Chapter 4 #2
I wasn’t the kind to fall in love to begin with.
Ivana and I met on some chill shit and hit it off.
She was fine as fuck, smart, and had a comeback for all my bullshit.
She understood, or at least took the time to understand parts of me that even I didn’t analyze.
She was my best friend, my homie, and my lover.
We made a baby together, and I was ready to do a complete U-turn with my life for them.
We had six years together, and they were a blessing.
Then one day she was gone, and I felt like I had been coasting along ever since.
I wasn’t holding on to anything. Nothing kept me grounded.
Gripping the steering wheel, I ripped through the backroads until I jumped on the highway, speeding into the city for the day.
Ledge had reached out to me and asked me to meet him so that we could talk about our ventures.
Lyra had me pissed off, Harbor had frustrated me, and a nigga still needed a way to flip a bunch of dirty fucking money.
I was hoping more than anything that by the end of the day I solved one of the problems so that I didn’t risk blowing a mothafucka’s head off.
HAROLD LAWSON
There was always a gray area to life. I could easily blame all of my transgressions on the era that I grew up in, but as the saying went, at some point, we all had to be held accountable for our actions.
Unlike my children, I was raised on the east side of town.
All they knew was picket fences, family dinners, and vacations.
A quiet, normal life. We spent every holiday together, and my weekends were full of my daughter’s volleyball and basketball tournaments during the early years.
When their mother split on us, I was left with two young women that I had no idea how to raise.
Harmonie grew out of control. She partied, stayed out late, failed at everything, and spiraled downward after losing her mother.
Harbor was the complete opposite. She was quiet, much more reserved, and always thinking.
I swear from the day she was born, she was plotting on how she could take over the world.
Although Harmonie was older, she acted much more immaturely than Harbor.
They were two years apart in age, but Harbor had always been wise beyond her years.
She did everything early and excelled at it.
She always knew what she wanted, and much like me, she gravitated toward technology.
Harmonie was my daughter, and I loved her dearly, but she was mediocre, and was perfectly fine with that.
She thrived off of the spotlight. Harbor, on the other hand, was low key.
She didn’t like attention. The other side of her was so much like her mother, Halo, that I sometimes had to do a double take.
She took risks, she stood her ground, and she didn’t allow anyone to bully her.
Posted in the office of my home, I held a picture of my sweet baby girl as tears misted my eyes.
It had been a year to the day since she’d been gone.
It was amazing what a human being could endure.
I hadn’t laid eyes on my daughter or spoken to her in so long I was starting to forget what it was like.
I still got that ill, nauseating feeling when I thought about the last time I saw her.
Reflecting on our last conversation over and over again was enough to drive anyone crazy.
I’d always been considered levelheaded. Of all the friends that I had, I was the one trying to talk niggas out of the stupid shit.
But not everybody could be saved. Here I was, teetering on the dark side with a closet full of hidden bones waiting to be uncovered.
“What you in here thinking about?” Chaya’s childlike voice asked from the doorway.
My gaze softened while I stared back at her.
A glass of bourbon rested in one hand against my knee while I peered back at her.
Yes, I was drunk as fuck, and that was a regular occurrence for me.
These days, being sober just didn’t seem to be working out.
I placed Harbor’s photo back on the desk and brought the glass to my lips for a swallow.
“Nothing,” I muttered, avoiding her critical stare.
Chaya’s large belly ushered her into the room. She was just about due with our son. Although it was supposed to be a joyous time, resentment clouded those feelings. She paused at my side and lowered a gentle hand to my shoulder.
“I know that you miss her, babe. I can’t imagine what you’re going through. This little baby isn’t even out of me yet, and all I want to do is protect him and keep him safe. But… it’s been a year.” Chaya’s words were so final.
She, like everyone else, thought that it was time that I gave up on the notion that my daughter was still alive.
They wanted me to believe Harbor was gone and that all I had to look forward to was the fact that maybe her body turned up somewhere off the side of some road or buried in the fucking pines.
I wasn’t ready to give up on her like that.
There was more to it than anyone knew, and I didn’t trust a soul with even attempting to help me in putting the pieces to the puzzle together.
I treaded a dark path, one that I had set for myself.
Once I began that road to perdition, there would be no turning back.
Somehow, I stupidly believed that she was still out there.
Shrugging her hands off of me, I rose to my feet and took the last of the bourbon in my mouth.
“I don’t give a fuck if it’s been ten years!” I barked back at her.
Chaya flinched from my rage. She didn’t get it.
Neither she nor anybody else could fathom the battle going on inside me.
I was raised by the streets, but I had tucked that shit away a long time ago for the sake of my family.
I tried to do the right thing and walk the straight and narrow.
Getting sucked in by people that had their own agendas, I became nothing but a pawn.
Hacking wasn’t a world like selling drugs or stealing and robbing.
It was all chess. Your next move always had to be you best move.
Somebody remained two steps ahead, and I had to make sure I never allowed anybody too close.
“This is my fucking daughter!”
“And I am carrying your son!” Chaya raged, eyes widening as she cradled her belly with her hand. “What the fuck are we to you, Harold, hmm?” she demanded, mouth tight with anger.
I had fucked up. My eyes closed heavily.
Intoxicated, with all of the events that transpired threatening to break through, I had to check myself.
Slamming my glass down on the desk, I brought angered eyes up to hers.
My buzzing phone interrupted us. Gazing at the display, I saw that it was one of my co-workers, and I shook my head while sending him to voicemail.
“I gotta get some air,” I grunted, snatching my blazer off the back of my chair and marching to my office door.
“We ain’t done here! How the fuck do you think it’s okay to just walk away from me?” Chaya was hormonal and pissed the fuck off as she trailed behind me, cussing me out all the way to the fucking door.
By that time, I was just too fucking lit to care. After stepping outside into the cloudy night, I hopped into my Mercedes G-Wagon and dialed the number in my phone back while pulling off. My wife was in the driveway throwing a real live fit as I left her in the rearview.
“What you got for me?” I asked, whipping my car down the driveway so that I could take off.
“Meet me at Starbucks on Monroe,” my ex-partner, Ohan, responded before hanging up.
When I arrived at the location, Ohan was seated outside at a table having his coffee.
Scrolling in his phone, he brought his eyes up when he saw me approaching.
We dapped each other up, and I took a seat across from him at the table.
It was a cool afternoon, but there was still a little nip in the air lingering so I tucked my hands into the pocket of my jacket.
“What’s this about?” I cut right to the shit, and he slid a folder across the table to me.
I flipped it open, and the first image froze me up. Harbor was walking with Harmonie and their friends to the party the night she was taken. Dragging my gaze from the paper and up to Ohan, I remained silent while he stared blankly back at me.
“The fuck is this?” I demanded, flipping to the next page.
+It was a list of names. Some that should ever be mentioned again, and a few I had forgotten about.
“That’s everything that we got from that night,” Ohan expressed. “They arrived at the party around eight. Stuck around ’til about eleven thirty. Harbor left with a girlfriend, Alba. Alba told the police that she and Harbor were going back to the car to wait for her boyfriend… Lock, right?”
“That’s right,” I answered, scrolling the list of names and trying to find one that stuck out.
“This van was parked there, according to surveillance, from the time that they arrived. Nobody moved in or out of it until Harbor came out of that house,” Ohan described, piquing my interests. “I think they were waiting for her.”
“But why?” I asked the million-dollar question.
What the fuck was all of that about? Why my child?
The more I asked myself that, the heavier that sinking feeling became in my stomach.
Shit wasn’t adding up. I tried to look at the shit from every angle, and something told me I was missing a key point.
An entire year had gone by, and I had turned up nothing.