27. Rico #2
He and Mars talk nonstop as this nigga takes the scenic route.
Mars’s mouth runs a mile a second as he goes from one topic to the next, telling Set about Nan and Miele and Snow.
Set arches a brow, cutting his eyes to me as Mars brags about knowing a rapper and how she would tell him stories about Fred, but I pay him no mind.
To his credit, he speaks almost as much as he listens. He tells him about Brina, and his twins, and bullshit plans about meeting them that Mars won’t follow through with. I know he fucked with my car to force this meet, but I let it ride.
Bringing Mars was a mistake, and as soon as he and Ju step foot in Belize, I’m telling Reno to keep them there.
“I’ll be inside in a minute,” I say as we pull up to the crib. As he said, my car is parked in front, four perfect looking tires where they’re supposed to be. He swoops in behind my car, blocking the driveway.
Taking off his seatbelt, Set turns to the back. “I have to say, you’re pretty cool, Mars.”
Mars grins. “You, too, Casey.” He opens the door and flies out, not stopping until he gets to the keyless entry of the condo.
“He looks just like y’all,” Set mutters as he turns back to face the windshield.
I sigh, pulling my piece from my back holster to rest it on my lap. “So how we playing this? I ain’t got time–”
“There you go again, thinking you got choices,” he chuckles. “You never could admit when you wrong.”
“Nah, you just want me to kiss ya ass and you know I have never and would never, no matter who the fuck you is.”
“You one stupid ass nigga, on Foe.”
“Yeah, aight. My car gon’ blow up if I start it?” I ask, over this conversation.
“Nah,” Set chuckles again, taking out his phone. “You know I like to look niggas in they eyes when I put one in between ‘em. Besides, I’m not tryna kill you, Luney.”
My ears twitch at him calling me by my set name for the second time, especially when it’s just us. I narrow my eyes and unbuckle my seatbelt slowly.
He types something before meeting my gaze. “Not yet at least. Stay dangerous, brodie. The type shit you be on, you need to be.” He winks at me and unlocks the door to let me out.
I exit the whip, but look back when I hear the window roll down.
“You know, all this could end if you just… apologize.”
Laughter bursts out of me before he could even finish the word.
“Yeah, I figured that,” he sighs. “You know that’s Slime’s assistant’s whip, right?” He gestures to the black SUV pulling off the curb and easing toward us.
He turns over his own engine and pulls off as the car rolls by us. It’s a woman driving, but that don’t mean shit to me.
Especially when there’s a nigga in the front seat grilling me before they speed off.
After I get Mars and Ju on a flight, I pull up to the Birch. I’m only in the parking lot for thirty seconds before Reem comes out of the building and climbs in my whip.
“You talked to him?” I waste no time asking.
“He thumbs upped my message, but his lo off.”
I nod, watching the dice game forming at the back of the parking lot.
“You always been a closed book. I never bothered with trying to read you, ‘cause it ain’t no such thing as unknowing shit. I still feel that way, but clearly something higher than us feel like it’s time for you to open up anyway.”
I glance at Reem, his narrowed eyes already on me. His jaw clenches before he sighs.
“Secrets never stay secrets, Rico.”
“I know, Reem.”
“What made you think–”
“I wasn’t thinking,” I confess. “I wasn’t… it’s like, shit was good, then it wasn’t. Then Sean and Fred are dead, and…”
None of the how and why matters to me. I know I owe explanations, but how do I put into words what was going on?
I don’t even remember much of it myself.
I didn’t think, I just did. Got to Belize.
Met Ju. Listened to her tell me she didn’t know who the father of her child was.
Left her and Nan and went back to my orders.
“Aight,” Reem concedes. “So why now? ‘Cause of Wyn?”
“Partly. And Nan was ready. And… I mean, I go back and forth, but… maybe it was time for y’all to meet him.”
I sink into my seat and rest my head back. “I got a bullseye on my forehead but I do feel lighter.”
“You feel lighter ‘cause you have someone to carry the load now. Pooh and Nan always put that pressure on you, ever since we was kids. You been a man since you was born damn near. And I mean, I’on know, it’s different when you holding it down with someone you choose.”
My lips twitch. “YT wore yo ass all the way down.”
“Yeah,” he sighs, wiping his face hard. “She did.”
He glances at me, before looking away, almost steeling himself.
“I don’t wanna ice you out like I know Ty and them will.
You my brother, even when I don’t agree with you.
But all these secrets, brodie… you can’t be a closed book anymore.
Not when the shit you holding on to affects everyone else.
So I’m asking you, right now… is there anything I need to know that I don’t? ”
I turn to my brother immediately. “You know what you’re asking?”
He looks away, nodding once quickly. “I can handle it.”
He can’t. I know he can’t. He knows he can’t. But this is the consequence of getting caught lying–the whole truth must come out, or your word means nothing, and a nigga who doesn’t have his word may as well be in the dirt.
Everyone who came up with us knows Pooh had been training me to take over the Hive from birth. In his line of business, knowledge was the ultimate power, so from the time I was five, he began to lace me with way more than game.
No topic was off limits with him except my mother.
Everything else, every single morsel of information, no matter how arbitrary, was given freely.
I never really talked much, especially early on, my little mind working over time to remember everything he said.
Hanging on to his word with all the strength I had.
Pooh was God. And knowing things about my friends’ parents, their parents, and towers I was banned from for reasons unknown, separated me from everyone.
Everyone but Fredo.
Tell him, Rick. He deserves to know.
Reem does deserve to know, but it will break him. I would break him if it meant preserving our brotherhood.
My lips pull into my mouth and I wet them that way, even as my mouth dries from the words I’m conjuring.
Reading ass Kareem Durrell. For a second, it’s the little boy with the skee bald head, holding a bent book from the library in my front seat. The boy Ty-Ty begged me to be nice to, since they were best friends. I almost can’t say what he wants me to.
I turn my head and try to blink back the pressure building in my eyes. My chest expands as I take the biggest breath I can.
“X wasn’t your pops; he was your brother.
His own pops raped Trina with two of his friends, including the nigga Khaliq killed.
X and his girl killed him and the other nigga.
X and Trina was never like that, but I guess X claimed you so you and Trina would be straight while he was on the inside, and Trina went with it so you’d think he was your pops and you wouldn’t ask questions, but mostly everyone who knew the real is dead anyway…
” The words rush out, low and fast, before tapering off.
I almost can’t believe that came from my mouth.
It’s quiet for a while. I don’t even hear my bro breathing.
I turn toward him, and he’s staring at his lap, fists clenched.
“Reem–”
“I’m straight. I get why you ain’t say shit.” He exits the car, the door closing too soft for how stiff he walks away from my whip.
“Shit! Shit! Shit! Shit!” I punch my steering wheel over and over, but the fire in my chest keeps growing in tandem with the dread in my gut.
Pulling out my phone, I go to my text thread with Wyn.
Her excitement is bleeding through the messages; my baby has a show tonight.
Briefly, I think about calling Haze and Turk, but those bridges are burned to a crisp.
Besides, they wouldn’t understand. They’d do what anyone else would do; ask me what I know about them.
Ask me to open the floodgates even more, and pour out the secrets that would tear apart their already fragile reality and force them to confront all the shit they’ve been running from.
The reckoning is coming, and yet, I can’t bring myself to do any more damage than I already have. I can’t force them in front of a mirror.
You know who you should call.
I look up, and Fredo’s smirking in the front seat.
“Would you have said it? Of course you would have. You never lied foreal,” I spit in anger, though Fred’s not offended at all.
“I’ve lied,” he shrugs. “I’ve lied a lot. Everyone lies, Rick. Most of the time they lie for themselves. You be lying to protect other people. Maybe that’s where you’re going wrong. Seems like you the only one shit be going wrong for.”
My shoulders drop as my thumb scrolls to a contact I never thought I’d use again. But lowkey, it’s his fault, so I dial him up so he could maybe do what the fuck he’s supposed to as my father.
“This a butt dial?” his smoky voice cracks into the receiver. It catches me off guard, so I laugh a couple times, and I can practically hear him grinning.
My mouth straightens as I remember why I even called him in the first place, and I clear my throat. “I told Reem… about who his real dad is.”
“Okay,” he drawls, after a moment of silence.
“Well, nigga?” I snap, frustration shooting through my chest. “Was I wrong to do that? That ain’t some shit you come back from.”
“Well, hijo. Why did you choose tonight of all nights to tell him?” he replies, calm and even as fuck.
I swipe the bar in my tongue across my lip. “He asked. He got all philosophical about secrets and asked me if there was anything I knew that he should know.”
“And you felt he should know that?”