Chapter 44
CHAPTER
FORTY-FOUR
RICH
They argued for hours over who would do it.
Arnez said she should do it because she was the reason we were in this shit.
Slim said she should do it because Melo ain’t really know her and there was no bad blood between them besides the fact that she belonged to me.
They argued while Arnez wiped the blood from Slim’s face in my bathroom.
They argued while Arnez cooked that meal she said she’d cook for us, and I held Slim to my chest, pressing my lips all over the places I thought AJ might’ve hit her.
Their muffled voices floated around outside of my head all night, but I couldn’t tell you exactly what they said to each other—I just know the only thing they agreed on was that I couldn’t leave the house—not with my eyes looking the way they looked.
But in the end, it had to be me. I was the man.
It had to be me because what kind of pussy would I be to send my lady and my sister to handle my business? Senior ain’t raise me like that.
So I watched them fight their sleep on the living room couch while Ozark played on the TV, and the grilled chicken and vegetables Arnez cooked sat untouched in the kitchen.
When they finally closed their eyes, I kissed Slim, dragged my fingers through Arnez’s tangled ponytail, then grabbed my keys off the kitchen island.
I drove the 610 loop twice with that Morgan Stanley folder in my front seat while I fought against that urge I still had to drive from hotel to hotel to find AJ before I went to find Melo.
There were only so many five-star hotels he could stay at in the city and I could’ve found him.
I could’ve beat his ass. I could’ve killed him because old habits die hard, and God wasn’t no genie that just gave us what we wanted as soon as we asked for it—not even different ways of thinking. But then my phone rang… and I answered.
“Rich…” Slim whispered, clearing the sleep from her voice.
I opened my mouth to shush her—to tell her to go get in our bed — but she ain’t even let me get a word out.
“You’re…you’re supposed to marry me one of these days.
You’re supposed to give me a baby boy. You’re supposed to grow old with me.
Thirty is not the pinnacle of a fighter’s life, baby.
You have so much life left to live. You have so much to see.
I have so much love to give you to make up for lost time.
Go give Melo Barnes what he says we owe and come home. You said you wanted different.”
By the time I make it to the Barnes’ house, a full moon lights up the sky, hovering over the city.
I pound on their front door with the folder and my gun in my hand while their sprinklers cut on and sputter against their landscaping and the backs of my legs.
Somebody inside cuts on the lights, flooding their foyer with a bright light that trickles underneath the curtains hanging from their front windows, and I feel somebody watching me from their doorbell camera, but I can’t prove it.
I pound on the door again until it cracks, and a shotgun barrel eases out. I stare down the barrel just like I stared into Melo’s beady green eyes at Lucky’s.
“Go back to bed, Angela. I got it!” he calls out from behind the door.
The soft pitter-patter of his wife’s footsteps blends in with the sputtering of the sprinklers until she disappears.
“You got some nerve walking up on my porch,” Melo says, pushing the barrel out more. “Like I told Kenny’s wife—my residences ain’t no free for all. You need to leave and set up an appointment through Rasheeda if you wanna talk to me about what I told Kenny’s wife.”
I swipe at my wet forehead with my gun and clutch the folder harder. “I don’t need no appointment to talk to you about shit.”
“So, what is it then? You got a minute to plead your case and get your black ass off my porch before I let this shotgun talk for me and do what Jamari should’ve done.”
I huff out a sarcastic laugh. “Oh, yeah?”
“Yeah.”
I laugh harder, wagging my gun towards his door. “You know, something I’ve learned about you over these past two months is that…you…you ain’t no killer, nigga.”
“Watch m—”
I push my hand against the door, forcing it open while he cocks the shotgun and stumbles back into his foyer. It’s another opulently decorated foyer like the one Faye said he had on his ranch with knickknacks and family pictures hanging up of him, his wife, and kids in matching outfits.
He holds the shotgun like it weighs a thousand pounds while his robe hangs open and his hairy stomach pokes out over the waistband of his sweatpants.
He doesn’t look like the Melo Barnes I saw pacing around at Lucky’s, right now he just looks like a regular ole’ nigga that has too much power and still wants too much control—a nigga that’s scared of me despite coming from the same place I came from.
“You need to get out my house. My wife and kids are upstairs—”
I hold up the folder. “Two million. That’s what you wanted, right?”
I toss it at his feet. “It’s all there.”
His eyes graze the folder, and his eyebrows shoot up at the logo on the front of it. He squats down, flicking it open and eyeing the checks with his name on them.
“Consider it the Lovelaces’ last donation to the Barnes campaign.”
“Where the fuck a nigga like you get two million dollars from?” he asks.
“Don’t worry about it. They ain’t gon’ bounce. I’m good for it.”
He picks up the checks, eyeing them, then eyeing me while I take a step back.
“What’s that you told me?” I ask. “This your neighborhood? Your ship? You got parks around this bitch named after you?”
His nostrils flare as he crumples the checks in his hand.
“This place was never yours.” I chuckle. “Tell your Big Mama that her pussy-ass grandson was always the rotten root.”
~The End~