43. Four
Four
“Logan is pissed,” Trey said, and I shrugged.
I walked through Cori’s basement looking for anything that looked out of place.
I had a few hours to kill, and this shit with Orlando was still bothering me.
No matter how many times I tried to wrap my head around the fact that he said Logan sent him, it didn’t make sense.
Logan’s interest in Cori ended years ago; he moved on once Robert killed her parents.
“They found Orlando’s body in the park.”
“I left it there,” I told him. I wasn’t hiding from Robert or Logan. I wanted them to know I was coming for them.
“Burned.”
I stopped walking and looked at the phone. “I didn’t burn his body,” I told him.
“I know,” Trey chuckled. “Robert did.”
“Why?”
“Because he found out that he was watching Corinthians,” he replied. “He was hired to go after someone else.”
“Who?”
“I don’t know,” he quickly replied. “Robert was hush about it. Wouldn’t say too much about it around me. When I walked into his office, he was destroying it. Nigga was so mad he was stuttering. It took him a minute to calm down.”
“He’ll be alright,” I said, then went back to looking. I was coming up empty every damn time. “Shit ain’t about to get no better for him though.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah,” I replied. “After I finish checking over Cori’s house, I’m going to meet up with Nine.
I’m done waiting. I’ve let him live too fucking long.
He ain’t gonna stop unless I stop him, and the only way to do that is to kill him.
He came after my son, man, that ain’t ever gonna be a livable offense in my eyes. ”
“Yo son?” he questioned.
“Judah.”
“Man Four,” he sighed. “You-“
“Listen,” I cut him off. I wasn’t in the mood for any fucking lecture about this. “Judah may not be my fucking blood, but he’s mine. You either accept that shit or don’t, but that’s not stopping me from claiming him as mine.”
“You don’t know, do you?” Trey asked.
“Know what?” I stopped walking.
“Who Judah’s daddy is,” he answered.
“It doesn’t matter who helped conceive him; I’m his damn daddy.”
“It does matter,” he insisted. “Look, I gotta go. I only called to give you a heads-up; I convinced Robert to send Eight to Judah’s school instead of another nigga I don’t trust. He’s going to do it.
He doesn’t trust Logan too much right now, so he wants eyes and ears on anybody associated with him. ”
“Who is he taking out?” It took me damn near all night and day to finally get the paperwork together that Nine had discovered.
And just like I thought, Robert used a shell company to buy Judah’s school.
I was going to talk to Cori about pulling him out, but now that I knew Eight was there, staying was probably our safest option.
I still planned to talk to her about it tonight, though.
“His teacher,” Trey replied. “She worked for Logan, was one of Jonathan’s girls at one point in time. After he was killed, Logan took her in. Orlando too. He was Jonathan's pet after Psalms.”
I wiped my hand over my mouth and laughed. “That still doesn’t explain why he was so afraid of Cori when she walked in the room; he’d seen her before, at the dojo.”
“You sure he wasn’t afraid of you, and you thought it was directed at Corinthians?” he asked.
I thought back to the look in Orlando’s eyes when he realized Cori was coming into the room. In the dojo, he was amused, then, to him, seeing her in the warehouse. No, that was definitely fear in his eyes, and it was directed at Cori.
“Nah,” I said, shaking my head.
My watch buzzed, and I lifted my arm to see a text from Nine.
Nine: We gotta talk.
“Ay, I gotta go,” Trey said. “I’ll check in when I know something.”
“Bet,” I replied.
“Love you li’l bro,” he said, then hung up.
***
I walked into Nine’s house, dapped him up, and looked around. I expected to hear Judah and Deuce yelling, but it was quiet. We walked to his office.
“The boys aren’t on the game?” I asked him as I sat in the chair across from his desk.
“Cross took them to Madea’s a little while ago,” he answered, and I nodded. He sat back in his seat and wiped his hand over his mouth. “I need to talk to you about something.”
“What’s up?”
“Look, I know you ain’t too keen on rehashing your past but-“
“Just ask what the fuck you gotta ask,” I told him. I knew that he would eventually start asking questions.
“Who is Corinthians to you?” he asked. I sat back, dropped my head, and laughed.
“Ain’t shit funny, Four. I been down with a lot of shit.
Didn’t ask questions, just knew that Robert was on some fuck shit back in the day.
I didn’t ask questions because I knew that shit was heavy.
I’ve seen the fuckin’ scars, been there with you to pull you out that dark place, I sat in rooms while you cried.
I heard the screaming you do at night when you think no one is awake.
I did it because you ain’t just my cousin, you’re my fuckin’ brother.
But I know it’s something more than just y’all clicking. It’s a story there, a history.”
“It is,” I nodded and turned to look out the window. “She, um.” I wiped my hand over my mouth, then sighed. “Her parents, they sold her to Robert.”
“Sold her to Robert?” he repeated, and I nodded. “What the fuck do you mean they sold her to Robert?”
“I don’t know the full details; shit don’t even matter at this point because it can’t be undone, but all that shit I went through as a kid? Yeah, she did too.”
“When the fuck were you going to tell me this?” he asked. “I been over here making moves with you with no questions and you’re telling me my wife’s cousin was sold to Robert?”
I turned and looked at him. “Would it have changed anything?” I asked him.
He hesitated, and I nodded. “Exactly. My past, that fuck shit Robert put me, Trey, and Eight through, wasn’t just for us.
There are so many people involved that I don’t even know half of them.
I just know the ones that affected me. Cori’s parents?
They affected me because of her. Ruben knew Robert from back in the day; they linked back up when we were kids.
Robert already had me fighting; I don’t remember a time I didn’t fucking fight Nine.
I didn’t grow up like you did. My mama didn’t love me.
She let that nigga do what he wanted to do to us.
Hell, he did what he wanted to her! We were all in that prison together.
That big ass house that nigga got? It ain’t ever been home.
The only time I ever had peace was when I was with Cori.
In those cages, in some random basement.
It didn’t matter where as long as she was next to me. ”
“Four-“
“The first time I ever saw her was at a fight; she bit a niggas throat out. Robert had already claimed her. He called her his pet.” I stood and started to pace in front of his desk.
Nine knew enough about my childhood to know it was fucked up, but he didn’t know the small details.
The shit that kept me up at night. “She fought, for years, to keep Psalms safe, but it didn’t work.
” I wiped my hand over my mouth. “Ruben sold her to Jonathan.”
“He sold…”
“Cori was my only saving grace; she kept me sane,” I cut him off. Not because I didn’t care about Psalms’ story, but I couldn’t stomach it. I was barely able to handle my own; holding on to hers would crush me.
“Alright,” Nine said, nodding. “My wife’s cousins were sold to Robert and Jonathan.”
“Don’t think too hard on it,” I told him. “Don’t get caught up in the small details because you’ll realize how much of a favor your mama did for you by keeping you away. That’s why I always tell you to give grace to Trey and Eight.”
“They went back in,” he said, shaking his head.
“Despite what they went through, they went back in because they know what Robert and Logan are capable of. Psalms and Cori handled Jonathan. But those two? They are for me, Trey and Eight.”
“Then kill him now.”
“Can't kill what you can't catch,” I chuckled and sat back down. “They're not just over there twirling their thumbs. It’s been years, and Trey just got close to Robert again. He said Robert doesn’t trust Logan.”
“When did he tell you this?” Nine asked. He didn’t trust Trey or Eight. He had his reasons, but I had mine to know they’d done what they had to do to get where they were. Neither Robert nor Logan trusted them in the beginning, and probably didn’t now, but they needed them. “You still talk to Trey?”
“He’s my brother,” I answered. “We went through shit you’ll never understand. I won’t just turn my back on him.”
“I get that but-“
“No buts, Nine. That’s my brother.”
We stared at each other before he finally nodded. “Alright, back to you and Corinthians. Y'all have a history, a fucked up one. Why pretend you didn’t know who she was?”
“Because we agreed to be strangers,” I told him. I gave him the CliffsNotes version of what I’d been doing over the years, and he sat there. The more I told him, the angrier he got. I even told him about the stuff going on at the kids' school.
“What do you plan to do next?” he asked, shaking his head. “Because I know you have a plan.”
“Eight is going to work there,” I told him, and Nine’s eyes narrowed. “You might be mad at him, but Eight would never hurt a kid. And as long as he’s around, neither Logan nor Robert will be able to touch him.”
“I’m not with using my son as a pawn in a fucked-up game with neither of them niggas, and if his mama finds out?” Nine laughed even though nothing was funny. “I like my life. Cross don’t play about our kids.”
“And I don’t play about Judah, you know that. But I wouldn’t say they are safe if I didn’t think they weren’t. If we move them to a different school, we are going in blind. Robert’s network is vast. Eight being at the school keeps an eye on him.”
“I’m trusting you on this, Four, not Trey or Eight, you. If something happens to my son, I’m coming to you.”
“I understand,” I said, nodding. “I need you not to tell Cross, though.”