DEEPLY ROOTED #3
Fancy waited with her parents and Brenda near the car.
The driver stood with the door to the back hatch propped open so they could ease the coffin inside when they reached the bottom of the church staircase.
While everyone loaded up for the procession, Fancy wept in Brenda’s arms. She pulled her into the back of the limo with her, Braxton, and her parents.
The crowd thinned out with folks piling into their own cars, some five and six people deep.
Today, the city would pause to acknowledge the fall of Braxton’s son.
Half the police department was on motorcycles and doubled up in undercover vehicles while scoping the scene and making sure nothing jumped off.
As Bull prepared to climb into the limo with his family, a sudden twinge pulled at his gut.
He couldn’t pinpoint it, but something told him to look up.
Near the top of the steps, he spotted the girl who disrupted the service.
She rested a hand against the railing, holding a single rose against her chest. Watching her close her eyes, he caught the tear slip past her cheek as the sun glistened off it.
“Who is she?” Bull asked, remaining in the limo with his father, smoking a blunt while they cruised through the city back to his parent’s home.
After the burial, Fancy was distraught as fuck.
She couldn’t keep it together, so her mother gave her a Valium, and Braxton had the driver take them home.
This left Bull in the car with only his mother and father.
Across the seat, Brenda nursed a glass of gin, staring at him through her thick Dior shades.
Braxton pulled from the blunt with a furrowed brow before handing it over to his son.
“Antonia Chambers,” his mother voiced, tipping her glass to her lips for a demure sip.
Bull still hadn’t gotten the full story on his brother or how he ended up in a body bag.
His father was very scarce with the details, and that raised even more red flags.
When he arrived, there wasn’t much time for small talk or to catch up since his parents were responsible for making sure everything for the service was in order.
“What’s up with her popping up like that? Who is she to Bronx?”
“She was with him the night he was murdered,” Braxton conveyed.
“What happened that night?” Bull asked, narrowing his slanted brown eyes at his father through the cloud of smoke he exhaled.
Brenda and Braxton glanced at each other from across the seat of the limo.
His mother cleared her throat and twirled her glass with a single cube of ice left in it.
Bull was no stranger to his parents and their fucked-up mentality of money over everything.
It was the only thing that ranked above family in their eyes.
Whoever said the love of money was the root of all evil described his parents to the letter.
Everyone was expendable, and there was nothing they wouldn’t do in the name of the almighty dollar.
“Bronx got an opportunity, a sizeable one. I called in reinforcements. Eazy and the crew were more than willing to help,” Braxton began.
“Everything went off without a hitch. Bronx was supposed to meet the buyer the next day, so everyone went about their business. According to Toni, they went to sleep, and around one a.m., two men kicked the door in. Bronx was hit, they knocked her out, and took all the cash in his stash plus the painting he was supposed to sell. Across town, Eazy and his girl were also hit. Not far from there Oracle and Jewel were ambushed. Everybody’s piece was taken, and they were left for dead. ”
Bull wondered why he hadn’t seen or heard a peep from the crew. He hadn’t had time to stop and think since his feet touched down on the soil. The news of the funeral was already a blow. It was clear to him that Braxton was purposely keeping him out of the loop, and he wasn’t feeling that shit.
“How come I didn’t know a week ago what the fuck was going on?” Bull demanded.
The weed was in no way calming him down as he sat forward in his seat.
“It happened quickly, and we’ve had some other shit to deal with.
Eazy’s down bad. He was in critical condition for days.
He just got moved to a room since he stabilized.
I’ve got eyes on him, but we’re moving him to a more secure location later today.
Oracle is paralyzed from the waist down, and Niva is dead.
Her funeral is tomorrow. Do you know how hard it is to convince the streets that we good? ”
“I should have been here.” Bull aimed a finger at the floor and growled.
“If you had decided to stick around and run things with me and your brother, maybe you would have been,” Braxton pointed out. “You made the decision to walk away.”
Tension filled the small space of the limo while he and his father had a stare off. Brenda shifted uncomfortably against the leather seat.
“So, what this other bitch got to do with any of this?”
“She’s the reason he’s dead. She set him up,” Brenda declared, swallowing the last of her gin and making a face.
“The Jackson Pollock painting that Bronx secured for sale is gone, and she gets away with just a bump on her head?” Braxton implied. “Your brother is dead, a multimillion-dollar piece is missing, and this is the first time we’ve seen or heard from her since everything went down,” he went on.
“What makes you so sure this is her? What you know about her?” Bull took another toke of the weed before exhaling as his gaze bounced from his mother to his father once again.
Everything about this shit they were spinning set off his bullshit radar.
“I met her once, and it was by accident. I couldn’t care less about the bitches he entertains,” Braxton explained. “You know your brother. Flashy, impulsive, always trying to flex. Pillow talking will always get you fucked up.”
“He also had a thing for hood rats, as you very well know,” Brenda murmured, waving her shot glass in front of her. “And you could never tell him anything. He swore he loved this girl, and they were going to be together. He was even going to break things off with Fancy.”
“And let me guess, that would have presented a problem for you?” Bull queried, cocking a brow and shaking his head in disbelief.
Same old shit. His parents were the most hypocritical people on the planet.
How two people who came from nothing could be so judgmental always bothered him.
On top of everything else, they were fake as fuck, keeping Fancy around on a short leash while Bronx went around, slinging dick to any bitch who spread her legs to him.
“This girl is from the outskirts of Stonebridge. She comes from nothing. Her mother is some crackhead con-woman, and her husband is a drunk gambler. Trust me, she is more of a liability than anything to him,” Brenda conceded with a roll of her mocha brown eyes.
“We didn’t pay tuition at that fucking private school for him to meet Fancy, court her, and then run off with some thot from the projects. ”
“You from the fucking projects, Ma!” Bull barked.
“That was a long time ago.” She curtly cut her eyes in his direction and opened the bar, so she could pour herself another drink.
“So long you apparently forgot.” Bull used his fist to pound on the partition window behind him to alert the driver. “Pull this mothafucka over and let me out!”
“Bezai, I called you here to eliminate the problem. This girl is mixed up in this shit, and she needs to go,” Braxton conveyed, leaning forward with an arm draped over his leg.
The car stopped, and Bull pushed his door open so he could get out. He wasn’t convinced.
“Fuck all that other bullshit you got swimming around your head, or all your fucked up childhood trauma. We’re talking about our family.
Your brother is dead. We’re missing very expensive pieces of work, and now our crew risked their fucking lives for nothing!
That is what the fuck matters! Not some girl who didn’t know shit about Bronx or his real life.
That shit was an illusion. However, off the fact that she might know more than we think, you need to take care of her. ”
“If Bronx is dead, I’m pretty sure it has more to do with you than her,” Bull voiced, planting one foot outside the car and preparing to climb out.
Although his father was over twenty years older than him, his strength didn’t reflect that because Braxton still ran five miles every other day and lifted weights while sparring for fun.
He was lean, muscular, and dared a young motherfucker to try him.
His cold, dark eyes lingered in his sons’ before Bull jerked out of his grasp and dropped his other foot on the ground.
“Bull—” It was his mother’s words that stopped him this time.
Briefly, he paused. Remaining ducked low so he could lock eyes with her, a flicker of a woman he remembered a long time ago rested there.
“You know better than anyone that we can’t have any loose ends.” She dug her pack of Black cigarettes from her purse.
After all these years, she still smoked those damn things. She couldn’t just smoke a Newport like a regular motherfucker. Always trying to be different.
“Where are you going?” Braxton questioned when Bull straightened up and adjusted the black suede collared suit around him.
He looked off ahead, ignoring the searing holes both parents burned into him, awaiting a reaction.
Braxton knew it was a risk calling him here.
Bull was a savage, and he’d dismembered motherfuckers before for playing with him.
He was their child who listened but still did what the fuck he wanted at the end of the day.
“For a walk. I’ll be in touch.” He closed the door to the car, stepped on the sidewalk, and strolled off in the opposite direction.