Page 43 of All The Smoke
“Touch me and lose ya fronts,” I warned when he got ready to grab my arm.
Taking heed of my warning, he lifted his hands and repeated himself but I ignored him and kept my stride to the back of the room where Noah’s attorney was holding his meeting. He was mid-conversation when I grabbed a chair from another table and took a seat at the end of the one he was at.
“M-Mr. Tate,” he stammered, looking back and forth between me and dude across from him.
“Why you playing with me, bruh?” I frowned.
“I-I’m sorry, I-I don’t know what you mean.”
“Don’t play with me, Henry,” I said, calling him by his first name. “I’m telling you with the mood I’m in, I’d really do something to you.”
“What’s going on here?” Carlos, the guy he was meeting with, asked.
I knew his name because Henry’s assistant told me who he was meeting with here for discretion due to his brother’s high profile case back in Cali. I didn’t ask all that shit but when you offered a mothafucka the right amount of money they’d tell it all.
“What’s going on is this man ain’t gon’ make it to see ya brother through his mothafuckin’ trial if he keep on playing with me.”
“Mr. Tate…”
I cut him off. “Give me an update on my brother.”
“I’m in a meeting?—”
Reaching for the collar of his shirt, I yanked him across the table and growled, “You about to be meeting ya mothafuckin’ maker if you don’t do what the fuck I just asked you to do.”
“Th-there are m-motions, briefs, th-things of that nature that I have to file, M-Mr. Tate,” he stammered. “These things take time.”
“You been working on his shit for fucking forever,” I snapped. “You ain’t had shit but time.”
“It’s not the easiest thing, getting on a judge’s calendar.”
“Nigga, you all over the fuckin’ news doing all kinds of shit for this nigga.” I tossed my head in Carlos’s direction. “And his people just got arrested.”
“But—”
Snatching my gun from my side, I placed the shit under his chin and growled, “I don’t want to hear not one more mothafuckin’ excuse, Henry.”
“Your father,” he blurted. “Y-Your father came to me and asked me to leave the case alone.”
Shocked at the revelation, I loosened my grip on his shirt and allowed him to fall back into his seat as I sat back in my own, trying to make sense of the shit. I knew mothafuckin’ well that shit was a lie. I didn’t want to believe my pops, hell Noah’s pops, would do no shit like that.
Naw, naw. He ain’t that fucking grimy.
“You’re lying,” I said, even though deep down something told me he wasn’t.
“I’m not. He came to me a few months ago and asked me to fall back from the appeal. He’s running for mayor and didn’t want the case to resurface and potentially hurt his race.”
Wow!
I was fuming hearing this shit. I knew he was a piece of shit. Hell, I knew they both were, but I ain’t think they would stoop this fucking low and sabotage their own fucking son. Especially when they weren’t the ones paying for the shit.
Standing from my seat, I tucked my gun in my back, preparing to leave and making mental notes in my head. I was gon’ hit my baby mama and have her grab Solo from them because if I went I was going to murder Bishop. I also told myself I couldn’t go see about Kaori. I was boiling hot and her ass could potentially do or say some shit that was gon’ piss me off even worse than I already was. So I was gon’ have to put that shit on ice for the moment.
“I want all my money back, my nigga,” I said after putting the chair back where I had gotten it from.
“I can’t…”
“Naw you can and you fuckin’ is, bro, and you gon’ do the shit pronto, or I’m gon’ be at 409 Ash Ave with my twin Deserts ready for some mothafuckin’ action. Feel me?”
