“You think so?” she asked with a smile. “You think for one second that Quincy doesn’t know where she is? That he hasn’t been watching her for the last month and a half, just biding his time before he snatches her up and makes her life a living hell?”
“He can’t touch her.”
“He can!” she yelled. Her body shook so hard that the chains that were holding her arms rattled. “He can and he will as soon as he gets the green light! He’s going to snatch her up because he fucking can, and they want to see everybody connected to y’all suffer.”
“Why?” I was holding on to my temper by a fucking thread, but I knew I had to keep my cool. The thought of Quincy getting to Yale was never the endgame for me. I wanted her safe until I could do what the fuck I needed to do, and that was kill whoever the fuck was Grant’s boss. Now it looked like somebody was pulling Quincy’s strings, too.
“Collateral damage,” she answered with a laugh. “Your involvement was because niggas couldn’t mind their fucking business. And by niggas, I mean you. If you had never fallen for Yale, you wouldn’t be involved.”
“The fuck does Yale have to do with this?” I stood. “And don’t tell me it’s because of that fucking accident that involved Xavier,because that shit was in motion well before I was involved. Grant set that shit.”
“No, he didn’t,” she lazily sang. “He was just the fall boy.”
“Fall boy for who?”
“Think, Amethyst,” she taunted me. “Who has been at the center of all this? Who has moved through rooms unnoticed. Made business moves with all cash and no credit?”
The warehouse door opened, and Xia walked into the room. She looked from me to Ta’lon, then stepped aside.
“I was wondering when you were going to show up,” Ta’lon laughed, then slowly lowered off her tippy toes to let her arms bear her weight. “I knew they were going to send you in there the moment I was dropped on that hard ass concrete floor.”
Corinthians walked into the room; her straight razor moved through her fingers with finesse. Her steps were smooth, almost like she walked on air. Shoulder square, head held high, eyes full of fire. There were times I forgot that she was a DeCorte and what she was capable of because she hardly ever stepped into this role. But now, seeing her, knowing that her switch had flipped and she was in killer mode, made me appreciate the luxury of forgetting. Each of the DeCortes had a way with killing. The men were quick, in and out, while the women were calculated and almost barbaric with their tactics. They thought over their torture methods and studied the person they were going to kill. They turned off their humanity each time and felt no remorse for the person they were dealing with.
“Tell them what they want to know, Ta’lon,” Corinthians said as she approached her. “If you do, I’ll make this quick. No pain.”
“You know better than that,” Ta’lon replied. “I’d rather die by your hands than answer anything. So, kill me.”
“If I kill her, whatever you want to know dies with her,” Corinthians said, looking at me.
“Will she talk?” I asked her even though I knew the answer already. Ta’lon was only going to tell me so much before she started talking in circles. If I wanted answers, I was going to have to go after Quincy.
“No,” Corinthians answered. “What she said was the most you’d ever get out of her.”
“Why?”
Corinthians made quick work of slicing Ta’lon’s throat. She didn’t hesitate or look as if she regretted it. She pulled Ta’lon’s head back; her actions opened her wound, and Corinthians put her hand into the opening and pulled out her hyoid bone, leaving it hanging.
“Mondai and Morning are working their magic and getting your paperwork pushed through the system. Give them a few days, and they should be in contact about Xaire,” I said to Xia.
“They have until tonight, or that little boy will magically be discharged from the hospital, and there will be no records of him ever being there,” she said, then walked out of the room.
I walked to my car, not giving a fuck about the rain beating down on me. I needed to get word to Morning that Xia was about to flex her fucking power before she did it. After I unlocked my car, got in, and started it, I waited for the phone to connect to Bluetooth.
“Yeah?” Morning answered.
“Where are you?” I put my car in drive and headed toward the highway. The warehouse was off in the cuts, damn near twenty minutes from the highway in the middle of nowhere.
“On my way back to my office,” he replied. “What do you need?” I explained to him what happened at the warehouse and Xia’s parting words. “I figured her patience was thin. Xaire is already being processed in the system; her pulling strings isn’t going to work in her favor.”
“This is Xia St. Thomas we are talking about,” I said as I turned onto another dirt road. “She will kill anybody who gets in her fucking way before she lets Xaire stay another night in that hospital. I can only hope that Xayne can calm her down, but that nigga is damn near at her level of anger right now.”
“Where the fuck is Xion since he’s the fucking cause of this damn shit?” Morning questioned.
“No clue,” I replied, then kissed my teeth. “Nobody has seen him since he left the hotel.”
“That nigga is on my list,” he grunted. “Xia and Xayne better have a good fucking life insurance policy on that nigga because when I get my hands on him, I’ma do him in like they should have years ago.”
“Ain’t no doubt that they are going to drag him,” I laughed as I drove. “They are splitting their time right now between making sure Xoey is good and Xaire. I doubt Xia’s had more than an hour of sleep each night.”
