Page 92 of More Than a Hero
Tamarcus didn’t take his eyes off Jimmy.
Ms. Angie glanced up, brow creasing as she looked up at Tamarcus. She opened her mouth but didn’t get a chance to speak.
36
TAMARCUS
Tamarcus paced slowly near the window. His heart thumped in an uneven rhythm as the stale scent of lemon cleaner, peppermint, and old age itched under his skin.
This was supposed to be a quick stop. In and out. He could tell his grandma he checked on her brother, but more importantly, it gave him a solid hiding spot for an hour while the heat cooled on the highway. The backroads around the senior complex made it easy to lay low when the highway was crawling with local and state police, known for their notorious speed traps. It’s the only way this back-ass county could bring in any money.
But when he stopped by, he hadn't counted on company. He snorted softly.I’m a drug transporter creating a route for the OGB Bloods of Norfolk, and my fucking plans are unraveling. Goddamn Lashawn… goddamn kid and a goddamn do-gooder.
Marty didn’t matter. Half blind, half deaf, and smiling like this was a family reunion. Tamarcus had never met the man before this past month. Only heard of him from his grandma, Marty’s stepsister. A throwback. A safe spot. Nothing more.
But the woman was a different story. Marty had introduced her as Ms. Angie. She sat stiffly on the worn sofa next to Marty’srecliner, a stack of neatly arranged forms in her lap. She didn’t seem to let his negative vibes scare her off. She calmly filled out paperwork like she didn’t even feel the tension choking the room. She kept looking at him, though. Every time he shifted, she clocked it. Not nosy, just… observant. Watching.
She didn’t flinch like the others usually did when he walked into a room, and her determination unnerved him. He had expected silence or fear. Instead, her resolve pissed him off more.
She adjusted her stupid purple glasses and offered Mr. Marty another gentle smile as she flipped to the final form in the stack. “Almost done, sir,” she said. “This one just needs your signature, and you’ll be all set to take it to your hearing doctor tomorrow.”
Marty beamed from his recliner like a schoolkid with a gold star. “I’m finally gonna be able to hear Rosetta fussin’ at George from halfway across the garden again!”
Tamarcus didn’t give a fuck about the old man’s hearing aid. He’d die soon, and no one would care if he could hear or not.
What did matter was the kid. The tall one with sharp eyes and twitchy nerves. He’d been here the other day. Now, suddenly popping in and pretending like this was a friendly visit, Tamarcus didn’t trust him.
Tamarcus also didn’t believe in coincidence. He waited, arms crossed, heart crawling up his throat. The kid had gone into the bathroom. And hadn’t come back.
He couldn’t shake the cold certainty that both the kid and Angie had seen him up close. Tamarcus now felt exposed, no longer an unseen ghost in an old man’s apartment.
This place was supposed to be off-grid. A ghost lane. A clean thread through the Eastern Shore to Pennsylvania. If he got the line tight, the whole route would belong to OGB. They wouldn’t need G-Shine’s weak-ass boys from up north anymore. Tamarcus had promised his set’s president he could make itwork on his own. He didn’t need Lashawn dragging heat around every corner, nor any other G-Shiner who came down.
He’d worked too damn hard to lose it here, surrounded by lace curtains and hearing aid forms. And now that woman and kid had looked at him like maybe they knew something. Like they felt something.
If this goes sideways, I ain’t just burning a hiding spot. I’m burning my shot with OGB. I burn this, I’m done.
Tamarcus shifted his weight, fingers twitching near the edge of his hoodie. His hand brushed against the waistband of his red tracksuit, where the Glock sat like a stone. Cold, heavy. Familiar. The weight felt like it had doubled in the last sixty seconds.
He heard the sound of the toilet flushing and then running water from the sink. Jimmy stepped back into the living room, offering a wobbly smile, but he was even more twitchy than before. Tamarcus’s head snapped up the moment the kid reappeared.
He heard it then—a wail outside. Distant. But getting louder. Sirens.
His body moved before his brain did. The Glock came free from his waistband and into his hand, small and lethal and shaking slightly in his grip.
He wasn’t going down. Not here. Not like this.
37
Angie had laughed softly at Marty’s exuberance over the hearing aids he would be getting soon. This was why she did what she did—these small wins for the people who still had a lot of life in them but now found some everyday things to be challenging. But even with a smile on her face, she was acutely aware of the man standing to the side. Her pen hovered as she double-checked a date, but she glanced up, still seeing him stare at her.
Tall. Young. Dressed sharp, but not Sunday sharp. City sharp. Black hoodie under a red jacket, black cap turned backward, silver chain glinting like a warning light. There was a hardness in his eyes that didn’t match the warmth of the senior apartment. Gangster. That was the word that popped into her head.
Marty had introduced him as his great-nephew and seemed thrilled to have a visitor. “Ain’t that somethin’? Come all the way out to check on an old man.”
Tamarcus hadn’t smiled. Didn’t sit. He just hovered near the window, shifting from foot to foot like his skin didn’t fit right. Something about the way he watched the window, barely glancing at his uncle, made her spine tighten. But she didn’t show how it rattled her.
Angie had felt the sharp edge of fear. His eyes barely met hers, and when they did, they held no warmth. Grammy Ellen always said you could tell a lot about a person when looking into their eyes. She had a feeling Grammy Ellen wouldn’t trust Tamarcus. Nor would Pete.
