“Whatever,” she huffed.
Fontaine exhaled. “Why didn’t you tell him?” he asked, his tone softer.
Drea swallowed hard. “Because when he told me he was leaving…” Her voice trembled. “I knew he wouldn’t go if he knew about this.”
Fontaine’s mouth pressed into a hard line.
“He didn’t tell me anything,” she continued, wiping at her face with a bandaged hand. “Just that it was bad and he had to disappear for a while.”
She turned her head and looked at Fontaine, eyes wet.
“So, I made the decision right there. I took his word that he was coming back. That we’d be together when whatever this was passed.” Her lip quivered. “Because he’d just find an excuse to stay if I told him.”
Drea sucked in another breath and tipped her head back against the pillows.
“But now he’s dead anyway.”
There was no question that Messiah had to die.
The problem was the execution. You don’t just fly into New York and take out one of the biggest arms dealers in the country like he’s some low-level runner slipping outside the corner store. That man had his hands in everything, and he’d lined the pockets of too many to ever be easy to reach.
We couldn’t afford to be sloppy.
Not after the baby shower. Not after Slim. Not after Drea. Not with Gunnar asking why his mother was all wrapped up and hurt.
So this had to be airtight. No holes, no loose ends. Which meant two things—looping in The Order and… the Gotham Reapers.
Fontaine’s jaw tightened the second I said CJ’s name.
“We already too mixed in with them niggas.”
I cut my eyes at him. Cash’s office went quiet, the Banks brothers’ eyes ping-ponging between us.
“You’re really doing this right now?” I asked.
He didn’t answer—just gave me that guarded look he got when his insecurity bubbled too close to the surface.
“Alright,” I said, pushing off the edge of the desk and turning fully toward him. “Let’s dead this once and for all, ‘cause I’m tired of you being in your feelings any time his name comes up.”
Fontaine’s eyes narrowed.
“CJ isn’t a threat,” I continued, holding his gaze. “We hooked up a couple times when I was in New York for jobs. That’s it. He’s a friend. Same way Cash and Jelani are friends. Stop holding a grudge over nothing.”
His eyebrow lifted. “Nothing,” he repeated, slowly.
“If we don’t pull CJ’s people in, we walk into the city blind,” I said. “Stop acting like they didn’t come through when we were up there two years ago.”
“She’s right,” Cash said, sparking a blunt.
Fontaine dragged a hand over his beard and leaned back in the chair like he was trying to decide whether he wanted to push an argument.
“And what?” he asked. “The Order is going to help us out of the kindness of their heart?”
I folded my arms across my chest. That was the real issue—working with The Order was like playing chess.
“No,” I said. “But they’ll do it.”
Jelani took the blunt Cash offered him. “How you figure?”
