CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
NOLA
Dre looked terrible.
Nola had spent nearly two weeks imagining every possible version of finding her brother. Hospital. Jail. Some stranger’s couch. Kai’s office in handcuffs. Her parents’ porch acting like nothing happened.
She had never pictured him standing under her porch light in a dirty gray hoodie, one side of his mouth split, a bruise coming up under his left eye, and one sneaker missing a lace.
For half a second she could not move.
Dre looked at her.
“Hey.”
That broke it.
Nola crossed the porch and hit him in the chest with both hands.
“Ow!”
Then she grabbed him.
Hard.
Dre made another sound because apparently his ribs hurt too, but he wrapped both arms around her anyway.
Nola buried her face against his shoulder.
“You stupid motherfucker.”
“I know.”
“I hate you.”
“I heard you.”
“I was gonna kill you.”
“Can we do that tomorrow?”
She pulled back and slapped his arm.
“Ow! Nola!”
“Stop saying ow like you ain’t been missing for damn near two weeks!”
“I got jumped!”
“By who?”
“Can we go inside first?”
Nola looked past him.
Ray stood near his SUV with his phone in one hand and a polite expression that said he was trying not to witness family business.
“Where’d he come from?” she asked.
Ray said, “Walked up from the corner. I checked behind him before I let him approach. Nobody visible.”
Nola nodded.
“Thank you.”
“You want me closer?”
“For now.”
She looked at Dre again.
“Inside.”
Dre limped past her.
Mani stood in the entryway with both hands over her mouth.
When Dre saw her, he stopped.
“Damn, Mani. You live here now?”
She lowered her hands. “Nigga, you disappear for two weeks and that’s your opening line?”
“I was just asking.”
She hugged him too.
Less carefully than Nola had.
Dre groaned.
“Why everybody trying to finish me?”
“Sit down,” Nola said.
“Can I get water?”
“Sit.”
“You ain’t my boss.”
Nola looked at him.
Dre sat.
Some things survived crisis.
Nola called Kai.
Her thumb hovered over his name for one second.
She was still angry.
Still hurt.
None of that changed the fact that Dre’s return involved Kai’s company, Kai’s missing money, and whoever had been threatening them.
She called.
Kai answered before the first ring finished.
“Yeah.”
“He’s here.”
Silence.
Then, “Dre?”
“Yeah. At my house. Beat up some, but he’s walking and talking.”
“I’m coming.”
Nola looked at her brother.
“Okay. But understand this ain’t fixing us.”
Kai did not hesitate.
“I know.”
“This is about Dre.”
“I know.”
“And don’t bring half your company.”
“Me and Dez.”
“Fine.”
She ended the call.
Then she called her parents.
No more managing first and telling later.
Denise answered.
“Ma. Dre’s here.”
Her mother sobbed so suddenly Nola had to pull the phone away from her ear.
Curtis’s voice sounded in the background.
They were together, apparently, though Nola doubted that meant anything good about their marriage.
“We’re coming,” Denise said.
Nola almost said wait until morning.
Almost.
Then she swallowed it.
“Okay.”
Dre looked around the room while she made calls.
His gaze landed on the security monitor Kai had installed near the front door after Nola agreed to it.
“Damn. Y’all turned the house into Fort Knox.”
Nola stared at him.
“You are the reason.”
“My bad.”
“Your bad?”
“I don’t know what you want me to say.”
“Start with where the fuck you’ve been.”
Dre rubbed both palms over his sweatpants.
Mani set water in front of him.
He drank half the glass before speaking.
“Everywhere.”
Nola’s patience snapped.
“Dre.”
“I’m not trying to be funny. I kept moving because every time I stayed somewhere, somebody found me.”
“Who?”
“I don’t know his real name.”
“Describe him.”
“Black dude. Maybe thirty-something. About my height but wider. Always had this orange watchband on.”
Nola went still.
She remembered Kai telling her about the store footage.
“Orange?”
“Bright orange. Ugly as shit.”
Mani muttered, “Okay, so the watch really was criminal.”
Nola looked at her.
“Sorry.”
“No, you’re right.”
Dre looked between them. “What?”
“Keep talking.”
He took another drink.
The story came out in pieces.
Not because Dre was trying to hide now.
Because fear had scrambled the order.
The week before the money went missing, Rome had sent Dre two legitimate after-hours instructions through the old dispatch system. One about moving keys from the front desk. One about leaving a file in old dispatch for a morning crew.
Both were signed R.B.
“He told me if I ever got something late signed like that, it was probably him because the old system don’t always show names,” Dre said.
Nola frowned. “He told you that in person?”
“Yeah. In the warehouse. Keem was there for part of it.”
“When?”
“Like my first week.”
That meant whoever sent the fake instruction either knew Rome’s habits or had access to old messages.
Dre continued.
Thursday night, the message arrived telling him to move the gray lockbox because an audit had been moved up.
He went to admin.
The safe door was open by two inches.
“That didn’t seem weird?” Nola asked.
Dre looked embarrassed.
“I thought somebody was in there.”
“Did you see somebody?”
“No.”
“Did you call anybody?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because the message said move it. I was trying to do my job.”
Nola closed her eyes.
“You don’t move eighty-seven thousand dollars because a computer tells you to.”
“I didn’t know it was eighty-seven thousand!”
“You don’t move a mystery lockbox out an open safe because a computer tells you to either!”
“Okay! I know that now!”
Mani touched Nola’s arm.
“Let him finish.”
Nola sat back.
Dre told them he carried the box through the admin hall and left it in a locked cabinet in old dispatch, exactly where the message instructed. He did not know the hall camera had been turned off.
Fifteen minutes later, a second message told him the audit had been postponed and to put the box back.
He returned.
Cabinet empty.
“What’d you do?”
“Panicked.”
“Obviously.”
“Nola.”
“Sorry. Keep going.”
Dre tried calling Rome.
No answer.
He sent a message through dispatch.
No reply.
Then his personal phone received a text from a number he didn’t know.
WE GOT YOU ON CAMERA WITH THE MONEY. IF YOU WANT THIS FIXED, LEAVE NOW. DON’T CALL KAI. DON’T CALL POLICE.
“And you listened,” Nola said.
Dre looked at her.
“I thought Kai was gonna think I stole it.”
“He did.”
“See?”
“For like twenty minutes! Then he started checking shit because he’s not an idiot.”
Dre frowned. “You defending him now?”
“Do not change the subject.”
Mani covered a smile.
Dre said the next message named Nola.
YOUR SISTER’S ADDRESS IS ON YOUR FILE. KEEP HER OUT OF IT.
That was when he left.
He had no car because it sat in the employee lot. He got a ride from Alisha, used his own money, and tried to disappear for a few days like the messages told him.
“Why keep listening after that?”
Dre rubbed the bruise under his eye.
“Because every message had something true in it. They knew where I slept. Knew who I called. Knew when I went to the ATM.”
“Your burner phone,” Nola said.
“At first. Then I started swapping them. Didn’t matter.”
“How were they finding you?”
“Keem. Alisha. Friends. I kept calling people I trusted. I didn’t realize every time I did, I gave them another way to find me.”
Nola’s anger softened enough for guilt to try entering.
She pushed it back.
This was not the time to blame herself for not teaching a grown man operational security.
“What happened tonight?”
Dre reached into the front pocket of his hoodie.
Nola tensed.
He pulled out a black prepaid phone with a cracked corner.
“This ain’t mine.”
Mani took one step back.
Nola stared.
“Whose?”
“Orange watch.”
“How do you have his phone?”
Dre looked down.
“He found me behind that apartment complex yesterday. Said he wanted the phone I’d been using because it had messages on it. I told him I threw it away. He grabbed me.”
Nola looked at the bruise on his face.
Her stomach turned.
“He had a gun?”
“I don’t know. I never saw one.”
“Then don’t guess.”
Dre nodded.
“We fought. He hit me. I hit him. His phone fell. I grabbed it because I thought it was mine. Didn’t realize until I was two blocks away.”
“Why didn’t you come here then?”
“I was scared he knew I had it. I slept in a church basement last night.”
Mani’s face crumpled.
“Dre.”
He looked away.
“I know.”
“No, you don’t.”
Nola’s voice went quiet.
“You really slept in a church basement instead of calling us.”
“I didn’t know who was safe.”
That silenced her.
A knock sounded.
Ray texted first.
KAI + DEZ.
Nola opened the door.
Kai came in focused entirely on Dre.
He did not reach for Nola.
Did not try to read their relationship in the middle of the room.
He looked at Dre’s face, the way he favored one side, the dirty hoodie.
“You need a doctor?”
Dre immediately said, “No.”
Nola said, “Probably.”
Kai looked at him. “Any loss of consciousness? Vomiting? Trouble breathing?”
“No. Ribs hurt when people keep hugging me.”
Mani said, “Stop being dramatic.”
“You almost broke me.”
Kai crouched near the coffee table but did not touch the phone.
“That’s his?”
“Orange watch,” Nola said.
Kai looked at her.
“Dre says he took it by accident during a fight.”
Dez stepped farther into the room.
His locs were loose tonight, one side flattened from sleep like Kai had dragged him out of bed.
He looked at Dre.
“Good to see you alive, young blood.”
Dre nodded. “My bad about the money.”
Dez looked at him. “You ain’t got enough years left to apologize for eighty-seven if you actually took it. So let’s find out.”
Dre swallowed.
Kai pulled nitrile gloves from his pocket.
Nola stared.
“Why do you always have evidence shit?”
“Because people keep handing me evidence.”
“Fair.”
He turned the phone on without unlocking it.
Notifications appeared.
Three missed calls from a number saved only as BOSS.
Two texts.
WHERE ARE YOU?
DID YOU GET HIS PHONE?
Kai looked at Dez.
Dez’s face lost all humor.
“Don’t open shit,” he said.
“Wasn’t going to.”
“Police?”
“Yeah.”
Nola looked at Kai.
“Now?”