Page 10 of Forced Matrimony With An Unhinged Menace 4

I took a breath.

“Cause she told him she was his mother,” I said. “She looked this nigga straight in his face. Said she had proof, some letter he sent her or some bullshit. Said she’d been carrying this secret for all these years. At first I thought she was selling him lies to get the nigga to stand down, but I don’t know. The shit ain’t been sitting right since I heard it come out her mouth. My gut is nagging me on this one.”

My father went completely still.

Not angry yet. Not yelling. Just still, the kind of still that scared me more than if he’d started swinging on somebody right there in that driveway. His eyes stayed locked on mine, waiting, like part of him was hoping I’d tell him I was lying, that this was some kind of sick joke.

“I don’t know if it’s true,” I said, keeping my voice even, needing him to understand that piece of it. “I don’t know if that was really her truth coming out, or if she was playing some kind of angle trying to save all our lives in that moment. I heard what she said with my own ears, Pops, but I don’t know what’s real right now. All I know is Demon didn’t believe her either. He grabbed her, put a gun to her head, used her as a shield to get out that warehouse before we could stop him. His men stayed behind to finish us off. We had to trick the niggas here and that’s who’s laid out right there.” I said pointing to the dead bodies in our driveway.

My father’s hands were shaking now, just slightly, barely noticeable unless you knew him the way I did.

“How many years?” he said, more to himself than to me, his voice barely above a whisper. “I’ve never been away from Zuri more than a day or two. Other than….” his voice trailed off as he thought long and hard on something.

Nobody said nothing. Zaire looked down at the ground. Namier ran his hand over his face, still shaken from everything that just happened minutes earlier, now watching our father absorb a second gut punch on top of the first.

“Did she cheat on me?” my father said, and it wasn’t really a question, more like he was trying the words out in his mouth to see if they’d fit, to see if he could stomach saying it out loud. “She’s been acting different since the day she laid eyes on Demon and ended the business arrangement we had with him. Even that shit was weird to me, but I ain’t question her. About Twenty-eight years ago I had to leave her for nearly a year. I know damn well she didn’t let some nigga put a baby in her.

Either she made that shit up, or she really cheated on me while I was securing our future. How old is that nigga Demon?” My father asked loud and demanding.

“I don’t know the details, Pops,” I said. “I only know what I heard today. And right now, whatever happened all them years ago, that ain’t the priority. Mom’s out there with a nigga at war with this whole family, a nigga who might not even believe she’s telling the truth about who she is to him. We need to move. We need to find her before Demon does something to her that he can’t take back.”

Zaire had walked over to the truck we rode here in, and came back with his phone. “That nigga birthday is September 3rd, 1998. So he’s 27 now.” my brother said.

My father stood there for a long moment, his eyes had gone somewhere far off, somewhere none of us could follow him to. I could see the war happening behind his eyes, the pain of what had just been told to him. He was fighting against the urgency of what needed to happen next.

Then something in him hardened. He immediately snapped back into focus.

“You’re right,” he said, his voice steady again, cold now, all business. “We deal with the rest of this later. Right now, I want every single resource this family got pointed at finding my wife. Every connect, every eye we got on the streets, every camera, everything! I don’t care what it costs. I don’t care who we gotta pay, threaten, or bury to get information. I want her found tonight.”

“Yes sir,” I said.

“And Kaseem.” He looked at me hard, something cold and final settling into his face. “When we find her, and we will find her, don’t nobody touch that boy until I get my hands on him myself. I got questions only he can answer. And then, depending on what I hear, we gonna decide together what happens to him next.”

He turned and walked back toward his car without waiting on a response, already pulling his phone out, already dialing somebody, moving like a man who’d just learned how to compartmentalize a wound deep enough to kill a lesser man, cause right now, saving his wife mattered more than processing the fact that she’d possibly broken something in their marriage that might never fully heal.

All I could think was that there was no way possible that fuck nigga could be related to me at all. This shit was fucked up.

And as soon as I snapped out of this, I rushed to my front door to see where my wife was and if she was okay. Sam stopped me before I could go in and told me where he’d sent her to. I had to grab my phone and call her. I didn’t know how I would break it to her that I’d have to cancel dinner tonight. But damn.

—

“Take me straight to that trap where that bitch at,” I told Zaire.

He nodded once, didn’t ask no questions, just threw the car in gear and pulled off fast enough that I felt my body press back into the seat. I looked in the side mirror as we cleared the driveway, watching Mars and the rest of our people already working, moving them bodies, cleaning up everything that had just happened in front of my house. They did that shit like it was nothing more than a mess that needed handling before the sun came up.

I pulled my phone out and texted my head of security, then I told him that every post on the compound needed to be locked down tight, heavy coverage, no exceptions, effective immediately and until further notice. They understood that if anybody crossed the line and come looking for a problem, to drop they ass on sight. My thumb was still shaking a little typing it out. Niggas just ain’t know how evil a nigga like me could get, but they were about to see.

After I got all that settled, I called Tatti.

She picked up on the second ring, her voice already cracking before she even got a full sentence out.

“Kaseem! Are you okay?” I could clearly hear the panic in her voice.

“Yeah,” I said, forcing my voice to stay level even though everything in me was still wound up tight from that driveway. “I’m good. I wasn’t able to get to my phone.” I paused, hating myself a little for what I was about to say next. “You good? Did you make it to your people house safely? And I got some bad news. Don’t be mad at me, okay?”

“Don’t lie to me saying you couldn’t get to the phone,” she snapped, her fear was coming out sideways as anger, exactly the way it always did with her. “I know something’s going on, especially at our home. Are you hurt? Were you there just now? Did you get hit? What am I supposed to be mad about right now? I’m sitting here shaking like crazy and I can’t even leave this house to get to you cause of yo damn security keeping me locked down.”

“Stay right there,” I said, cutting her off gentle but firm. “And I mean it, don’t move. You don’t need to get to me right now. All you need to do is sit down! When things cool down, I’m gonna send for you myself.” I rubbed my hand down my face, exhausted all the way to my bones. “I know you crashing out right now, and I hate that I gotta hit you with this on top of everything else. But, I was just about to break the news and tell you that I gotta reschedule our dinner plans tonight but I promise to make it up to you.”