Page 50 of Search My Soul
“Right this way, brother. Try to be nice. Uncle Remus and our cousins are here.” My jaw flinched, but I attempted to keep my expression neutral. When my parents passed away, the family wasted no time calling a meeting to discuss who would take over the family business. Mind you, my grandfather’s brothers barely played a role in building this organization, but they somehow felt that since his son had been killed, one of their sons should have taken his place.
The dirt was still fresh on my parents’ graves when they came to assert their dominance. Poppa wasn’t having it, though, because he and my parents had turned the Taylor Gang into more than just a street hustle. Our family had our hands in a little bit of everything. My mother attended school for business management and marketing, and she applied her knowledge to washing and investing the money my father earned.
If we wanted to retire right now and live off the businesses and properties in our family name, we would still be millionaires. My parents had tripled the value of our family name, and these mothafuckas really thought they were entitled to it. We’ve been beefing about this for years, but I thought we had a clear understanding that nothing was going to change. Once Pure turned eighteen, he stepped right in as the new leader of the organization, and I followed suit as his right-hand and enforcer.
“I’m cool as long as they stay the fuck away from me. This isn’t the place for any fuck shit, and if they make it an issue, I’mma show them exactly who I am in these streets,” I warned.
The women in my family believed that love was all you needed to keep a family together, but it was so much deeper than that. After my parents were murdered, I began to see people for who they were. A title wouldn’t stop a mothafucka from betraying you. In fact, they were usually the people who would be most likely to gamble your life away for a few dollars. I didn’t give a damn who you were supposed to be to me. If I felt like you were on some snake shit, you would be dealt with. My family deemed Pure and me as coldhearted, but none of our other siblings knew the truth about what really happened. As far as they were aware, our parents were killed in a wrong place, wrong time situation. The same went for Uncle Brent and Uncle Fletch. Poppa thought it was best to keep the truth from them because they were all so young, and we agreed. As a result, they had no idea why we didn’t trust anyone in our immediate family.
Lovely ushered me over to where the drinks were while Adore dipped off to mingle with the guests. I took a moment to observe the decorations around the house. They had blown up pictures of my parents on these gold stands. I stared at the photo of them on the day of my father’s birthday. They sported thebiggest smiles on their faces, dripping in designer from head to toe.
My mother, Angel, was the prettiest woman in the world, and you couldn’t tell me any different. Everyone said that Pure and I looked the most like her, and I could see the resemblance more and more as I got older. You could tell that my parents loved each other from the way they held each other. Nana used to share stories about them when they were teens. She said they were inseparable.
I still had plenty of memories of them, but I chose not to relive them. It was much too painful and purposeless, in my opinion. They weren’t here to create any more memories, and I hated torturing myself with thoughts from the past.
“What’s up, bro?” I heard Duke’s voice behind me. We clapped hands and I could tell he was observing me to see how I was handling this.
“What’s up? What are you doing here?” I asked before taking a sip of my drink. My sisters had an open bar, which I had a feeling would be coming in handy tonight.
“I see you already got yourself a drink. You good?” I read between the lines of what he wasn’t saying.
“I’m always good. I wanted to prepare myself because if I know my sisters the way I believe I do, this is going to be a long night.” He nodded, downing his own drink.
“Yeah, I see they invited the whole family. I haven’t seen this many Taylors in the same room since, well, you know.” He was referring to my parents’ funeral. The family came out in droves, and while it appeared to be in solidarity, I couldn’t help but wonder how many of them were plotting against my parents along with Fletch and Brent.
“Yeah, I know. I pray for their own safety, and that they stay the hell away from me. I’m not in the mood to fake the funk with these people.”
“I saw Poppa in his chair downstairs smoking a cigar. He must be feeling the same way.” I nodded. Poppa hated large crowds just as I did, so I had a feeling he would duck off to be alone. My nana loved to host, so she was walking around the room smiling and greeting everyone as well.
Before long, the rest of my siblings had made it. I wasn’t sure if my little brother, Dreamier, would make it, so I was happy to see him walk through the door. He had his best friend Yumira, aka Yumi, right next to him. I didn’t understand why the two of them weren’t together when it was clear they loved each other. They’ve been glued to each other’s hips since we were kids, and nothing has changed.
“What’s good, superstar? I didn’t know if a celebrity of your status would be gracing us with your presence,” I teased, pulling Dreamier into a hug. I wasn’t big on affection, but when it came to my siblings, all bets were off. They wouldn’t let me get away with it anyway.
“You would have known had you answered any of my calls,” he said in a playful way, but I knew better.
“My bad.” There was no use in making an excuse when I knew I was the one in the wrong. “Hey, pretty girl. I see you’re still friends with this knucklehead. I figured you would have found a newer, more handsome best friend in BSU.” I gave Yumi a hug as well.
“Never. There will never be a better best friend than Dreamier. Since he has been neglecting me lately, I probably should find myself a replacement.” The strained look on Dreamier’s face made me laugh.
“Yeah, right. I wish you would try to replace me with a knock-off version of me.” Dreamier scoffed. They could pretend all they wanted, but my little brother loved his best friend and not just as a friend.
“Y’all drove out here or caught a flight?”
“We caught a flight together. You know Yumi’s scary ass doesn’t like to fly by herself.” Yumi shoved him in the shoulder, and I stood back and watched the interaction between the two of them.
“What’s good, little sister?” Yumi beamed with excitement when Duke walked back up.
“Duke!” She leaped into his arms the same way Adore had done to me.
“Hey, ladybug. Why didn’t you text me when you landed? I was gonna have one of my people come and pick you up.”
“Oh, that wasn’t necessary. Dreamier rented a car for the weekend.” Duke nodded, then focused his attention on my brother.
“How have you been, champ? I see y’all have been doing your thing on the field.” Dreamier was the humblest out of all of us. He was a two-time Super Bowl winner at only twenty-five, but he acted as if it weren’t a big deal.
“I’ve been good, bro. Staying out of trouble and trying to get ready to win another one, you know?” We all chopped it up until Lovely announced that it was time to eat. They had set up tables in the backyard, making it look like a banquet hall. The tables were covered with tablecloths and matching decorations. I never even bothered to ask how much this would cost me when I handed Adore my black card, and now I think I fucked up.
“Damn, they went all out, didn’t they?”
