Chapter 8
Soon as I ended my call with Tatti, Namier leaned forward from the back seat.
“Let me call my bitch too. Shit, I know her ass worried too.” he said, already pulling his phone out.
I didn’t understand why he felt the need to announce that shit knowing damn well we didn’t give a fuck.
Zaire cut his eyes over at me, giving me a look that said everything he wanted to say out loud, disbelief mixed with pure irritation that his brother’s mind could even wander to a phone call with his girl right now, with our mother still missing and three bodies fresh in our own driveway.
My situation was different. I called my damn wife to check in.
Namier had it on speaker before either of us could tell him different, and Nyla picked up before it even finished ringing once, her voice already panicked, already halfway to hysterics.
Between him and her, I didn’t think I’d be able to take them as a couple.
I was already annoyed and they were just getting started.
“Namier! Are you okay? What the hell do y’all niggas got going on that got security sitting outside my house right now? I been trying to reach you for the last few hours and you ain’t answer. I was worried sick.”
“Calm down, baby,” Namier said, all smooth, all charm, like we weren’t in the middle of the worst day this family had seen in years. “You know big daddy ain’t gone let nothing happen to keep him from making his way back to you.”
Zaire’s jaw tightened up so hard I thought he might crack a tooth.
He reached over without a word and turned the music up loud, loud enough that we couldn’t hear the rest of whatever sweet nothings Namier was whispering into that phone while our own mother was somewhere out there, possibly with a gun to her head or worse by now.
I nodded along to the beat without even meaning to.
Finesse was spitting some real shit through them speakers, and for one small minute, my mind actually got a little quieter.
One thing I knew for certain right now was that Namier was never gonna grow up. Not really. Not all the way. Some things about a nigga just stayed the same no matter how much chaos was swirling around him.
We pulled up to the trap house a few minutes later, and the young nigga posted up on guard duty was sitting out front on the porch steps, smoking a blunt like it was any regular night.
We climbed out the truck and walked up on him.
“That bitch been crying and hollering the whole time,” he said, standing up fast, brushing ash off his jeans.
“When Mars coming back? I can’t take much more of that noise, bruh.
I ain’t sign up for all this. And she done pissed all over herself in there too.
I damn sure ain’t cleaning that up, so don’t fuckin ask either. ”
Zaire walked up on him slow, getting right in his face.
“Who the fuck you talking to?” Zaire said, his voice low and dangerous.
The young nigga’s whole demeanor dropped instantly. He put his head down, wouldn’t even hold eye contact no more.
“My bad,” he said. “I’m just tired from all this hollering and shit, that’s all. My bad, Zaire.”
Zaire nodded once, satisfied, and pushed past him toward the front door.
But my mind was stuck on something else entirely.
“Aye, Za,” I said, catching his arm before he could go inside. “You had Mars sitting on this girl too?”
“Yeah,” Zaire said, looking back at me like it wasn’t nothing worth pausing over. “What’s up?”
I stood there for a second, letting that settle in. I didn’t respond to him because he knew exactly what was up. He’d put my right hand on a job and didn’t ask or tell me about it.
That explained everything. That explained the way Mars had been looking at me at the warehouse earlier that day, that quick flick of his eyes, looking away too fast, like a nigga who was hiding something.
I made a mental note right then to check that nigga later for not keeping shit solid with me, for knowing exactly what time I was on with Demon and not saying a single word about him being on watch for Demon baby momma.
This nigga Mars had one foot already planted in whatever Zaire had going on behind my back.
Loyalty only meant something if it ran both ways, and right now I wasn’t sure it did with everybody standing close to me.
We walked inside the house.
The girl was wiggling hard in that chair, straining against her restraints, trying to scream through the tape covering her mouth, her whole body twisting like she could somehow will herself loose.
I walked over to her slow, and just like that young nigga said outside, she really had pissed all over herself sitting in that chair.
The smell hit me before I even got close, sharp and sour, filling up that whole room.
I reached down and ripped that tape off her mouth in one motion.
“Pleaseee, y’all let me go,” she screamed immediately, tears and snot running down her face, her whole body shaking. “I have a son who needs me. This shit ain’t right. I know they gotta be out there looking for me right now.”
“Aye,” I said, crouching down so I was eye level with her, keeping my voice cold and flat and completely without mercy.
“I ain’t nice like these other niggas you dealing with, and I don’t give a fuck about none of what you got going on.
You want to see Sonny again? Better yet, you wanna make sure Sonny never has to watch his own momma get her brains blown out in front of his little face?
Then you gonna tell me exactly where Demon could be right now.
I don’t wanna hear you don’t know. I don’t wanna hear no excuses.
Cause your whole life is hanging on what comes out your mouth next.
” I leaned in closer, letting every word land slow and heavy.
“That nigga got somebody I love. And I don’t mind at all killing somebody he loves right back.
So ask yourself something real quick. Is he really worth dying for right now?
Better yet, ask yourself what that nigga would do if it ever came down to choosing between him or you.
You already know the answer to that. Don’t make me prove it to you the hard way. ”
—
She sat there for a second, chest still heaving, snot and tears drying on her face, and I could see her mind working, weighing whatever was left of her loyalty against whatever was left of her fear.
“I don’t know where he’s at,” she said finally, her voice shaking but steadier than before. “I swear to God I don’t. He told me he moved, but he won’t tell me nothing beyond that. Won’t give me an address, won’t give me nothing. But…” She stopped, swallowing hard.
“But what?” I said, keeping my voice flat, giving her nothing to read off my face.
“He got a girl he keeps tucked away,” she said.
“He thinks that I don’t know about her, but I do.
She pregnant too. He got her put up somewhere in North Richland Hills.
” Her breath was coming fast now, words tumbling out one on top of the other.
“Go in my phone. Go to my favorite photos. There’s a picture of her standing outside the house, him hugging on her in it.
Y’all can pull the exact address off that picture if you look at the top of it, it’s got the location tagged on it, I remember cause I seen it pop up when I looked at it one time. ”
I stood up slow, staring down at her.
“And if he ain’t there,” she added quick, like she was trying to buy herself more credit before I could decide she wasn’t useful no more, “my sister supposed to be meeting up with him soon. Find her, you’ll find him.
He’s had her working hard trying to get close to y’all this whole time so I know he still needs her. ”
Something cold settled into my chest hearing that.
I’d almost forgotten about Mallory bitch ass.
With everything happening today, my mother missing, my father damn near breaking down in that driveway, Brit sitting here pissing herself in fear, I’d let it slip clean out my mind that there was still a whole other bitch out there who’d been playing with me.
The bitch tried to force her way on my property and make me believe a whole pregnancy that was never even real to begin with.
You know you got too much on your plate when you forget a bitch still needs to be dead.
I pulled my phone out and called Mars.
He picked up on the fourth ring.
“Aye, what you doing?” I asked, keeping my voice even.
“Just made it home,” he said. “What’s up?”
“Since you like being sneaky,” I said, letting that land a little heavier than the words themselves, “I got a task for you. Come over here to this trap spot. The one you been coming to, keeping watch on this girl we got. She needs a shower bad. Bring your girl with you so she can wash her up. And make sure this bitch don’t try nothing funny while you at it. ”
There was a pause on the other end.
“Man, you know I was gonna tell you,” Mars said, his voice quick, defensive. “Today was just a real hectic day, Kaseem, I swear.”
“You good, Mars,” I said, keeping my tone level, giving him nothing to work with either way. “Say less. Just get over here.”
I ended the call and looked back down at Brit, still tied up in that chair, still shaking, still praying that I was done with her.
I wasn’t finished with nobody tonight.