by Brick
He didn’t tell me to come in, but since Justice was screaming at the top of her lungs, I let myself in, anyway. I was surprised the door wasn’t locked. The room was messier than Dani normally kept it. Clothes were hanging from hampers. Bottles were strewn about. The smell of a dirty diaper assaulted my senses.
Dani was coming from the closet when I entered the room. In her hand was a duffel bag, and she was dressed in an Adidas tracksuit. Her curly hair sat unruly on her head. She stopped abruptly when she saw me, then ran a hand through her hair nervously. I looked toward the window, where Jojo was sitting in a rocking chair with Justice. His back was to me as the chair moved backward and forward slowly.
“What’s going on?” I asked no one in particular.
“Um . . . I’m leaving,” Dani said.
“Where are you going at three in the morning?”
“I don’t know. I’ll figure it out,” she said. “I just need to get away from here.”
I looked down at the duffel bag, then around the room, and noticed she hadn’t packed any of Justice’s things. When I looked back at her, she had a defiant look in her eyes. My eyes narrowed, and I had to count to keep my temper in check.
“Don’t even start, Shanelle. Since I been here, you been shitty toward me. You ain’t want me here no way. So, you should be happy I’m leaving,” she said.
I kept my voice as calm as I could when I asked, “What about your daughter?”
Dani glanced around, switched her weight from one foot to the other. “She gon’ be all right. Jojo got her. I mean, at least until I get myself together.”
“He’s eighteen, Dani. He’s in school. He’s working. You can’t leave him here to take care of a baby by himself,” I said coolly.
“Well, I got shit to do too. And I’m sick of fighting with him and sick of that baby crying. I need a break. I need some time to myself,” she said, agitation in her tone.
“You didn’t think about before—”
“Let her go, Shanelle.” Jojo’s voice came out low and even, but there was no life in his tone. He sounded defeated.
It damn near broke my heart. I couldn’t see his face, but the fact that it sounded as if he had resigned himself to his fate told me this had been a long time coming. My little brother knew me well, because I didn’t have any intentions of letting Dani walk out of here so easily.
I wanted to shove that bitch’s face into a wall, and she knew it. That was why she stayed a few feet away from me.
“Will you move so I can leave?” Dani asked loudly.
I knew she was being loud so either Uncle Snap or Javon would come in. They were the only two who could stop me from beating her ass. The nerves in my hands ticked, I wanted to punch Dani so badly. And I probably would have punched her, but something told me the last thing Jojo needed was for her and me to fight right now. I stepped to the side just as I heard Uncle Snap’s bedroom door open.
Dani eased past me like she was walking through a field of land mines. She got to the threshold, then looked back at Jojo. “I’ll be back . . . one day. I just need some time to think and clear my head,” she said.
“What’s going on?” Uncle Snap asked, his voice groggy, as he rounded the corner.
I glanced up to see he was in cotton pajamas and was pulling a T-shirt over his head.
“Bye, Dani,” Jojo drawled. “I love you.”
Dani rolled her shoulders. Her brows furrowed, and she chewed on her bottom lip. For a moment, her eyes darted back and forth like she wasn’t sure if she wanted to leave or stay. Then she snatched up the car keys that were lying on the dresser and quickly made her way downstairs.
“What the fuck is going on?” Uncle Snap snapped, his voice louder and clearer than before.
I walked over to Jojo. My baby brother was staring straight ahead, tears rolling down his face, but there was not one bit of emotion in his eyes. He looked as if he was somewhere else. Justice had stopped crying. Her small hand was on Jojo’s tearstained cheek, and she gazed up at him like she knew he needed her to chill in that moment. I reached down to take her from his arms. For a minute he stiffened; then, once realizing it was me, he loosened his grip. I signaled for Uncle Snap to go back into the hall; then I left the room and closed the door behind me.
“I don’t know what’s going on,” I said to him. “But Dani just made my little brother a single father.”
Uncle Snap scratched his head, then frowned. Downstairs, I heard Javon. Now, to a normal person, Javon being downstairs would be confusing, since I’d left him in the bedroom, but with all the secret passages we’d found in Mama Claudette’s home, it was safe to assume he had used the closet in our bedroom to get downstairs.
“Leave the keys,” Javon said to Dani.
“Why? It’s my car, and I wanna leave,” she whined.
“It’s Jojo’s car, which we allowed you to use since you’re Justice’s mother, but if you’re about to run off on your responsibilities, it won’t be in a ride this family funded,” Javon told her.
“You have to be fucking kidding me! So, because I don’t want that nigga anymore—”
I heard the front door open, and then Javon said, “You were leaving, right?” cutting off her tirade.
There was silence. I heard a car zoom by. Loud music rattled the windows of the house.
Dani tried to explain again. “I just need—”
Javon cut her off again. “The keys, Dani. I need the keys, and then you can be on your way.”
I could tell by the no-nonsense tone in Javon’s voice that he had very little patience. That must have shocked Dani. Javon had always been the nice one. I smirked. While I was pissed off she had hurt my little brother, she would get the perks of being attached to a McPhearson no longer.
I walked downstairs with Justice cradled in my arms. Javon shoved the door closed behind Dani. He cast his eyes in my direction before looking at Justice.
“She’s going to need you more now than ever,” he said.
Uncle Snap came down behind me, then sighed. “I knew that gal was fickle, but I didn’t think she’d run off and leave her baby,” he said.
Javon asked me, “Jojo cool?”
Justice cooed in my arms. “I’m not sure. He was staring straight ahead, looking out the window, with tears running down his face,” I answered. “Maybe he’s in shock.”
I replayed the exchange between me and Dani for them, then told them how detached Jojo had been.
“I saw it coming,” Javon said. “She hasn’t been behaving very motherly. She does the least for Justice when left alone with her. When Jojo comes home, she pushes the baby off on him before hitting the streets. I just felt something in the air tonight, and I was right.”
I shook my head. It finally clicked for me that once again Javon had picked up on something between them that I hadn’t. I mean, I knew they were having problems. They had been since the girl moved in here, but I in no way had thought she would abandon them.
I left Uncle Snap and Javon to talk about how they would help Jojo. I headed upstairs to get Justice back to sleep. It didn’t take long once she had been fed and changed. I put her next to Honor and smiled. I wouldn’t have thought a year ago that I’d be a wife or a mother, but there I was.
Honor slept peacefully in a red onesie, while Justice wore purple. They were beautiful brown babies with masses of curly hair, and I’d do anything to keep them safe. As soon as that thought crossed my mind, the phone rang. My spine stiffened, because it wasn’t my phone or Javon’s phone. It was the private line, which meant it was Syndicate business. I guess I wouldn’t have been so concerned about it if it weren’t at that time of the night. Someone ringing that line now meant there was an emergency.
I closed the nursery door, then headed to the bedroom just as Javon was entering it.
“Talk,” he barked into the phone. I watched quietly as his facial expression moved from anger to shock. “What?” he asked. “When?”
He turned to look at m
e with something akin to panic in his eyes. “I’ll be there,” he said. He hung up the phone.
“What’s going on?” I asked.
“Yo, Uncle Snap?” Javon called out the door, ignoring me for the moment. Then he rushed into the closet, popped the light on, then started tossing clothes onto the bed.
“Javon, baby, what’s going on?” I asked again.
“What up, nephew?” Uncle Snap asked, sticking his head in the door.
Javon glanced at me, then at Uncle Snap. “Get dressed. We need to head to New York. It’s an emergency.” Then to me, he said, “Someone killed Cavriel, and the old man was shot. Lucky says it was a hit on Cavriel, and they think it was a botched hit on Luci. Absolan is missing.”
Cavriel, Absolan, and the old man, Luciano, were the heads of the Commission, which was the governing body of the mob back in New York. I’d given them a seat at the table of the Syndicate in exchange for their connections and the protection they could bring us.
“Oh, shit,” Uncle Snap said. He left our room quickly.
I asked Javon. “What does this mean?”
“I don’t know,” Javon said as he pulled on a pair of jeans. “I won’t know much of shit until I get to New York.”
My heart raced, slammed into my chest. I thought about our daughter, our family. For a year now, Javon had managed to come out alive after every attempt to dismantle the Syndicate. However, if someone was aiming for the Commission, that was something else altogether.
Chapter 2
Claudette
“Mama?” Young Snap stood holding open the screen door for me.
Hotter than a hooker walking past a church, I swatted at a lone mosquito, then whipped my brow. It took me a moment to realize that he was watching with a curious look in his brown gaze. But once I did, I brushed off the rise of emotions in my spirit. I defiantly tilted my chin up. My whole body language was coded in a big “You hurt me, bitch,” that only the figure behind the screen understood. Snap or Miss Jenkins, they’d see me only as being icy and posturing.
“Thank you, Ralph,” I said in a manner that only he could hear, then walked up the cement steps that led into the screened porch.
Once in front of eyes that matched my own, eyes set in a diamond-shaped face that was common to the people in my family, I carefully removed my lace gloves, then moved for Snap, who now had our bags in his hand.
“Deedee,” I said with disdain.
“Sista,” she returned in a reserved tone.
Everything in me said to slap the taste from her mouth. Because this was my eldest sister, the desire to hit her with the side of my pistol was an automatic no-no, but there was another fact going on. As the sun poured into the porch, I could see my elder sister for the first time in almost eight years. The fact that she was still as glamorous as she had been when I last saw her didn’t surprise me.
Deedee was three years my senior and known in the family as the carefree one. So much so that she had hopped on the first train ride outta Creek Town to see the world, ending up in Europe and breaking her promise to me by leaving me behind. My sista never used to think of herself until that day. As I looked up at where she stood on the porch, the corners of my lips dropped into a deep scowl.
Deedee’s black hair was in a mess of teased curls that had been pulled up in a side ponytail, which made the curls fall like waves over her shoulders. Her makeup was done in a neutral, fresh face look, while the hands that rested on her wide hips were accented with sharp pink nails. Again, nothing in how she looked surprised me; however, what did surprise me was the slight roundness to her stomach, one that indicated not that she had gained weight but that she was carrying life.
When my gaze ripped from her stomach, then up to her face, white-hot anger could be seen in my eyes.
“You let him knock you up?” I all but yelled.
Deedee gave a light chuckle, not answering my question. My bitch of a big sister turned her back on me, then disappeared inside of the family house. On her arms, I saw bruises and the half-moon marks of fingernails that had dug into flesh. Deedee made no damned sense to me. Accepting a beat down by a lowlife of a nigga was not something Big Papa Haynes had raised us to accept. Yet here I was, staring at marks on my sister, along with a swollen belly.
“Don’t walk away from me.” The rage in my voice made Snap briefly look my way. When I realized that he was still there, I gave a sharp sigh and pointed inside. “Gawn inside. My room is the last one near the kitchen. Unless that fat cow changed it.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Snap gently said, looking my way. “Can I help ya in any way?”
“Just put my bags up, go to the kitchen, get chu one of them mason glasses, and pour yaself some sweet tea. I need to have a private moment, a’ight?”
There was something hidden in the way Snap looked at me. It made nerves spark up in my stomach, something that I did my damnedest to push back, because I didn’t want to confront what they could possibly mean. Or confront the way Snap sometimes watched me.
When he said, “Yes ma’am,” and nothing else, I gave a sigh of relief.
Once Snap went inside, I rolled my shoulders, then walked into the house our great-grandfather had built. Inside was the same as it had always been when I was but a child. Fresh smelling, except for the scent of cooked bacon, with a welcoming, warm feeling. Over the mantel was our grandmother’s old shotgun. Above that, was the porter hat that belonged to our grandfather. Hanging on a brick wall near the white bookshelf and record player corner was a picture of black Jesus and a fading family photo.
Mama’s rocking chair was still by the fireplace. Daddy’s smoke pipe still sat on the side table, as if he was about to pick it up and give it a nice puff. Memories played in my mind. The echoes of children laughing back when I was innocent, and not the killer I would become, made me take in the tiny house until reality settled back in and had my anger blazing.
“Deedee,” I shouted.
“Girl, if you don’t calm all that mess.”
I spun around to see Deedee sitting on the couch, staring at the occasionally jumpy reception on the TV. From what I could see, she was watching Soul Train.
“I woulda told ya on the phone, but you hung up on me.”
Annoyed, I walked up to her and dropped my purse on the coffee table. “Of course, I did. You had just told me your monkey-ass, piece-of-trash nigga had raped our goddaughter. Yet you sit here, swollen with his child?”
“You jealous?” Deedee looked up with a smirk.
Pain was reflected in my eyes. It made me freeze where I stood, as if the wind had been knocked from my gut. Then everything happened fast. My hand whipped out on its own and landed against the side of my sister’s face.
“Bitch, I might not be able to whup ya ass because of that baby, but I’ll for damn sure beat the breaks off your face.” My nails scraped at my sister’s face.
The instinct in me made me pull out my gun from my waist, then remove the safety and point it at Deedee. “Ain’t nothing in me ever jealous about what you got with that sick bastard of a nigga you call husband, you hear me?”
“Get off me, Cece! You ain’t gawn shoot a damn thang in here. Mama and Daddy would rise up from the grave if you did.”
She was right, but I wasn’t going to admit that to her trifling ass. Which was why, when she smoothly flipped the script and took the gun from me, causing us to struggle against each other, I didn’t press her and try to get it back. No, instead, we fell sideways on the couch, and I used that opening to slap her again.
“You know what happened, and you got the damned nerve to say that shit to me and smile, huh?” I said in between hits. “But call me down hea’ to handle shit you stupidly got yaself into on ya own? You knew what typa demon he was, and yet you still married him.”
By this time, I was straddling my sister on the couch, slapping her and pulling at her hair. My anger was so palpable that I didn’t even notice that Snap had rushed back into the living room. The poundi
ng of his shoes, which shook the house, didn’t stop me.
“Get. Off. Me.” When Deedee hit me, her forearm slamming into my nose and causing blood to flow, tears slid down my face and mixed with the blood that stained my white top, but this couldn’t stop my rage.
Pulling at my hair, then pushing me back with her foot, Deedee worked her way up from the couch. When she moved to swing at me, Snap did something like a floor slide, where he managed to cover me and wrap me in his hold to pick me up.
Tears fell, and I buried my face in his chest. He made me wish that Kingston was here. He made me come close to realizing something else that I wasn’t ready for.
“Aye, ya two wild chickens, calm down, before y’all destroy the house,” Snap ordered. He held me behind his back with his large hand and looked between us with a taut jaw.
“This cow just doesn’t care that she ruined everything by messing with that nasty old bastard,” I yelled at my sister, pointing and trying to get at her.
I could see tears sliding down my sister’s face. Her hair had her looking like a rooster. I knew my makeup was dripping down my face. We both looked a hot country mess but didn’t care.
“An’ you don’t get it. I had to,” Deedee sputtered. Her arms wrapped around her belly; then she looked at me directly.
It was her following confession, delivered with her broken voice, that made me stop my fighting and almost faint. “Baby sista, I had to. The baby ain’t his. It’s Luci’s.”
Chapter 3
Javon
When I was a kid, I used to have this thing where I’d stare up at the sky as long as I could, just to imagine what it was like to live free. No restrictions. No running in the street from the bullshit of being hungry, dirty, and looked at as a beating bag. In those brief seconds, I knew what serenity was, and it helped me get through whatever I had to.
