Page 65 of Crown: Phase 4

Kerri had called his personal line that morning and told him she needed to see him. He’d spent the rest of the day wondering what the hell she could possibly want after almost three decades. For a split second, he didn’t trust it. What if Crown had found out about their history and sent her to get at him? But the more Preach thought about it, the more he knew that wasn’t Crown’s character. Crown would never drag his mother into a war.

“You got a lot of balls wanting to see me.” Preach said, the vein in his forehead starting to bulge.

Kerri held her head high, even though she was a nervous wreck inside. She would never let a muthafucka see her sweat. She was a Knight. She might not have had the balls, but she damn sure had the heart of a lion.

“I wanted to have a word with you.”

“The fuck for? Your son know you here?”

“I believe you already know the answer to that question.”

Preach stared at her, and Kerri stared right back.

“Just a word, Pierre.”

“After all these years…all the unanswered calls, and now you wanna speak to me? What the fuck you got to say?”

“I want to know why you’re at war with my son and to just…talk to you.”

Preach chuckled, his nostrils flaring.

“Oh, I get it. You came here worried that your secret might get exposed. That I might tell that nigga you used to fuck with me, had my baby, then ran off.”

“Let’s be clear. The real victim here is me. You didn’t tell me who you were. And Danger is not your son.”

“Have you had a blood test done on him?”

There were crickets as Kerri stared at him, fidgeting with her hands.

“Didn’t think so.” Preach shrugged. “But you know, you right. The muthafucka ain’t mine, at this point. You let another nigga raise him.”

“Is that why you’re upset? Is that why you started a war? Because of what you feel I did to you? Because if so, I apologize.”

“What?” Preach’s eyes narrowed.

That caught him completely off guard. Of all the things he expected from Kerri that day, an apology wasn’t one of them. Hell, after all these years, he had convinced himself he didn’t give a fuck about ever getting one. Somewhere along the way, he had learned to cover his hurt with rage.

“I apologize for walking away and hurting you, but we both know…we could never be.”

Kerri’s eyes glistened as she took him in. Much like her, Preach had aged like fine wine. His dark eyes told the soul of a devil, but that didn’t take away from his handsomeness. It never did.

His locs were pulled into a high, messy bun, while his salt-and-pepper beard was edged up to perfection. His body was still tight and masculine, just as she remembered. Even after all these years, there was still something about Pierre Guerrier that made her feel butterflies. But she quickly checked herself. He had tried to kill her baby. He was the enemy. Whatever they’d shared during those few years they spent dating no longer meant a damn thing.

Preach looked toward his men and jerked his head toward the exit. They quickly left the section, giving them some privacy. Once they were out of sight, he glanced back at Kerri and shook his head. His guard was beginning to drop, and that shit infuriated him.

Preach had killed muthafuckas for less. His father had raised him to be a monster, and that’s exactly what he became. Twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, three hundred and sixty-five days a year, he lived that life. He had murked niggas and bitches without blinking, yet his number one enemy’s mother stood in front of him, and he was too weak to kill her. How that work? He thought.

Preach had looked his disloyal little sister in the eyes just before he dismembered her body. How could a cold nigga like him allow this? How could Lawson give him the address to her home, and he completely ignore it?

Preach couldn’t wrap his head around how Kerri still had this kind of hold on him. So much so, she was still breathing. So much so, he had never changed his personal number, in hopes that she would call one day. So, he did what he always did when it came to her…he transformed the hurt into anger just not to feel so weak.

“I could kill you right now. Ou konnen sa?” Preach’s voice dropped. “Push yo’ shit back for how you did me.”

Kerri understood and clocked his emotions. He wasn’t talking about killing her to get at Crown. He was talking about getting revenge for the pain she’d left behind.

“You could, but you won’t because one of the leaders of the Council is right outside that door. If you fire at me, he and his men will swarm this restaurant. And if you fire at him or any of the guards with him, the Dessalinés Mob won’t just have the Knights to deal with. You’ll have the Council, too. They won’t give a fuck about how it started or why. All that will matter to them is that one of theirs is down.”

Before he could respond, Kerri found her courage and stepped closer to him in her Red Bottoms. She reached for his hand and slowly pushed the gun downward. “But something tells me you won’t do it anyway because you still care.”