Chapter 15
Chapter
Fifteen
NOAH
Seth always had to be the one who got the credit.
Everything had to run through him, like he was the only one built to handle real pressure.
And maybe that worked for everybody else, but not for me because every time he swooped in like some hood superhero, a part of me wanted to scream “thought we were a family though we were a team” His words not mine.
I should’ve been the one to take Dre out. Stormi’s my sister. She was supposed to be my responsibility. My blood but let a couple niggas with money slide into the picture, suddenly the ones who held you down on them broke days get tossed to the curb like trash nobody claimed.
I sat low in the driver’s seat; my whip tucked in the shadows as I watched Leon’s house. By now, I knew his whole routine it was a script he never bothered to change.
“Old nigga predictable as hell,” I muttered to my boy, fingers drumming the steering wheel.
Every morning it was Sonny’s for breakfast, eggs, grits, and gossip.
Then the corner store for a beer and to play his numbers.
He’d stay there damn near an hour, chopping it up with the same old heads posted outside since the ‘90s.
After that, home. His wife cooked him lunch and dinner, and once he hit that recliner in front of the TV, he barely moved till nightfall.
I watched the porch light click on. Right on schedule and my jaw tightened.
He was going to pay for everything he did to Jo, for never being there for Stormi when she needed him most. This wasn’t just revenge.
It was proof. Proof to Jo, to Stormi, and to Seth that I could handle shit on my own.
That I wasn’t the weak link needing to be saved every time things became out of control.
I leaned forward; eyes locked on the front door.
“Nigga, you said we was goin’ to get some bitches. What the fuck we doin’ here?” my boy whined, twisting in the seat like he was uncomfortable.
I didn’t even look at him at first. My eyes stayed locked on Leon’s house on that porch light that glowed, daring me to enter the home.
“Calm down, nigga,” I finally muttered, voice tight. “I had to check on some shit.”
“Check on what?” he pressed. “I thought bro-in-law handled the problem. Why you watchin’ Leon like you scared to go home?”
Something in my chest pinched. He didn’t know what the fuck he was talking about, but it didn’t stop the words from stinging.
“Seth ain’t take care of shit,” I snapped, jaw locking. “I would’ve offed Dre myself if his ass would’ve just listened to me for once. But nah, Seth always gotta be the hero.”
My boy scoffed. “Man, count your blessings havin’ Seth as family. That nigga put everybody on. Look around half the hood only eatin’ ’cause of him.”
I finally turned to him, eyes burning. “Your ass wanna walk back to the crib?”
“Bro, why you so pressed?” he asked, eyebrows raising. “You got serious mommy and daddy issues for real. You mad ’cause your sister got a husband who stand on business about her?”
My breath hitched. Just a little. I hoped he didn’t hear it. “He wouldn’t need to stand on shit,” I muttered, voice cracking around the edges, “if he ain’t put her in that situation in the first place.”
My boy leaned back, folding his arms like he had me figured out. “Shit… I heard you the one that let Dre get close. Heard he played in your face like a big brother just to slide next to Seth and Stormi.”
Something inside me snapped clean in half.
“Ain’t nobody played in my fucking face!” I yelled, my hand already gripping my 9 before my brain caught up. I pointed it right at him, hands shaking; not from rage, but from everything I ain’t ever said out loud.
“Bro, Noah, chill!” he shouted, hands going up. “Damn, you gon’ shoot me ’cause of what the streets saying?”
“The streets been saying shit about me my whole life,” I growled. “Always calling me the weak link, the fuck up, the one Seth gotta save. Man, fuck the streets and fuck you.”
My voice broke mid-sentence. I prayed he didn’t notice. The way his expression softened made my stomach twist. I hated that look. That pity look like he could see right through every wall I tried to build.
“Whatever, man,” he muttered, shaking his head as he reached for the door handle. “I’m out. I ain’t about to sit in this whip and watch you stare down some old man do absolutely nothin’.”
He opened the door and stepped out, slamming it shut so hard the rearview mirror rattled. He paused outside the car for a second, like he was waiting to see if I’d call him back or if I’d completely crumble the moment he walked away. But I stayed silent. Too mad.
He finally shook his head again and started walking up the street, shoulders hunched, hands stuffed in his pockets.
Each step he took felt like another piece of something breaking off inside me.
The car went quiet, and the neighborhood hum slowed.
It was just me, the gun resting heavy in my lap, and Leon’s porch light staring at me like it knew.
And for a moment, just a small, painful moment, I wondered if I wanted to kill Leon or if I was trying to prove something to everybody but myself. The engine hummed under me, but all I heard was a memory pulling itself out of the dark.
Stormi was eighteen. I remember because she’d been packing that whole damn week folding jeans, stuffing notebooks into a duffel, trying to act excited while her eyes kept drifting toward me.
I was only five. A baby, really. Thirteen years behind her, trailing after her like her shadow .
Jo was on the couch that morning, half conscious, mumbling at the TV that was playing some 90s tv show.
The burnt smell from her pipe still clung in the air.
Stormi knelt in front of me, her knees popping softly.
She cupped my face in her hands, hands that had done way too much raising for someone barely grown.
“Noah,” she whispered, brushing my curls back, “I need you to be strong, okay?”
I didn’t answer. I just wrapped my arms around her neck and squeezed as tight as I could.
She pulled me off gently, her eyes already going glossy. “Baby, I’m going to college. I gotta go so I can make a better life for us.”
“But I want you here,” I blurted, lip trembling. “I want you home.”
Stormi dropped her head and took a deep breathe... I didn’t understand it then, but now I know that moment stabbed straight through her.
“I know,” she whispered. “I know you do.” Her voice shook. “But if I don’t leave now, I’ll never get out.”
Behind us, Jo let out a slow, drugged exhale, it filled the room with the reminder that Stormi really was the one raising me. Stormi wiped her eyes fast so I wouldn’t see, but I saw it anyway. I saw everything. She leaned in close, pressing her forehead against mine.
“I’m gonna come back for you,” she murmured. “When I get myself right when I can really take care of you, I’m coming back.”
That promise it planted deep inside my chest, a seed of hope and fear tangled together. She stood, grabbed her duffel, and walked toward the door.
“Stormi, don’t go,” I cried, running after her. “Please!”
She stopped. Her shoulders shook once. Then she turned around, scooping me up into the tightest hug she ever gave me.
“I love you, Noah,” she said, voice breaking. “You hear me? I love you more than anything.”
When she walked out, the door clicked and shut behind her. Jo didn’t even look up. I remember sitting in the hallway afterward, knees pulled to my chest, staring at that door like maybe it would open again if I wished hard enough. But it didn’t. Not that day and not for a long time.
And even though she left for the right reasons, even though she was trying to escape a life that would’ve drowned her, I carried something heavy from that day.
This feeling that it was my fault she had to leave me behind.
This belief that if I wasn’t so small, so in need, so damn helpless she wouldn’t have had to choose between her future and her baby brother.
That’s why I protect her now. Why I can’t let shit slide. Why Leon gotta pay and why I should’ve been the one to handle Dre.
Because she once walked out that door to save herself and now it’s on me to make sure nobody ever hurts her again.
That thought hit me like a punch straight to the gut, and before I knew it, my fingers were wrapped around the door handle.
I jerked it, ready to get out, ready to end Leon’s pathetic ass life once and for all.
The shit he did to Jo, the way the aftermath scorched Stormi and me. It stayed burning in my chest like a damn open wound.
I was halfway out of the car when my phone started ringing.
Normally, I’d ignore it. Everybody could wait. But something in the way it rang steady, almost urgent pulled at me. I yanked it out my pocket and answered without even checking the screen.
“Yo,” I said, eyes still locked on Leon’s house. Didn’t recognize the number.
“Noah?” the voice asked. Soft and unsure making sure it was really me on the other line.
I frowned. “Who the fuck wanna know?”
A sigh on the other end came through slow and nervous. Then…….
“It’s me, Noah SR. Your father. I… I got your number from Jo. I hope that’s okay?”
My whole body froze and at that moment all I could hear was my heartbeat trying to beat out of my chest.
“What the fuck you want?” I spat, voice low and tight, full of unsaid anger.
“I know you’re a grown man now,” he said, his voice trembling like he was holding back a whole lifetime of guilt. “And I know it’s late. Too late for me to try and come in and be a father.”
I clenched my jaw so hard I felt something crack in the back of my teeth.
He kept talking like he had to get this out before I hung up.
“But I’m clean now,” he said. “Been clean for a while. And I… I would love to have a conversation with you. If you’d allow me.”
I laughed. “You want a conversation?” I hissed. “After all these years? After you left Stormi to raise me while Jo was strung out on everything, she could get her hands on? After Stormi had to play mama as a child, while you played ghost?”
“Noah, I know.”
“You don’t know shit,” I cut him off, heat crawling up my throat. “You don’t know one damn thing about what Stormi and I lived through.”
His silence was heavy on the other end, but guilt filled the line.
“Noah… son”
“Don’t call me that,” I snapped, voice cracking pissing me off more. “You don’t get to pull that word out like you earned it.”
I stared at Leon’s porch. The rage in me warred with something else, something that scared me more than pulling the trigger ever could.
“I’m not askin’ for forgiveness,” he whispered. “I’m askin’ for a chance to try. Just try.”
My throat tightened, my fingers flexed around the phone. Stormi’s voice from years ago echoed in my head “He’s still your father, Noah whether he ever acted like it or not.”
But that didn’t make the pain feel any less like fire.
“You want a chance?” I muttered. “I been surviving without you my whole damn life. What the hell you think coming into my life now will do?”
He inhaled shakily. “I don’t know,” he said. “But I can start by saying I’m sorry.”
Something in my chest twisted hard, sharp, like a blade turning.
I didn’t respond. I couldn’t. I just stood there in the dark, phone pressed to my ear, gun heavy in my hand, heart splitting open in a way it never had before.
I took one last glance at Leon’s house before I hopped in my whip and I peeled off.
I’ll leave Leon for another day, but he will pay.