I noticed Oblique looking at me, and I gave him a half smile. I rolled my shoulders and cleared my throat.
I had bigger things to worry about. I pushed that hurt aside and thanked Oblique for even trying. At least now I knew why I hadn’t heard from him this week.
Oblique left my office, and I slumped back in my chair, rubbing at my chin as I tried to figure out my next moves.
Some of my shipments had been stolen, and a few businesses were now nothing more than a pile of ash. Both Sony and Viper were causing me a world of fucking stress that I just didn’t need right now.
On top of that, mothafuckers were after Kairi. Some believed that killing her would be enough and would probably end this war, but how could I do that?
I sighed heavily and rubbed at my temples with my eyes closed. The worst thing she could have done was let them know that she was the person behind it. As Hell’s brother, I had more of a chance to convince them that it wasn’t the truth, but she was a different story. Kairi was no kin to Hell, and so they saw it as either she targeted him for me or that I put her up to it. That was worse than them believing I did it.
The crew wasn’t torn in two until she opened her mouth. God knew I would do anything to take those words back, but I couldn’t. They all heard her.
At this point, I just didn’t know what to do anymore. I was fighting her battles while trying my hardest not to lose my mind on her. Mistake or not, she was the cause of it. My Kairi. My precious Kairi. My wife.
I opened my eyes as I thought of her. Thought about how she made me feel. How I felt the first time I saw her face. The first time I tasted her skin and held her in my arms. To me, she was all that was right in the world, the good in my life I didn’t deserve.
That was what she meant to me. But how could something so precious do something so stupid? Something that ultimately tore my heart out of my chest.
What I couldn’t fathom about this whole thing was that she was there to take me to the hospital with my brother. Did she do all of that knowing what she’d done, or did she really not know?
That was what I was struggling with the most.
She said she didn’t know—not until that night I said it in the kitchen. I wanted to believe her, but why didn’t she tell me about Sony to begin with? If she’d done that, then maybe there wouldn’t have been a need for her to try to poison him, and Hell wouldn’t have been caught up in the mess.
I’d been going back and forth with this since the night my world came crashing down.
I still had Sincere’s funeral coming up soon, and now the streets were in complete chaos. Could I deal with my home being upside down too?
I sat there staring into space, my mind racing.
Maybe it was time for us to talk,I thought, my eyes moving to the den door. I’d seen the toil it had taken on her. Kairiwas looking sick, and that only hurt me more because things shouldn’t be like this.
“Fuck it,” I said, standing to my feet. We needed to talk!
My phone buzzed on the table, and I saw that it was Trini.
“Hey sis, what’s up?”
She paused for some reason. I almost thought she hung up.
“Is Shakur with you?” she asked, but her tone put me on alert. She sounded desperate.
“No, he went to do the pickups,” I let her know.
“Shit!”
Now I was on high alert.
“What?” I questioned. I didn’t like the way she said that.
“One of my homegirls just told me Sony and his crew are heading Shakur’s way.”
“What?!” I was on my feet. Oblique rushed into the room.
He looked at me, waiting for me to take the lead. Sincere had left this shit to me for a reason, and it was time I finally showed them why!
“Get everybody now!” I instructed him as I went to my closet to grab some weapons.
