Page 32 of Forced Matrimony With An Unhinged Menace 4

“Where you boys at?” he said, and something in his voice was off, almost upbeat in a way that didn’t fit what had been going on the last twenty four hours we’d all just been through. “I need you here for something. And bring your mother.”

“We almost back to the compound,” I said. “But we got something to handle first. I got Demon in the truck right now.”

“Oh, shit.” He let out a short laugh, cold, humorless, nothing warm behind it at all. “That’s even better then. Let it be a reunion.”

“What that supposed to mean, Pops? I ain’t following you right now.”

“When you get here, bring your mother, bring that boy, and come to the guest cottage. I’ll be waiting on you there. It’s gone make sense when you get here.”

He hung up before I could ask him anything else, and something cold settled low in my stomach hearing the click of that call ending. I called Sam right after, told him to have somebody bring my mother to the guest cottage, no explanation, just get her there quiet and quick.

A few minutes later we were finally pulling through them gates, and I let out a breath I ain’t realize I’d been holding this whole entire ride.

We finally had this nigga who’d been causing hell in our lives. Knowing today was the end of that. It was a big ass relief for me.

When I parked, I started grabbing all the guns we’d been riding with. I had to get them squared away too. I knew damn well that riding around with all this heat sitting loose in the car had been a real risk the whole drive home, one traffic stop away from a whole different kind of disaster.

Namier and Zaire kept telling Demon not to try nothing funny unless he wanted to get smoked like a brisket. The zip ties was all we had in the car and that nigga could easily break out that shit if he really wanted to.

As beat up and bloody as he was, I knew that he still had more fight left in him, because he wasn’t the nigga to just lay down and take his consequences.

When we got out that truck, my brothers manhandled him, dragging him toward the guest house while he talked all kinds of shit under his breath, still acting like a man in control even zip tied, bleeding, and getting pulled across gravel by two niggas who wanted him dead right now.

Soon as we stepped inside that cottage, I saw a man tied to a chair in the middle of the room, and everything in me went still for a second.

I ain’t seen his face in person since I was a little boy, but I recognized him instantly from old pictures scattered through our house over the years, the same face grinning next to my father in faded photographs from way back before I was even born hardly.

Ben. My father’s old best friend, the man he trusted with everything he had, back when trust ain’t cost nothing.

My father stood in front of him, arms folded tight across his chest, just looking at him. Not saying a word yet. Just staring, jaw working slow, like he was still deciding this man’s fate, even with the man already sitting tied up in front of him.

“Damn, Kadeem, man,” Ben said, voice shaking bad. “Just talk to me. Say something. What is this about?”

My father didn’t answer him. His eyes flicked up toward the door instead, right as my mother was being walked in behind us. She was escorted by one of our men, her face already pale. She was already understanding something bad was about to happen the second she saw Ben tied up in that chair.

Her steps slowed down soon as she crossed that threshold, like her body already knew before her mind caught all the way up.

“Come on in here, Zuri,” my father said, his voice eerily calm, too calm for what was about to happen in that room. “Come stand right here next to me.” He waited till she was beside him, close enough their shoulders damn near touched. “Zuri. Demon. Ben. Y’all muthafuckas know why you here right now?” My father asked in a tone that was so cold, it sent chills down my spine.

My mother couldn’t even look at Ben. She kept her eyes down on the floor, arms wrapped around herself tight like she was trying to hold her own body together.

“Don’t have him just standing there,” my father said, nodding toward Demon. “Give him a seat too. Tie him up right next to his daddy.” He said it flat, almost sarcastic, like he was arranging furniture instead of setting up an execution, like this whole thing was just business as usual to him now.

Our men shoved Demon down into a second chair, tying his hands behind his back, positioning him directly across from Ben, close enough the two of them had no choice but to look at each other.

“Come on, Kadeem,” Ben said again, desperation creeping into his voice now, eyes darting between my father and the rest of us standing around that room. “What’s going on, brother? You know me. We better than this. What is all this about?”

My father looked down at his own hand, at the rings sitting on his fingers, turning them slow like he was thinking something over one last time before he let himself go all the way there.

Then he balled that fist up, reared back, and hit Ben so hard across the face that blood sprayed instantly, some of it landing on Demon, and some flew clean across my mother’s cheek, making her jump back with a small squeal, her hand flying up to wipe it off her own skin like it burned.

“Aye, man,” my father barked. “Stop fucking talking to me right now. I told you to chill and let me get to it. Today, every single question everybody in this room got, all of it’s finna get answered. So calm the fuck down and let me handle this the way I need to.”

He was spiraling, and I could see it plain as day, in the way his hands wouldn’t stay still, but wasn’t nobody in that room about to stop him. Not one of us.

Namier and Zaire stood off to the side, quiet, waiting, letting this play out the way it needed to, cause some things a man just needed to see through to the end himself. I understood my father’s side more than anything and my heart ached for the man. He had loved and taken care of his family all of his life, only to be betrayed by the person he gave his life to. That was some tough shit. So today, I was gone let him get that shit off.

The only thing that I wasn’t gone allow was for him to kill my momma. That wasn’t gone happen on no day. Other than that, I was riding with him.