Chapter 30
Chapter Thirty
(Three Weeks Ago)
“Silas is gonna have a stroke when he finds out about you and ol’ girl.” Amir tossed a judgmental look my way before adding, “I can’t believe you choosing pussy over family.”
The fact that I’d been with Lauren for about three months now and hadn’t been intimate with her was none of Amir’s business, so I didn’t all the way correct him. Instead, I was fairly vague.
“Nobody’s choosin’ pussy over family.”
“Okay,” Amir hit back sarcastically, unconvinced. “You got one job to do. You take money from one place and drop it off at another. Your Pops don’t ask you for nothin’ else—” The dozens of texts in my phone said otherwise, but I let Amir make his point. “—and you can’t even do that.”
“It’s just for one night.”
“You say that now,” he challenged. I didn’t know it then, but he was absolutely right.
I would be asking him to make the Poseidon drop one more time, and that would ultimately be the favor that got him killed.
“You trustin’ a nigga with almost four hundred Gs of your father’s money because what?
You wanna take some prissy rich girl to a shooting range? What kind of corny shit is that?”
“Oh, that’s why you don’t like her? Because you think she’s prissy.”
“Nah, I didn’t say I didn’t like her,” Amir corrected, using his nickname for her as he explained, “Princess is a good kid. If she was fuckin’ around with Marlon or Jay, it’d be an odd match, but I wouldn’t have shit to say about it.
But it’s you two—the most reckless combination I’ve ever seen.
I have to keep remindin’ myself you ain’t gone crazy. ”
“C’mon, you know me better than that.”
“Yeah! I do. And that girl… Y’all don’t match. That girl is making you soft.”
I raised a skeptical brow, laughing a little. “You really think so?”
“You don’t?”
I shook my head. “I think you’re confusing my being happier for me gettin’ weak.”
“Aww, you happy?” he responded mockingly. “Well let’s see how happy your ass stays when you get either yourself or that girl killed.” To my frown, he added, “You and I both know that if Silas doesn’t have a stroke first, he’s gonna kill somebody over all of this.”
***
Saturday, June 25th, 2016
(Present Day)
The thick smell of marijuana smoke was the first thing to greet me when I shut the front door of my childhood home. For as long as I could remember, whenever my father got especially angry, the smell of weed was sure to follow. Today was no different, it seemed.
Weed calmed Silas down—his temper and his blood pressure.
My tense shoulders slumped downward, relaxing a bit because if ever there was a version of Silas I wanted to argue with, it was the high version.
The sounds of the TV coming from the living room guided my steps further into the house, my movements deliberate, cautious.
This was uncharted territory and I wasn’t about to rush into it.
That’s how you get run up on. Another lesson learned from my father.
Vance was sitting alone in the living room when I walked in, a half smoked blunt in his hands and eyes that said, ‘Shit, Youngblood, you’re a dead man, you know?’
“Shit, Youngblood—” my uncle started to say before I lifted a hand.
“I know… I know… I’m a dead man.”
I tossed a glance over my shoulder, scanning the living room behind me, my eyes brushing over the spotless white carpet where two dead men had been laid out only a week before. Humorlessly, I chuckled, wondering if I really was next. Silas could be pretty unpredictable when he wanted to be.
“Where he at?”
Vance reached for the remote, pressing the mute button before answering my question. “He came, dismissed all the staff for the rest of the day, and waited for you.”
Dismissed the staff… Whatever my father was initially planning, he didn’t want witnesses.
“How long did he wait?” I asked.
“About ten minutes.”
“And then?”
“He bounced, and went looking for you himself.”
I thought about Lauren holed up in the presidential suite at the Bayside. Even though I knew it was virtually impossible for Silas to get his hands on her where she was, that didn’t stop the tightening in my throat when I asked, “Did he say where he was gonna look?”
“Silas said Cierra told him you bought a house out in Broward County.” Vance raised an eyebrow before asking, “You didn’t leave ole girl there by herself, did you?”
Vance’s tone was almost concerned. In typical Lauren fashion, she was apparently able to make my indifferent uncle care about her wellbeing without much effort. She was just that kind of girl—the type of girl you couldn’t help but protect.
“She’s not there,” was all I said, still unsure if I could trust anyone with her whereabouts. Getting Lauren as far as possible from the house in Pembroke Pines was the first thing I did as soon as I realized that Silas knew about both it and her.
Vance brought the blunt to his mouth and nodded before asking, “You know what you’re doing, Youngblood?”
I stretched out a hand for him to pass the joint, waiting for it to be in my hand before I replied, “No idea.”
“You don’t look stressed, though,” Vance observed.
I took a long drag, shaking my head within the cloud of smoke I created. “Silas is gonna do what Silas is gonna do.”
“And that is…?” my uncle asked. Hell if I know.
“You tell me,” I responded, handing back the joint before asking, “If I was your son, and you found out I was dating the daughter of the man tryna put you away forever, and thus sabotaging your efforts to interfere with his case, what would you do?”
“I think what I would do and what Silas would do are two entirely different answers, kid.”
“Be Silas then. Use your imagination.”
Vance chuckled, thinking it through before finally deciding, “He just might kill your ass.”
“This should be interesting then.”
“Why? You got a death wish?”
“No.” I shook my head, taking a seat on the sectional and checking the time on my watch. “I told her I’d be back. And I have every intention of doing that.”
It was hours before Silas returned. I was just beginning to naturally slip out of my weed-induced haze when the sound of the front door slamming echoed throughout the house, sending my senses into a frenzy.
I breathed out a calming breath, tossing a cursory glance Vance’s way.
He was already looking at me, expression neutral if not almost entertained.
He was curious to see how I was gonna talk my way out of this.
Not that I would need his help, but somehow without there ever being a verbal agreement, I already knew whose side Vance was on.
“KAIN!!!!”
“Oh yeah, he’s big mad,” Vance mumbled more to himself than to me as he flicked through the channels on the living room television. I could’ve smiled at this if I was in the smiling mood.
“I’m in the living room!” I called back, not bothering to move from my comfortable position on the sectional. Vance swallowed a laugh, tossing a look my way that said ‘Nigga, you got a lotta nerve.’
“I DON’T GIVE A FUCK WHERE YOU ARE!” Silas was heard (loudly), but not seen. “I’m in my office! Move your ass on.”
I rose to my feet calmly, shooting Vance a lazy salute before moving past the kitchen and toward the back of the house where Silas’ wing was.
My pulse was normal, nothing out of the ordinary.
I hadn't been afraid of my father since I was eleven.
Everything I did since, I did out of obligatory respect; no more, no less.
Silas had to have known this. I wasn’t exactly putting up a front; I’d never felt the need to.
In a way, I always got the sense that the absence of fear in my interactions with my father was a source of pride for him.
If nothing else, it showed him that he’d successfully raised a man.
Once upon a time, I believe this would’ve been something he felt accomplished for.
However, after stepping into his office and coming face-to-face with his rage-filled eyes, I could see that what was once a source of pride for him was now presenting itself as a problem. One of the cornerstones of control is fear. People who don't fear you cannot be controlled.
Still, you couldn't raise a man and then expect him to not think for himself.
I did a lot of that.
One look at me, and he knew immediately that I wasn’t sorry, and I would die before I apologized for protecting her.
I shut the door behind me, a gesture I did absentmindedly. To me, it was nothing but a closed door. To Silas, however, it was an unspoken declaration that basically said, ‘I ain’t scared of you, man.’
The silence among us felt years long as my father just looked at me, eyes almost unrecognizing, as if he wasn’t sure he knew the person standing in front of him anymore.
His face was like mine, but weathered against the effects of time, older.
I’d gotten everything from my father except for my eyes.
Mine were an unusual shade of brown-gold, which I assumed came from my mother.
All my life, the fact that I was the only one in my family with this color told me that I at least got something from her side; it told me that she existed once upon a time.
Without a word, the crease between Silas’ brows relaxed and he leaned back in his seat, pulling in a long breath before reaching for the glass cabinet behind his head.
“Sit down,” Silas ordered tiredly, pulling out two glasses and an aged bottle of cognac.
“I can stand—”