Instead of beating herself up about it, she tossed her purse on his bed and then collected the baggie, blade, and dollar bill from his table. She swept the drugs in her palm with a finger andthen tossed the other articles inside the trash bin on the way to the bathroom. Kennedy made sure he wouldn’t get his hands on those drugs again—turning on the sink water before shaking the contents in her hand down the drain. Relief consumed her but then evaporated just as quickly after recalling that Relic carried that same substance in his possession by the brick load.
Before that thought could give her heart palpitations, ringing from the room caused her to pause, tuning into the somewhat familiar sound until she realized that it was her prepaid phone. Kennedy rushed into the room to yank her purse off the bed, shuffling through its contents before she found the device to power down before Relic caught wind of it. An unknown number flashing across the screen that could only belong to either one of two people sidetracked her initial task.
Against her better judgement, she breathed through a sudden bout of nausea before answering the call.
“Hello?”
“Kennedy?” The voice sounded unsure of whether it was her on the line, but she clocked his immediately.
“Hey, Sarge. What’s going on?”
“Nothing much. Sonny gave me your number. I hope you don’t mind.”
“No, you’re fine,” she replied as she hurried into the bathroom and shut the door.
“Good. I’m glad you picked up ‘cause I want to chop it up with you about a few things I didn’t say that night at the lounge. Zeke is my brother, but he was—”
“Annoyed by my questions,” she interjected. “Yea, I noticed.”
“No. He was lying his ass off, Kennedy.”
Sarge’s revision on her assumption stole the air out of the room, and her breathing shallowed before she trudged to the wall, resting her back against it to remain upright.
“I’m listening.”
“Now, this ain’t me throwing Zeke under the bus, but the fact he didn’t just tell the truth after all this time didn’t make sense. For one, I can’t say for certain if Koda stepped to Zeke, but he did press me about if I’d seen anything iffy between y’all. I had mentioned it to Zeke, but of course, he denied it back then.”
“So, he did know my brother found out?”
“I wouldn’t quite say that, but he knew Koda had his suspicions. Second, your brother had a girl he used to fuck with back then. Some young bitch fresh on the strip scene. Koda fucked around with her for over a year before he got word, she’d lied about her age. She even claimed she was pregnant by him, but with her being a stripper—”
“Hold up.” Kennedy held out a palm as if Sarge could see her. Her eyes shut as she grappled with processing the overwhelming information. “Koda had a baby? Now, that, I find hard to believe, especially since he didn’t tell me.”
“I’m not sure about the details because Koda was best friends with Zeke, not me. They held each other’s secrets. I only know what she told him, and he said he wasn’t about to claim a child without a blood test.”
“So, why didn’t they get one?”
“My assumption is he died before they got the chance to, but I’m not one hundred percent sure. She disappeared after that. I just wanted to give you the info I had because I can tell, you haven’t found peace with the situation yet.”
“So, this girl just vanished? Do you know her name?” she pressed, refusing to believe Sarge was clueless outside of the breadcrumbs he was feeding her.
“I only had her strip club name that I can’t recall, but Zeke might. Hit him up or not, that’s your call. Honestly, I have a feeling he’s going to give you the runaround. When it comes to talking about what happened to Koda, he shuts down. When Ithink about it, maybe your brother did say something about y’all, and that’s why Zeke told me not to go to Koda’s party that night.”
“What?” Kennedy had heard him, but she refused to believe the words that’d come out of his mouth.
“You were supposed to come but then Koda told you not to, right? That’s because Zeke was coming, but then he pulled out and told me not to go either.”
“Thank you for letting me know that, Sarge. I have to go.”
Kennedy ended the call before he could say more and powered off her phone. Her body slid down the wall until she was balled up with her thighs pressed to her chest and her chin rested on her knees. A boulder clogged her throat on a mission to suffocate her, while her vision skewed like she was seeing life through a kaleidoscope. In a sense, she was, because nothing appeared the same.
Everything she once knew and believed had warped and blunted into aching memories she would rather erase. Ignorance was bliss, and Kennedy lost hers from the very moment Koda had died, but she wished she’d lost it well before then. If she had, she would’ve picked up on dating an enemy disguised as her first love.
The worst-case scenario that’d popped into her head when Tekken mentioned Koda knowing she and Ezekiel had a thing; she didn’t want to fathom as true. Ezekiel was a best friend and brother to Koda. If he had Koda set up so he couldn’t be cut out of the money rolling in, then a deep-seated truth that’d ruin her rested beneath it. She was just as blameworthy as him because she was the catalyst that’d ignited the beef. Her brother had lost his life over a naive decision she’d made.
Kennedy tipped back her head—her eyes aimed at the ceiling while warm tears rolled into her ears, muffling the sound around her. Guilt cocooned her to where she could wither and die inside of it once she thought about Tekken and the life she’d stolenfrom him. The intense pressure in her chest exacerbated, and she clutched it at the same time that the bathroom door flung open, invading her privacy. Her bleary vision drifted up as Relic waltzed in, stopping dead in his tracks to assess the situation.
“You’re crying,” he stated, making her eyes roll after he pointed out the obvious. “Tell me what’s wrong.”
