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Instead, I had been watching the Brownes. I shifted in the driver’s seat and glanced toward the road again as an SUV passed without turning. My eyes followed it until it disappeared, then returned to the entrance I had been watching off and on for the last hour. The crazy part was that nobody should’ve known I had this address. Trigga probably didn’t even remember giving it to me. The first time that nigga went over there to have dinner with Maliah and her family, he had been trying hard as hell to act like he wasn’t worried about it. I knew him too well to buy that shit. At the time, all I knew was that he was about to walk into a house full of people he didn’t really know because of some girl he had gotten himself wrapped up with, and there wasn’t no fucking way I was letting him do that without knowing where he was.

Back then, I had been so worried about that nigga going over there by himself that I made him send me the address before he went inside. It wasn’t supposed to mean anything. It was just one of those things we did for each other without having to explain it. If something went wrong, I knew where he was. If he didn’t answer his phone, I knew where to start looking, but nothing happened that night. He went inside, ate dinner with her family, and came back out just fine. Come to think of it, that moment when he met her family is really when things started to go left for me and him. The address became another message buried underneath bullshit neither one of us had any reason to think about again. Except I never delete my messages.

I don’t even think that nigga remembered sending me that shit. I did, though, and now it was coming in hand for me. My jaw tightened as I stared through the windshield and my eyes squinted to get a better look at the house. Maliah had crossed my mind. Even thinking her name made something ugly move through me. I knew blaming everything on her would be too easy. Trigga was a grown-ass man. Nobody forced him to do shit. He made his choices one after another, and every time he had the opportunity to remember who had been beside him before any of these people knew his name, he moved farther away from me instead. Still, I couldn’t separate her from any of it. She had become the center of the life he wanted, and once that happened, everything connected to the life we had built together became something he was willing to leave behind.

Then, after all those years of calling each other brothers, I found out the shit was real. We had the same father, which meant we had the same blood. That should’ve made us tighter than we had ever been. Instead, I found out I had a real brother right around the same time I realized I had already lost him. I dragged my hand down my face and forced my attention back to the road. Sitting around thinking about Trigga wasn’t doing shit but making me angry, and anger had already put me in a position I couldn’t undo. I hadn’t gone to that apartment complex planning to shoot Mr. Browne. He wasn’t who I wanted.

That didn’t change the fact that he had taken three bullets because of me. The news had been all over the shooting at first. Three gunshot wounds, surgery, critical condition, and then the update that he had survived. After that, information became harder to get. The Brownes kept their business tight, and I wasn’t stupid enough to start asking people questions about Malik Browne when I knew damn well his people were probably turning the city upside down looking for me. I didn’t need anybody to tell me he wasn’t home yet. I had watched this place long enough to know that much. People came and went, but I hadn’t seen him. I had seen enough of everybody else to know life inside those gates hadn’t stopped just because mine had gone to shit.

That was probably what kept bringing me back.

Everywhere I went, I had to look over my shoulder. Every room I slept in was temporary. Every car I used had to be something I could walk away from without giving a fuck about it. I couldn’t call anybody I normally talked to because I didn’t know who Trigga had spoken to or how many people were looking for me. I’m sure Ryan went knocking on my door looking for me, and Ma didn’t deserve any of this shit. I knew that I shouldn’t have, but I had called her anyway. Three days ago, I bought a phone with every intention of keeping the conversation short. I had spent half the day telling myself I only wanted to hear her voice and make sure she was good.

Once I dialed the number and she answered, though, every fucking word I had planned disappeared. I couldn’t speak. All I could do was listen. She said hello twice before going quiet, and for a second, I almost convinced myself to hang up before she figured it out. Then she said my name. Giovanni. Not Ghost. Not the name everybody else knew, but Giovanni, the name she had given me. I ended the call before she could say anything else and got rid of the phone that same night. I knew calling her had been stupid, but hearing her voice had reminded me of everything I couldn’t go back to. I couldn’t walk through her door. Couldn’t sleep in my old room. Couldn’t sit at her table while she got on my nerves asking questions I didn’t feel like answering.

I couldn’t go to anybody Trigga knew either because if there was one person in this world who knew how I moved, it was him. Most of the places I would’ve thought of hiding were places we had been together. Most of the people I would’ve trusted were people he knew too. So instead of running to something familiar, I stayed close to the one place nobody would expect me to be. Right under their fucking noses. A car appeared farther down the road, and my attention sharpened automatically. I watched it approach, recognizing it before it reached the turn that would take it toward the Brownes’ property.

I sat a little straighter. There she was. The car disappeared down the road, and my fingers tightened around the steering wheel before I forced them to relax. That white car that I shot up was replaced with a black BMW X5. I swear this family moved like they didn’t miss a beat. I knew this was too close. Every instinct I had developed from years of being in the streets told me I was moving wrong. My back was against the wall, and instead of finding a way out, I kept putting myself closer to the people who had every reason to want me dead. Trigga was looking for me. I knew that without anybody having to tell me. The Brownes had people looking for me too, and after what happened to the head of their family, I couldn’t blame them. Yet here I fucking sat.

Close enough to watch Maliah go home. I didn’t know exactly what I was waiting for anymore, and that was the part I didn’t like admitting to myself. Some days I told myself I only needed to see what was happening before I left for good. Other days I thought maybe I was waiting for Trigga to show up so I could finally see his face and know exactly where we stood after everything that happened. Then there were the thoughts I didn’t let myself sit with for too long. The ones that reminded me I had gone to that apartment complex originally to hash things out with my brother.

Maybe I should’ve left the city the night I pulled that trigger. Maybe I should’ve taken my money and gone somewhere nobody knew me before anybody had time to start looking. I still could. Nothing was physically stopping me. But every time I thought about leaving, I remembered what was sitting behind those gates. The family Trigga had chosen. The woman he loved enough to turn his back on everything we had been building. A whole life that seemed to keep moving like I had never mattered to him in the first place.

My life had been reduced to borrowed cars, temporary rooms, and watching my back every time somebody looked in my direction. Theirs hadn’t. I settled deeper into the seat and kept my eyes on the road. Leaving could wait. For now, I wanted to see who came through those gates next.

MALIAH

The cool fall air hit my face the second I stepped out of my new car, and I stood there for a moment with my keys in my hand, looking back at the driver’s seat. Three weeks ago, I couldn’t even bring myself to sit behind the wheel without thinking about the shooting. Today, I drove to the store, picked up everything I needed, and made it all the way home without once reaching for my phone to call Tahari. I was proud of myself, even if I wasn’t ready to make a big announcement about it. Mama and Daddy didn’t play; I had a replacement vehicle ASAP. The only thing was that it was collecting fall leaves on it in the driveway for a while because being behind the wheel petrified me. When I finally expressed that I was ready to drive again, Tahari had started with an empty parking lot. The first time he suggested it, I told him I didn’t need driving lessons because I already knew how to drive. He told me he knew that and handed me the keys anyway.

We spent almost an hour going around the same parking lot while he sat in the passenger seat talking to me about everything except what had happened. He didn’t ask if I was scared, didn’t keep checking my face, and didn’t act like I had accomplished some impossible task every time I made a turn. When I told him I was ready to go home, he said okay. The next time, I drove around the block. After that, we went a little farther. Eventually, I stopped needing him to suggest it and started asking for the keys myself. This morning, I decided to go shopping alone. Before I left the house, MJ insisted on going with me, but I was confident that I could make it two miles away by my lonesome. And I had.

I reached into the back seat for the first few bags and nudged the door closed with my hip. A breeze swept across the driveway, carrying the smell of fallen leaves from the trees lining the property. It was finally starting to feel like fall. The air had that little bite to it that made me wish I’d grabbed a jacket, and the leaves scattered along the edge of the driveway had turned shades of orange and brown. I looked up at the house and smiled. Daddy was coming home today. I had been waiting to say those words for what felt like forever.

We had gone from standing in a hospital hallway wondering if he was going to live to watching him work his ass off in therapy. I had seen how frustrated he got when his body wouldn’t do what he wanted it to do, and I had seen the look on his face when he managed something he couldn’t do the week before. He still had a long way to go, but he was finally coming home to us. And if MJ and Maylee had done what they were supposed to do while I was gone, the house was going to look like somebody gave a damn about that. While Daddy was in the inpatient center, Mama was barely home, so I stepped up and made sure that the house looked up to par in her absence.

I made it halfway to the front door before it swung open.

“About time,” MJ said.

I had called his ass when I was leaving the store and told him to be ready to come outside to help me. When he stood in the open doorway, I stopped walking.

“You see these bags in my hands, right?” I asked.

“Yeah. I see ’em.”

“So come get some.”

He grinned and jogged down the stone steps, taking the heavier bags before I could fuss at him again.

“You bought the whole store?” he asked in a playful tone once most of the bags were wrapped around his fingers.

“Don’t start. Did y’all finish what I told y’all to do?”

“Most of it.”

“MJ…” I sighed.

Mama would be back with Daddy at any moment, and I wanted things to look perfect.