Chapter 10 JULES
jules
I pulled up in front of my lawyer's office and cut the engine, letting the car idle for a second longer than it needed to.
The building sat quiet, beige brick and tinted windows, same as it always did.
Nothing about it ever changed, no matter what was going on inside me.
Juste opened his door and stepped out first. I followed, locking the car and tucking my hands into my pockets like that would settle the tension climbing my spine.
We didn't talk on the way in, there was no need to.
Getting that message from Simnole last night had me stressing.
Any time a lawyer said update, it usually meant some bullshit was attached.
I wanted to beat this case like a mutha fucka.
Needed to. Not for me , for my kids. For the house.
For whatever version of stability I was still pretending existed.
But this mystery witness had been blowing the fuck outta me since it popped up.
We made it inside quick. The air smelled like stale coffee and paper. The kind of place where bad news lived comfortably. I sat. Juste stayed standing. "Mr. Simnole, what's up. Good news I hope," I said, looking at him. I kept my voice level. Neutral.
He flipped through a folder slow, glasses riding low on his nose.
The sound of paper scraping felt loud in the room.
"The judge threw out the blunt that was found at the scene," he said.
That landed solid. Good, I nodded once. "But this witness gon be a real issue," he mumbled, eyes still scanning the paperwork.
There it was. I leaned forward in the chair, forearms resting on my knees. "Man, who the fuck is this witness. They ain't got this nigga name in the paperwork?" I questioned, irritation creeping in whether I wanted it to or not.
He paused and looked up at me. "It's a she," he said. "They have her name listed as Jade. She has a six-month-old son with the decedent. Sound familiar? She was pregnant when he died apparently."
It hit my chest before it hit my head. Heat rose fast and Uncomfortable.
That fucking name. This shit all started with this bitch.
I should've never fucked with her. If I knew then what I know now, I would've moved different.
Quieter. Smarter. Or not at all. I'd heard Jade and Nash was fuckin around, but at the time I paid it no mind.
I leaned back in the chair, jaw tightening.
"You should've let me kill that bitch a long time ago," Juste muttered behind me.
Simnole snapped his eyes up over his glasses. "Mr. St. Jean, keep that to yourself," he said flatly. "How you know her?"
I exhaled through my nose, avoiding eye contact and stared at the wall behind him, some framed diploma I didn't give a fuck about.
"Me and her kicked this whole shit off," I said.
"I was cheating on my wife with her. Led to my wife cheating on me and ultimately my daughter dying and me being in this situation with the law.
" I rubbed my hand over my face, thumb dragging across my mouth.
I didn't say Juli's name. Saying it felt like a thread I wasn't built to follow.
The room went quiet in a heavy way. Simnole closed the folder and folded his hands. "That connection is going to matter," he said. "The prosecution is going to lean on motive, history, and emotional escalation."
"Meaning?" Juste asked.
"Meaning she's not just a witness," he said. "She's a narrative."
I nodded slowly. That tracked. Everything always came back to stories. Who told them first. Who sounded cleaner. Who looked more believable. And I already knew how I looked.
Mob Ties.
Cheating husband.
Dead child.
Jail time.
I stood up, chair legs scraping the floor.
"So what you saying is this shit ain't really about the case no more," I said.
"It's about who I was." I already knew how that looked on paper.
Simnole didn't answer right away. That was answer enough.
We wrapped the meeting up after that. Dates.
Motions. The usual legal runaround. I heard it all, but none of it stuck.
Soon as we hit the parking lot, Juste stopped me.
"Jade gotta be dealt with. That's just what it is brudda," he said to me.
I didn't answer right away. Just stood there with my keys still in my hand, feeling the concrete under my feet, the heat coming off the pavement.
Everything felt loud all of a sudden. Traffic.
Wind. A door slamming somewhere down the street. "No doubt about that," I mumbled.
He walked over, jumped in the car, and I followed.
The doors shut solid, trapping the air between us.
The ride pulled off slow, the engine humming low, like it knew better than to make noise right now.
"You can't have nun to do with the bitch, Jules," Juste said, eyes on the road.
"Don't call, don't reach out, don't contact the hoe at all.
You can't have yo hands anywhere near her. "
"I know," I said.
He kept going anyway, like he needed to hear himself say it out loud.
"This ain't one of them situations where you think you can control it.
Everything connected to her dirty now. Even curiosity.
" I nodded without arguing or asking questions.
That part of me that used to think I could outmaneuver consequences, had already learned its lesson. I'd been sitting with it long enough.
We stopped by mama and pops' house. It felt like time never moved there.
Like life paused at that front door. They were in the living room cuddled up on the couch like they was in their twenties, legs tangled, TV on something low and meaningless.
Pops had his arm around her. That sight hit me in the chest harder than I expected.
"Ma, you ain't cooked nun?" I questioned, walking straight into the kitchen.
The stove was empty. No pots. No grease smell.
No food sitting out. That wasn't normal.
It was always something on my mama stove.
Always. "Your daddy took me to lunch," her voice came from behind me as she walked in, pops trailing her like he always did.
Juste was standing there with the refrigerator open, staring inside like something might appear if he waited long enough.
"Juste, close my damn refrigerator," she fussed. He smirked and shut it.
"What y'all want?" Pops asked, leaning over the counter, studying us.
"Damn, why we gotta want some?" Juste shot back.
I cut in, "I just saw Simnole," I said, grabbing everybody attention without raising my voice. "Jade is the state's witness." The room changed.
"JADE?" Mama raised her voice, eyes sharp now.
"Apparently the bitch got a son wit Nash," Juste added, leaning back against the sink like this was just information, not history.
Mama braced herself against the counter like she needed it. "You should've been beatin your dick, Jules, instead of fuckin that hoe," she snapped. "This the reason all this bullshit going on now." I didn't respond. "How you know the son not yours?" she pressed.
"The lil nigga ain't old enough to be mine," I said.
She snorted. "Yeah okay." Pops had gone quiet. That was always worse than him talking. "Y'all know where she at?" he asked finally.
"Not yet," Juste said. "But ears listening and eyes watching for sho."
Mama shook her head slow, disappointment heavy in the way only a mothers could be.
"Everything come back around," she said.
"Every damn thing." I felt that settle in my chest. Not as guilt or shame, but as a fact.
We didn't stay long after that. There wasn't nothing else to say.
No advice that could fix it. No comfort that fit. This wasn't that kind of problem.
Back in the car, I stared out the window while Juste drove. Neighborhoods blurred together. Houses. Stores. People living regular lives, not knowing how close shit could fall apart.
Juste's phone rung in the car, breaking the silence.
When he answered and put the phone up to his ear, I could hear Chiana screaming from the other end before he even said hello.
"Chi baeebbyy, slow down. I can't understand you," he said, gripping the steering wheel tighter.
He paused, listening, jaw setting. "I'm on the way.
" That was all he said before ending the call.
We pulled up to his house fast. I followed him inside, the front door barely closed behind us before we heard Chiana raising hell from the living room.
Chi'lo and Chi'nari sat on the couch, shoulders stiff, eyes forward.
Chiana was pacing the floor in front of them, hands moving, voice sharp enough to cut skin.
"What the hell y'all did now?" Juste questioned, already knowing it was bad.
"They asses up there at that school fighting," she snapped. "Suspended for three days. Still won't tell me why. Why in the hell were y'all up there fighting?" They didn't say shit. Just sat there staring straight ahead like statues.
"Man, y'all niggas better act like y'all hear her," Juste said, crossing his arms. Still nothing.
That's when he snapped. Juste marched over, stood in front of them, reached down, and grabbed both of them by the shirts, yanking them to their feet.
"Somebody better say something or I'm bout to beat y'all ass," he growled.
"Aight, da, aight, let me go," Chi'lo said, hands coming up, voice shaking now.
Chi'nari glanced up at me real quick, then dropped his eyes back to his daddy. "Man they was at school talkin bout how they older brothers don fucked Jul and how she be sucking they dick, and-"
"NARI! Enough!" Chiana interrupted him.