Kadeem walked up beside me, his presence heavy the way it always was, even after all these years of marriage.
“Be honest with me,” he said, his voice low so the staff wouldn’t catch it. “Tell me what’s really going on with this whole Brick Boyz situation. I had to pull you aside and ask this when I got you alone in private.”
I let out a long sigh, watching one of the girls fold a tablecloth from the corner of my eye instead of me looking at my husband directly.
“I want to have your back on this, Zuri,” Kadeem continued. “But if you not telling me the truth, then eventually Kaseem gonna handle things how he see fit anyway, especially after what happened to Zaire in that prison. You can’t keep standing in the way of that and expect it not to cause problems in this family.”
I knew I couldn’t tell him the truth. Not now. Maybe not ever, if I could help it.
“I know how ruthless and dangerous them niggas are,” I said instead, keeping my voice even. “That’s why I never thought it was smart for us to get into business with them in the first place. They are reckless in these streets, Kadeem. The kind of reckless that brings heat down on everybody around them, whether you asked for that heat or not.” I turned to face him now. “That’s why I made you pull out of business with them. As far as this war goes, I’m gonna protect my sons by any means. If that means I gotta get my hands dirty so they can keep theirs clean, then that’s exactly what I’m gonna do.”
Kadeem studied me for a long moment, the kind of look he’d been giving me for thirty years whenever he knew I wasn’t telling him the whole story.
“You know that’s not how this work,” he said. “Men don’t sit around and let their mommas handle their problems for them. We raised Carter men, Zuri. Men who are feared. Men more than capable of putting niggas to rest and still coming out clean on the other side. I think it’s more to this than what you telling me, but I’ll drop it. For now.” He started to walk off, and paused at the doorway. “I will say this though. I think it’d be best if you standdown. Kaseem is the head of this family’s business now, and you need to respect that. Whether you know it or not, undermining him while he’s in position, that’s very disrespectful to everything we built him up to be.”
He told me he was about to go meet with Kaseem because there was something our son needed to speak with him about. He said he’d see me later, and walked out the room.
The second he was gone, I braced myself against the edge of that table, my hands flat against the wood, and let my whole body sink down into one of the dining chairs.
My mind went back to eight months ago.
That was the first time I ever laid eyes on Demon. The head of the Brick Boyz organization.
We’d had decided to be present for the drop that day, Kadeem overseeing the exchange personally because we’d just gotten into business with Brick Boyz and he wanted to see with his own eyes how they operated before he trusted them with anything bigger. I wasn’t even supposed to be there. I’d insisted on coming, told my husband I wanted to see the men we were about to be tangled up with, wanted to look them in their faces and decide for myself if they could be trusted. They were aware we were on a test run and if things continued to flow smoothly, we’d be in permanent business. For months, everything ran perfect from my understanding.
But on the one day that I decided to see how business was going for myself, that’s when I saw him.
When we arrived to the drop, our men were already getting them squared away. He was off to the side, overseeing his own men the same way Kadeem oversaw ours, this young man witha presence that stopped me cold the second my eyes landed on him. I couldn’t explain it in the moment. Couldn’t put a name to the feeling clawing up in my chest. But something in the way he carried himself, something in the shape of his face, the way his jaw set when he was thinking, it hit me like a truck before I even had time to brace myself for it.
I knew. I knew he was my son.
And the tiny birthmark right underneath his right eye helped confirm what I was feeling.
I didn’t have no papers in my hand. Didn’t have no DNA test sitting in front of me. I just knew, the same way a mother knows her own child’s cry in a crowded room full of crying babies.
That was my son.
—
Kaseem was barely two months old when Kadeem had to leave us.
Kadeem’s father passed away, and with that came an entire estate waiting for him back in Jamaica, more than either one of us understood at the time. I decided to stay back home with our new baby. I didn’t want to travel with him, not while I was still breastfeeding, not with everything so fresh and fragile in those first months. On top of that, I didn’t trust anyone else to singlehandedly run our business for us for even a day, so I had to stay back.
What was supposed to be a two week trip turned into a month with no call, no word, nothing. This was the first time I’d been away from my husband, and going without speaking to him. I was worried sick, worried enough that I almost called and reported him missing. I used every resource I hadto check hospitals, checked to make sure he wasn’t sitting in some Jamaican jail cell somewhere, wasn’t lying dead in a ditch nobody had found yet.
Exactly a month to the day he’d been gone, he finally called.
He told me there was more to his father’s estate than he’d initially been told. Told me he’d have to stay longer to sort it all out. Said he was securing our future, that his father had left him more than either of us ever imagined, and that this was what would take us to the next level in this game. He needed me to trust him.
In his absence, I kept our business running, kept calling shots the way I always had, with his right hand man Ben stepping in as my muscle and my support system on the ground. Not even two weeks after that call, Kadeem called again, said in order to fully secure the connection and everything his father left behind, he’d have to stay at least ten months to a year. Said if he didn’t stay and see it through personally, all of it would go to his younger brother instead, a man who’d been thirsty for that kind of come up his whole life.
That crushed me.
I had a newborn baby I was struggling to care for on my own. I needed help. I was up changing diapers at three in the morning, making bottles with one hand while trying to keep my eyes open, doing everything a first time mother should never have to do completely alone. When I told my husband how I was feeling, he told me he’d have Ben and Ben’s wife help however they could, promised me everything was about to change for us for the better.
I didn’t have no choice but to accept it. I could hear in Kadeem’s voice that being away from his family was tearing him up too, even as he tried to stay strong about it. We both agreed that it was for the greater cause, so I just had to suck it up. This was the worst pain I had ever felt in my life. I was dependent on my husband, and had to learn to depend on myself.
Once Kadeem had everything secured, I knew what bringing that pure product back home would mean for us. It wasn’t just drugs he’d inherited. It was his father’s entire empire. He just had to stay long enough to bring all of it back.
