Page 38

It felt good to know the full extent of everything that my father was dealing with. The moment passed quickly, and I thought about the other part of this mess.

“What about Ghost?”

“Your father said it’s on me to find him and handle him. He told Sha to help me out if needed though.”

I hated that my father had put the task of hunting down Ghost in Tahari’s lap, but I understood. For one, in his condition he couldn’t do it himself, and I had seen enough of those Mafia movies to know that this was a problem that Tahari had to fix.

For a while, neither of us said anything. I looked around the apartment and thought about how different everything felt from the last time I’d been here without the weight of yesterday hanging over us. This had always been Tahari’s place. Somewhere I came because he was here. Somewhere that had eventually become comfortable enough for me to walk around barefoot, steal his shirts, and fall asleep in his bed without thinking twice about it. A toothbrush for me was in the bathroom, and I had closet and drawer space. This had become a second home for me.

Now all I could think about was the parking lot outside. I looked over at Tahari and found him staring down at his hands. There was something in his expression I recognized immediately because I’d been fighting the same feeling since yesterday. It was guilt. I felt guilty about what happened to Daddy because he would not have been in the car if it wasn’t for me, and I knew that Tahari felt guilty over what happened because, well, the one person that was wreaking all of this havoc was his brother.

“Tahari?”

He lifted his head.

“You good?” I asked.

He gave me a look that answered the question better than words could have. I shifted closer toward him on the couch.

“Talk to me,” I urged.

Tahari leaned forward again and rested his forearms against his thighs.

“I just keep thinking about how all this shit started.”

I frowned because I didn’t get what he meant. He looked over at me.

“Me and Ghost took them bricks. That’s how the feds ended up in the picture. Then I find out this nigga really my brother, and shit start going left between us because he feels like I’m choosing you and your family over him. Now your pops is lying in a hospital bed because of it.”

He paused while shaking his head as his eyes moved away from mine.

“Every fucked-up road in this shit somehow comes back to me.”

“No, it doesn’t.”

“Mali—” he started, but then I cut him off.

“Did you shoot at my car?”

His eyes returned to mine, and I stared at him while I waited for his response.

“Nah.”

“Then stop taking credit for shit that ain’t yours.”

Tahari’s jaw tightened, but I wasn’t going to let him sit there and turn Ghost’s decisions into something he needed to carry for the rest of his life.

“You wanna feel guilty about stealing from my daddy? Fine. Your ass did that. You wanna feel guilty because you wouldn’t tell Daddy who helped you when he asked? Fine. You did that too. But you did not make Ghost come here with a gun. You didn’t make him pull that trigger, and you damn sure didn’t shoot my daddy.”

Tahari stared at me without saying anything. I moved closer until our knees touched. I cupped his chin and spoke because I needed him to really understand me.

“He did that.”

“He did that shit because of me, Mali.”

“No. He did it because something is wrong with his ass. There is a difference.”

Tahari looked away again, but I reached for his face and turned it back toward me.