Chapter 41 #2
“Corinthians.” Pop called her name one last time. “Let me explain.”
“There isn’t shit you can do to explain!
Your time is up.” She turned back to me.
“Figure your shit out with Yale. Like I said, you want Quincy, I’ll have him to you within a few days.
I don’t care what bullshit I have to uncover to do it.
The secrets? The lies? I don’t care at this point, because I’m now involved.
Finish your part in this so I can do mine.
” It was like a switch had flipped, and she was now calm.
“If you thought Cross was bad, then you haven’t seen shit yet. ”
Just as quickly as she entered the house, she was gone, and I turned to look at my parents.
“What did you tell her you had handled?” I asked my Pop.
“It’s nothing,” he said, shaking his head. “I will handle it.”
“Nah,” I chuckled, then licked my lips. “It ain’t no I in this.
This shit is a we situation from here on out.
Obviously, we got two different things moving, and it ain’t doing shit but pissing folks off, and that ain’t how you raised us to move.
You keep getting on my ass about not listening, so now I’m all ears.
” I sat on the couch and crossed my legs at the ankle.
“Let’s start from the beginning, though.
How do y’all know each other?” I pointed to him and Tulane.
“I know it’s a history there. What is it and how does it involve the DeCortes and Strongs? ”
“How do you know it involves them?” Pop asked.
“Because you didn’t deny it,” I chuckled. “Let’s stop wasting time. I gotta kill a nigga then get my woman back before our baby is born.”
**
“Women hold grudges,” Citrine said, and I nodded. “Some are good at letting it go, but then some hold that shit close to their vest until the time is right.”
“I know.” I kept watching Pyrite move around Yamari’s room.
Every time a nurse or doctor came in to check her, he was on their neck.
Nobody could do anything without his permission and he had even pulled a gun a few times.
My connections were the only thing keeping him out of jail right now.
Fable sat next to her, asleep for the first time in almost twenty-four hours.
I looked up at the BP and sighed. “We need to look into making--”
“No,” Pyrite said, shaking his head. I didn’t have to finish my sentence for him to know what I was going to say.
He spent a lot of time helping me study when I was in school.
“She’s going to be okay.” Guilt was eating away at him.
Yamari being in town was his idea. He knew that, to keep Fable here, he would have to get Yamari to agree to stay.
From what he told me, she was down to stay after spending the last few weeks here and was going to tell Fable after the party.
“Py--”
“After Pop and Tulane broke down their history with the DeCortes and Strongs, what happened?” Pyrite asked. He leaned against the wall and put his hands in his pockets.
“I left,” I answered, and he nodded. “I sent the Numbers a text asking to meet so we could talk.”
“And they said, yeah?” Citrine asked.
“Zero said yeah,” I chuckled. Of all people, Zero was the last one I expected to answer, and when he did, I was stuck for a second. Nine was typically the spokesperson for the Numbers; every so often, Six or Mahogany would step up, but it was never Zero.
“What time?” Citrine asked.
“Now,” I answered, then shook my head. “Pyrite, I understand if you don’t want to leave Fable. I can handle this on my own. I pulled some strings and got the conference room on this floor for about an hour to be able to talk.” I stood, wiped my hands over my hair, then looked at my brothers.
“Stop being stupid,” Pyrite grunted, then pushed off the wall.
He approached Fable, kissed her forehead, and then gently moved her hair from her face.
“Itty Bitty?” Immediately, her head lifted, and she looked around in panic.
Her eyes went from Yamari’s face to the monitor.
“She’s still stable. I gotta step out and talk to my brothers.
I’m not leaving the hospital; I’ll be down the hall. ”
“Okay,” she said, nodding. She laid her head back down next to Yamari’s and closed her eyes. “I love you, Pyrite.”
“I’m obsessed with you,” he said, then kissed her head.
My brothers and I left Yamari’s room and stepped into the hallway. Yeti, the head of Stone Ent security, sat outside her door.
“I’m going to a meeting down the hall, don’t let anyone in,” Pyrite instructed, and Yeti nodded.
I opened the conference door and saw the Strong cousins sitting at the table.
Nine sat in the middle, with Zero to his left.
Six and Mahogany on his right. Their partners weren’t present, but I knew all it took was for Mahogany to breathe too hard or for Six to tense up, and Focus and December would come in, guns blazing and not asking a single question ever.
If this wasn’t a show of force, then I didn’t know what it was, and I couldn’t do anything but respect it.
“I appreciate y’all coming,” I said as we sat across from them. “How is Four?”
“Let’s not waste time. Why did you ask to meet with us, Amethyst?” Nine said, shaking his head. The number of years we had in our friendship didn’t mean shit when it came to his family.
“Alright,” I said, nodding. “I spoke with my Pop this morning after Corinthians showed up at my parents’ house.”
“Her only act of mercy,” Nine replied with a grunt. “Don’t take it lightly.”
“I don’t,” I said. “Listen, I fucked up and asked her to put the word out for Quincy to show his face. I didn’t think that this would be the result. The shooting was the last thing I expected to happen.”
“What did you think was going to happen?” Nine chuckled.
“You thought he was going to show up and just let you kill him?” His nostrils flaring was the only sign that he was annoyed.
“You stepped into a situation that you had no control over and brought in the last fucking person who needed to be involved. Do you realize what the fuck you did? Do you know how many people are going to die over this shit? Innocent or not, you are now responsible for their deaths.”
“Wait a minute now, Nine,” Citrine interjected, shaking his head. “This ain’t only on Amethyst, Corinthians could’ve said no.”
“You’re right, she could’ve, but she didn’t. She warned Amethyst that there would be problems.” Nine sat forward. “She warned your Pop and Tulane of the repercussions, and they said do it anyway. Right now, she’s sitting at Four’s bedside praying, and we all know that Corinthians doesn’t pray.”
“Listen--”
“No, Amethyst, I want you to listen for a second,” Six cut in. Her southern accent was heavy, which meant she was pissed. “You asked for her help, which means you asked for our help. My cousins, my husband, every connection we have. You asked for that. Do you even know who you are going after now?”
“I want Quincy.”
“This is bigger than Quincy,” she laughed, then turned her attention to Pyrite. “It’s bigger than Javien.” She turned to Citrine. “It’s bigger than the Carver and the bullshit they were up to and what you think Xayne was up to when he met with them.”
“Everybody keeps saying that, yet nobody has said shit worth listening to,” Pyrite grunted. “Who the fuck is the nigga running this shit. Who is Robert Strong?”
“Four’s daddy,” Nine answered. “The nigga running all this shit is Four’s got-damn daddy.
” He leaned forward, resting his elbows on the table.
“Robert Strong is the oldest of the Strong siblings. He runs Strong Pharmaceuticals. He’s the nigga behind a few of our downfalls and a lot of fucking deaths.
You aren’t just walking into some bullshit, and your parents tried to keep you the fuck out of it for your safety. But you didn’t listen, Amethyst.”
“I’m tired of hearing niggas say I didn’t listen,” I replied.
“Then start fucking listening,” Six said, sitting forward.
She stabbed the table with her index finger.
“You walked into this shit with your blinders on and thought everyone was just being hard on you for no reason. Your parents, along with Tulane, were trying to fix this shit. It didn’t happen, so now we.
” She pointed to herself and her cousins.
“Have to fix this shit before Uri wakes up, and that’s if he wakes up, Amethyst, and if you want to be honest, it’s only one damn reason right now we think he will wake up. ”
“And why is that?”
“For her,” Six said, nodding to the glass wall behind us.
“For Corinthians.” We turned around to see Corinthians standing in the hallway talking to her sister.
She’d changed out of her dress that we’d seen her in and was now in a pair of black sweats and a white t-shirt.
“He’s going to wake up because he knows if he doesn’t, she’s going to do everything in her power to remind people why they left her alone for so long. ”
“He’s your uncle, can’t you just go get him?
” I asked after I turned around. “You still have stock in your family business, right? Call a meeting, make him show his face.” I was grasping at straws, but I didn’t care.
If they wanted him that badly, they had ways to get him.
Nine and Zero exchanged a look before shaking their heads. “What?”
“Pyrite, explain to your brother how corporations work,” Nine laughed.
“I don’t need him to explain shit to me,” I said, mugging him. “Call that shit, make him show up. Kill his ass. We move on with life.”