In the middle of it, I saw Saint step forward to finish a man behind a shelf. I also saw a Crown shooter come out from a side room with his gun already raised. He was behind Saint, close enough to put the barrel to the back of his head.
Saint didn’t see him, but I did.
I fired, and my round hit the shooter in the face. His gun went off into the ceiling. Dust rained down. Saint spun and finished him off.
He looked at me for half a second. “Good looking.”
“Pay attention, nigga.”
“That’s all of ’em,” Big A said, coming up from behind. “Let’s load this shit and get the fuck out of here.”
We grabbed product and guns, filled the duffels, dragged crates to the back, and loaded the van until there wasn’t room for anything else.
Then I left my calling card in the doorway, a black king chess piece.
SINCERE BELLAMY
Pulling up to my parents’ house, I killed the engine, sat there for a second, and tried to calm down before I got out. I had been pissed with my mom since my cousin’s birthday party, so this conversation I was walking into was overdue.
My father was in the den when I walked in, posted up in his usual chair with a low lamp on beside him and the television on the news cycle. He looked up over his glasses when I stepped through the doorway. “Hey, Son.”
I nodded once. “What’s up, Pop?”
He looked at me with a knowing smirk. “Your mother’s in her office.”
I chuckled. “That obvious?”
He gave me a dry look. “She told me what happened.” Then he picked his glass up from the side table. “Try not to tear into her too much. I have to deal with the after math when you leave.”
I scoffed with a laugh. “I’ll do my best.”
I left him in the den and walked through the house I’d known all my life. It was big and carefully put together. Everything in that house had intention. Every piece of art, rug, and chair my mother had overseen herself. She demanded excellence,polish, and composure. She had raised me to be discerning and impossible to shake. Which was exactly why I had a problem with what she’d done.
When I got to her office, I knocked once before opening the door.
She looked up from behind her desk, and the pause that crossed her face was subtle but there. She hadn’t expected me, and she probably wasn’t eager to see me either. We hadn’t spoken since I checked her at my cousin’s birthday party. I’d meant every word I said then, and judging by the tension that had settled between us since, she knew it.
“Sincere,” she said.
“Ma.”
Her office smelled like the candle she was burning and whatever tea she’d been drinking. Her desk was neat. Her laptop was open. A legal pad sat beside it.
She sat back in her chair, composed as ever, but I knew my mother well enough to see the reluctance under it.
“You’re here unexpectedly,” she said.
“I needed to speak with you.”
She gestured toward the chair in front of her desk. “Then sit.”
I took the seat across from her as she folded her hands on top of the desk and waited.
“You are never to disrespect Rhythm like that again.”
Her eyes rolled as she blew a nonchalant breath. “Sincere—”
“What you did was out of line.”
