by Brick
Tapping my fingers across my gun, I sat and watched him, not saying a thing, still accessing him, still trying to put the pieces of this all together.
“Marcel, what do you . . . wait . . . wait . . . What’s with the gun?” he said finally getting the picture. “What do you want?”
“I thought it was to see you dead, but I might be wrong about that right now. I’m still deciding,” I calmly said.
“Dead? Dead? Why? Have I been nothing but like family to you? Loved you like a brother?”
Fear made people talk the most bullshit ever known. That’s why I enjoyed taking my time with my kills occasionally. Shit could be a riot. A straight comedy show if you got the right mark. It all was determined on the grade level a person’s so-called moral compass ran. The Leo I knew was operating on a Level H of having a moral compass. That meant that he was the worst of worst, but when pressed with a stressful situation, then the motherfucker suddenly remembered his Hail Marys full of grace. Such as the case scenario going on now.
“Now you feel that way? My man, now you feel that way?” I gave a sharp, sarcastic laugh, then stood up.
“I’d never do something like that to you, especially with how close you are to Father, and how much he loves you, bro,” Leo quickly expressed.
Slowly strolling around the room, I stopped in front of his office door, then locked it. “Nigga, I’ve known you for a while now, and in the whole time I was given the chance of being a part of your family, you’ve only seen me as a rival. So don’t play me.”
Turning his way, I walked slowly toward his desk with my hands behind my back, gun included. “You might want to tell your secretary to go to lunch or let her off for the day. Me and you need to have a long conversation about you trying to kill my family and me. Mainly my wife.”
Feigned shocked lit up Leo’s dusky features. I knew from how he worked his mouth that he was about to stumble over some lies, but I didn’t have time for that shit at all.
“Do what I said, or I’ll shoot you right now, and we both know I don’t want to do that . . . just yet,” I calmly stated.
It was then that I continued my pacing, admiring the artwork that Leo had on display. A mint condition Jackie Robinson baseball was on his mantel. Because I wanted it, I took it off its holder. Moving on, I checked out a unique, colorful painting over the mantel of his fireplace while listening to Leo dismiss his secretary.
“There,” he said slamming the phone down.
Once I felt he was done with his dramatic tone, I turned to see him raising a Glock at me. I mean, I wasn’t shocked by it, and it truly made my day; however, it also annoyed me because that meant I’d have to put bullets in him earlier than I wanted.
“Leo,” I said, quickly squeezing the trigger.
A slight thud noise sounded, indicating it hit Leo in his calf where I aimed. The additional sound of him screaming had me walking toward him from an alternative angle to move out of the way of his gun.
“You shot me! You really shot me,” he yelled, cradling his calf.
“No shit and you held my wife and daughter hostage and tried to kill them and me, or nah?” I said leaning against his desk. Tossing the ball in the air, I grabbed my briefcase, popped it open, and placed it inside. “Let’s be candid while you clean yourself up.”
“I didn’t come for you, Marcel,” he hissed our between his teeth. “Why would I do something so dumb when you are nothing but an asset to me?”
“Exactly for that reason. Let’s not be dumb here. No one knows what I do. No one. Tell me how killers could come to my home and specifically look for me, then spit your name out.” As I spoke, I adjusted my gloves. “Either you did it, or you told my business to a common enemy, something you know never to do, my man. So what’s the deal?”
Leo screamed, then stopped. When I looked his way, he was lunging at me, trying to slice me with a knife. The power that came with that attack caught me off guard. I wasn’t expecting that because it had been a long time since I saw him fight with his hands. He was always a gunman and nothing more. Therefore, his quick swipes had me leaning back and sliding off his desk as he came for me baring his teeth.
A swift kick to his shin could take him down, but how he was twisting his body to avoid my fist had me keeping on guard from being sliced by his blade. The slam of his fist to my face, split my glasses down the middle, shattering them and causing me to stumble backward. I shook my head trying to clear my vision and then crossed my arms to block his punches, then swipe away his knife as he yelled.
“You shot me, nigga! I didn’t come for you. Too many people want you dead for the favors you’ve done for shifty motherfuckers like me. Why would I risk losing your talent by killing you?” he shouted through each swing.
The side of a table hitting me knocked my gun from my hand. Our ruckus caused all types of shit to fall in our battle royal. Of course, this was some bullshit, but it was a fun one for me. I jabbed forward and landed a blow to Leo’s throat, causing him to gag.
“Because since day one, you wanted me dead, nigga. Called me your pop’s nigga pet,” I spat out slamming my elbow into his collarbone. “You’re greedy and can’t accept that I don’t want shit from y’all but my right to live my life on my own terms. Essentially, my freedom.”
That move left me open for him to hit me hard in my ribs and allowed him to stumble back shaking his head before thickly saying, “Even if what you’re saying was true, you’re still here, nigga. What you do leaves you with an X on your back! Dumb-ass nigga. If it’s not me, then it’s someone else!”
Fire had my lungs blazing while I caught my breath. Both Leo and I stared hard at each other while we stood our ground.
“It wasn’t me,” he said panting and resting his hand against the oak paneling of his wall. “I still need your gun, and my pops demands you live always,” Leo breathily said, then looked down at his leg in disbelief. “You shot me.”
Wiping sweat from my eyes and blood from my mouth, I limped forward, grabbed my gun, then walked around him. There was no trust here with him and me, but there was loyalty on my end. It was clear again that some shit was off base, and his word wasn’t going to be enough.
Body aching, suit fucked all the way up, I did my best to keep chill. I was knocking on that void and wanted to cross that threshold badly, but I was schooled better than that.
Pausing, I stared Leo in his swollen eye, then sent him slamming to the floor with one punch. “Yeah, and you get to live . . . for now.”
I walked out of his office, disheveled and in my thoughts as he yelled obscenities behind me.
Nigga could have been playing me, but for now, I planned to let him live. I had to. Though I had clearance to end him, I knew his death would be too much for his pops. I also needed him alive to watch him. It wasn’t that I didn’t believe him; it was because what he said I had already thought out. It could have been anyone who wanted me dead. I needed more info to figure out who, though. I needed them to know that I was alive just to test to see what was to come next. Because something in the air said my life was on borrowed time, and I needed to find out the truth, for the sake of my family.
Chapter Seventeen
Sabrina
No secrets. That was what my husband had said to me when we first got together. We had to be completely honest with each other. That was his thing. And yet, after him revealing that spare key to a safe deposit box, I realized there would always be parts to him or parts of his story I’ll never fully know. I paced the cool, wooden floor of the new condo he had us holed in. It was top of the line, I had to give him that. I had so many questions for my husband that he needed to answer. But I was guessing he already knew that since he made sure to slip deep inside of me before he left. He knew when it came to him and the sexual intimacy we shared, I couldn’t think right to save my life.
To be honest, what he had shown me scared me. It scared me because that meant I didn’t really know my husband as well as I thought. What he had s
hown me told me there were deeper levels to the shit he had going on. I stopped walking when I heard the locks on the door turn. I was still jumpy and antsy. Although Marcel had told me we were safe, I grabbed a gun that was strapped underneath an end table next to the couch.
I stood with it aimed at the door.
“Put the damn gun down,” Marcel said as he walked in.
He was holding his ribs, which mean he’d been in a fight again. I lowered the gun and ran a hand through my hair.
“What happened?” I asked.
It took him awhile before he answered. He snatched off the leather jacket and gloves he had on. I watched as he laid guns and knives he had strategically placed on him on the bar. He stripped his shirt off, then sat on the stool. The stitches I’d given him had come undone. He cut his eyes at me, then pointed to the decanter filled with amber-brown liquid above the fireplace. I grabbed it, then popped the glass stopper. I poured him a healthy helping into a tumbler, then passed it to him.
He took the liquid to the head, then slammed the glass down on the bar behind him.
“I don’t think it was Leo,” he said. “I’m not saying this for certain, but I’m saying he didn’t respond the way a man who assumed my death was in the books should have.”
“I mean, although he would have been the obvious person, that doesn’t mean he didn’t do it. Leo is a manipulator,” I said.
“I know this, Sabrina, but given how long I’ve known the man, I’m going to say there is a 90-percent chance he didn’t do it, which leaves your father—”
“And the mob,” I quickly added so he wouldn’t turn his attention solely on my daddy.
Marcel’s eyes leveled on mine as he spoke. “It leaves your father who’s left to visit.”
I frowned, then swallowed quickly. I rolled my shoulders. “Pay . . . Pay him a visit? For what, Marcel?”
He tilted his head and looked at me as if I were dense. “Until I find out who tried to kill us, everybody is a suspect.”
My spine stiffened. “I want to leave.”
“We can do that, but I’m not leaving until I know who wants me and my family dead. Makes no sense to run if we don’t even know who’s after us.”
“You’re the one who said we had to leave,” I snapped.
I felt myself getting angrier at the notion that if Marcel went to see my father, and he was the one behind the botched hit, Marcel would kill him, no questions asked. It wouldn’t even matter that I would be hurt behind my father’s death. Marcel had no filter like that. And, no, my father and I hadn’t spoken in years, but I still loved him. I wished he wasn’t so damned stubborn so Lyric could know the man he was when he wasn’t an angry asshole. Regardless of the mistakes my father had made, when he was in my life, it was good, for the most part.
Yes, Daddy had anger issues, and there was no doubt in my mind if he and Marcel were in the same room and Marcel accused him of trying to kill us, things would go left pretty damn quickly. Daddy was a proud man, and so was my husband.
Marcel stood, took the decanter from my hand, and poured himself another drink.
“No, I did not say we had to leave. I said we had to choose on if we were going to stay and fight or leave. I emphasized the leaving part because that would be better for Lyric. Until we leave, I’m checking under every rock to see who is trying to kill my goddamned family and me,” he yelled, then caught himself.
When he glanced down the hall, I knew he was checking his tone because Lyric was in the back room.
Tears burned my eyelids as I watched my husband down another shot of liquor. He was in pain. That was obvious by the way he kept his arm around his abdomen.
“Don’t kill him, Marcel.”
“Sabrina.”
“Don’t kill him. Promise me!”
He shook his head. “If he sent men into my home, he’s dead.”
I licked my lips, then moved closer to him. He stepped back.
“Baby, can’t you just talk to him like you did with Leo.”
“I shot Leo.”
My eyes widened. “What? You said you talked to him.”
“Yeah, we talked. I didn’t like what he had to say, so I shot him,” he said through clenched teeth.
Marcel moved down the hall. I moved quickly behind him. “Let me talk to him, baby. Let me . . . I know him . . .”
He turned to me. The look on his face said his patience was wearing thin. “Sabrina, stop. Don’t do this. Don’t spazz out on me right now because this is your father. Somebody tried to kill us, and if he had anything to do with that, he’s a dead man.”
I balled my fists and slammed them against his chest, not in anger, but in resignation. I already knew the man I married, and I knew when he said something, he meant it. I believed him the first time he told me if my father put his hands on me again, he would kill him. I could tell by looking up at him now, compassion for the fact that Othello Lanfair was my father meant little to him.
I lay my forehead on his chest and softly cried because I knew no matter how hard I tried to talk him out of it, it was no use. He stood there with me a few moments, one hand on the small of my back, allowing me to let my emotions get the better of me.
“I have to go back out, Sabrina,” he said.
There was no malice in his voice, but a sternness that told me he meant business. I slowly gazed up at him through blurry vision.
“If you have to kill him, don’t make him suffer,” I said, then stepped back.
Marcel wiped my eyes, then cradled my face in his hands as he kissed me. His tongue was thick and velvety against my lips. I felt the heat I always felt when he kissed me.
He pulled back and looked down at me while my face was still in his hands. “I’ll never make you those kinds of promises.”
I closed my eyes and inhaled deeply when he left me standing in the hall. Thirty minutes later, after he had wrapped his waist thoroughly, put on a clean shirt, and grabbed a black duffle bag, he left again. For the next few hours, I paced my front room. Lyric woke up, so I fixed her something to eat. The fridge was already stocked, which was a good thing, but my daughter was a picky eater. She had this strange thing where she liked her peanut butter and jelly sandwich toasted. I always had to make it like it was a grilled cheese sandwich. She wouldn’t eat it otherwise.
As the hours passed, night came and went, and Marcel still hadn’t come home yet. When he hadn’t come home by noon the next day, I turned the TV on, paying close attention to the news, looking for anything that would tell me if Marcel had killed my daddy or not.
“Mommy?” Lyric called.
“Yes, baby?”
“Is Daddy gone for b . . . ba . . . um . . . What’s that word, Mommy?” she asked while holding her doll close.
“Business?” I said for her.
“Yes, busy-nuss,” she said.
I smiled. “Yes, baby. He’ll be back soon.”
As soon as the words left my mouth, the locks turned, and Marcel walked in. Lyric ran to her father first. I stood, anxiously wringing my hands as I watched. I looked on in silence while Lyric talked a mile a minute. I didn’t say a word until he looked over at me.
He put our daughter down and then asked her to go to her room. She disappeared down the hall with no questions asked.
“This is the first time in my life that I haven’t done what I set out to do, Sabrina. I didn’t go see your old man, and somewhere in the back of my mind, I feel that shit is going to come back to haunt me.”
I was so elated that he hadn’t gone to kill my father that I didn’t see the way his face was set in stone. I tried to rush in to hug him, but he held his hands out to keep me back.
“Marcel,” I called out, confused.
“No, back up off me. You don’t get to do this to me, Sabrina. You don’t get to use my love for you against me,” he said. I stared a bit confused by his words. “You don’t get to interfere with my work, because then, you become a liability,” he said. “This is the first—and
last—time you ever step between me and my work, you got that?”
“But—”
“No buts,” he snapped, cutting me off. He shook his head. “No buts. Don’t do it again. Somebody tried to kill us. They injured our daughter, could have killed you and her. And you don’t want me to see about a nigga because he’s your father.”
“You said you didn’t believe them when they said it was him anyway.”
“Yeah, but that doesn’t mean I need to leave any stones unturned. Don’t fucking step between me and my work again. Don’t do that shit.”
I was quiet for a while, then I said, “I’m sorry.”
“The hell you say,” he snapped. “You’re not sorry about shit. You’re sorry because you don’t want me talking to you like I am right now. Don’t”—he said harshly as I tried to walk up on him again—“don’t you fucking touch me.”
I stopped because I knew that he knew what I was doing. Just like he used his touch to calm me down, I was attempting to do the same thing to him. I knew if I touched him, he wouldn’t yell or curse or look at me like he wanted to strangle me. He was angry now, but if I touched him in any way, his anger would subside. If I kissed him, he would stop the hostility. Yes, it was some very manipulative shit to do on the surface, but in reality, I only wanted him to calm down enough to not be so pissed off at me.
I hated when he was mad at me. He knew that. So even though he was adamant that I didn’t touch him, I tried to anyway. He gently pushed me away from him, then stormed down the hall to our daughter’s bedroom, slamming the door shut behind him. He didn’t come out for the rest of the day. When he was hungry, he sent Lyric to the front room to ask me for food.
I decided to let things be as they were. There was no use in beating a dead horse. If he wanted to stay mad, then so be it. In the meantime, I decided to do something about my part in the fucked-up situation we were in. I walked into the hall and grabbed my “business” laptop. I had Wi-Fi access. The only thing I was worried about was what my husband had shown me earlier. He was connected to a whole other subset of people, and if they got wind of what I was about to do, I could go down and take all the people I was about to contact down with me.