He could have died for me though and was willing to kill for me.
I wanted Asante in my life for as long as I could have him. If being honest was the best way to keep him safe in the meantime, then that was what I needed to do.
I sat up when he entered the room, a short glass of brown liquor in one hand and the bottle in the other. He sat beside me on the couch, set his bottle on the coffee table and collapsed backward. He took a long sip from his glass, then exhaled with eyes closed. We sat in silence for a little.
It was Asante who broke it. He took another sip from his glass and let his head lull to the side so he could look at me.
“You ready to talk?” he asked.
“Yeah. I’m ready.” I nodded once.
“Alright.” He tilted his head back to finish his drink off. Then, he exhaled again, sat up and set the empty glass on the coffee table before turning in toward me. “Let’s hear it.”
“Alright.” I leaned forward and clasped my hands together.
My eyes stayed focused on them instead of Asante even though I was sure he was staring at me.
“You know my family doesn’t really just deal with art right?”
“I had my suspicions,” he admitted.
“Alright. Well I’m confirming them. We sell stuff but it isn’t art.”
“So, drugs?"
“Passports.” I sat up and met his gaze.
“Passports?” he repeated. “And there’s a market big enough for your entire family to live well off of that.” He didn’t paused before he slid into the next thought, one after the other the words falling out before he could filter them. “Or you’re working with people who will pay whatever to get them because they’re doing illegal shit. That’s what it is, right? You uh, you make passports to help people get smuggled in and out of the country?”
“Among other things,” I nodded once.
Asante nodded too. Then, he plucked up his bottle and refilled his glass.
“You all do that?”
“Yeah. It’s a family business. We’ve done it for generations.”
“So what was up with the guy with the gun to your head, Bishop? You fuck up his passport or what?”
“I head my family’s security. I don’t actually make the passports, but no. He uh, he was looking for us because we had an altercation with his brother.”
“What kind of altercation?”
“The kind that ended with him dead.” I swallowed. “Look, I want to be honest with you so I’m asking you to not ask me anything that you don’t want a real answer to,” I said carefully. “I care about you and maybe I shouldn’t be telling you all of my family’s deep dark secrets but I respect you and I feel like you’re worth this even if it makes you tuck tail and block me and ban my family from your club.”
“That’s what you think I’m going to do?” Asante scoffed. “I was ready to kill a civilian for you tonight, Bishop because the thought of something happening to you was scarier than looking myself in the face and knowing I’d taken a life,” he said. I just stared at him unsure of what to say to that. “So, the dude I put to sleep… Your family is going to kill him too, right?”
I didn’t hesitate. I nodded.
“Yeah.”
“Alright.” He tilted his head back and finished his drink off. Then he tossed it on to the coffee table.
“Where’s your head?”
“I don’t know,” Asante admitted. “I know that I care about you and that I’d kill for you.”
I nodded at that. “I care about you too. I want you to know that. I want you to know that I didn’t go to my brothers and ask for their blessing to tell you this. I’m just doing it because it feels right and because I trust you not to get me or my family hemmed up or killed.”
