“For you?” he said. “Yeah. I’d do that.”
I lay my head back on his chest and closed my eyes and felt his heartbeat under my ear and his hand on my back and for the first time in my life I let myself imagine something I’d never let myself imagine before. A baby with his eyes and my mouth and a life that didn’t require a switchblade or a throne or a cage. Just a family. Just us.
I fell asleep holding onto that image with both hands.
11
Quest
Shortly after she fell asleep Prime called me to give me an update.
“I found the warehouse,” he said. “Thad’s here and your girl did a number on his ass. But, Janelle ain’t here.”
I sat on the edge of the couch in the living room with the phone pressed to my ear and let that settle. Janelle was gone. Part of me had expected it. Mehar said she left her on the floor and didn’t know if she was breathing, which meant she hadn’t confirmed the kill, which meant there was always a chance Janelle woke up and crawled out of there. But she didn’t crawl out on her own. Not with a chain to the skull. Somebody came and got her.
Mekhi left Justice’s place an hour before I picked Mehar up. He probably got to her first. Found Janelle unconscious on the floor with a concussion. Found Thad dead next to her. He’ll probably take her into hiding from me, because this shit wasn’t over. I was putting an end to her pathetic life for kidnapping my girl.
“Handle Thad,” I said. “Clean the scene. And then I need you to set it up so the body gets discovered somewhere public.Kacey’s been looking for him for months. Her kids deserve to know their father is dead so she can stop searching.”
“You want me to stage it?”
“Make it look like something unrelated. Just make sure it’s findable and make sure nothing traces back to Mehar or the warehouse.”
“Aight. I got you.”
“Thanks, bro.”
I hung up and walked down the hall toward the bedroom. The door was cracked open and I could see Mehar on the bed, face down, one arm hanging off the side, my t-shirt twisted up around her waist. She was snoring. Not light, delicate snoring. Full, deep, open-mouthed snoring that sounded like a woman who had emptied herself of everything she had and her body had simply shut down to recover.
I leaned against the doorframe and watched her for a minute. She was passed out, mouth ajar. She looked so peaceful and pretty but damn it if baby girl didn’t sound like a grizzly bear. I don’t blame her though. She’d been through a lot. It’s a wonder she was able to sleep at all.
That’s how I know she felt safe with me. After all of that she was able to sleep soundly because she knew I was protecting her and I swore to myself not to ever let her down. I would tie any loose end even if it meant unraveling decades of a friendship. That’s just how much I loved her.
I closed the bedroom door quietly and went back to the living room. Sat in the dark with my phone in my hand and the house silent around me except for the faint sound of her snoring down the hall. I opened the browser and searched for urologists in the Virginia area that did vasectomy reversals. Found a practice in McLean with good reviews and an online booking system. I scheduled a consultation for next week, filled out the intake form with my information, and submitted it. The decision had alreadybeen made. She asked me if I wanted kids and I said yes and the rest was logistics.
I was closing the browser when my phone rang with Mekhi’s name flashing.
I answered because avoiding him wasn’t going to make this conversation go away and I’d rather have it now while Mehar was asleep than tomorrow when she could hear me.
“What did you do to my sister, Quest?” His voice was raw and tight and I could hear hospital sounds in the background, a PA system, someone being paged, the beep of machines.
“I didn’t do anything to your sister. Mehar did. And your sister is lucky Mehar didn’t finish the job.”
“She’s got a concussion. They’re keeping her overnight for observation. She’s got a gash on the back of her head that took eleven stitches to close. “You call that lucky?”
“I call that significantly better than what she did to Mehar. And better than what I’m gonna do. Your sister kidnapped my girl, Mekhi. Drugged her in a parking garage, threw her in a trunk, chained her to a ceiling, and left her hanging there for over a day. So yeah, a concussion and eleven stitches? That’s a gift. That’s mercy. That’s Mehar’s arms being too tired to swing a second time.”
Silence on the other end.I could hear him breathing, heavy and uneven, and I could hear the war happening inside him because I knew this man better than I knew most of my own family. He knew that Janelle was wrong but he couldn’t admit it. I get it. It’s a man’s first inclination to protect his family even if they were in the wrong. But I didn’t give a fuck. My first inclination was to protect my woman.
“She’s still my sister,” he said.
“And Mehar is still mine.”
“So that’s what this is now? You choosing some girl you’ve known for a few months over twenty years of brotherhood?”
“Your sister chose this, not me. Don’t put this on me, nigga. Your sister created this situation and the consequences are hers.”
“And what are the consequences, Q? What are you planning to do?”
