Page 58

“Listen Amir.” She cut my questions off.

“I have to save Rami. He still has a chance to become something different because you and Khalil are already too far gone. You and Khalil have Mecca’s blood where Rami does not. He really is Hassan’s child. So, you will always be who you are because you can’t help it and so will Khalil. This situation he got himself into just proves he's already a lost cause and that’s something I can’t change”

“So you are saying you not going to try and save Khalil. You are sacrificing the life of your son?”

“No,” she cried softly. “I’m saving the only son I still can and leaving Khalil in your hands because I know you will help him. I’m taking this money and leaving the United States. I need this move Amir, and I pray you forgive me one day. May Allah protect you because I know that I can’t.”

The line disconnected.

I stood there staring at the phone in disbelief while rage started building inside me so fast it felt like my chest was about to explode. My own mother had just betrayed me. The mother that I’ve been craving to have in my grasp slipped away so fast while stinging me in the process.

The phone slung from my hand and smashed against the wall before I even realized I threw it. I started yelling while pacing through the house, knocking her old ass furniture over and grabbing at my hair because I was ready to kill a mutha fucka that quick.

“She fucking played me! She fuckin played me yo!” I shouted breathlessly while kicking the chair across the room hard enough to send it crashing into the counter.

The phone ringing from the table in the corner was the only thing that stopped my rage.

I already knew who it was so I rushed over and snatched it off the hook.

“What, mutha fuckas?”

“Where the fuck is the money? How long you think we going to wait!” the voice barked through the speaker immediately.

I squeezed my eyes shut while trying to keep calm and not tell them I’ll murder all their asses right now.

“I got it, but you have to tell me where to bring it this time.”

“Just drop it off behind the Old Johnson Play center. Drop the money off and then get the fuck from the drop off spot or your brother is dead.” The line ended and I dropped the phone to the ground.

After the call ended, reality settled onto my shoulders all over again because now the four hundred thousand dollars was gone, which meant if I wanted Khalil alive, I had to go back into my savings and grab another four hundred grand to keep him alive. It’s not like I didn’t have it; I just didn’t know if it would be worth giving up. I was burned my whole life by family to turn around and get burned by the last person I expected.

My mind was gone and I was pissed the fuck off. I couldn’t lose composure now though. I knew that I couldn’t go there alone. My mind was too sloppy I needed a second mind, a third, or even a 4th. The only people I could think of to have my back were the same people that had it last time. The people who were more of family to me than anyone who birth me had been.

I took out my cell phone and then went to my contacts to dial his number.

“Yo Crew.”

“What up nigga?”

“I need you to meet me at my spot. It’s important. See if Hov can come with you too. This shit life or death for someone I care about bro.”

“Say no more. I’m going to call this nigga and we will be on the way.”

He replied, proving the point I had already made. Blood ain’t thicker than water unless the people attached to it actually want it to be.

I drove home with both hands locked around the steering wheel so tightly my fingers started cramping, but I barely noticed because the pain sitting in my chest was louder than everything else around me. I hadn’t felt this low in a long time.

Somewhere along the line, I taught myself how to shut feelings off whenever it came to my father or my brothers because that was the only way to survive being connected to them, but what I found out today cracked through all of that shit at once.

When I pulled up to my apartment building, Crew’s car was parked outside my house against the curb like he had pulled up fast and never bothered fixing it. He was sitting on top of the hood with one foot on the bumper while Hov leaned against the driver side door. When I got out of the car, Crew lifted both hands in the air with his usual loud energy.

“What’s up Aladdin?”

Normally I would’ve told him to shut the fuck up or joked back, but I didn’t have it in me tonight. The smile slowly disappeared off his face once he got a better look at mine.

Crew slid off the hood while Hov straightened himself up away from the door.

“This shit about to be a long story,” I muttered while digging my keys from my pocket.