“I was just stepping out here to call you, nigga. Bring yo ass!” he greeted. Shabu waited for Relic to stroll down the sidewalk and step onto the porch before he inquired, “Why you just pulling up? I told you this morning, Kenn Dog was here.”
Relic brushed a hand down his face to dry it and then lied, “I had business to take care of.”
“You sure? Or are you worried she’s gon’ spazz about you setting her up? You know, since she was fucking with an opp andprobably led the nigga to you. How long you been holding on to that shit?”
The mood shifted, and Relic’s expression grew blank as he tucked both hands inside his pockets while declining to entertain his brother’s badgering. He hadn’t anticipated Shabu, or anyone for that matter, finding out what’d truly gone down last night. His tongue pressed against the back of his teeth to not speak because the less he said, the more Shabu would run his fucking mouth and report whatever else Kennedy had told them.
“You know where you fucked up?” Shabu continued to goad him. “You forgot, Kennedy is a woman at the end of the day. No matter how much she pretends not to, she has feelings, dumb ass. You lucky it’s Whoop she came to because she’s already saying too much.”
“How much did you say?”
Shabu’s face balled at the interrogation. “Nigga, what could I say? I don’t know shit! Yo sneaky ass kept the play under wraps, but it’s cool. The talk I had with Kenn made me feel like I need to watch her anyway.”
“You don’t need to watch a muthafucking thing. Stay out of our business.”
Relic stepped into Shabu’s space once making it clear not to intervene. His left eye twitched, like Judith claimed hers did to warn her of misfortune nearing, and a coiling in his stomach followed, coercing him to snatch the cup of liquor from his brother’s hand. He needed it to palliate his struck nerve from the possibility of a shooter he’d created eliminating the one person who understood the workings of his brain almost as well as himself.
“Nah, I’m gon’ mind your business just like you mind mine. This is the second time.” Shabu held up two fingers as Relic finished the drink in one hard gulp. “That you let a bitch get a pass for shit that should’ve warranted them a death sentence.You’re doing it again. Covering tracks and hiding shit you know you’d be on my fucking head about if I did the same.”
“So, what are you gon’ do about it, huh? Run to Los. Better yet, put a gun in my hand again and make me pull the trigger like you did with Jessica.”
Shabu scoffed at his brother doing what he did best—playing victim in a situation that he’d brought on himself. Relic had done everything in his power to guarantee that Jessica didn’t take the rap for Savvy’s drugging and sexual assault, although he’d known the person responsible and the details surrounding that pivotal night. Shabu had only given his big brother a taste of his own medicine to prove a point. Relic wouldn’t have found out about having a son if he hadn’t.
Shabu hadn’t really intended to hurt Jessica and even gave his brother an unloaded gun, only for Relic to get rid of her in the end. At that recollection, he raised both hands in mock defeat.
“I’m not going to do shit about it, Relic. I rather watch you hang yourself this time,” he foreshadowed. “Welcome to the fold? You brought her in, knowing it’s only one way out for her. We both know it’s coming after that stunt, and that’s on top of the bullshit she hasn’t found out about yet. I don’t understand why you claimed her.”
“Keep your enemies close, your woman closer, and a scorned bitch the closest. That’s why.”
“So, you didn’t mean it? You aren’t bringing her into the fold, and it ain’t that deep with her.”
“Oh, I meant it, one hundred percent. I just would’ve made her jump through more hoops first had I not fucked up that play.”
“Oh yea, you officially lost yo last bit of fucking mind. Get your simple ass off my porch and take your murderer with you.” Shabu opened his door to stick his head inside and shouted, “Aye, Killer Kenn! Yo crazy ass nigga here!”
“Fuck you. This is why I didn’t tell your ass about the tracker or her connection to that nigga.”
“That exact thinking could’ve ended with you dead!” Shabu snapped, knowing that his brother’s plan could’ve backfired. “You know how easy it could’ve been for her to get off on that charge by saying she shot you, thinking you were with the nigga who’d robbed her? She’d be crying on Whoop’s pillow as I planned your funeral, dumb ass.”
Relic didn’t have a comeback, so he went silent while allowing Shabu’s complaint to sink in. The longer he did so, the less logical his moves seemed, and after a while, he realized nothing was logical about them. He’d moved off the thing he loathed most. Emotions.
Kennedy had knocked him off his square and caught him lacking. His biggest distraction had convinced him to save her ass and go against the grain because while he was aligning his pieces into place, she was doing the same and doubling down by weaseling her way into his damn chest through the cracks he’d shown her. Kennedy was pulling out all the stops to win the game...to win him.
“It won’t happen again,” he muttered, knowing in his gut that he’d just told a lie. He clasped a hand at the back of Shabu’s neck to mesh their foreheads before ordering in a whisper, “If I get lost in Kennedy... too fixated and blind to where I miss some shit, save me. Forget everything that I’ve told you and pull the fucking trigger, Shabu.”
“I planned to, but I feel better having permission.”
Relic released him while the thought of that act being carried out immediately began to eat at his insides like an infectious disease. He wanted to renege on it, but then his brother would point out how he was a hypocrite—how he had downplayed and degraded women before he met one who was making him question his own beliefs.
His eyelids fluttered and torso tightened as if Joseph had punched him in it for turning into a sorry excuse of a man by seeing a woman as anything other than a doormat to walk over. The front door opening relieved Relic of the torture of getting lost inside his head.
Kennedy trotted outside with Savvy on her heels, and he gave her a studious sweep of his eyes from head to toe, ensuring that not even a hair was out of place. Those deep irises he revered glowered at him like she was hexing him to drop dead at her pretty feet. A smirk still broke free on his face because, even while pissed off, her close proximity sedated his mind which hadn’t slowed since hearing those gunshots while on the phone with Drish. Relic reached out for Kennedy’s hand and frowned after she recoiled like his touch was poisonous.
“Damn, Kenn Dog! My bro can’t touch you now? The nigga is happy to see you,” Shabu defended with a simper to lighten the mood. His eyes flitted between them, noting the brewing tension before he suggested, “Maybe you can stay the night with Whoop. My bro will pick you up in the morning. It’s late anyway.”
“She doesn’t need to do shit but in get in that fucking car. The doors are unlocked,” Relic stated, never taking his eyes off his pretty but problematic partner.
His patience flew out the window after Kennedy gave him an insolent reminder that she didn’t respond to being pacified like most women. Kennedy required tough love, a hard dick, and a nigga built as strong as tempered steel to endure her truculent personality and slick tongue. Shabu, nor anyone else, could give Relic an instruction manual on what belonged to him. No one understood Kennedy in the manner that he did.
