Coward.
How had I never seen it before? Alistair looked so much like Enzo and I that it made me sick. Of course, I’d been blinded by distain and his natural inclination for wanting me dead. Alistair had never been around much when Talia, and I had been growing up. I imagined him sitting somewhere in Italy, seething with rage at the fact that his sister was growing up with their mother’s love while he was shunned and given the last name of a man whose ball sack he hadn’t sprung from.
“I’m going to take a walk,” I looked back at Diamond.
“That’s a good idea,” she replied.
Leaving out of the suite, I headed straight for the bar. A walk wasn’t going to cut it, I needed something much stronger. My chest was still feeling tight at the thoughts racing through my mind.
Chapter 23
Diamond
Jesus was staring at me in silent judgement hanging from the wooden cross ofMount Holly Baptist Church. And I was staring back. I hadn’t wanted any of this to happen to my best friend. I never wanted Naomi to fall into of this mob and cartel shit.
Finally, tearing my eyes away from the cross they landed on the pastor who was beginning his sermon. I was sitting on a wooden pew, with Thierry on my left. On my right, Carmen and Paul, Treyanna and Enzo were sitting there. Thierry’s friend and ally Cassidy Torrio had also decided to attend the funeral with us. This felt so wrong. I wanted to run up to that closed solid white casket and scream that this was all some sick dream. That the wrong woman had died in Italy.
“And may she rest in the ever-loving arms of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. For Naomi knew the Lord. She accepted him at an early age…”
I didn’t want to hear any of this and yet, I had to.
I owed Naomi this.
I owed her family this.
My stomach was in knots as I heard the wails of her mother filling my ears. If I’d never told her to come to Italy she would have still…
She would have still been messing with Alistair, I thought.
That thought still didn’t provide the comfort and reassurance I craved. But there was the chance that Naomi would have been alive. Her heart would have been beating. She would have been just a phone call away. Instead, she was nothing more than a pile of bones in a box.
Thierry’s hand gripped my own as the choir began to sing. It was as if a dam burst inside of me, and I started to cry. This was real. This had really happened to our group of friends. One of us was dead and gone and there was nothing I could do to fix it. No amount of money would bring her back to us. Sobs wracked my body and I felt Thierry pull me into his arms to comfort me. His scent and warmth surrounded me. This was the second time that he had been a shoulder for me to cry on during a funeral.
He dropped a kiss on my head and tried to shush me.
“I can’t believe she’s gone,” I whispered to him. “I should have saved her.”
“You didn’t know my psychopathic half-brother was going to use her as bait,” Thierry whispered back.
“I can’t believe that,” I said. “This is my punishment for being…”
“For being a strong woman?” Thierry lifted my head. “You are Tib’s mother. I couldn’t imagine anyone else being that child’s mother. You would fight for him. You would fight for anyone in this room and that included Naomi. She simply got in over her head.”
A sigh filled the silence, but it didn’t help. There was a pressure setting in and it felt like I had the weight of the world on my shoulders. Even when they were lowering Naomi’s white coffin into the hard ground, and a chilly ominous wind came biting at my face, the pressure remained.
Treyanna, Carmen and I stepped forward together and tossed red roses onto our fallen friend’s coffin lid. The roses were so red they looked like droplets of blood kissing the white surface.
Run,I thought.
Run and don’t come back.
Take a deep breath, I sucked in the air. Lifting my head, my eyes came face to face with that of Naomi’s mother.
Maya Carter was starring me down with a righteous indignation that I thought only I was capable of giving off. There were some days I forgot I wasn’t the only person in Atlanta that wielded those type of airs.
I supposed she thought that I was going to break eye contact but I didn’t. If this was what she needed to make her feel better about loosing her youngest daughter then so be it.
Just when I thought the starring contest would never end, her husband pulled her away. I watched them walk, winding through those that were giving them condolences. Trey and Carmen flanked me and joined in watching her go.
