Page 13 of Papa's Beloved

“I had enough of that taking care of my siblings.”

“True dat,” he says with a grin. “You’re always taking care of others, but who takes care of you?”

“You do. You’re the only person in my life that’s ever taken care of me, Gabriel. One of the many reasons I love you.”

“I love you too, Nay. You’re the moon in my night sky.”

“Aren’t you poetic.”

“Not really. Just a fool in love.”

I laugh and dig into my breakfast. I’m starving. We spend the next little while eating and talking about bullshit stuff. Nothing too taxing.

Chapter 11

Papa

Ienjoy feeding my woman and I watch in pleasure as she eats. I’m not looking forward to what comes next, telling her about her uncle. Wizard has half his screens running through cameras coming for Linden Danvers and the other half looking for G’Dawgs.

It’s only been a few hours, but Gambit already sent a crew to round up a few of the G’Dawgs. The ones we saw dump the body are low-level thugs. I highly doubt either of them did more than dump the body. The prospects were dispatched to pick up the lower level Dawgs.

One of the lower level thugs would spill. They haven’t been around long enough to develop a skin thick enough to withstand questions from me, much less Smoke. We keep the conversation light while we eat. After we eat, I send her to the living room and I put the dishes in the sink.

It’s too early to drink but I could use one or six. I’m not looking forward to breaking my woman’s heart and possibly sending her into a tailspin. I join her on the couch, taking her hands in mine.

“What’s wrong, baby?” she asks softly.

“Beloved, I don’t know how to say this, so I’m just going to blurt it out. Linden is alive, and he’s in New Orleans.”

She jumps up from the couch, shock apparent on her face.

“What? No, that’s impossible. He died in the fire with my dad.”

I shake my head. “I wish it were the case, but Wizard caught him on video. I saw with my own two eyes.”

“I need to see.”

I nod and pick up my phone, calling Wizard. He picks up on the first ring.

“I’ve got it queued up. Come on down.”

“We’ll be right there,” I hang up the phone and look at Nay.

“Apparently we can addmind readerto Wizard’s long list of abilities. He has the video ready and waiting.”

She nods her head and reaches for my hand. I take it and lead us out of the apartment, down the stairs. I know my woman is impatient. And heading to Wizard’s apartment. His is directly under mine. I don’t bother knocking, since he’s expecting us.

He’s sitting in his space age looking chair with a video paused on the biggest monitor on his wall. There is a large central monitor. It’s actually a seventy-two inch TV screen. Smaller monitors cover the wall surrounding the large one. He still has them split, looking at footage for Bub’s beating and using facial recognition software to find Linden.

“I’m sorry, Nay.”

She smiles at my brother. “It’s not your fault. Unless you can bring people back from the dead, and you didn’t tell us.”

A smile turns up the corners of his mouth as he shakes his head. “Not one of my skills and, in this case, I’d rather he be dead. Are you ready?”

“Yes.”

Her body tenses in anticipation. Wizard begins the video. I watch Nay as she watches the same video I’ve viewed more than a dozen times. I kept going back, thinking I was missing something, or maybe the guy just looked like Linden. The moment her uncle’s face comes into clear view, Nay pales and does the last thing I expected, faints.

---