"My birthday is next week, so bring me back something good," she lied.

"What you want?"

"Let me call you right back," she said before snapping the plastic phone closed and silencing the ringer.

Tank reclaimed his seat and began shoveling into his food.

"Did you find him?" Naeema asked.

"Not yet."

"And what do you plan to do with him when you do?"

He didn't answer her.

Naeema left it the fuck alone. Tank was cool as hell as long as he wasn't crossed. Chance Mack didn't know it yet but he'd just made the shit list for something he did fourteen years ago. Fuck him.

They ate their food in silence. Naeema spent most of her time looking out the window at the traffic-free street and wondering what Tank really thought about her now that he knew the truth about Brandon.

"Do I need to check if those dudes Brandon was friends with are still alive?" Tank asked suddenly.

Naeema stiffened and she avoided his all too knowing eyes. "I'm not a killer, Tank."

"Oh, you not?"

Naeema closed her eyes as a vision of a bloodied body with a neck slashed by a razor blade flashed. A scene from her past. She blinked and shook her head before she locked eyes with him. "That was different," she said, angry that he'd brought up a secret she shared with him.

"Murder is murder."

That is a story for another time.

"Take me back to the barbershop," she said, jumping to her feet and damn near flipping her plate.

"Sit down, Na," he said, calm as hell as he kept on eating his food.

"Or?" she snapped, her temper turned up.

"Or . . . sit down, Na," Tank repeated like he was speaking to a child.

Ignoring his demand, she crossed her arms over her chest and turned to lean against the frame of the window as she looked out of it.

Tank just chuckled at her.

"Don't bring it up again," she said, glancing back at him over her shoulder.

He said nothing.

Looking back at the window, Naeema was surprised to see a black SUV with the darkest tint ever on its windows pull up and park on the street right outside the large bay window.

Tank's cell phone began ringing just as the rear doors of the SUV opened. She recognized the damn near seven-foot dude who climbed out on the street side. He was Grip and he worked for Tank doing security. She squinted her eyes as someone else tried to leave the vehicle but Grip reached in one strong arm and mushed whoever it was before solidly closing the door.

Naeema took a guess.

"You have to let it go, Na," Tank said, as he pulled out his phone.

"Says the man who just had my babyfather, who I haven't seen in fourteen years, brought to me."

Tank stood up and pulled a thick wad of money from his pocket. He unpeeled a fifty-dollar bill and dropped it onto the table. "Let's ride."

Naeema followed Tank out of the luncheonette. She couldn't believe she was about to come face-to-face with the man who once was the boy who broke her heart. My babyfather.

She glanced at Tank as they walked up to the SUV. I wonder what the fuck goin' thru his head.

Grip stepped aside as Tank opened the rear passenger door and motioned for her to step forward. She did.

"Naeema . . . you behind this bullshit move right here?"

She looked into the face of Chance and felt none of the love her young and dumb ass thought she had for him back in the day. Life had tapped his ass a little bit because he looked way older than his twenty-nine years. His eyes were yellow and glassy and she knew some addiction had a grip on him. "It don't come close to that bullshit move you and your fucked-in-the-head-ass mama pulled on me that night," she said, feeling her anger slowly get stoked.

"Don't talk about my mother-"

Her lips became a thin line as she reached in and slapped him two times. Fast and hard.

WHAP-WHAP.

"Yo, fuck that bitch," Naeema said, her tone snide as fuck.

"You dumb ho," he roared as he lunged for her.

Tank reached right in, smooth as hell, and gripped him around the neck with one strong hand.

Naeema turned and strode over to the motorcycle. With jerky motions only hinting at her rage, she unzipped her bag and removed the gun, quickly prepping it to be shot without hesitation. She quickly walked back to the truck.

Grip got the fuck out of the way.

Naeema reached past Tank to press the barrel to Chance's head. "Call me another, motherfucker. Huh? Huh? I dare you."

"Na," Tank said.

Chance's eyes got so big that there seemed to be nothing but white.

Naeema nudged him with the gun, her finger steady on the trigger. "This ain't the pregnant kid you and your dickless mother threw on the street, you slack-ass motherfucker. So I dare you to call me another one."

Chance swallowed hard past Tank's hand holding his neck in a vise.

He was between a rock and a hard place.

Naeema didn't give a fuck.

"There were times I was so fuckin' hungry but so broke that I started to eat food out the damn garbage because you found a new bitch and didn't want to lay family no more." A tear raced down Naeema's cheek as her eyes glittered brightly with her anger.

She gritted her teeth and pressed the gun against his head so hard that it tilted back against the seat. "Do you know our son is dead? Huh? And . . . and . . . and I oughta do you a favor and kill your bitch ass. Then you can lay eyes on your seed for the first time on the other side."

Her hand began to tremble as his eyes went dull.

His shock at the news wasn't nearly enough.

"Lie now and say he wasn't yours, motherfucker," she said in a whisper as she fought the urge to shoot him and leave Tank to clear away his dead body.

"Naeema," Chance said, "I-"

She flipped the gun, pushed the safety latch, and started straight pummeling his face and head with the butt of the gun. She even climbed up onto the seat to really nail his ass good. Not even the sight of his blood seeping from breaks in his skin stopped her. Not even the loud crack of whatever bone she fractured.

Tank wrapped an arm around her waist and jerked her out of the vehicle so roughly that her shoulder slammed against the frame. "That's enough, Na," he said, holding her body close to his.

She let her head fall onto his shoulder and her hands drop to her side.

"It's okay," he kept whispering to her even as someone took the bloody gun from her.

Naeema just gave in to all the emotions inside of her, sinking below that now all too familiar wave as she cried and gave in to his strength.

13.

One week later

BAM-BAM-BAM.

Naeema was holding paint swatches up against the flowery wallpaper of the living room when a sudden loud noise from the kitchen scared her. She turned and crossed the room to push past the blanket covering the opening to the kitchen. She leaned in the door frame and looked down at Sarge hammering on a door.

He barely spared her a glance.

BAM-BAM.

"This will look better than that blanket," he said.

She saw him pause with the hammer ready to strike more blows. He was giving her a moment to protest. "It sure will, Sarge," she agreed.

BAM-BAM-BAM.

Naeema didn't exactly know which room he borrowed the door from or if it would be a good fit, but she let him roll with it. It couldn't be any worse than the semipro job on the front door. So fuck it.

"Are all your kids alive, Sarge?" she asked, grabbing one of the chairs that used to surround the table she'd shot to smithereens while playing target practice with the photos of the MMC. She took a seat and crossed her legs in the hot-pink yoga pants she was wearing with a matching long-sleeved jacket that zipped to the neck.

"No," he said, grabbing the counter with one hand and standing with effort. "Both of 'em gone on before me."

She stayed silent. The thing about Sarge was, if he felt like going deeper about a topic then he just did, but if he had nothing else to say on a subject then a dozen questions or comments wouldn't change his mind.

"Both of 'em overdosed," he said, lifting the door to lean next to the opening. He removed the blanket, and light from the living room flooded the kitchen. "I wasn't here enough for them. Off saving the world and no one around to save my kids."

Naeema lifted her leg to press her foot against the seat as she rested her chin on her knee and wrapped her arms around her legs.

"Once I came back from all that shit in Vietnam, I was so fucked up I didn't want them to see me that way." Sarge stopped and stared off into the distance. "Seen way more shit than I shoulda."

"Do you think being around would have changed the kind of people they became?" she asked, risking him shutting down and quieting up.

He looked over at her. "I don't know that about mine . . . and neither do you about yours, Naeema," he said, before turning to align the door with the frame.

So Sarge knew.

Naeema wasn't surprised. There wasn't much he could miss just one floor down and barely ever venturing outside.

"Let it go, gal," he said, glancing back over one of his bent shoulders at her.

"Tank said the same thing."

Sarge frowned. "You tell him?"

She shook her head. "You?"

"Ain't my business to tell."

She believed him. Releasing a heavy breath, she rose and walked across the kitchen to the back door.

"Bullets don't care who they kill, Naeema," he said sharply.

She paused for a second but she continued out the door, closing it softly behind her.

I'm in too deep.

Tank was confident she was off the trail of her son's killer, because she had been hanging around home a lot this week when she wasn't working. He was wrong as hell. Bas got back in town that night and she had spoken to him every day that week getting back in his good graces after snubbing him. He was even planning to take her out for dinner for her fake birthday. She convinced him to include the crew. It was enough of the pussyfooting, because she wasn't giving up any more pussy to Bas. She had every intention of catching Hammer and Nelson alone and straight up asking them about Brandon. Plus she wanted to know if they were up on Vivica using him to pay Red back for his cheating. If they knew Red knew it too. That brick head motherfucker did it.

Was she scared of Red? Without a gun? Hell yeah. But a gun would equalize shit. She just wasn't sure if she was going to take Vivica the fuck out too for instigating the bullshit.

Naeema pulled her gold chain from inside her fitted jacket and looked down at her son's ring hanging from it as she crossed the yard to her motorcycle. I done sacrificed too much to let this shit ride now. I'm too fucking close. I can feel that shit.

She dropped the chain back inside her jacket and opened the doors to her garage. She knocked the kickstand up with her foot and climbed onto the black leather seat, loving the feel of the entire bike vibrating between her thick thighs as she turned the key in the ignition. Rolling across the small backyard and then down the paved driveway, Naeema looked to the right to check for oncoming traffic. "Oh shit," she exclaimed behind the visor of her pink helmet when she spotted her neighbor Coko passed out on her front porch. This girl keep chasing death.