“When he was here,” I said, staring down at her. “What did he say to Tulane about me?” Spelman sighed and looked away. “Tell me what he said, Spelman.”
Spelman rubbed her hands against her thighs, then bit into her bottom lip. “He said he doesn’t want you around,” she said. “That you need to make your jewelry and stop calling him.”
“When did he say that?”
“Last night when he dropped off your case,” she answered. “He said that he can’t do what he needs to do if he’s worried about you.”
“Oh yeah?” I laughed as I pulled out my phone. I dialed Amethyst’s number, and, as usual, it rang until the voicemail picked up. His message had changed to just his name and number, and I waited for the beep. “You got your wish, Amethyst Stone. This will be my last time calling you.” I hung up the phone and dropped it next to Spelman. “I’ll be in my room, working onmy jewels and shit.” I lifted the case, tapped it twice, and turned to leave.
“Yale?”
“Save it, Spelman,” I said as I walked away. “I’m done caring. It’s been two months. I’m done begging a man to love me!”
Chapter thirty-five
Amethyst
“Alright, let me figure this shit out.” I dropped the files on my desk and then sat down. I didn’t have plans to be here longer than I needed to be. Moving nonstop was the only way I was keeping my fucking head. It’d been two months since I’d stepped into this house. Two fucking months since that shit with Ta’lon went down. And four months since I’d sent Yale away. I opened my laptop and immediately went to work.
I hadn’t found out shit in the past few months that could point me in the direction of who the fuck was running the Kilmore operation for real. Piecing together the small parts was easy. Luther being dead had niggas making moves, and the loyalty they thought they had started flipping. Grant wasn’t the clean nigga I thought he was, which still made me pause because how was this nigga this dirty, and I never knew?
The doorbell rang, and without moving from my seat, I tapped in the code to unlock my front door and kept working. Morning’shum echoed through the quiet as he made his way to my office. I looked up when he pushed the door open and walked into the room. His face was twisted in annoyance, and I went back to working. Morning was always annoying by something or someone.
“You look like hell,” he said as he set his briefcase on my desk and took a seat. I nodded but didn’t stop reading the file I was given earlier. Having friends in high places worked in my favor. “You got the file from Gift?”
“Yeah.” I nodded as I turned the page. “I wasn’t expecting this.”
“Me either,” Morning agreed. The sound of him typing at his computer made me lift my head, and I saw him working on his laptop. “I’m not surprised, especially since Pyrite snatched up Javien.”
“That nigga talking?” I asked, and Morning shook his head.
“Nah,” he denied. “But that didn’t stop us from searching his shit. Nigga had about a hundred videos in a stash in the closet.”
“Videos?” I questioned. “What kind of videos?” I sat back and watched Morning.
“Shit, I didn’t need to see,” he answered, shaking his head. “Every video has two or three sessions on it. Shit turned my stomach so bad. Gift and Purpose are in the process of watching them.”
“Why?”
“Purpose is going to turn them over to her boss once she’s finished,” he explained with a shrug. “From what she told me, there were quite a few of them with missing girls in them.”
“When you say girls?”
“Exactly what I said,” he clarified, and I felt myself getting sick. “As young as five or six. Gift said he watched one that was so brutal, he damn near passed out. It took him a few days to get back to his normal self, and even now, he still has momentswhen he zones out and swears he can still hear the person yelling for help.”
I wasn’t one of them niggas that tried to pretend that I didn’t have a conscious. When shit wasn’t right, I let it be known. I had no problem showing my feelings; I cried plenty of times in front of all my boys and in Yale’s lap.
I wiped my hand over my mouth and shook my head. “He liked little girls?”
“Yeah,” Morning answered with a single nod. “Apparently, he and a few other niggas, including Grant, had a whole underground business they were a part of.”
“Any idea who was in charge?” I sat forward and rested my elbows on my desk. “Because I know the Kilmores weren’t running the shit like we originally thought.”
“That’s why I’m here.” He set his computer on the desk, then turned it around so I could see what he was looking at. “This nigga right here,” he said as he tapped the screen. “His face keeps popping up. I’ve already got some people looking into it, but I’m getting impatient as fuck. Who is this nigga?”
I stared at the screen, trying to figure out how I’d seen this nigga before, but was coming up blank. I knew his face; I just couldn’t place him.
“He looks familiar,” I said, and Morning grunted. “How long have you been looking?”
