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“How much total?”

“In the span of six months? Like two hundred thousand.”

I closed my eyes and clenched my jaw as I realized that this was right out of Belle and Jody’s playbook. Jody had probably set up the ghost company and shut it down once the money cleared.

“Dez?”

“I’m here.”

“You thinking what I’m thinking?”

“Yeah, Belle probably did him how she did me.”

How deep did this rabbit hole go with her?

“I wanna know what else Gideon is up to, I know he got his hands in some dirty shit. Keep me posted.”

“On it.”

Did Belle know that Gideon got his hands dirty? Was that why he was hounding her? A year is a long time to carry a grudge. Maybe he saw the engagement party as an opportunity to spook her.

That would explain the financial documents I saw at her place awhile back. And the attitude she’d had before she got caught up.

Traffic finally broke and I went on autopilot. My mind was somewhere else entirely.

Going to Belle would only get me passive aggressive bullshit and I wasn’t in the mood to deal with that again. But Jody would tell me the truth, especially because I had fear working in my favor. She’d be scared enough to be straight up with me.

I texted Marco to send me her address.

I was about ten minutes from home when my phone rang again, this time with an unknown number.

I almost let it go to voicemail, but my intuition told me to me pick it up instead.

“Yeah.”

“Cardez Montague.”

I didn’t know the voice.

“Who’s this?”

“Oh, come on, little nigga. You gotta do better than that. I’m sure you been waiting for my ass to pop up on you.” His voice carried the same authoritative weight as my father.

“Solomon.” I gripped the wheel tighter. “How’d you get this number?”

“Doesn’t matter. Figured it was time we talked.”

I heard the flick of a lighter in the background.

“Ain’t shit to talk about except when you pulling up so I can kill you.”

Solomon let out a deep bellied laugh like I’d said the funniest shit he ever heard. “I been watching you for a minute, Cardez. Heard you about to take over for your OG.”

“So you’re a stalker.”

“I’m thorough.” He took a pull of whatever he was smoking. “Ay, lemme ask you a question. Your old man tell you I knew your mom real well?”

“Did you call just to let me know you fucked my mother? You’re a few weeks late for that.”