Page 33 of Love & Vendettas

Savannah eyes me closely and rubs my back. “Are you sure that you can handle it?”

I look around at the five people sitting around the table with me.

“I can handle whatever the fuck that I need to handle as long as I’m fighting for you five.”

Everyone grows silent for a minute.

“Essence is the only one who knows us. She’s the only one who can come close to identifying our secret. She might not remember you, Savannah, because she never babysat you. You were already in school, and she didn’t come around when you weren’t. I doubt she’d remember the twins much and what they looked like because she didn’t have to watch them. They were at school.

“Most importantly, all of you have different last names now since you were adopted. But she knows me, and she babysat Cheyenne and Damascus on a few occasions. I’ve had conversations with Pops, and he’s confirmed that he never talked to her about you all. Never said your names, Savannah, Denver, and Aspen. He says they never talked about his family other than her trying to get him to leave Mama.”

“Yeah, I’m sure his mind was on other things while he was with her,” Savannah mutters bitterly.

“Listen, we have to take her down. With Pops getting out of jail, she’s going to try to do everything that she can to stop him. We can’t let that happen.”

My five siblings nod in agreement. We talk a little longer before we get up, say our “I love you’s,” and hug each other goodbye before they leave my office.

There’s nothing that I won’t do to protect them because they are my world. I’ve sacrificed a lot to get them to where they are today. These five help me run our little portion of the worldunderground. No one knows this, and it’s best if it remains this way.

16 – ZAIRE – NEEDLE IN A HAYSTACK

The windows are dark, as is the street, as I stare out into the night. I close my eyes for a mental count of fifteen before I open them again. Opening and closing my gloved fists, I grip the steering wheel with one hand and drum the fingers of my other hand on my leg.

I grit my teeth and breathe out through my nose.

You got this, man,I tell myself as I contemplate my next move.

I promised my siblings that I could handle myself, but so close to her, the way that I am, I want to put a bullet through the front of her skull. For the first time in a long time, she’s not surrounded by her entourage, which consists of her PA, her advisor, and a wannabe bodyguard.

I’d left her alone for a while. When Essence had left my father behind after high school, she had gone to college. When she returned and moved across the street from us, she had been enrolled in law school.

Essence had graduated just under two years after my father went to prison. It hadn’t taken her long to move out of the old neighborhood, although we were no longer there. She got a job in some prestigious firm and hadn’t looked back on the lives she destroyed.

She walks by the double glass doors, now wearing a nightie and slippers. I see her curves outlined in the sheer nightie, and it amazes me that her body hasn’t changed much in all these years. She must stick to a serious diet and workout regimen.

She walks back from somewhere out of sight and stands in front of the doors, staring out into the night, almost as if she can see me. I know that she can’t.

Slowly, I lower my window and aim the gun out at her. Looking through the sight of the gun, I think about how easy it might be to take her out now. With the silencer attached, no one would hear anything.

This gun and this car can never be traced back to me. Essence has no idea that the security cameras surrounding her house are no longer recording. When anyone goes back to look at them, they will never see the moment that they cut off and then cut back on again.

My phone rings, and I glance at the screen on my dashboard.

“Fuck!”

It’s Bayleigh.

Slowly, I lower the gun, let the window up again, and start the ignition. I pull away from the curb in the all-black Lexus with the tinted windows.

“Hey, baby,” I greet her cheerily.

“Hey, where are you?”

“I’m on the way home to you now.”

“How much longer?”

“I should be there in less than twenty minutes,” I say, flooring the gas pedal.

---