Chapter 18 #2
Ben. My father’s old best friend, the man he trusted with everything he had, back when trust ain’t cost nothing.
My father stood in front of him, arms folded tight across his chest, just looking at him. Not saying a word yet. Just staring, jaw working slow, like he was still deciding this man’s fate, even with the man already sitting tied up in front of him.
“Damn, Kadeem, man,” Ben said, voice shaking bad. “Just talk to me. Say something. What is this about?”
My father didn’t answer him. His eyes flicked up toward the door instead, right as my mother was being walked in behind us. She was escorted by one of our men, her face already pale. She was already understanding something bad was about to happen the second she saw Ben tied up in that chair.
Her steps slowed down soon as she crossed that threshold, like her body already knew before her mind caught all the way up.
“Come on in here, Zuri,” my father said, his voice eerily calm, too calm for what was about to happen in that room.
“Come stand right here next to me.” He waited till she was beside him, close enough their shoulders damn near touched.
“Zuri. Demon. Ben. Y’all muthafuckas know why you here right now?
” My father asked in a tone that was so cold, it sent chills down my spine.
My mother couldn’t even look at Ben. She kept her eyes down on the floor, arms wrapped around herself tight like she was trying to hold her own body together.
“Don’t have him just standing there,” my father said, nodding toward Demon. “Give him a seat too. Tie him up right next to his daddy.” He said it flat, almost sarcastic, like he was arranging furniture instead of setting up an execution, like this whole thing was just business as usual to him now.
Our men shoved Demon down into a second chair, tying his hands behind his back, positioning him directly across from Ben, close enough the two of them had no choice but to look at each other.
“Come on, Kadeem,” Ben said again, desperation creeping into his voice now, eyes darting between my father and the rest of us standing around that room. “What’s going on, brother? You know me. We better than this. What is all this about?”
My father looked down at his own hand, at the rings sitting on his fingers, turning them slow like he was thinking something over one last time before he let himself go all the way there.
Then he balled that fist up, reared back, and hit Ben so hard across the face that blood sprayed instantly, some of it landing on Demon, and some flew clean across my mother’s cheek, making her jump back with a small squeal, her hand flying up to wipe it off her own skin like it burned.
“Aye, man,” my father barked. “Stop fucking talking to me right now. I told you to chill and let me get to it. Today, every single question everybody in this room got, all of it’s finna get answered. So calm the fuck down and let me handle this the way I need to.”
He was spiraling, and I could see it plain as day, in the way his hands wouldn’t stay still, but wasn’t nobody in that room about to stop him. Not one of us.
Namier and Zaire stood off to the side, quiet, waiting, letting this play out the way it needed to, cause some things a man just needed to see through to the end himself.
I understood my father’s side more than anything and my heart ached for the man.
He had loved and taken care of his family all of his life, only to be betrayed by the person he gave his life to.
That was some tough shit. So today, I was gone let him get that shit off.
The only thing that I wasn’t gone allow was for him to kill my momma. That wasn’t gone happen on no day. Other than that, I was riding with him.
“Ben,” my father said, turning back to face him fully now. “You know who this is sitting across from you?” He nodded toward Demon. “It’s just like looking in a damn mirror, ain’t it.”
“No,” Ben said, blood dripping steady off his chin now onto his own shirt. “I don’t know him. Should I?”
“I mean, you fucked my wife and made this menace to society ass nigga,” my father barked, voice rising for the first time since we walked in. “I would hope that you do.”
Demon looked up slow into Ben’s face, and Ben stared back, something shifting behind his eyes as the resemblance finally registered clear, his whole expression changing like he was seeing a ghost of his own younger self sitting right there tied up in front of him.
“So it’s you,” Demon said, his voice low, shaking with a rage that had been building his whole entire life for this exact moment, twenty seven years compressed into one sentence.
“You the nigga that said I wasn’t good enough to keep?
You the coward ass nigga that fucked your own partner’s wife and couldn’t even face the consequences of it like a man?
You know what kind of hell I went through my whole life, cause you couldn’t be a stand-up nigga and take responsibility for your own blood? ”
Ben held his mouth tight, jaw clenched, wouldn’t respond, eyes dropping to the floor.
“Say something, Ben,” my father said, stepping closer, close enough now his shadow fell across both of them sitting there.
“Yo son sitting right in front of you looking for the same exact answers I need too. Why would you fuck my wife, get her pregnant, make her get rid of the baby, and then run off years later like I did something fucked up to you? Like you the one that was wronged in all this? Like your own son said. You a coward. I was nothing but good to you my whole life. I set you up for life, Ben. Gave you everything I had to give.”
“Kadeem, man,” Ben said, voice cracking. “Please. It wasn’t nothing like that. You really finna believe all this?” Still lying, even now, blood dripping steady from his mouth onto his own shirt, still trying to talk his way out of something that ain’t have no way out no more.
“You pleading with that nigga,” Demon yelled, straining hard against his restraints, the chair creaking under him. “You need to give me answers. Why, man? Why?”
Ben’s whole face changed then, something cold and final settling into it, like he’d decided there wasn’t no more point in lying with a gun this close and this much blood already spilled on his own shirt.
“Listen, little ass boy,” he said, turning to look at Demon dead in his eyes for the first time since he walked in that room.
“You was nothing but a mistake. You were never supposed to come and find us. That was the whole plan we came up with all them years ago. Whatever you feel for me, whatever you been carrying your whole life hoping I felt something back, let that shit go right now. I ain’t thought about you one single day since she gave you away.
Never had no intentions of being a father to you, not for one second.
I got two kids of my own. Real kids. You ain’t one of them, and you never was.
Zuri was easy. She was a mistake, same as you.
I regretted crossing my best friend every day!
I hated you and I hated her ass! That’s my truth, and you can do whatever the fuck you want with it now. ”
The room went dead silent, just the sound of everybody breathing.
Demon’s face crumbled for just a second, real pain flashing across it before he locked it back down hard, but I saw it.
We all saw it. This ruthless ass nigga, a man who’d killed people, ordered hits, run a whole empire out here in these streets, was sitting there heartbroken like a little boy that nobody, not one single person his whole life, had ever truly wanted him for real.
“I’m glad you finally admitted you fucked my wife,” my father said, voice going quiet now, almost calm in a way scarier than the yelling had been.
“Especially after how good I was to you your whole life. You were my brother, Ben. We had the same dreams coming up out them same streets. I put you on when you had nothing to your name. Treated you like family. Now I finally got closure on why you really left all them years ago. Makes sense now. I hope, wherever you end up after this, you get plenty of time to reflect on what you did and how you ruined lives, not just your own.”
My father pulled his gun off his waist slow, no rush to it at all.
Ben started begging then, words tumbling out fast, desperate, promises and apologies all mixed together that ain’t none of us believed a single word of, spit flying with how fast he was talking.
My father put one shot straight into his forehead.