Page 42 of Mia

Thaddeus glared at her for a long time before walking away. As he passed me, he bumped my shoulder hard as hell.

“The rest of you take your asses home,” Maddie demanded. “Nothing else to see here. Take him with you,” she said, pointing at the dead man on the floor.

The group started filing out of the space. My team stayed behind along with Maddie and my mama. Once we were alone, my mother came to me and cupped my face.

“You handled that just like I taught you,” she said, kissing my forehead.

“Lightwork.”

The truth was, I channeled all my anger and grief into that fight. I gave them a portion of that I want to give JacQues because when we caught that muthafucka, he was getting every bit of rage building up inside me.

“I’m sorry about all this,” Maddie said. “I tried to reason with him.”

I waved her off. “It ain’t nothing. I knew it was coming, and I was ready.”

My team walked over and dapped me up.

“You know I would have dusted your ass, right?” I jested to Vinchi.

He kissed his teeth. “You could have tried, but I would have given that shit right back to you.” We slapped hands and shared a brotherly hug. “Real shit, nobody could ever make me turn on you off no principle.”

The rest of them mumbled in agreement.

“I appreciate that.”

“Shiiiit,” Emmon said with a grin. “I would have torn your ass up, cuzzo.”

“You ain’t ever beating my ass, my nigga.”

“I would have beat your ass my damn self if you’d touched my son,” my mama said.

He chuckled. “Really auntie?”

“Dead serious. Then I was calling my sister, and she was gonna whip your ass too. We didn’t raise y’all like that.”

He playfully waved her off.

“How are you holding up?” Booker asked. “I know that’s a dumb ass question, but I gotta ask.”

I really didn’t know how to answer that. Most of my time was spent in my loft, staring at the wall, drinking, or smoking while staring at the only picture I’d ever have of my daughter. I found it hard to face Mia right now. After she had that panic attack at the funeral and was screaming how sorry she was, I needed space before I said some shit I couldn’t take back.

I knew grief was hard. I knew the stages, and right now, I was in the stage of placing blame. Every time I looked at her at the repast, I wanted to knock her muthafucking head off. I would take minimal blame for this, but in reality, it was on her. All she had to do was stay her ass stateside and our baby wouldn’t be dead.

Again, I couldn’t say that, so I kept my distance.

I sighed. “I’m hanging in there, man. I’m itching to get back over there.”

“You know we’re with you when you’re ready,” Romero said.

“I’m painting that city red. Everything that nigga touches is gonna burn.”

Before I exposed JacQues Dupont for the evil muthafucka he was, I was going to take everything that meant something to him. Businesses would burn. His money, gone. His family, dead. Before I killed him, he was going to know exactly what I was feeling right now, and I put that on my muthafucking daughter.

Iheard the front door unlock, causing me to look up from the nonsense playing on my TV. I’d been on this couch since yesterday morning. The only reason I was out here was because I was tired of laying in my bed. The TV served as nothing but background noise because even though I was looking at it, I had no idea what was going on.

Today was a rough day.

I didn’t have the energy to do anything but lie around. My Grams came over to clean and dress my wound and fix me something to eat, but after three bites, I didn’t want it. My stomach was cramping because I was hungry as hell, but I didn’t have it in me to consume anything.