Chapter 30 #2
“I didn’t ask you what you can fuckin’ do.
I said sit down.” Silas motioned toward the chair opposite the front of his desk.
Evidently he was about to lecture me Principals office-style—except with cognac.
As I reached for the seat, Silas reached for the door of the miniature refrigerator under his desk, pulling out a bowl of ice chunks.
He poured the several-year-old brown liquor into a glass for me before pouring one for himself, pouring a little more liberally into his own glass.
“You been smoking weed with Vance?” he asked.
I reached for the glass of cognac in front of me, holding it to allow some of the ice to melt a little. “A little.”
“So you good and relaxed, huh?”
“You could say that.”
“So let’s have a talk.” Silas took a drink and sighed. “You a very good liar, Kain.”
“You think so?” I posited, downing some of the alcohol in my glass.
My father nodded. “And stone cold, too.”
“Hmm,” I considered.
“Yeah.” Silas leaned back in his seat and eyed me carefully before he concluded, “It was you.”
I only stared back.
“You let me kill Sabrina, thinking she was the one who tipped Caplan off to the hit on him last spring, but it was you. Sabrina had kids, Kain.”
“Sabrina also told you a dozen times that it wasn’t her before you shot her.”
Silas slammed his glass on the desk, his anger getting the best of him. “Yeah, but it was either her or you, and at the time, I thought ain’t no way. Not my son.”
“You didn’t have to kill her. That’s on you, not me,” I replied, although deep down I did take responsibility for Sabrina’s death.
When I told Lauren about the planned hit on her father last spring, Sabrina, a security guard at the courthouse, was the person who Silas ultimately zeroed in on as the rat.
I never told Lauren because I didn’t want her to carry the guilt that I carried, knowing four kids lost their mother over some shit I did.
“That’s what we do around here, Kain,” Silas exclaimed. “We kill snitches.”
The way he looked at me as he said that last word was enough for me to know he was branding me as such in his mind.
In spite of myself, I laughed a little, taking a drink before replying, “Sometimes.”
“The fuck is that supposed to mean?”
“Sometimes we just kill mothers with kids—like Sabrina. Hell, sometimes we even kill their kids and then kill them for feelin’ some type of way about it,” I alluded to Laz and Rochelle.
“Sometimes we even try to kill young girls for no other reason than sending cautionary messages to their fathers.”
A flash of understanding crossed my father’s features. “Ahh, now we gettin’ to the root of the issue—that girl. Caplan’s daughter.”
“My girlfriend,” I unreservedly claimed her.
Silas nodded and unsurprisingly reduced her to, “Pussy.”
The word clamored through his teeth insultingly, like a bark.
“I raised you for eighteen years and handed over every penny I have to you! And for that, you spit in my face in the name of pussy!” Silas poured himself another drink, his hands slightly shaking while he tried to keep the rage bubbling within him under control.
“Kain, you done lost your goddamn mind!”
“You lost yours first.”
“The fuck did you just say to me?”
“You put out a bounty for a nineteen-year-old girl! As harmless as they come, too. And for what? Because the state is taking you to trial for a case you’re gonna beat anyway? At this rate, you wanna kill her just to say you did. For sport! You sick ass mothafuc—”
“Watch your fuckin’ mouth.” He got parental on me, adding in a less than parental threat, “Don’t let that alcohol get you bodied.
And you right. I might’ve wanted her just so I could wipe that smug ass look off of that nigga Joshua Caplan’s face.
” My father took a drink before concluding, “But now I want her ‘cause she knows too fuckin’ much.”
“Which is what exactly?”
“You tell me, Kain.” Silas looked at me expectantly.
“You the one that’s been shackin’ up with her.
Y’all two are real close, huh? You’ve probably had her all up in my house, seein’ God only knows.
All I know is that a young nigga like you has a face like that lookin’ up at him from his dick, and he’ll say just about anything. ”
I didn’t bother denying that Lauren knew a lot.
The fact of the matter was that she did know too much, and even if she didn’t, Silas would still want her dead based on the possibility she might.
An argument would be futile. Nothing had changed, Silas still wanted her dead. Now even more than he did before.
“And don’t think I don’t have somethin’ for your ass, too, Kain.
Caplan’s daughter is your girl, I get it.
You not tryna have your girl out here unprotected, so it only makes sense that you been blockin’ her bounty.
I could almost overlook that shit. But that shit with the hit you ruined last spring?
Nah, that was wasted time and money. And I ain’t raised no rats.
If not for you bein’ my son, I could smoke you right now for what you done.
But I got somethin’ else for your ass. Maybe even worse than death. ”
Above all else, this only made me curious. What could be worse than death? So I asked.
Silas stirred the ice in his cup, taking his time with his response as he downed his final drink. When my father’s eyes drew up from the remnants of the brown liquor in his glass, he made me a promise.
“I’m gonna make you watch her die.”