Page 21 of Read the Room

Sully picked his burner for the week up to text Ethan or Joey to get on that. Both of them were at my house. Although Reya seemed cool like she wouldn’t leave, I couldn’t trust her just yet.

“What you need to be doing right now is going to see Mama Bee. I know she’s texted or called your phone since we’ve been here talking.”

He wasn’t lying. “I just texted her not too long ago to tell her that I was on my way.” I stood from my seat. “Let me go so I can handle some business. I need to holler at Louie anyway.”

I was a silent investor in Louie’s Sandwich Shop. The shop had been open for years but had hard times and was about to close about six years ago. For 60 percent of the profit, I invested. We shut it down for renovations and an upgrade to all the equipment. Per our contract, after five years of a certain threshold of profit, my percentage of profit dropped to 30 percent. If the shop met its thresholds for the next four years, Louie would own it at 100 percent. I’d go holler at him first because I had a feeling that I’d be with my grandma for a while today.

“Alright, that’s fine. Hell, short of robbing me, there would never be a reason that I would fire Reya. Thank God she taught our workers how to make her secret menu sandwiches. They’re great but not as amazing as when she makes them,” Louie said.

I’d heard about their secret menu sandwiches and tasted some of one that Alexi loved. When I asked her who made it,her response was alwayssome bum bitch at Louie’s.Hindsight was twenty-twenty. Now that I wasn’t in Alexi’s company daily, I had the time to sit down and just dissect her. I couldn’t recall a time that she ever had anything nice or kind to say about another female. The spirit of jealousy was a real thing in her, but I didn’t get why. Alexi was a beautiful woman.

“I’m happy to hear that. I promise to have her back to you as soon as I can. Shit just up right now, and I don’t want that shit around the business,” I let him know.

He stood when I did, and we shook hands. “Nah, that’s understandable. Reya is a good girl. I want her safe.”

We chopped it up for a few more minutes before we left the office. When I got to the front of the shop, it was poppin’. I dapped up some of the niggas from around the way. Some were my workers, and others were not. At a corner table, I noticed Meka and Carmella enjoying their food. When they noticed me, they gave me an ardent wave and kept it cute.

Next, it was time to see Mama Bee. I sent a prayer up to the Lord the entire way to her house. She must have heard my Ducati pull up, because by the time I climbed off my bike and took my helmet off, she stood on the porch with her arms crossed over her body, hip poked out, and a frowned face.

“Oh, now you decide to bring your black ass over here when I been calling you. I could have been half dead,” she fussed.

I knew she wasn’t because I had someone on her while I was not available to come through. I wasn’t going to rebut her statement with facts. There was no need for her to try to cave my chest in. As savage as I was, Beulah Jordan was a monster when pushed.

I walked onto the porch and kissed her cheek. “Ma, my bad. It’s been crazy, but shit is calming down. You know that I would never stay away if I didn’t have to.”

She glowered at me for a moment before she spun on her heels and walked into her house.

“I don’t give a damn what that street got going on. You could have FaceTimed me or something, little boy.” She stopped short in front of me, causing me to stop abruptly. Her finger was in my face. “Remember that y’all never be growner than me.”

At five feet five inches, you would think she was a giant. Her yell was a roar.

“I know, Ma. Everything good with you? Where the kids?”

She sat in her favorite recliner in her den before she answered my questions.

“They’re at swim class.” She crossed an ankle over the other. “No, everything is not good.”

I knew no one was fuckin’ with my ma. Her bills were paid because they were on autopay from an account that I made sure was funded.

“What’s wrong, Ma? Somebody messing with you?”

Her head drew back. “Boy, ain’t no one that crazy. I was calling you because I needed you to look into something for me. A few weeks ago, one of my mamas, Reya, came in here in the dead of the morning and snatched Lucas… I mean Jedi. She claimed she had some kinda family emergency. I ain’t heard from that girl since. I went to her house, and it looks like she ain’t been there, and someone been through there and tossed it up. I’m worried about her.”

I huffed. Last week, Jeremy’s people vandalized her house. I hated it when we told her that shit. It was me, Sully, and Joey that told her. She claimed she was alright, but I heard her crying in her room. Sully had to tell me not to buy her a house, but I felt like I needed to.

When you’re a man like me who was deep in the streets with blood on his hands, I felt there was a certain amount of good that needed to be done to atone in a sense. Yeah, I was a manthat didn’t give a fuck, but in the same breath, I did when it mattered. Like with that Carlos shit. Yeah, I made that bitch dive off a twentieth-floor balcony, but I spared his wife and kids. It was about balance. His widow got the money out of the safe she referred to, packed up the house, and was gone by the end of the week.

I went back and forth on whether I should tell my Mama Bee about Reya’s situation. I knew if I didn’t, it wouldn’t end well for me.

“Ma, Reya is at my house.” The way her face contorted told me that I needed to speak fast. “Some shit popped off in the street that she was a witness to, so I had to make sure that she was straight.”

She jumped up from her seat. “You done got that girl tied up in some bullshit! Lo’ak, that damn girl is a good girl that don’t bother nobody. She works her jobs, raises her boy, and carries her ass home. She not out here hoing with these stupid head ass niggas or nothing!”

“Ma, I know! Why do you think I got her at my house? I’m making sure she straight until my team makes sure everything is safe for her.”

Since I had been around Reya, I knew she was a good girl who stayed to herself. She cared about the betterment of herself and her son’s life.

Ma looked at me like I’d lost my mind. “You talking about you got her at your house. What about that bitch Alexi? Ain’t that bitch at your house too? I know that closed nose, flat faced bitch can’t be alright with that.”

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