Page 77 of The Prodigy

They say when you marry, you leave and cleave to your spouse. But my daddy didn’t give me anything to leave behind.He’sthe one who left, and I was still dealing with that pain.

And for all his negative thoughts about the Windermere family, the WindermereImarried was doing a better job of taking care of me than my daddy ever had.

It was kinda ironic when I thought about it.

My growling stomach kept me from dozing off, but I wasn’t trying to go downstairs and possibly run into Gab. I just didn’t have it in me to deal with her.

Instead, I looked around the room, hoping Jakari had left a bag of chips somewhere. No such luck.

I checked my tote bag, hoping I’d left something in there, but all I found was an apple.Theapple.

It was the one from that night, and it was in pretty bad shape. Brown blemishes, small bruises, and a few mushy spots. But there was one part that was still smooth, firm, and blood red. Without thinking, I took a big bite of the good part and chewed, enjoying the sweetness. I wrapped up the rest of it in a grocery bag and sat it by the door to remind myself to throw it out in the garbage can outside, then I laid back down.

As I stared up at the ceiling and watched the fan spin in lazy circles, I wondered ,what next?

Just before I nodded off, it came to me.

“Areyousafe?”

Jakari looked up from the computer and frowned. “What you mean?”

I came all the way into the room and walked to the side of the desk. “The guy at the bar. The one who was after you. Are there others?”

His face relaxed. “Honestly, I don’t know yet. Somebody sent him, I just gotta find out who.”

I nodded. “And when you find out?”

His eyes were back on the screen. “When I find out, I’ma handle that shit.”

I found myself oddly excited by that declaration.

“Was that the first person you killed?”

He looked up again. “You wearing a wire?”

I laughed. “No. You wanna check?”

He smirked at me. “I won’t never pass up a chance to get you out them clothes.”

“Seriously, I’m asking. I wanna know. I wanna knowyou.”

He sighed and swiveled the desk chair so that he was facing me. “Okay. No. He wasn’t the first. He was the second.”

“Who was the first?”

He raised an eyebrow and stared me down, maybe trying to figure out what my angle was. But I’d told him the truth. I just wanted to know him better. He was my…husband. Technically.

“Aight.” He sat back in the chair and stretched his legs in front of him. “You know my little brother Eris.”

I nodded.

“You seen how he dresses. He likes to dress nice.Obviouslynice. We use to tell him about that shit all the time, but you can’t tell a little hardheaded nigga like him what to do. They gotta see firsthand. So one day when he was up at the gym playing ball, somebody broke in his locker and stole his Rolex, chain, and this pinky ring he used to wear. He figured out who it was and confronted him. Eris was just gon shoot a fair one, but the other nigga brought a gun to a fist fight.”

“Were you there?”

“Nah. Eris came home and told us. Dude had pistol whipped him. Shit was bad. His eye was all fucked up. And apparently, he threatened Eris after all that. Told him he better not see him at the gym again. Now, mind you, it ain’t nowhere in this fucking city where a Windermere nigga can’t go. I don’t know if buddy was gone off some good shit or what, but he signed his warrant with that shit.

“One night, me and Nay rolled up on buddy when he was coming from some girl’s house. We was just gon beat his ass and remind him who he was fuckin’ with, but he started talkin’ shit, and he threatened my brother again. That let me know he was serious, so he had to go.”

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