long time… she just listened. Helped me unpack shit I’d buried since I was your age. ”
Q stood up, popped his knees, and patted Danger’s shoulder. “All that to say… think about it. You can't carry all that alone. Your back is gonna break.”
Danger just stood there as the gym's silence rushed back in. Therapy? The word felt foreign, even soft. But the way Q talked about it made it sound less like a weakness and more like a weapon.
“Once you’re done staring at that bag,” Q called from the back closet, breaking the spell, “grab the mop and bucket. Help me get these floors in order before the morning rush.”
For the next hour, Danger let mindless labor take over. He mopped the floors, hauled the trash to the dumpster, and lined up water bottles in the fridge until his arms trembled with exhaustion.
As he walked to his car, the first gray light of dawn broke over the horizon. His phone buzzed in his pocket.
Havoc.
Danger slid into the driver's seat and picked up, leaning his head back against the headrest. “What’s up with you?”
“Ain’t shit," Havoc’s voice crackled through the speaker, vibrating with an energy Danger didn't have the stomach for. "I called to run some shit by you real quick.”
Danger closed his eyes, inhaling the stale scent of his own sweat. He braced himself, waiting for the next shoe to drop. The next crisis. The next piece of bad news.
“The parole board reviewed my case. They approved my release for good behavior.” Havoc let out a disbelief-filled laugh. “Looks like a nigga is coming home.”
Danger’s eyes snapped open. “That’s… that’s good, Hav. Real good.”
“Why do you sound like somebody died? I just gave you the best news of your life.” Havoc joked.
“It’s just… it’s a lot of shit going on…”
“Must be girl problems. Zena stressing you out?”
Danger choked when he heard her name. A few months ago, he’d been bragging to Havoc about her. Now her name felt like glass in his throat. “Shit fucked up, Hav.”
Havoc didn’t respond; he just heard shuffling in the background.
“My bad…What the problem?”
Danger stared out the window at the gloomy day. “It was her,” he whispered, the words tasting like poison. “The robbery. Ma. It was her. She set it up.”
“Say that again,” Havoc said. The excitement from a few minutes earlier was gone from his voice.
“She didn’t know it would go down like that, but she put the wheels in motion.” Danger said. “I didn’t know until now. I swear to God. I didn’t know. But I’m looking at everything we build, and I…” His voice faltered. “My head is exploding, man.’
“Damn,” Havoc said. “What are you gonna do?”
“What do you mean, what am I gonna do? I can’t be with her. Not after what she did. Not after what it cost us. What it cost you.”
“I’m not saying forgive her, but you need to think about this. If you love her as much as you say you do. Those feelings are not gonna just go away.”
“So I’m just supposed to forget?” Danger snapped. “Just look past Ma’s blood on her hands?”
“Not at all but you need to think before you react.”
“What would you do?”
“If you had asked me this seven years ago, I would probably have killed her before the sun rose. The man I am today would at least hear the other side of the story before making a move.”
Danger shook his head, staring at the dashboard. “What if I don’t like the answer I get?”
“Then you deal with it. But if you love her, truly love her, you’re gonna find that the hardest thing isn’t walking away. It’s figuring out how to forgive.”
“This is crazy to hear coming from you.”
“I don’t regret what I did, but being in here makes you think. The worst thing you could do is waste time on hatred.”
Danger felt the fight drain out of him, but he wasn’t ready to get all the answers just yet. “I hear you. I do... but look, I’m happy you’re comin’ home, bruh.”
“Me too, man. Me too,” Havoc said. “Get some rest, D. We’ll map it all out when I get out.”
Danger hung up and dropped the phone onto the passenger seat. He threw his head back against the headrest and stared up at the rising sun. He still had questions and knew exactly who to ask.
Tate lived in a complex in Kirkwood. His address was easy to find. Seven years later, and he was still in Atlanta. Danger had learned he was the local weed man now. Two kids by two different women. One of them was Velvet.
Danger sat in his idling car, dressed in all black, watching his unit through the windshield. He had waited long enough for the streetlights to flicker on.
Then the door opened.
Tate came out dragging a black plastic trash bag toward the dumpster at the back of the complex.
Danger cut the engine. Pushed the door open. Stepped out into the humid night and walked behind him.
He did not see an ordinary person. He saw the catalyst for every nightmare he had carried for seven years. The man who had convinced Zena used her, or both. The man whose hands were stained with his mother's blood, even if he had never pulled a trigger.
"Yo." Danger kept his voice neutral. His hands were buried deep in his jacket pockets, fingers wrapped around the cold weight of his gun. "You know where I can get some smoke?"
Tate glanced back. His eyes moved over Danger's face.
"Nah," he said smoothly, shifting his weight. "Can't help you with that."
"That's funny." Danger took one step closer. "Because Zena always said you could get your hands on anything."
Her name made him freeze.
Tate's whole body changed. Subtle but there. A tightening around the eyes. A stillness that was not calm. "We haven't dealt with each other in years. Whatever she told you—"
"About seven years," Danger said quietly. He closed the remaining distance between them until he could smell the cheap cologne on Tate's neck. "Give or take."
Tate's hand moved toward his waistband.
Danger was faster.
He had Tate pinned against the dumpster before the thought finished forming, the barrel of his piece pressed hard up under Tate's jaw, metal clicking against bone.
"Don't." Danger's voice turned menacing. “Let me ask you something. When you went into my mama's house, did you intend to kill everybody, or were you only thinking about the money?"
Tate's face had gone the color of ash. His mouth opened.
"Think before you speak," Danger said. "I have been waiting seven years for this shit. I got nothing but time. Lie to me and see what happens.”
“I don’t know what you think you know, man.” Tate stammered. “I wasn’t –I wasn’t the one who did that. I swear to God.”
“I told you not to lie,” Danger whispered. He shoved the barrel deep into his skull.
"I don't know what you're talking about, man," Tate stammered. "I wasn't—I wasn't the one who did that. I swear to God."
"I told you not to lie," Danger whispered. He shoved the barrel a fraction of an inch deeper, forcing Tate onto his tiptoes against the grimy metal of the dumpster.
"I ain't lyin'!" Tears of pure terror welled in Tate's eyes, spilling over his ash-colored cheeks. "I didn't know they was gonna kill her! It was supposed to be a lick, man. I didn't know shit would go left and they would kill everybody!"
Danger looked into Tate's eyes and saw no grand villain. Just a coward.
"You're right," Danger cut him off, his expression blank. "You don't know what I know."
Before Tate could process the words, Danger adjusted his grip and whipped the pistol across Tate's temple. The crack of metal against bone echoed in the alley.
Tate went limp, his eyes rolling back as he slumped into a heap against the trash bag he had just carried out.
Danger stood over him for a long moment, the gun steady in his hand, watching the slow rise and fall of Tate's chest. Killing him here, now, was too easy.
He reached down, grabbed Tate by the collar of his shirt, and began dragging him toward the shadows of the idling car.
The reckoning wasn't over. It was just finally beginning.
“Wake up, bitch!”
The cold steel of Danger’s gun cracked against Tate’s temple. Tate jerked awake, coughing, as fresh blood gushed from the new gash in his hairline, spilling down his cheek.
“Come on, man,” Tate pleaded, blinking through the red haze. “I told you everything. Please don’t kill me.”
Danger pulled up a rusted metal chair, the legs screeching against the floor. “I got one last question. And depending on your answer… I might just let you go.”
“Please. I’ve got kids, man. Think about my kids.”
Danger leaned in. “What was Zena’s involvement?”
"She didn't know anything about what happened in the house," Tate stammered. "Nothing."
Danger stood up slowly, the metal chair scraping against the concrete like a fingernail on a chalkboard. He walked to the far wall, keeping his back to Tate for a long moment.
"See, that's the problem," Danger said quietly. "Because Zena told me the same thing. Word for word." He turned around, his eyes dead. "Almost like y'all rehearsed it."
Tate's one good eye went wide. "Nah, that's just the truth! She was just there, Danger. You know how she is…she doesn't ask questions; she doesn't get involved. She sat in that car the whole damn time."
Danger studied him, watching the micro-movements of his face. Tate had lied to him before, and both times his left hand had shaken like a leaf. Right now, both of Tate's hands were perfectly still.
Danger stepped forward, grabbed Tate by the collar, and yanked his face close.
"If I find out you're covering for her—"
"I'm not! I swear on my kids' lives! Zena didn't know anything. Just leave her out of it, please."
Danger let him go, shoving him back into the chair.
He pulled a burner phone from his pocket, dialed a single number, and waited for the beep.
"Clean-up requested," Danger said, then hung up.
He snatched his jacket off the floor, threw it over his shoulder, and headed for the metal door.
"Danger!" Tate's voice cracked. "You said we were good! You said if I answered the question!"
Danger paused in the doorway then walked back to over to him.
"You should’ve done a better job protecting her, Tate," Danger said. "Because of your choices, Zena got hurt. But don't you worry..." He smirked. "...that will never happen again."
Danger sent two shots into Tate’s head.
He could finally move on with his life.