CHAPTER 13 #2
“I was gone line Samir up after I got you out the way, but then you started noticing too much. Asking little questions. Watching little shit. Markie was easy. I ain’t like that nigga no way, and everybody already knew y’all had static. So I handled him and put it on you. Clean as hell.”
I stared at him, my chest hot.
Markie dead. My life blown apart. Kales dragged through hell. And all of it because this bitter ass nigga felt overlooked.
Samir looked worse than me though. Not louder. Just colder. That kind of cold that meant if the cops were not already part of the plan, Tariq probably wasn’t making it out that warehouse breathing.
Tariq let his head fall back against the chair. “Would’ve worked too if y’all ain’t start moving scared over these hoes.”
That was when Samir kicked the chair over again.
This time he put his foot on Tariq’s chest and looked down at him like he was less than nothing.
“You killed one of my men and tried to line me up next,” Samir said. “And you think this about a female?”
Tariq coughed, trying to laugh through it. “It became about one when you got distracted.”
Before Samir could do anything else, the warehouse side door opened.
A couple officers came in first, then two detectives right behind them.
One of them looked at Tariq on the floor, then at the blood, then at Samir.
“Damn, Mir,” he said. “What the fuck? How I’ma explain this shit?”
Samir didn’t even look bothered.
He stepped back, straightening his shirt like this was any other business deal. “I pay you enough to figure that shit out.”
The detective rubbed his forehead. “You a cold motherfucker.”
“And yet you here,” Samir replied.
They hauled Tariq up, and he groaned the whole time, half-conscious and leaking blood all over the concrete. But he was alive. Alive enough to be booked. Alive enough to talk. Alive enough for the truth to finally get said somewhere that counted.
One of the detectives looked at me. “You good?”
I nodded once. “Yeah.”
Truthfully, I didn’t know what I was. Relieved maybe. Still angry. Still tired. Still carrying too much.
But yeah, I was outside a cell and the man who set me up was finally in cuffs. That had to count for something.
Once the cops left with Tariq, the warehouse got quiet fast. Too quiet after all that noise.
Samir walked over to the table and poured himself a drink from a bottle I had not even noticed sitting there. He took one swallow, then looked over at me.
“It’s done.”
I nodded. “Yeah.”
For a minute, neither one of us said much.
There was too much between us for there to ever be no easy conversation. Too much pride. Too much shared history through people and business and Kales sitting in the middle of it all.
Eventually I spoke.
“You ain’t have to get me out.”
Samir lifted one shoulder. “I know.”
“But you did.”
He looked at me for a second. “That was more for her than you.”
I let out a dry laugh. “I figured.”
He took another drink. “You was right about Tariq.”
“Yeah.”
“That don’t make you innocent in everything else.”
I looked at him. “I know that too.”
And I did.
Getting cleared of Markie’s murder was one thing. It didn’t erase what I had done to Kales. It didn’t erase the lies. It didn’t erase Victoria. It didn’t erase the life I brought to everybody’s doorstep.
Samir set the glass down. “So what now?”
I thought about that for a second. About Kales. About my son. About the fact that for the first time in a long time, I couldn’t hide behind survival and street logic to avoid looking at myself.
Then I answered honestly.
“Now we go separate ways.”
Samir nodded like he had already known that was where this was headed.
“That’s probably for the best.”
“It is.”
I looked at him for a moment, then said the one thing I needed to say before I left.
“Take care of Kales.”
His eyes met mine.
“I already told you I am.”
I held his stare another second, then nodded.
That was enough.
I turned and started toward the door, but before I walked out, I stopped just long enough to look back.
“I mean it,” I said. “Whatever happened between me and her, she deserve better than the shit she got from me. So if you in it for real, then do right by her.”
Samir’s face didn’t change much, but something in his eyes settled.
“I don’t do halfway,” he said.
I believed him.
And maybe that was the strangest part of everything.
That out of all the chaos, all the blood, all the lies, the one thing I walked away from sure of was that Samir wasn’t gone play about Kales.
So I left it there.
Me and him had no reason to be anything to each other after that. No friendship. No fake respect speeches. No pretending we was something we wasn’t.
Just two men who had stood on opposite sides of the same woman and the same lie long enough to finally see the truth.
When I walked out that warehouse, the night air hit me hard. I stood there for a second, breathing it in.
Tariq was caught. Markie had justice coming. And my name was finally starting to clear.
But none of that gave me back what I had already broken.
That part, I knew, was gone stay with me.
And as I got in my car and pulled off, there was only one thought sitting heavier than the rest.
I really hoped Samir meant what he said about Kales.
Because I had already failed her enough for both of us.