I didn’t know what it looked like yet. A shelter, a foundation, a program, something. But standing in that hospital room holding my niece’s hand, I decided I was going to figure it out. For Skai. For Shayla. For Khadijah. For Serenity. For the daughters I hadn’t had yet but was already protecting.
I kissed Skai’s forehead and told Bryce I was proud of him and hugged Samaya and walked out of that hospital into the late afternoon sun feeling different than when I walked in. Not heavier. Lighter. Like something I’d been carrying for years had finally been given a name and a direction and a reason.
36
Mekhi
“Fuck you mean, Mateo is dead?!” Zephyr barked from his wheelchair in the living room of the apartment I’d set up for him in Silver Spring. Elevator, wheelchair accessible, close to his physical therapy. He’d been home from the hospital for about a week and his body was adjusting but his mind was still in war mode.
“Saw it in the paper,” I said. “Real estate developer killed in a home invasion. No witnesses. No suspects.”
“You know that was your boy, right?” Zephyr looked at me with that hard stare he’d been wearing since the hospital. “Quest did that shit. He must’ve found out you linked up with Mateo.”
“If Quest knew about that, he would’ve come for us by now. That nigga is home recovering from surgery. He ain’t thinking about us right now.”
“Surgery?” Zephyr laughed but there was nothing funny about it. “What kind of surgery?”
“Some personal shit. The point is he’s laid up. Not making moves.”
“Then that’s when you hit him. Right now. While he ain’t looking. While he can’t fight back. You know the layout of hisestate. You know his security. You know everything about that man’s operation because you helped build it. Hit him now before he gets his strength back and hits us first.”
I looked at my little brother in his wheelchair with his legs that didn’t work and his hands gripping the armrests like he was ready to roll himself into battle. Three months ago we were running operations together, moving product, building Freetown, living like the world couldn’t touch us. Now he was learning how to get himself in and out of a shower without falling and he was telling me to go to war with the most dangerous man in DC.
“I’m not fucking with Quest,” I said.
“What?”
“You heard me. I’m not going at him. He got Mega for us. The man who put you in that chair is dead because of Quest. And we worked out an arrangement to keep washing money through the casino. The revenue is still flowing. We’re still eating. I’m not blowing that up over Mateo Rios, who I barely knew for a month.”
“So what was the point of linking with Mateo in the first place?”
“The point was leverage. And now the leverage is gone because somebody took Mateo off the board. Maybe it was Quest, maybe it wasn’t. Either way, whoever killed him probably did us a favor because that man had cartel ties and the longer we stayed connected to him the deeper we would’ve gotten into some shit we couldn’t climb out of.”
Zephyr stared at me for a long time. His jaw was working and his eyes were burning and I could see him processing what I was saying and rejecting every word of it.
“You done gone soft, boy,” he said. His voice was quiet and the disappointment in it cut deeper than if he’d screamed. “The Mekhi I knew would’ve handled this by now. Would’ve beenin Quest’s living room with a gun before that nigga could get off the couch. But you sitting here talking about revenue and arrangements and truces. That ain’t the brother I grew up with.”
“The brother you grew up with is trying to keep us alive and out of prison. There’s nothing soft about that.”
“Nah. There’s everything soft about it.” He gripped the wheels of his chair and turned himself around with his arms, which were the only part of his body that still worked the way they used to, and rolled toward his bedroom. He stopped in the doorway without turning around. “I can’t walk, Khi. I can’t run, can’t dance, can’t play with my daughter, can’t take a piss standing up. And you telling me to let it go and count money. You do what you want. But don’t ever call yourself my protector again.”
He rolled into his room and closed the door and the sound of that door shutting was louder than any gunshot I’d ever heard.
I sat on the couch and stared at the wall and let that sit with me because I didn’t have a response. He was right and he was wrong at the same time and I didn’t know which one weighed more. The men who actually shot him were already being handled. Keyvon and Jerome, the two Vipers who walked into the casino grand opening and started shooting, were sitting in a federal holding facility in Virginia waiting for trial. They weren’t going to make it to trial. I’d already paid two COs inside that facility to make sure of it. Keyvon would have an accident in the shower. Jerome would have a medical emergency that nobody responded to fast enough. Both within the next week. Clean, quiet, untraceable.
In my mind, the score was settled. Mega was dead. Keyvon and Jerome would be dead soon. Vivica was in prison. The people responsible for Zephyr’s legs were either gone or about to be gone. There was nothing left to avenge. The only thing left to do was rebuild and make money and keep my family together.
But Zephyr didn’t see it that way. Zephyr wanted Quest’s blood because Quest represented the world that took his legs. It didn’t matter that Quest wasn’t the one who pulled the trigger. Quest was the center of the universe that created the chain of events that ended with Zephyr on the floor of a casino in a puddle of his own blood. And for Zephyr, that was enough.
The front door opened and Janelle walked in looking like she’d been crying for hours. Her eyes were swollen, her nose was red, and she was holding an envelope in her hand that she’d crumpled so hard it barely looked like paper anymore.
“They suspended my license,” she said. “Three years. Pending the outcome of the investigation. I can’t practice, I can’t see clients, I can’t do anything. Three years, Mekhi. My entire career is gone.”
I looked at my sister standing in the doorway with her crumpled letter and her ruined mascara and I felt for her. I did. But I also remembered the phone call from Quest telling me what she’d done. Kidnapping Mehar. Chaining her to a ceiling. Using information from their therapy sessions to stalk and terrorize a woman whose only crime was falling in love with the wrong man’s ex.
“That’s the consequence of what you did, Nelle,” I said.
“She filed the complaint, didn’t she? Mehar. She went to the board.”
