“Yeah. I know what you mean.” A slow panic creeps over me. I don’t want him to notice my non-moving legs.
“Do you remember any of it? Can you tell me what happened?”
I close my eyes and press my forehead against his. Just the idea of going over that nightmare again exhausts me.
“You don’t have to if you don’t want to. I swear, all that matters to me right now is that you’re still here, because that means that there’s still a chance to fix this mess I’ve made of our lives. That’s if you’ll let me.”
I’ve prepared for this moment. I’ve gone around and around on what to say.
“Shara?” Profit whispers, drawing my gaze to meet his watery one. “You will give me another chance to fix this, won’t you?”
“Profit. I love you. God knows I do, but . . . there’s so much that has happened and I’ve lost so much that . . .”
He pulls away from me, wrenching my heart out of my chest. I already regret the few words that I’ve spoken. Yet I refuse to take them back.
“Surely after all that happened you . . . I mean, how many times do I have to apologize?” he asks.
“It’s not that, Profit. Really. I accept your apology. I believe you when you say that you’re not in love with Willow.”
“Then why . . . ?”
“Because nothing good can come from this—from our being together. I don’t belong in your world. I’ve already lost so much of myself. The things that I’ve done in the last couple of months will haunt me for the rest of my life. I don’t want to be a Vice Lord Flower. I don’t want to be someone’s ride-or-die chick or just some wifey to the throne.”
“Then we’ll get married,” Profit says. “Now. Today.”
My heart soars at the proposal, but the battle within me rages on. “And then what?” I ask, hating myself for throwing the question out there. “Our lives won’t change. We’ll still be in the thick of a gang war that’s getting worse every day. I can’t go through another night like the other night. I don’t have it in me.”
“And you won’t have to. Baby, I swear. I’ll keep you safe.”
“You can’t guarantee that. Look at . . . Willow. There isn’t a badder chick in the game and look where she is. Hell. Look where her brother is. My sister. My best friend. It’s not going to stop until I’m standing over your grave or you’re standing over mine. Is that what you want?”
“Don’t be ridiculous.” Frustrated, Profit bounds up from the bed.
“How can you say that I’m being ridiculous? Are you not paying attention to what’s going on around us?”
“Of course I’m paying attention. Those muthafuckas took out a lot of my friends the other night. And they’re not going to get away with this shit either!” He’s as angry as I’ve ever seen him. His face and neck have darkened and he has visible veins pulsing along his temples.
“Listen to yourself. You’re talking about more bloodshed. Don’t you see? It’s never going to end.”
“Are you saying that they should get away with killing our soldiers in our neighborhood? You know, your girl Dime was one of them.”
“What?”
“Yeah. I didn’t think you knew about that. This shit is fucking personal, Shara. This wasn’t a smack on the hand, and we can’t let the shit slide. If we do, who knows what the next two-dollar gang will try to flex on us.”
“Profit. You’re proving my point,” I tell him, certain that he can hear the frustration in my voice. “I love you, but I can’t go back to that life. I can’t.”
Profit clamps his jaw tight and glares at me. “You want me to beg.”
“No.” I shake my head. “I’ve made up my mind.”
“So nothing has changed?”
“That’s not true. I’m not angry with you. I’m not angry with anyone. I just want to do what’s best and . . . I want to go back to school. I want to go to college and medical school. I want to be that doctor that I’ve always wanted to be.”
Profit rolls his eyes. “That bullshit again.”
“Bullshit? You think my wanting to be a doctor is bullshit?”
Profit backtracks. “I didn’t mean it like that.”
“How in the hell other way could you have meant it?” The pain in my heart surpasses the pain from the bullets that I took the other night. I’m staring at the man I love without the rose-colored glasses, and I’m not sure that I like who I see.
“Ta’Shara, of course, I think that you can be anything that you want to be. I’m trying to figure out why you don’t want to be with me anymore. You love me, but you won’t marry me. You forgive me, but you won’t come back home. Help me understand this shit.”
“Then understand that it’s not always about you. How come being with you means that I have to give up everything I want? When the hell do your sacrifices kick in? What have you given up?”
“Are you kidding me? I lost my mother—”
“You mean the mother who didn’t want you to get mixed up in this gang life in the first place? The mother who didn’t want you to move up here from Atlanta in the first place?”
“If I’d never moved back to Memphis then we would’ve never met.”
I press my lips together and the room fills with a heavy silence.
“Oh.” He steps back, screwing up his face. “Is that your point? You wish that we never met?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“But do you deny it?”
I hesitate a beat too long and Profit tosses up his hands. “Fuck it.” He heads toward the door. “You wish that you never met me, then let me help you rectify that situation. Good luck to you, Ms. Murphy. You don’t ever have to worry about seeing my ass again.”
“Wait. Profit . . .”
He doesn’t stop. In fact, he leaves out the door with a final, “Fuck you, Ta’Shara.”
31
Wendi
“What?” You just want to waltz up to him in a hospital parking lot in broad daylight?” I ask Fowler, flabbergasted. “That doesn’t sound too damn smart to me.”
Fowler huffs out a breath. “Will you please chill the fuck out?”
I glare at him. “Who the fuck do you think you’re talking to?” I snap back. “I have just as much shit on the line as you do, and I have an equal interest in making sure that you don’t fuck it up.”
Fowler inhales, closes his eyes, and I assume counts to ten. “You’re right. I’m sorry. But we got to know whether to fill that order. The Vice Lords lost a lot of soldiers during that GD assault. If I arrange that shipment and Fat Ace can’t pay, that’ll be a headache none of us can afford.”
He’s right, but I can’t shake the feeling that this shit is all wrong. I bite my lower lip.
“Right?” he presses.
This time before I can answer, Fat Ace climbs out of the driver’s seat of a black Escalade.
“Hold that thought,” Fowler tells me. “It’s showtime.” He bolts out of the car.
I make the sign of the cross and then rush after him.
“Yo, my man,” Fowler booms.
Fat Ace pivots around to see who the hell is yelling across the open parking deck. When he recognizes Fowler he does a double take to make sure there’re no other cops about to spring up like jack-in-the-boxes. “What the fuck do you want?”
“Just a few minutes to holler at you.” Fowler grins and then removes his mirrored sunglasses in order to look the intimidating gangster in the eye.
My heart pounds so hard it’s a wonder I haven’t dropped dead. This is risky. This is reckless. This is insane.
“What? You came to bust me again?” Fat Ace asks. “I just bonded out an hour ago.”
“Nah. I ain’t got shit to do with that. I’m checking to make sure you still want that order before I put it in. My supplier don’t work on credit or issue refunds.”
Fat Ace’s one black eye bounces between Fowler and me. “Are you fuckin’ serious?”
“Yeah. I just—”
“N
igga, is you wired or some shit?”
“Nah. Nah. It’s nothing like that.” Fowler laughs. “I know that your set has been hit with a big tragedy and all. I’m just saying that if you need more time, we can push off the next delivery until you’re ready.”
“Man, I don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about and I don’t appreciate you rolling up on me like this when I’m here to see about my fiancée and my son.”
“All right. All right. Calm down.” Fowler holds up both hands. “I didn’t mean to upset you. I was just checking. I’ll let you go do what you gotta do. Everything is good.”
Fat Ace glares at Fowler as if he can’t believe the man came at him the way he did. Hell, I don’t even fucking believe it. We look like two fucking amateur idiots. Of course Fat Ace is thinking we’re trying to entrap his ass.
“Hey. Forget I said anything,” Fowler says, trying to make up for his error.
Fat Ace steps back, shaking his head.
I fidget and keep glancing around. I know that doesn’t help the situation, but I can’t help it. I’m nervous.
Fowler steps back, too. “Just give me a call if you have a change of plans. I completely understand given the circumstance.”
Fat Ace shakes his head again, spins, and then marches off toward the hospital.
I exhale, not even realizing that I’d been holding my breath. “I told you that was a bad idea.”
Fowler ignores me.
“What if he now cancels the order because he doesn’t trust us anymore? Did you ever think of that?”
Silence.
I stomp my foot. “Fowler! You hear me talking to you!”
Fowler shields his eyes as he looks up at the hospital building.
“What the hell are you looking at?” I mimic his stance to see what has caught his attention.
“Not what. Who,” Fowler corrects me.
Then I see her. “Captain Hawkins.”
32
Hydeya
Glued next to the hospital window, I watch the suspicious huddle between Mason, Fowler, and Hendrix, and try to make sense of what I’m seeing. Sure, it could be any number of things that my colleagues could be discussing with the notorious gangster—but my Spidey senses are going off like a muthafucka. Hendrix is a dead giveaway. Her jittering ass looks guilty as hell—but guilty of what?
Mason, appearing angry and frustrated, breaks away from the two officers and heads into the hospital.
My gaze follows his long strides into the building and then swings back to Fowler, who is now looking up toward my window. Has he spotted me? I’m up on the tenth floor, so I doubt it, but I’m not sure. Not until Hendrix also looks up am I certain that I have been spotted—but I’ll be damned if I’ll be the first one to walk away. After a full minute of our standoff, Hendrix tugs on Fowler’s arm and pulls him away.
I move away from the window and instead of leaving the hospital as I intended, I wait until I see Mason arrive on Ms. Washington’s floor. When he steps out of the elevator, other patients, nurses, and doctors scurry out of his way from the mere look of him. With his huge physical frame and grotesque burns and eye-patch, he looks like a monster from a children’s horror story. I even see a few kids in one of the waiting areas point and erupt into hysterics.
Mason is oblivious to it all. He’s focused on reaching his girlfriend’s hospital room. Even when he passes me, I’m certain that he isn’t ignoring me. He simply doesn’t see me. He stops a nurse, who jumps back when she sees him, and asks where his girlfriend’s room is.
The nurse points him in the right direction and he continues on his way. I know that I should leave him alone—allow him some personal time with Willow—but knowing that he’s my brother casts an almost trancelike spell over me.
He enters Willow’s room, and a few minutes later, a somber doctor with a resolute-looking nurse also enters the room. It isn’t much longer after that when Lucille’s mournful wails pierce through the room’s door.
More bad news.
My heart plummets to my knees as I imagine the worst. My mind skips back to when we discovered the wild-eyed woman, drenched in sweat, squatting in the woods like a wild thing. The woman had to have been made of some stern stuff to survive two attacks and a car crash to deliver her baby, but it’ll likely take a miracle for her to survive these latest developments.
A minute later, the somber doctor and nurse exit the room with their heads hanging lower than when they entered. The nurse gives the doctor a comforting rub on the back. Once they step away, I head back toward Ms. Washington’s door. I ignore the voice in my head telling me not to enter, and push through the door anyway.
Lucille is on her feet with her face planted in the center of Mason’s chest, sobbing as if her world has ended. “Whhhhyy? Whhhhyy?”
Mason has his muscular arms wrapped around the older woman, but he is staring down at Willow while tears slide down his face. He doesn’t look like he’s capable of saying anything, and then, “This is all my fault.”
The declaration quiets Lucille’s wails.
Mason’s thick, emotional voice continues. “I should have been there. They wouldn’t have gotten her out of that house. She should have been with me, picking up that shipment from that Fowler cat. She has always gone with me. Always.”
To be honest, I’m not sure I heard what was said after the name Fowler. I mean . . . I couldn’t have heard that correctly. Could I? I don’t know what I did to have drawn attention to myself, but Lucille’s accusatory voice snaps me out of my reverie.
“What are you doing in here?”
Mason’s big head swivels in my direction, and with naked rage he drops his arms from around Lucille and storms toward me.
In my lifetime, I’ve been in street and in war combat. My reflexes have never failed—until this moment. I freeze, I’m jarred out of my temporary paralysis when Mason’s enormous hands lock around my upper arms and propel me out into the hallway.
“You’ve got some goddamn nerve,” Mason growls, throwing me up against a wall. “You have no right to invade our privacy like this!”
“Get your damn hands off of me,” I hiss back.
Curious heads jerk in our direction, but Mason’s grip on my arms only tightens.
“If I have to tell you again, I will throw you so deep back into a cell, you’ll forget what sunlight feels like.” I make sure my game face remains fixed on his stony features. Little by little, the grip on my arms loosens. At last I’m allowed to slip down the wall to stand back on my own two feet, but I have to keep my head thrown back to meet his lone visible eye, unblinkingly.
“Stay away from me and my family,” he says coldly. “This is your one and only warning.”
“Careful,” I say. “That sounds like a threat. Threatening a police officer is still against the law the last time I checked.”
The corners of his lips hike. “I don’t make threats, Captain Hawkins. I make promises. Stay. Away.”
He walks off, but I’m not through with him yet. “What shipment were you talking about involving Lieutenant Fowler?”
Mason stops in the middle of the hall. He takes his time glancing over his shoulder with an icy silence.
“It was Lieutenant Fowler who you were referring to, wasn’t it?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he lies smoothly.
“I’m sure you don’t.” But I’ll find out. Turning, I stroll down the hallway with my chin up and my mind rewinding to the night of the Ruby Cove massacre. Fowler was unreachable that night—and Mason wasn’t home. Suddenly that little huddle outside takes on a whole other meaning. By the time I reach my car in the parking garage, I’m rethinking a whole lot of other shit, especially the Captain Johnson case and Fowler and Chief Brown’s insistence that I close the case. All of that hoopla about the fallout from all the local politicians who had hitched their wagon to the myth of Memphis’s famous supercop. The amount of money and weapons stashed in his residence was astounding.
There was no way that he wasn’t dirty. But the man couldn’t have been an island unto himself. He had to have had help—but I never dreamed that it could be a man I’ve trusted time after time with my life. The sneaky maneuvers to steal my job are one thing, but to be a dirty cop entangled in a gang war is another thing entirely.
Sinking in behind the driver’s seat, I contemplate my next move. Like Captain Johnson, Fowler can’t be acting alone in this. Who else is involved? Hendrix, clearly. Her jittery ass is a dead giveaway, but who else? How far up the chain? Chief Brown? How about her secret lover, whom she thinks nobody else knows about, Mayor James Wharton? The depth of this rabbit hole overwhelms me. How in the fuck do they put me in the impossible position to clean up a mess that their illegal activities are creating? I’m damned if I do and damned if I don’t.
This bullshit is what I sacrificed my marriage for? I chuckle under my breath and then I laugh. Hard. Hysterically. I’m fucked. I know it and surely they know it, too. I start the car. At times like these, a girl needs to have a long talk with her father.
33
Mack
The survivors of the Ruby Cove massacre are on pins and needles. We’re all waiting for the call from either Fat Ace or Profit on what our next moves are going to be. People attended funerals and wakes in waves. Everyone wants to pay respects; that includes to GG and Qiana.
Romil and I remain quiet when members of our crew spread rumors that the Gangster Disciples are also to blame for their deaths. Tombstone took the shit hard. I’ve never seen that brothah lose his shit the way he has. His rage narrowly focused on Diesel Carver. Apparently, Tombstone had the man all up in his house once. This convinces Tombstone that Diesel had played Qiana’s ass to get information on the Vice Lords. He’s telling everyone who’ll stand still long enough that the slick muthafucka used Qiana to pump information out about Ruby Cove.
Other soldiers and Flowers agree.
Guilt trips all through me, but what choice do my girl and me really have in keeping our mouths shut? Confessing that we had a hand in Qiana and GG’s murders would just turn our own against us. In a way, LeShelle Murphy is responsible for Qiana and GG. Her and Qiana’s treasonous deal is what led to both of their deaths, so fuck it.
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