Page 2 of Forced Matrimony With An Unhinged Menace 4

Me and my brothers were out that house within minutes, headed toward the spot he was about to make the handoff.

We pulled up and waited a while before it went down. Demon handed his son over to the friend, then pulled off out that parking lot like a bat out of hell. We followed him, staying back far enough that he ain’t have no idea we were behind him.

After close to an hour of trailing him through the city, he ended up pulling into one of our own warehouses.

My whole body went still.

What was this nigga doing? Had he found this location trying to figure out a way to jack us, not even knowing he was about to walk himself straight into his own death?

I made sure we were all strapped before we got out the car. Ain’t nobody had to say a word between us. Me and my brothers already knew exactly what we were about to do. Today was the day this nigga finally would met his maker. All that chasing, all this time of him hiding, it was finally ending.

He parked and walked inside. We parked further down the street and moved in on foot, quiet, careful, checking every angle before we got close.

As we neared the entrance, I heard voices coming from inside.

One of them sounded like my mother’s.

My whole chest tightened up hearing that, confusion hitting me so fast I almost stopped walking altogether. She knew it was smoke with this nigga, so I knew damn well she wasn’t going behind us on some peacemaker shit trying to make amends. We ain’t roll like that, and she knew it. We eased through the first set of doors quiet as we could manage, and the voices got clearer the closer we crept.

“Lower your gun, son. I promise you on my life this isn’t a setup.”

“Bitch, you must think I’m crazy.” That was Demon, his voice cracking with rage. “You the wife and the mother of the muthafuckas I’m at war with right now. This a trap, and I’m finna blow your whole shit back.”

“No. I mean, yes, but that’s not what this is. I’m your mother. Look.” Her voice broke clean in half right there. “Here’s the letter you sent through that ancestry website. I have it right here in my hand. ZC, that’s my initials. I’m Zuri Carter. I didn’t get to name you myself, but I did the research. Your name, the one your first adoptive parents gave you, was Demontae Sullivan. Your adoptive mother passed from cancer when you were only three years old. That birthmark under your eye, that’s how I always told myself I’d find you again one day. You were born September 3rd, 1998. 2:03 in the afternoon. It was a Friday.”

Namier and Zaire both froze beside me, and I felt my own feet stop moving underneath me.

What the fuck was going on.

We didn’t wait to see nothing else, didn’t wait to check the room or think another second on it. We burst through that second set of doors, guns already raised, every instinct in our bodies screaming at once. I don’t know what kind of sick game my mom’s was playing with him, but we were about to lay his ass down.

My mother was standing directly in front of Demontae, her hands thrown up between us and him, putting her whole body between our guns and his.

“Wait, please, don’t do this,” she said, turning back toward us, eyes wide and wet and pleading. “You cannot shoot him. This is your—”

"He's our what?" Zaire cut her off, his gun still trained dead on Demon over her shoulder, not wavering an inch. "We heard the whole lie you just spilled to this nigga through them doors and we know it's bullshit. Every word of it. Ma, I love you. I do. But you better move, cause we ain't leaving this warehouse without his head today. If this was your plan to handle this whole situation on your own, nah. That ain't happening. Not after everything this nigga already took our family through… bitch ass nigga could never be our blood. You shoulda had a better plan than this."

She looked at him, and he looked back at her, and I stood there watching the looks pass between the two of them that I couldn't fully name. A mixture of fear, hurt, and regret all tangled up together sitting heavy in her eyes. My mother, a beast who's always been fearless, standing there looking small in a way I'd never seen her look before, not once, not even when Zaire got locked up. This shit had me thinking, was it some truth to what we just heard? Hell nah. How could it be? I knew my mother, and she was slick as hell. This had to be a part of her plan to take this nigga down, make him trust her before leading him to his demise.

My mind was still catching up to what she'd just said through them doors.

I didn't have time to sit with that. None of us did. We were in a situation where one wrong move could cost us everything. As bad as I wanted to shoot, I couldn't risk accidentally hitting my moms. She stood in front of this nigga like she really wanted to spare his life and ain’t give a damn about how we were looking at her ass. If this was a game, she’s taken it too far now.

Demon didn't waste the distraction my mother's confession had just bought him.

He moved fast, faster than I expected out of a nigga his size, he got behind my mother before any of us could react. He wrapped his arm tight around her chest, and pressed his gun straight to her temple hard enough that I saw her flinch. He was now using her as a fuckin shield. This shit was wild. And although I was watching it in real time, I couldn’t get my mind to fully believe this was really going on. Why was my mom even meeting with this nigga, knowing that the only talking that needed to be done, was him getting a bullet in his head.

My whole body went cold watching that.

"Y'all bitch ass niggas ain't smarter than me," he said, backing the both of them slow toward the far wall, his eyes flicking between all three of us, calculating, sharp. "You think I ain't know this was a setup the second I got that call from her ass? I ain't crazy. Look around this bitch. I came prepared. Y'all niggas the ones lacking right now, standing here thinking you had me cornered, and thinking I would believe this bullshit she just tried to sell me. Right idea, wrong nigga tho."

That's when three of Demon’s men came through the side entrance of the warehouse, they had their AK's raised, spreading out slow and deliberate to cover every single angle of that warehouse, cutting off every exit we might've thought we had. Any plan we had was dead! Those niggas could easily Swiss cheese our ass if we moved wrong. The looks on their faces was of satisfaction, like they'd proven something by having one up on us. I hated that this gave Demon the idea that his dumb ass was smarter than us, that was far from the truth. Impulse is what had us follow him here in the heat of the moment, but he was still never gone outsmart me.

I thought right then, as I was standing there with my mother's life hanging on a trigger finger, that this was it. This was how it ended for all of us. Not in the way I always figured it might go down if it ever came to this. In my mind, since this bitch ass nigga had killed Darius, then sent a hit on Zaire, I always thought I'd blow his brains out on sight and mail what was left of his head to his people.

But standing in a dirty old warehouse watching this hoe ass nigga hold my own mother hostage with a gun to her skull, I had to think smarter. Even with me having the best aim, the way that he was holding my momma, there was a possibility that I'd shoot her while trying to kill him. Then the men he had positioned would kill us all anyway after that.

I had no choice.