Jules #3
"We can take a loss on the passports," Pierre said, calmer now.
"Them diamonds and documents we can't." Juste nodded once.
Diamonds were leverage. Currency without paperwork.
The documents were control. Names. Routes.
Connections. That's not just money lost. That's exposure.
I leaned my shoulder against the wall, arms folding across my chest.
"How many passports?" I asked.
"Twenty-six," Enzi said low.
"Real or altered?"
"Altered."
I exhaled slow. "Diamonds?" I asked.
He hesitated. "Two velvet bags."
That wasn't an answer. "How many carats?"
"Enough."
I studied his face. Sweat was sitting at his temples. Eyes darting. Jaw tight. "You packed it yourself?" I asked. He nodded.
"What you thinking bout?" Juste questioned, glancing over at me. I took in my thoughts. The room felt tight. Brick walls sweating from humidity. Smoke hanging low like it didn't want to move. The back of Velvet always did that, compressed everything. Sound, air, and Thoughts.
"This just don't feel like a sweet lick them Haitians lucked up on," I said finally.
"I know Ju, but them niggas slimy they prowl the streets lookin for they next victim," Noles added.
"True," I said. "But at the same time. This nigga make this trip often. No hiccups. Always smooth as planned. This just feel set up." I looked at Enzi. "Who knew what you was transporting?"
"Shit me and Abdul far as I know. The same as always," he answered. I watched his face when he said it. People tell on themselves in the small ways. Eyes shifting. Shoulders tightening. Voice dropping half a notch.
"Far as you know ain't good enough," I said.
Pierre tapped the bar with two fingers, impatient. "You think somebody close?"
"I think consistency breeds comfort," I said. "Comfort breeds carelessness."
"That ain't answer the question," Noles muttered.
"It does."
I stepped closer to Enzi. "You text details?" I asked.
"No."
"Call from the airport?"
"Yeah."
"Speaker?"
He hesitated. "Sometimes." I exhaled slow.
There it was. Speaker calls in public terminals. Voices carry. Information floats. You don't even gotta be sloppy. Just loud enough. "You ever consider somebody overheard?" I asked.
He frowned. "Man that airport be loud as hell."
"So is prison," I said flatly. "And niggas still hear everything.
" That shut him up. Nothing is private. You whisper, and somebody lean in.
You think you alone, somebody watching. You assume loyalty, somebody calculating.
That's why this didn't feel random to me.
It felt observed. Like somebody waited for the pattern to become predictable.
"You think they was tracking him?" Pierre asked.
"Maybe not tracking," I said. "Maybe listening." The room went quiet again. You could feel the shift. Listening mean proximity. Proximity mean access. Access mean vulnerability. I rubbed my jaw once, slow. The air felt thinner by the minute. I glanced toward the door like I needed space.
"What else?" Juste asked.
"What else what."
"What else you ain't saying." He knew me too well. I don't speak until I sort it. And when I sort it, it usually wasn't surface-level. I looked at Enzi again. "How often do you fly the same route?" I asked.
"Every few months."
"Same airline?"
"Usually."
"Same day of week?"
He paused. "Yeah."
That pattern he had, was way too predictable. That's how traps get set. I nodded once. "This wasn't luck," I said. "This was patience."
Noles let out a low whistle. "That's worse." It was. Worse than random. Worse than sloppy. Worse than greedy. Strategic meant deliberate. Deliberate meant somebody studied the pattern before breaking it.
"So what's the move?" I asked Juste.
He frowned at me, not hard, just enough. "None of your concern nigga. I don told you to sit your hot ass down somewhere. You waiting to go to trial remember." He glanced at me, letting that word sit there. It didn't scare me by any means, but it did make me feel tight.
"Yeah, speaking of," Pierre cut in. "When we handling that shit? We gotta take care of that before we take care of this." Business loss was one thing. Legal exposure was another.
That conversation had me alert in a different way. I straightened slightly. "Y’all make her an offer?" I questioned. Silence sat in for half a second.
"Nigga ain't nobody paying that bitch. Her ass is outta here," Noles said, waving me off like it was simple. I tried my hardest not to react, but something inside of me went still.
"Enzi, I need to get with you to use your technology shit to find somebody," Juste said, rubbing his chin. Enzi nodded like a man trying to prove usefulness after embarrassment. I knew that tone in Juste's voice. Low. Decided. Already two steps ahead of whatever he was saying out loud.
I also knew it wasn't about passports or diamonds.
That "find somebody" was layered. And I knew who that somebody was.
I chose not to interrupt. Because when Juste's mind locks in, arguing don't move him.
It just make him dig deeper. That's why I needed Jade to take the money and get the fuck on.
This shit could all be so simple, but nothing in my life has been simple in years.
I leaned back against the wall again. Brick pressing against my spine. The back room felt tighter than before. Smoke thick enough to taste. Liquor sharp in the air. Bass from the main floor vibrating faint through the floorboards like a heartbeat you don't control.
The more they discussed that shit, the foggier my brain got. Voices layered. Pierre throwing out suggestions. Noles talking about pressure. Enzi trying to drink away his fuck up. Juste calculating out loud in fragments.
I tuned that shit out. Let it fade to background noise and continued to smoke the blunt that was in rotation. Slow pulls. Measured exhales.
I shouldn't have cared. That's the part that bothered me. I shouldn't have cared one way or the other. Jade ain't my responsibility. She ain't my loyalty. She ain't my love. She a problem. A liability. A loose end. So why did the idea of her being "found" sit wrong in my chest?
It wasn't about her.
It was about what came with her.
Bodies don't disappear clean.
They echoed.
I'd been working too hard to quiet everything behind me. The last year taught me something simple. Every move leave something behind. Every decision stick to somebody. And right now, I wasn't far enough removed for it not to land on me.