Chapter 14
Marco was thorough. That was the only word for it.
I had pulled him to the side last night right after everything settled down from my rescue mission, before anybody dispersed and went their separate ways.
Gave him two addresses, both places I kept thinking of in my head as spots Cherish might be holding Grim.
One was a stash house she taken me to, that her dad use to move through years back that I only knew about because she had trusted me more than she should have.
The second was the house she grew up in.
The place where Grim had killed her entire family.
I had gone back and forth on that one because it seemed too obvious, too personal, but then again Cherish wasn’t the type to do anything without intention behind it.
Bringing Grim back to that house wasn’t just a holding location. That would be a statement.
I woke up to the confirmation sitting in my phone. I didn’t open the message and go through the contents til now because of that damn Ivy. She had my mind fucked up bout her.
Marco had sent pictures. Clean, clear, taken from a distance that told me he had stayed low and patient the whole night without making a single mistake.
The childhood house. Guards posted at the front and the back, at least four that he could count from his angle, probably more inside.
And then at six in the morning, Cherish herself walked out the front door, leaving the location.
He had caught her on camera leaving.
I sat there in my car outside the nursing home looking at every photo he sent, going through them slow and deliberate.
Zooming in, studying the layout, counting heads, noting the exits I could see and accounting for the ones I couldn’t.
Marco had done in one night what some niggas couldn’t pull off in a week.
He stayed invisible, got everything I needed, and sent it before I even had to ask for an update.
The nigga really needed to hang up the street life and open a private investigation firm. He was too good at this shit.
I put the car in drive and pulled out of the nursing home parking lot, and as soon as I hit the main road I called Deuce.
He answered fast. “Talk to me.”
“Marco found him,” I said. “Cherish got Grim at her childhood house. The same house where her entire family got killed. She brought him right back there. She wanted to be found.” I expressed. When Deuce rescued me, I ran down to him briefly what was going on and had happened to get me there.
Deuce was quiet for a second. “Hell yeah she did. That’s personal.”
“Everything she does is personal. That’s her problem.” I merged onto the highway and kept my eyes moving out of habit.
“Tonight I need five men. Not just anybody either. The most thorough on the team that we got. Niggas who have been in real situations and didn’t fold, like last night.
Make sure they understand the risk going in because I don’t know exactly what we walking into beyond what Marco sent me.
Guards are heavy on the outside. Inside is a question mark. ”
“I’ll have them ready,” Deuce said. Then, “How you feeling about this?”
“It’s something that has to be done. Cherish crossed me once and I gave her a pass she didn’t earn. Now she doubled back and crossed me again like none of that meant anything, like I wasn’t the reason she was still breathing. So now she has to pay for it. Simple.”
“I hear you,” Deuce said. “But that’s not what I asked you.”
I didn’t say anything for a second.
“I was asking how you feel about saving your brother. Knowing everything between y’all.
Knowing that shit with you and your siblings never really been on the up and up.
Hell, your baby brother was ready to kill you behind Gremlin getting snatched.
” He paused. “And I’m going to assume Cherish really did a number on you if that’s the part you answered first. I wasn’t even talking about her ass when I asked you that, but she was the first thing on your mind.
I almost laughed. Almost. “She did do a number on me. And she’s going to regret it.”
“Alright. But your brother though. You thought about what you want to do with him once you get him out of there? And then, you gotta remember that your other brother is being held and needs to be handled too.”
I kept my eyes on the road. That question had been sitting in the back of everything since last night and I hadn’t let myself go directly at it yet because I knew once I did I was going to have to make a decision and live with it.
“Honest answer?” I said. “I don’t know yet. I don’t know if I let either one of them live. The shit that they’ve done to me is damn near unforgivable. And it didn’t start here..”
Deuce didn’t flinch at that. Didn’t try to talk me in either direction.
He just said, “You know what Cain did to Abel. Your brothers would have done it to you without losing sleep. Just make sure whatever you decide, you can live with it on the other side. That’s the only thing that matters.
And if you feel like they can be redeemed, that’s cool too.
These decisions are yours to make. Just stand on it. ” Deuce said, without hesitation.
That sat with me. I didn’t respond to it immediately because it deserved more than a quick answer.
“When the sun goes down,” I said after a moment. “Have our people ready.”
“I’ll be there.” Deuce said quickly.
“Nah.” I cut that off clean. “Sit this one out.”
“Griz, nigga.. you can’t tell me what to sit out. I’ll see yo ass in a few.”
“It’s not a debate. You got a wife and a newborn at home. You already rode out once for me and I won’t forget that. But this is my business and my blood and I’m not taking you away from your family behind it. Stay home.”
Silence on his end. I could feel him working through it, the part of him that didn’t sit well with being told to stand down.
Deuce wasn’t built for the sideline. But he was also a man who understood what was being said underneath the words.
I was gonna make sure that we all made it home safe, or at least that was my plan.
This was a mission that didn’t require his attention.
I just wanted him to rest and be with his family for now.
“Be safe my nigga! If you die on me, I’ll kill yo ass!” he said finally. Causing us both to bust out laughing at a time where we had no business.
“Always, brudda!”
I hung up and drove the rest of the way home in quiet.
—
I had barely gotten through the door and dropped my keys on the counter when my phone vibrated on the kitchen island. A text came in from my investigator.
Everything he had on Ivy. Home address, both business addresses, every phone number tied to her name, personal and professional.
Clean document, organized, nothing missing.
Even information on her nigga that I hadn’t even requested.
His ass was an upstanding citizen and shit.
Running a profitable company, and active in the community.
Thinking he was gonna marry and take care of my bitch for the rest of his life. He was in for a rude awakening.
I stood there in my kitchen and read through it twice. Then I set the phone down and just stood there for a second with my hand flat on the counter.
Then I smiled. Not the polite kind. The kind that I let out when I knew I was about to shift some shit in my favor.
She had really thought she was gone. She thought she had got the dick and ran off on my ass.
Thought she could leave that note on the dresser and slip back into her little life with her fiancé and her dogs and her white fence and that was going to be the end of it.
Like last night hadn’t happened. Like I was just going to wake up, read the note, fold it up, and keep moving like a rational nigga.
She didn’t know me as well as she thought. Wasn’t shit rational about me at all.
I picked up my phone and called the florist I used when I needed something done right. Not the corner shop, the one downtown that dealt with corporate accounts and high end events and knew how to move fast when the money was right.
“I need a rush delivery,” I said when they answered. “Tonight. I’ll pay whatever the fee is, that’s not the issue.”
I ordered five dozen black roses. Had them delivered to her home address.
Then I thought about the note.
I kept it short because I didn’t need to say much. The roses said most of it already. The note just made sure she understood exactly what they meant.
Black roses to symbolize the end of your engagement. Consider it over. Your life with me starts now. I’ll see you soon.
I signed it using her name for me from when we were young, the nickname she had given me back when we were kids that nobody else in the world called me.
-Your Bear.
When I knew the roses would arrive to her today, I set my phone down and went to go prepare for tonight.
I had a brother to pull out of a house full of armed men and a woman who wanted him dead.
I had a decision to make about what happened to him after.
And I had a war to finish before it bled into anything else I cared about.
But those roses were already on their way.
And Ivy was about to find out that disappearing on me was the last thing she was ever going to do again.
—
Night had fallen by the time I pulled up to where Marco was waiting with the team.
Five men outside the truck, including Marco.
All of them moving with the kind of quiet that told me they had already been briefed and had already made their peace with whatever the night was going to ask of them.
Nobody was talking loud, nobody was doing too much.
Just checking weapons, adjusting vests, running through their own mental checklists in the dark.
Marco stood off to the side with his arms crossed and when he saw me he gave one nod. That was all we needed. Dank always bragged about how loyal this nigga was, and he’d really been proving it.