16. Fontaine Jackson
“Mama, you know your son got a lil’ girlfriend now?” Drea said with a grin as she took a sip of her sweet tea.
We were at her house for Sunday brunch—something she insisted we do every week when we could. The table was a full spread of eggs, bacon, pancakes, grits, and plenty of fresh fruit.
Mama looked up from her plate, brows raised. “What’s this now?”
I side-eyed my sister. She knew I couldn’t cuss her ass out because Gunnar was with us, happily drowning his pancakes in syrup. “Yeah…something like that,” I muttered.
“When were you gonna say something?” Mama asked, wiping her mouth with her napkin. The look on her face said I was about to get the third degree. “Who is she?”
My mother, Maria Jackson, still turned heads at sixty-seven. She kept her silver hair pressed and curled, her tawny skin was smooth with only the slightest hint of wrinkles. She was the walking epitome of Black don’t crack—and she made sure we never forgot it.
“I was gon’ say something eventually,” I said. “We’re still figuring things out.”
Mama sucked her teeth. “This the problem with you young people. Figuring things out.” She rolled her eyes. “Either you with somebody or you not. Ain’t no figuring.”
Drea bit into her bacon. “To be fair, Mama…they do have a little history.”
“Excuses,” Mama scoffed.
“Uncle ‘Taine got a girlfriend?” Gunnar perked up, syrup on his chin. “Is she pretty?”
I groaned. “Yeah, she’s pretty.”
“Pretty like mommy?”
“Prettier—‘cause your mama acting real ugly right now,” I said, flipping Drea off.
“Ooh, you childish,” Drea laughed as she wiped the syrup off Gunnar's chin.
Mama chuckled, shaking her head. “So what’s her name?”
“Nairobi.”
She hummed thoughtfully. “Nairobi,” she repeated slowly. “That’s different. Pretty though.”
“She seems nice,” Drea added. “At least from what I could tell at Monica’s birthday, before y’all rolled up like the damn truancy police.”
Mama folded her napkin neatly on the table. “So, when am I meeting her?”
“Soon,” I said, a little too quickly. “She’s been dealing with her father’s passing. She got some things to settle before I bring her around.”
“Ain’t it been like a month? What else she gotta settle?” Drea asked.
“Leave it alone, D. I’ll bring her by when the time’s right. Fuck around and y’all will scare her off.”
The table went quiet save for the sounds of Gunnar happily smacking on his food. Mama sighed and reached across the table to tap my hand. “Well, I’m looking forward to meeting her. Hope she’s bringing you some peace.”
Nairobi and I were good. I’d gotten what I both thought we wanted—she wasn’t running, but part of me still braced for the other shoe to drop. I was trying to focus on the present, but sometimes it felt like walking on eggshells…careful not to say or do anything that might trigger her flight mode.
Because I knew one thing for sure—if she left this time, I don’t think I’d recover.
After brunch, Mama and Gunnar went into the living room to watch a movie, leaving me and Drea to clean up.
The house was quiet aside from Gunnar’s occasional outbursts as sunlight spilled through the kitchen window and caught the steam off the sink.
I wiped down the counters while Drea dried the plates and hummed along to Alex Isley playing low from the Bluetooth speaker.
“So…” she said, dragging the word out. “How are things with you and Nairobi?”
I shrugged without looking up. “We’re cool.”
“Mmhm,” she hummed skeptically. “You sure? ‘Cause I saw the way your face practically crumpled when Mama said she hoped Nairobi’s bringing you peace.”
I rolled my eyes. “You always in somebody’s business. Your ass should’ve been a damn investigator instead of a hairdresser.”
“Well actually,” she said, holding up a finger. “My profession makes you a really good listener. I pick up on everything—body language, especially the smallest tics. It’s a gift.”
“Here you go,” I muttered.
“Look, ‘Taine.” She paused the music on her phone and leaned against the counter. “You love a project—you treat relationships like some kind of computer code.”
I glanced up at that.
Drea crossed her arms. “I’m not saying you don’t love her, or that she doesn’t feel the same. I’m saying make sure you’re not trying to save her. You’ve been playing the protector role for as long as I can remember. First with Mama after our sperm donor dipped, then me after my little situation.”
“She’s not a project, D,” I said quietly, still wiping the same spot on the counter. “She’s been through some shit, but I’m not trying to fix her.”
Her tone softened. “I didn’t say you were.
I’m just saying make sure she's as invested in her own healing as you are. She gotta face her demons head on. You ain’t gotta tell me her business, but has she ever been to therapy?
Maybe she needs to go see the lady—especially if she’s serious about making y’all work. ”
Fuck. I looked down at the towel in my hands, trying to ignore the lump forming in my throat. I’d gotten on Nairobi for trying to carry the weight of the world, and here I was inadvertently trying to carry her shit as mine.
“I just want her to stop feeling like she’s alone in everything.”
“And what—the solution is to be the knight in shining armor who’s gonna fix it and hold it for her?
That’s not love, that’s martyrdom. You deserve balance, not another problem to solve.
Don’t you get enough of that shit with Jelani and ‘em? Plus, it’s supposed to be a partnership, not you swooping in to save the day. ”
I exhaled, nodding slowly. “I hear you.”
She bumped her shoulder gently against mine. “Don’t look all downtrodden, bruh. I meant what I said earlier—I like her. She seems like she keeps you on your toes, and you need that. Just make sure she’s pouring into you as much as you do her.”
That pulled a small laugh out of me. “You tryna give someone a sermon.”
“That’s why I’m here,” she said with a wink.
Nairobi slipped her hand into mine as we walked into Cash’s office.
I’d called a meeting with him, Jelani, and Slim because this wasn’t something either of us could handle alone anymore.
The Order was too big for Nairobi to take on herself and I couldn’t be her Superman.
Not in that way at least. It was time to put everything on the table and figure out our next move.
Cash’s office was every bit that of a CEO—dark gray walls, big windows, and sleek leather furniture.
He was posted behind his wide oak desk, a glass of brown in one hand and a pre-rolled blunt resting in the ashtray beside him.
Jelani sat across from him with his feet kicked up on the table, while Slim lounged in one of the leather armchairs.
Slim looked up and whistled as we walked in. “Oh, we holding hands in front of company now?”
Nairobi wrinkled her nose at him and flipped him off before sliding onto the couch next to me. Slim chuckled and blew her a kiss.
I set my laptop on the coffee table and pulled up the files Bruno sent. Nairobi should’ve been the first to know, but after what went down at the baby shower, we were past handling this behind closed doors. It was time to rip the Band-Aid off.
“Alright,” I started, glancing around the room. “I wanted us all here ‘cause this shit is touching all of us now. Nai might not be part of the crew, but she’s family. Everybody needs to be on the same page.”
Cash sparked the blunt and took a long drag. “Them niggas really need to pay for that mess at my mama’s house.”
I opened the first set of files. “So Sterling was real busy with The Order. Not just gambling, he was in business with them too.”
Nairobi didn’t say anything, but I felt her body tense next to mine.
“You ever come across anything that said your father had overseas accounts or property? I asked her.
“No,” she said, shaking her head slowly. “I dug through everything and nothing stood out. Very cut and dry — savings, his pension, 401k, and his investments were stateside.”
I showed her my laptop screen which was filled with scanned documents—property records written in Japanese with English translation underneath.
“He owned real estate in Kyoto,” I said. “One being an entire apartment building in Kyoto that he co-owned with someone else.”
Jelani dropped his feet to the floor. “Co-owned with who?”
“Hana Furukawa,” I said and clicked to the next file.
Her headshot popped up on the screen. She had long, jet-black hair, tanned skin, and dark brown eyes.
Slim leaned in, squinting. “Yo…why she look like Nai a lil bit? But like… mixed.”
Jelani stood and came over to get a closer look. “Y’all definitely look like kin.”
“Bear…” she started as she looked at me. “What the fuck is this?”
I met her gaze. “Sterling’s daughter. Thirty-two, born and raised in Japan. Her mother was a diplomat.”
“What?”
“You have a half-sister.”
She looked from the screen to me and back again. “That—no. That’s not right. He couldn’t…” She shook her head. “I mean he traveled a lot for work when I was a kid. But a whole ass daughter?”
I placed a hand on her leg. “There’s more.”
Cash held the blunt out to her. “You need this?”
“Give it here,” she muttered, gesturing for it.
Jelani passed her the ashtray. She lit it and took a long drag.
“Does my mother know?” she asked after a beat.
“I don’t know,” I answered honestly. “But Hana got a lotta shit going on with her. She’s got some dealings with the Yakuza and she’s part of the Order.”
Nairobi narrowed her eyes. “What do you mean she’s part of The Order?”
“She has a seat at the table.”
“Well, shit,” Jelani muttered.
Nairobi set down the blunt and pressed her fingertips to her forehead. “So not only did this nigga have a whole daughter I didn’t know about, these two were in cahoots?” She let out a sardonic laugh. “And she clearly knows I exist. So what was all this for? Shits and giggles?”
She dropped her head back against the couch. “This shit is so wild I don’t know whether I want to cry or throw something.”
“I know I should’ve told you first. But with everything going down, it felt like this was the right call. Now we all know what we’re dealing with,” I said.
Cash sucked his teeth. “Do we? ‘Cause was this whole thing a scheme set up by Nai’s long-lost sister to get her attention? Like, why not just reach out? Why go through all this?”
“Yeah,” Jelani said as he crossed his arms. “Shooting up a party is extra as fuck.”
Nairobi took another hard pull from the blunt. “It’s time for me to reach out to that Jack dude. I’ve been stalling long enough. I’m sure they know I’ve figured out about this Hana chick.”
“This about to be the wildest family reunion ever,” Slim said under his breath.
Nairobi shot him a dirty look. “Carmelo, I’ll slap the shit out of you.”
He threw his hands up. “Damn, my full government? I’m chillin, you got it.”
Cash leaned forward, resting his forearms on the desk. “We’re with whatever you decide to do. So if you’re meeting her, or anyone from the Order, you’re not going alone. Let them niggas know that much.”
Nairobi nodded, but her focus was back on Hana’s picture. It was like she was trying to read this woman who was another part of her father’s web of secrets—and now, part of her life.