Page 73 of Search My Soul
“Send me those pictures.”
“I got you. I’m gonna send you the address she gave me too. I picked her up a few times, but she was always outside waiting, so I’m not sure which apartment she was in. I’m sure if you take the photo up there, someone might know something.”
“Do you know her last name? Did you ever meet any of her family?” I questioned. Now that I had a photo, it would be easy to get some information on her.
“Nah. I know she has a brother who got out of prison recently because it was all she kept talking about. They were supposed to have a welcome home party for him the same week I was shot.” I made a mental note to ask Huncho about it. He was one of those people who knew everything going on in the city and he damn near knew everyone.
“All right. All of this is helpful. I need you to rest and focus on getting out of this place. We will take care of everything else. Whoever she is won’t be breathing much longer, and if I find out anyone else in her family was in on it, I’mma wipe out their whole fucking lineage.” I spoke through gritted teeth.
“I appreciate it, and I apologize again for everything.”
“It’s all good. I’ll call you tomorrow to check on you. If you need us for anything, you know how to reach us.” Regardless of how many mistakes he made, Remi was family. I would never turn my back on him as long as he remembered where his loyalty lies.
Pure and I walked out the room together. When we got to the parking lot, I expected us to go our separate ways, but he stopped me.
“Can we talk?”
“Since when have you liked to do that?” I sneered, but his face remained unmoved.
“I realize that it’s a necessary evil. Now, can you be serious for once in your life?”
“If you want to give me a lecture or tell me what I’m doing wrong, you can save it. I’ve got enough on my plate, and your judgment is the last thing I need.” I was tired and wanted to go home and relax, but instead, I had to handle business before taking my woman out on a date.
“Look, I’m not trying to lecture you or any of that. All I wanted to do was let you know that I’ll be out of town for a few weeks. I have an assignment that will take longer than I’m used to, so I need you to step in for me.”
“What exactly are you asking me to do?”
“There are a few meetings I need you to attend for the legit businesses and a conference call that Salvador has scheduled for next week. He’s already been made aware of my absence.” I groaned internally, dreading all of this. Pure handled the suit and tie aspects of our business while I mainly handled the money and the team.
“I don’t have time for your bullshit. You heard what Nana said. We are the leaders of this family which means we have to do shit we don’t want to. Now, do you have my back or not?” My eyebrows dipped as I stared at him.
“You never have to ask me that. I might not always like your ass, but I’m gon’ always be my brother’s keeper. What type of job is this anyway? I thought you planned to slow down on those?” Pure was a hired hitman, and he has been since we were teens. After our parents were killed, he developed a skill for catching his marks. The higher-ups took notice, and before you knew it, he was being offered jobs left and right.
“It’s a high-profile case with a higher price tag. I wouldn’t have taken it if it hadn’t been for the fact that it came with a challenge. You know I love a good challenge.” He gave a half smirk, which was progress for him. Pure was one of the most serious people I’ve ever encountered, and he’s been that way since birth.
“Say less. Send me a list of all of the meetings and appointments so I can schedule them in my digital calendar.”
“Don’t fuck this up, Soul. The last thing I want is to come home and have to put out fires because you don’t know how to control your mouth or your temper,” Pure warned with a stern look on his face.
“What the hell? You act like I just kill people in the middle of an argument. I might have a little bit of a temper, but it never gets in the way of the money. I’ve got this,” I assured him.
“I hope so.” He walked away without any more words. It drove me crazy when he did that shit, but I was used to his quirks. Rude ass mothafucka.
I shot Juicy a text to see what she was up to, but it took her a while to respond. My first thought was that she must have fallen asleep because she did it fairly often. I would walk into the house and catch Apollo, Rosco, and her cuddled up on the couch. Those mothafuckas thought the rules no longer applied to them whenever they were with her. I fussed about it daily, but their love for her reaffirmed that she was the one.
Huncho sent me a message with one of the addresses to one of our warehouses in it. I knew what that meant, so I sent a message to my baby to let her know I would be a little late coming home. If I played my cards right, I would still be able to take my baby out to dinner.
Since I didn’t wantto get any makeup on my clothes, I went into the closet to see if I could find a shirt to wear. Soul couldn’t stand the fact that I wore his clothes because he said they looked better on me. As I shuffled through his racks of clothes, I must have swiped a box on the shelf. I screamed as it dropped to the floor. That’s what I got for trying to go through his clothes. I chuckled as I bent over to scoop up the contents of the box.
It must have been a keepsake box because I noticed a bunch of pictures of Soul and his siblings as little kids. I smiled as I picked him out of each photo I saw. Him and Pure wore the most serious faces in every photo and it made me giggle. My man has been handsome his entire life. After a while, I began to get caught up in the photos as I sat Indian style on the floor. Soulrarely ever spoke about his parents, so it was nice to place a face to the names.
Soul and Dreamier took their mothers’ features, while Pure and Patience were a copy and paste of their father. The youngest girls, Lovely and Adore, were a nice mixture of the two. I continued to shuffle through the photos until something caught my attention. They might have been young, but there was no forgetting a face. My hands shook as I continued to examine the photo. It was a group photo with Soul, Pure, Dreamier, and three other boys that I assumed were connected to them in some way. When I went through a few more of the photos, I saw the same boys in those photos as well.
My granny used to write on the back of her pictures to label who was in the picture, so I checked these to see if there were any labels on them. Sure enough, the back of the image displayed handwriting on it with the names listed in order. Pure, Soul, Dreamier, Maverick, Syre, and Remington. My breathing became erratic as it hit me all at once. The photo was labeled as a family reunion, which explained why they were all wearing the same T-shirt. The revelation caused me to hyperventilate as the tears began to fall.
There was no way God could be so cruel, right? Why would He allow me to fall in love with this man? I stood up from the floor, trying to put all the photos back in the box. My nerves were through the roof, and I hated that there was no one for me to talk to about this. The only other person who would understand the seriousness of this would be Majesty, but her crazy ass probably already knew.
I wanted to crawl into a hole and die. What on Earth was I supposed to do with this information? Should I tell Soul about how I knew the man in the photo? My mind began to reel, and all types of thoughts began to take over. What if he already knew who I was? Was it possible that he’d been keeping his eyes on methis entire time so he could get his revenge? Shit, shit, shit. I took a deep breath to calm myself down. Overthinking wasn’t going to help me in this situation, and I clearly needed help.
