Page 50 of Kentrell

“But nah… he ain’t take her nowhere out the city. Pokie was too close to her sister and her mama to just up and leave them like that.” She let out a long breath like the whole conversation had started weighing on her.

Then she added it… almost like an afterthought—but not really?—

“And I think back then… he used to work under E.T. Walker, so he couldn’t just leave the city like that.”

My eyes narrowed at the mention of Walker.

E.T. Walker.

The main reason Lex’s daddy ended up behind bars.

“He a lawyer?” I asked, already knowing but wanting her to say it out loud.

“Yeah… he was.” She let out a dry, humorless laugh. “We called him Dee.” Then she gave me another piece. “Had a wife too. Some saditty-ass broad with too much time and too much money on her hands. Her ass stayed globetrotting till word got back that her husband had something on the side.”

I raised a brow. “How you know that?”

“‘Cause I do.” Her answer came sharp. Too sharp. Enough to make my jaw twitch, but I let it slide.

“She ain’t like the fact that Pokie wasn’t in the background,” she added, her tone dropping like she’d just spit on the floor. “And Dee wasn’t checking Pokie, either. Whatever she wanted, he made sure she had it. Trips. Whips. Bills paid. That man was tryna show her he could fund her whole lifestyle. Like he was tryna build her her own lil world outside his real one.”

“So that’s why she left,” I said, shrugging like I’d figured the puzzle out.

“No, Trell.” She laughed, but there wasn’t no humor in it. Just frustration wrapped in history. “She was very much still present in the streets. Even then. Shit… we was what… eighteen, nineteen? Dumb as fuck. Thinking everything that came out ya daddy’s mouth was golden.” She let the words roll out with a huff like she could still taste the bitterness from back then.

“She was fuckin’ with Kenny too?” I asked, already bracing for the answer.

“No.” That came out too quick. Automatic. “You know your daddy hit every bitch on his track, but he ain’t stay fuckin’ with ‘em like that. Not like me and Vee.”

She licked her lips, gaze drifting sideways like she was scrolling through mental footage she didn’t wanna replay.

“And by that time…” She paused, calculating the years in her head. “I think it was two, maybe three years after Pokie met Dee… Kenny was already fuckin’ with Reesie.” She gave me the timeline like she needed to set the record straight.

“So nah. They wasn’t on that.”

She went quiet for a second. Just long enough for me to wonder if she was done.

Then she exhaled hard and said, almost like it hurt her to admit?—

“All I know is… that girl went from one extreme to the next.”

I stayed quiet. Letting her words settle… letting them work their way through me like slow poison. The bitterness in her voice wasn’t coming from jealousy—that much was clear. This was heartbreak. The kind that leaves bruises under your skin. The kind that comes from being left behind by somebody you trusted with everything.

“She had a baby too,” my mama said after a long pause, like the memory had just walked back into the room and sat down between us. “Right before she dipped the fuck off.”

That made my eyes lift.

Zoe.

I’d seen Pokie’s photo in the file Malcolm handed to me. But still… I remembered the nights Pokie used to come through our house. Loud, laughing, bullshitting with my mama. Even on days when I was outside playing or holed up in my room on the game, I remember her being there. Always close. Always part of the fabric of our shit.

And I ain’t never seen her with no baby in her arms.

So I still had to ask.

“Pokie?”

My mama nodded slow. “Yeah. She kept it on the low.” She leaned back in her chair like the memory weighed her down.

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