Chapter 8 #3
She looked at me for half a second then said her goodbyes to my father and Namier without missing a beat.
Shook my father’s hand, nodded at Namier who gave her a genuine smile back and walked out that dining room with her head up like she hadn’t just sat through forty five minutes of my mother picking her apart piece by piece.
I waited until I heard the front door close.
Then I looked at my mother.
She was already looking at me. Calm. Like she’d been expecting this.
“Ma.” I kept my voice low and respectful. “That was a lot.”
She picked her coffee cup up. “Was it?”
“You know it was.” I wasn’t going to go back and forth with her about it. I said what I needed to say and left it exactly there.
She set the cup back down and looked at me with a look that was all too familiar.
“Your father and I chose that girl. We put this together. If I’m going to have her carrying the Carter name and raising Carter children then I needed to know what she was made of.
” She paused. “She sat at my table, took everything I put in front of her and didn’t crack once.
Didn’t embarrass you. Didn’t embarrass herself.
” The corner of her mouth lifted just slightly. “She passed.”
I looked at her sideways. “So it was a test?”
“It’s always a test.” She folded her hands on the table. “You’ve been in this family long enough to know that.”
I couldn’t argue with that because she wasn’t wrong. Everything in this family was a test. Always had been.
“Just ease up going forward,” I said. Quiet. Respectful. Leaving it exactly where it needed to be left. “That’s all I’m asking. I need her in order to make things happen. I can’t afford a setback of finding someone else that’s just as qualified,”
My mother looked at me for a long moment. Then she laughed. Small and unbothered, the laugh of a woman who had never once in her life felt the need to explain herself to anybody including her own son.
“Go check on your future wife, Kaseem,” she said, and picked her fork back up like I was already gone.
I stood there for one more second. Then I turned around to walk out.
“Oh, and just so you know, I have eyes and ears everywhere. Next time you decide you wanna have a brawl in your home, at least open up bids so we can have the opportunity to put our money on who we think will win. She may have sat through breakfast like a wholesome and well put together woman, but your home security system shows otherwise. And still, I like that fight in her. Carters aren’t pushovers.
Good day son!” my mother spoke, and just like that, I was dismissed.
—
Tattiana was already in the truck when I got outside.
Sitting on her side, arms folded, looking straight ahead. She’d gotten in and gone quiet like she was holding something in that she didn’t have the energy to let out yet. The breakfast had bothered her and rubbed her the wrong way. I knew it even if she’d never say it.
I got in and closed the door behind me. My driver pulled off without a word.
I reached into my jacket pocket and held her phone out without looking at her.
I was gonna wait til we were back inside the house but after what just happened, I needed to do some shit quickly to smooth things over.
Although I knew I was in control, I just didn’t like that shit my mother did.
Tatti was the only outsider and I didn’t want her to feel like I walked her into a trap.
Her phone was my peace offering right now.
She took it. Fast. Like she’d been counting down the time, waiting for that moment since she woke up this morning and the only thing that had kept her moving through my mother’s entire interrogation was knowing this was on the other side of it.
“One hour,” I said.
“I know.”
“Even when we get home, remember, somebody’s listening to every word.”
“You said that already.” She was already unlocking it.
Already moving through her contacts with a focus that told me this wasn’t just a routine check in.
Whatever this call was, she needed it. She’d sat through Zuri Carter for forty five minutes and swallowed every single thing she wanted to say just to get to this moment right here. The call had to be hella important.
I kept my eyes forward, but I couldn’t lie like I wasn’t curious.
She pulled up a contact, pressed call and turned slightly toward the window. The line rang twice before somebody picked up.
“Hey,” she said. Her whole voice changed.
Not softer exactly — just different. The hard edges she’d been carrying since yesterday dropped about three notches and something underneath them came through that I hadn’t heard from her yet.
“I know I’m late. I couldn’t get to a phone.
” She paused and listened. “I’m fine. Everything is fine and I’m sending it now on Zelle.
” Another pause. “I know. I know, I said I’m fine.
” She laughed a little at something the person said and it was so quick and so real that I almost turned my head.
I didn’t.
“How is she?” Tatti asked.
She went quiet. Really quiet. The kind of quiet that had weight behind it. Whatever the answer was on the other end she took it in and held it and said nothing for a few seconds.
“Okay,” she said finally. Low. “Okay. Tell her I said I love her and I’ll be there soon.
” She cleared her throat. “Don’t call my regular number for a while.
I’ll reach out when I can something came up and I’ll be out of town indisposed.
” She paused again. “I said I’m fine. Stop asking me that.
” Her voice had that tight control back in it now, the version of her that didn’t let people see past the surface. “I’ll be in touch. Bye.”
She hung up.
Sat with the phone in her lap and looked back out the window and didn’t say a single word.
I let the silence sit for a minute. Watched the compound roads move under the truck. Waited to see if she was going to offer anything.
She didn’t.
“You got somebody you needed to check on,” I said. Not a question.
“I said it was family,” she said. Flat. Closed. The door shutting before I could get a foot in.
“Mm.” I responded.
“The next call, I’ll wait to make it once we are out the car. You can have your people listen, but I would rather you not be the one to listen to that call.”
“Is it top secret? What the hell you hiding?” I asked with a raised brow.
“Well! I did have a life before I was forced into this. So people are looking for me and wondering where I’m at.
” She snapped. I automatically knew she was talking about a nigga.
I’d let her have that call, as long as she knew better than to try anything crazy.
My men knew to keep a good eye and ear on her call.
When we pulled up to the house, I made sure to let her know all the rest of her calls needed to be on speaker.
I got out the car and left her with two of my guards while giving instructions for her to immediately come back into the house once she was done.
My men knew to power her phone off and put it away once she was done.
But whoever she’d called first, whatever that “how is she” meant something.
I just didn’t know what yet. Maybe it was a close family member like a grandmother or aunt that she was really concerned about and checked in on often.
She had a heart for someone. That was the first thing that Tattiana Taylor had let slip since I’d put her in this truck yesterday.
And I didn’t miss it.
—
I was in my office going over numbers when my radio went off.
Not the phone. The radio. Which meant something was happening on the property that my men needed everybody aware of immediately. This shit had immediately made me jump up to see what the hell was up.
I was on my feet before the voice finished the sentence.
“Vehicle at the north gate. Nobody called it in or announced the arrival. Driver on foot headed away from the property.” My guard said loud and clear. Now I was confused as hell. A car was at the gate, but the driver got out and walked off on foot? What?
I was already moving down the hall. By the time I hit the front door two of my men were flanking me and three more were already at the gate with weapons out, the kind of lockdown that happened automatically when something came through that wasn’t supposed to.
This compound didn’t get surprise visitors.
Every car, every person, every delivery that came through those gates was called in advance and cleared.
That was the rule and everybody connected to this operation knew it.
My family didn’t play that shit, and it was impossible to get in this muthafucka if you weren’t allowed inside by one of us.
I walked through the front door and the first thing I saw was Tatti standing outside where I’d left her with my men, phone still in her hand, watching the commotion at the gate with wide eyes.
My guard Mars was already moving toward her to get her inside.
She ended her call immediately and handed the phone over without having to be told.
The look on her face showed me that she was nervous about what was going on around her.
Hell, I still had no clue. I needed to keep an eye on her.
This shit was happening at a mighty convenient time, and a nigga like me ain’t trust nothing, or nobody.
“Don’t touch her,” I said without stopping. “Keep her where she is.”
I kept walking. Past my house and out towards the gate.
The car was a dark blue sedan, civilian plates, engine still running. My men had it surrounded by the time I got there. One of them looked back at me and shook his head once — slow — and that one shake told me everything I needed to know before I even got close enough to see through the window.
I looked inside anyway.
Darius.
He’d been moving product for our operation out of the south end for over three years.
Never missed a drop. Never came up short.
Never gave us one single reason to question him.
He was the kind of worker you built an operation on — quiet, reliable, didn’t talk too much, showed up and handled his business every single time.
He was loyal and stood on business when it came to making sure everyone stayed in check out there and that business ran smoothly.
He was slumped over the steering wheel with two in the back of his head. Professional. Clean. This was a message, not a mistake.
My jaw tightened but my face didn’t move past that.
I reached in and checked the top of the center console, and that’s when I found it.
An envelope sitting there like somebody had placed it carefully.
Like they wanted to make sure it wouldn’t be missed.
It immediately caught my attention from outside the car.
After grabbing the paper, I wasted no time opening it. I was confused as fuck on what was really happening.
One piece of paper. Typed, not handwritten.
South Dallas is off limits. Any loss we take, you’ll take ten more. This a warning. Shit can get worse.
I stood there and read it twice. Then I folded it back up and put it in my jacket pocket and stepped back from the car. I rubbed my hands over my head trying to process what this meant. South Dallas was off limits? That was my shit!
Everything around me was moving — my men talking, radios going, the energy on that compound shifting into something coiled and ready — but inside me everything had gone completely still the way it always did when something required a decision that couldn’t be undone.
My father was placing me in position, so right now, as much as I wanted to call him and ask the next move, I knew that I had to set it in motion on my own before bringing this to him.
Of course I was gonna make him aware, he needed to know what heat was just brought to his front door where our entire family lays our heads.
Somebody had killed a loyal man. Delivered him to my gate. On my property. While I was standing inside my own house.
This wasn’t Fort Worth. This was Dallas. And whoever sent this car wanted me to understand that they didn’t recognize who was running Dallas now. The least of their worries now was work being moved in their territory. Shit just got way bigger than that.
That was the last mistake they were going to make.
“Get the car off my property,” I said. Quiet.
Even. “Handle Darius properly. Make sure his family is set up nicely. I want to know every move he made in the last seventy two hours before the end of tonight.” I looked at my head of security.
“Find out who drove that car to my gate and walked away. As a matter of fact, he’s on foot!
Hurry and find that nigga before he gets too far!
Bring him back here!” I barked but I knew he was probably long gone.
“Yes sir.”
I turned around to head back to my property and Tatti was still standing exactly where I’d left her.
She hadn’t moved. The phone was still in her hand but she wasn’t on it anymore.
She was looking at me with something on her face that wasn’t fear exactly — it was the look of a person who had just understood something they couldn’t understand.
Like a door had opened that she couldn’t close again.
If she ever had a doubt about the life I lived, she knew now.
I walked toward her and held my hand out for the phone.
She gave it to me without hesitation while still wearing a look that told me she was scared straight.
She knew a dead body had been hand delivered to me, and now I wondered what was going on in her head exactly.
To me, although this was fucked up, this was just another day.
I handed her phone to Mars. “She’s done, you know what to do with it.” Then I looked at her. “Get inside.”
She didn’t snap back. Didn’t have a response. She just looked at me for one more second — like she was seeing me for the first time and wasn’t sure what she was looking at, then she turned around and walked inside like she was instructed to do.
I walked back out and stood in my driveway for a moment after the door closed behind her.
Fort Worth. This shit wasn’t making sense.
Somebody had signed their death-wish and thought a dead body at my gate was going to make me look the other way.
They didn’t know me yet, but they damn sure were about to.