Menace #2
He was Cyrus to anyone that needed him, and when he passed, his son took over. Lazarus Caselli was known as Lucipher, and his reputation precedes him. If he tolerated you, then you had the privilege of calling him Luci.
I was intrigued.
Patient, because I knew how I was whenever someone started poking in my shit. For a little while, I had shit come into his ports and there was no contact.
I didn’t need to know him.
At least that’s what I told myself because I didn’t need any more relatives.
I had front row seats to what family did to one another.
If that wasn’t enough, I met Stevie’s father.
The man was ready to sell his daughter up the river so he could breathe another day.
I decided then that I was better off not getting to know the Caselli side.
Luci came to me.
Walked into one of the Case House properties with his hands in his pocket, cool as shit, requesting my presence. Duke had this nigga up against the wall with a gun to his neck, and he didn’t even bust a sweat.
He smirked with a mouth full of diamonds and told him to bring his cousin out. I watched from the surveillance room and knew it was Lucipher. I allowed him to come to me. He put the pieces together, followed the breadcrumbs and found me.
Duke brought him to me, and we sat in the room staring at each other. I used to think I got all my looks from my pops, but now I realized that I was equally my mother and father. Me and Luci looked like we were related.
He wasn’t my exact twin like Don, but you couldn’t deny we were family.
Other than a cousin that he mentioned we had in Texas, he didn’t mess with any of the other family we had. His father told him about us way before he passed and told him they were better off keeping away.
Said that we were rich, and that Constance chose where she wanted to be. The shit that fucked me up was that his father had no clue his baby sister had been murdered before he passed away.
When I told Luci that my mother passed, the nigga was broken up. Started calling her auntie and shit, like he knew her ass.
That day, in my office, we acknowledged what had been unspoken between us: we both knew the other existed.
Before he left my office, he let me know that whatever I needed he was there. We were family and he would bleed for us.
The nigga just met us, how the fuck was he this loyal? I was skeptical about everyone, because who the fuck would bleed for family they just met?
Because he was kin and shared the same last name, I had to watch him more. I was the type of nigga who had to watch you for a minute before I could let my guard down. Even then, I was still always watching and observing. Duke was like my left lung, and I still watched how the nigga ate his fruit.
Anyone who ate an apple like he did should have been committed, but he was loyal and hadn’t proven otherwise.
Luci could say one thing and be on a different type of time. My own uncle told me one thing and forced me to believe another, while knowing he murdered my parents. Trust was something that had to be earned, and once it was earned, it had to be evaluated yearly.
I treated trust like income verification time in NYCHA. Once that fucking blue book came around, everybody knew they needed to prove their income to keep their rent low. That was how that shit ran over here with loyalty.
My family meant everything to me, so I kept him a secret. The only person who knew of him and had met him was Kora. It wasn’t until Don took more of an important role within the family that he found out about a lot of the skeletons I kept hidden in the closet.
“Too tight,” I coolly scolded my tailor, as he tried to pin my slacks.
He quickly sprang into action, removing the clip.
“Putting on that daddy weight.”
I looked in the mirror at Duke. “You said I got a fat ass?”
Don choked on his water, as Duke shook his head.
“The shit that goes through your head. You spoke to Steve-O?”
“I know you have.”
Stevie and Duke were close. The moment he helped her sneak out of our home, I knew I had lost my security to the four-eyed beauty that could fuck like a porn star. I shifted my dick in my pants thinking about her.
Thoughts of rubbing my nose in her pussy consumed me. It was like I could smell her in the air.
“Mr. Caselli, are you okay?”
I opened my eyes and my tailor was staring at me while I sniffed the air. “Did I ask for help?”
“Give us five,” Don told him, and he happily obliged.
He quickly put his measuring tape around his neck and left my office. I stared at the Lego sets that Wonder had built for me. She put them on the shelf next to my quiet corner.
Fuck I missed her.
I kept telling myself that the quicker I handled this, the quicker I could be back with her. The problem was that this was just the tip of the bullshit.
“Mens you been quiet.”
“Let me shoot at Navy real quick, Don.”
He screwed his face up. “The fuck?”
“You’d be fucking quiet, too. I failed to protect my fucking wife. I promised to never let any harm come her way, and it did.”
“Not your fault.”
“Doesn’t fucking matter. She was fucking shaking… scared. A look I promised I would never allow her to experience again!” I barked.
Don and Duke remained quiet, knowing how I was feeling in this moment.
I took pride in protecting my wife and keeping her hidden from the bullshit.
Stevie accepted me when she could have run.
She sacrificed a life of freedom, to one where she had to live in the shadows.
Wonder did all of that shit for me without a hesitation, and the only thing that I had to do was protect her.
And I failed.
I wasn’t the kind of nigga that promised shit because it sounded good. If I made a promise, I was coming through on everything that was promised.
Stevie would never look at me as less than, or incapable, but that’s how I felt. I felt like I had given them my baby and failed to protect her. I was known for being untouchable, and they had done the impossible.
Whenever I felt like this, I had to take my anger out on something.
Somebody.
Somebody had to pay, and I needed them to feel the agony that I felt every second that I wasn’t with my wife and son.
Every second that passed, they had to pay for being the reason for us being separated.
I was smart enough to know that I couldn’t do me if she was near.
She had to be put up so I could be the person they wanted.
Menace.
People loved to talk.
I sat on the couch as I watched Cappadonna explain how he used to be a social worker. I’ve been around him a handful of times, and I wasn’t sure if he was serious or not. The way he spoke with his hands, swearing on a hamster he had when he was six seemed convincing to me.
“I’m your fucking twin, Cappadonna. I would know if you did social work,” Capone countered, shaking his head at his brother’s antics.
I wasn’t sure which one was older.
“I don’t remember you eating that prison slop when I was up north… how the fuck you know what I did on the inside?”
“If Nahiem is any proof of your social work, you need to be fucking fired and arrested again,” Quameer laughed.
Cappadonna looked at his brother-in-law. “I was having an off week with that one… there’s only so much a socia—”
“Cappadonna please!” All the men hollered, and he broke out into laughter, and sat back down.
We were all gathered here because we needed to have a solid plan. If you asked me, I didn’t need to plan anything out that I wanted to do. Ghost and Rahmeek swore that we couldn’t go into this shit unplanned.
Everything had to be strategic.
So, here I was being subjected to a very large man lie about his occupation, while wondering what my wife was doing. I purposely withheld calling her because I couldn’t hear her voice right now. Duke checked in with her and let her know that I was alright.
She was always trying to convince him to put me on the phone, and there were times when I almost folded. Niggas always spoke about finding the woman that was the one, but never about how hard it was to turn into who you used to be.
Capri walked into the living room with Blashayka with her. “Hi Blashayka,” I greeted her.
She turned to look at me confused. “My name is fucking Blair, Menace.”
“You start acting different now that you’re not homeless,” I muttered.
She stared at me in disbelief, as if she thought I was going to say that I was kidding. “We were never homeless. My husband would have never allowed that to happen.”
“I mean, you were. Pregnant and living from hospital to Ashbourne. All because this nigga wanted to keep his hut.” Quameer snickered.
I watched him closely. After seeing how fire got his ass going, I couldn’t be sure this pyromaniac wouldn’t set my house on fire. His last name was fucking fire, so it wasn’t far-fetched.
“By choice, Meer… whose side are you on anyway?”
“He wouldn’t have said we were homeless if you weren’t here, Blashayka,” Quasim finally spoke.
“Still would have,” I mumbled and Don shoved me.
Blair rolled her eyes while crossing her arms. “I deserve to be here. I’m not pregnant and there’s no other reason why I shouldn’t be here.”
Quasim crossed the room, closing the space between them. “Why? Because you’re Queen Inferno? You think that’s enough to prove that you should be here and not with our kids, Anjo?”
She stared up into his eyes, not backing down. I had to give it to Bow Chicka, she was a tough cookie with the way she stood her ground with her husband.
He was so caught up in his wife’s eyes that he was too slow to react. She had reached behind him and snatched his gun, unloaded it, and handed it back. The bullets dropped to the floor, as she smirked up at him.
“My girl.” An older woman walked into the room.
I was starting to think my house was a fucking free for all. Where the fuck was Duke, and why the fuck was he allowing all these people up in my shit?
“If those bullets stain my fucking rug.”
Don stared at me. “Do you listen to yourself before you speak?”