Page 33 of Forced Matrimony With An Unhinged Menace 4

“Ben,” my father said, turning back to face him fully now. “You know who this is sitting across from you?” He nodded toward Demon. “It’s just like looking in a damn mirror, ain’t it.”

“No,” Ben said, blood dripping steady off his chin now onto his own shirt. “I don’t know him. Should I?”

“I mean, you fucked my wife and made this menace to society ass nigga,” my father barked, voice rising for the first time since we walked in. “I would hope that you do.”

Demon looked up slow into Ben’s face, and Ben stared back, something shifting behind his eyes as the resemblance finally registered clear, his whole expression changing like he was seeing a ghost of his own younger self sitting right there tied up in front of him.

“So it’s you,” Demon said, his voice low, shaking with a rage that had been building his whole entire life for this exact moment, twenty seven years compressed into one sentence. “You the nigga that said I wasn’t good enough to keep? You the coward ass nigga that fucked your own partner’s wife and couldn’t even face the consequences of it like a man? You know what kind of hell I went through my whole life, cause you couldn’t be a stand-up nigga and take responsibility for your own blood?”

Ben held his mouth tight, jaw clenched, wouldn’t respond, eyes dropping to the floor.

“Say something, Ben,” my father said, stepping closer, close enough now his shadow fell across both of them sitting there. “Yo son sitting right in front of you looking for the same exact answers I need too. Why would you fuck my wife, get her pregnant, make her get rid of the baby, and then run off years later like I did something fucked up to you? Like you the one that was wronged in all this? Like your own son said. You a coward. I was nothing but good to you my whole life. I set you up for life, Ben. Gave you everything I had to give.”

“Kadeem, man,” Ben said, voice cracking. “Please. It wasn’t nothing like that. You really finna believe all this?” Still lying, even now, blood dripping steady from his mouth onto his own shirt, still trying to talk his way out of something that ain’t have no way out no more.

“You pleading with that nigga,” Demon yelled, straining hard against his restraints, the chair creaking under him. “You need to give me answers. Why, man? Why?”

Ben’s whole face changed then, something cold and final settling into it, like he’d decided there wasn’t no more point in lying with a gun this close and this much blood already spilled on his own shirt.

“Listen, little ass boy,” he said, turning to look at Demon dead in his eyes for the first time since he walked in that room. “You was nothing but a mistake. You were never supposed to come and find us. That was the whole plan we came up with all them years ago. Whatever you feel for me, whatever you been carrying your whole life hoping I felt something back, let that shit go right now. I ain’t thought about you one single day since she gave you away. Never had no intentions of being a father to you, not for one second. I got two kids of my own. Real kids. You ain’t one of them, and you never was. Zuri was easy. She was a mistake, same as you. I regretted crossing my best friend every day! I hated you and I hated her ass! That’s my truth, and you can do whatever the fuck you want with it now.”

The room went dead silent, just the sound of everybody breathing.

Demon’s face crumbled for just a second, real pain flashing across it before he locked it back down hard, but I saw it. We all saw it. This ruthless ass nigga, a man who’d killed people, ordered hits, run a whole empire out here in these streets, was sitting there heartbroken like a little boy that nobody, not one single person his whole life, had ever truly wanted him for real.

“I’m glad you finally admitted you fucked my wife,” my father said, voice going quiet now, almost calm in a way scarier than the yelling had been. “Especially after how good I was to you your whole life. You were my brother, Ben. We had the same dreams coming up out them same streets. I put you on when you had nothing to your name. Treated you like family. Now I finally got closure on why you really left all them years ago. Makes sense now. I hope, wherever you end up after this, you get plenty of time to reflect on what you did and how you ruined lives, not just your own.”

My father pulled his gun off his waist slow, no rush to it at all.

Ben started begging then, words tumbling out fast, desperate, promises and apologies all mixed together that ain’t none of us believed a single word of, spit flying with how fast he was talking.

My father put one shot straight into his forehead.

The room fell completely silent except for the ringing left behind in my own ears, that sound swallowing up everything else for a second.

My mother flinched hard but ain’t scream, ain’t move, just stood there frozen, adjusting her own clothes like she was bracing herself for whatever was coming next in her own direction. Demon was mumbling “no” over and over under his breath, staring at Ben’s body slumped in that chair like he was trying to erase the whole scene he’d just witnessed, like enough denial could undo what just happened right in front of him.

“He didn’t want you,” my father said, turning to Demon, voice flat, almost gentle in its cruelty. “Save your tears.”

Then he turned to my mother.

“Zuri,” he said. “What is your son worth to you? You made him out of lust. Out of loneliness, whatever you wanna call it. He’s been a menace to this entire family since the day we crossed paths with him in business. Sent a hit on your own son while he was locked up. Kidnapped you, put a gun to your head. Kidnapped Tattiana’s daughter too. And as long as he’s still breathing, ain’t none of our other children safe from him. You got the opportunity right now to right your wrongs. So what you say?” He paused, letting that hang heavy in that room. “You know everything he’s done. Now you gotta choose. Him, or the rest of your kids standing in this room right now.”

My mother’s whole body was shaking now, tears streaming steady down her face, dripping off her chin.

“He was an accident,” she said, voice breaking apart completely. “But he was never a mistake to me. Don’t make me do this, Kadeem. I owed him so much more in this life than what I ever gave him. We’ve all made mistakes in this room today. But you cannot kill my son. That’s my blood standing right there in front of me. I wanna save my family, all of it, every piece of it, but it ain’t fair for you to make me choose between my own children. I won’t do it. I can’t.”

She looked between Demon and my father, back and forth, desperate, her whole face searching for some way out of this that didn’t exist.

I nodded slow at Namier and Zaire, both of them already understanding, both of them raising their weapons without a word needing to pass between us.

“Zuri, baby,” my father said, voice hard now, final. “You can’t have it both ways. Not this time. This boy waged a whole war against this family. Tried to kill your own son while he sat in a cage helpless. You don’t know him, Zuri. Not really. Not the man he actually became out here in these streets. Loose ends like this can’t be left hanging. You already know how this go. You always have.”

Demon lifted his head, blood and dirt still smeared across his face, and looked straight at me, something final settling into his own eyes.

“You muthafuckas gone pay for this,” he said, voice shaking with rage even now, even beaten, even tied to a chair with death standing right in front of him. “I’m gone hunt every last one of you to the fuckin end, you hear me? Kaseem. You mad cause I had yo wife first and gave her a baby. I’ll always be her first love. And every single time you look at my daughter’s face, I’ll be sitting right there too, a permanent reminder you can’t never erase. Sucka ass nigga.”

I looked at him for a long moment, feeling nothing but cold settle into my chest, no anger left in me, just something flat and finished. This wasn’t my brother. He could never be. He was a problem that needed to be eliminated.