Page 110 of The Promise

“Hold!” I tried whispering but still giving her a bite of that fatherly authority. I hopped from the bed, catching the time before locating the shorts I took off before getting into bed.It’s three in the damn morning, Chivon!With the shorts in one hand, I scooped her up with the other arm. “Let’s get you some warm milk, Blueberry.” Even though I knew that shit didn’t work.

“No. Mommy go back to her bed! You no sleep in Daddy bed!” Chivon protested all the way out of the cabin.

I held a mug of coffee in one hand with my legs stretched out and crossed over the ottoman. I’d been streaming American news for about a half an hour when a cool, rectangular object slid over my shoulder. It was one of my phones. Without flinching, I looked up and saw Ashira bringing my other one into view. Her clean morning face was expressionless and still a little puffy.

“Thanks,” I murmured, accepting both devices.

She glided away wordlessly. The time on both phones was two minutes after seven. Before unlocking the screens, I saw missed calls from Jug.Damn. Fucking around with Chivon for hours, trying to get her little ass to sleep, the last thing I thought of was my phones. After thumbing through text notifications, I called him back first. I found my eyes roaming around the bridge deck for her. Ashira was in an oversized, long-sleeved linen shirt. It took me a minute to realize it was mine. I could make out her silk pajama set beneath the white material as she poured herself coffee.

“Yo,” he answered, coughing.

“Yo.”

“I dropped off the car to her crib. It was late, and her moms answered the door. I put the keys inside a little ass box.” He let go of another nasty cough, and I could hear voices in the background, making me aware of him not being home. And I knew Jug hated coughing in public, which was one of the reasons why he stayed home a lot now. “She’ll get it when she wake up.”

“A’ight,” My eyes were on the wide screen ahead. “Say less.”

“On another—”Another cough.

“Sir,” I could hear a woman clearly. “You really should be off the phone.”

“Hang on a second,” Jug snapped. My face turned hard. “Yo, Sin…”

“Yeah. I’m here.”

“On another note: that Elba nigga.”

“Yeah.”

“You was right. The nigga ain’t nowhere in the real estate market. Jaquana hit me up last night. That bitch took forever to get back to me, but she said she can’t find no properties he own in Jersey. It’s like you said.”An uglier cough. “That nigga ain’t legit.”

Haris Elba…

I hadn’t thought of him in a while, but knew he was an “op” I couldn’t ignore. Dude had been an aggressive “investor” with no legit business I could find. Nobody knew the nigga. Divine didn’t know him, neither did O.G. Double E or Sadik. None of the major players in my circle knew of the man. After my conversation with him in February, I ran into Haris at a restaurant in Greenwich Village in April. He asked me if I’d decided on the property in Central Jersey in passing. I told him I hadn’t but would hit him when I did. It was odd, but brief. He didn’t press me much and kept it moving.

Then a week before we left for this vacation, he popped up at a casino in Vegas Divine owned. I attended a dinner party there celebrating one of Divine’s executives atGlobal Fusions. The actual event was at a restaurant inside the casino. Haris and his crew were trying to get into the club of the casino and asked for me. Security called me to verify him. Out of curiosity, I went down to see him. Within seconds of the conversation, I could tell he had no clue about the actual event. He likely thought it was the party taking place in the club. I stared the man down, feeling something was totally off with his vibe, even more than our two previous encounters.

The man’s pursuit of me was personal. Haris had me as a target and tried to use his British charm under the guise of naivety to disarm me. As aHarlem Pridenigga, I saw straight through the bullshit; now I’d been trying to find his angle. After a long stare-down, I told security I didn’t know him and resumed the dinner. But shit didn’t sit right with me. That’s when I knew I had to pay real attention to him.

“I asked around like you told me,” Jug wheezed. “And remember them niggas who tried to robClub Sina few years ago when we was there?”

“Yeah.”

“The old head one locked up inRikerson a robbery charge. Lukka from the Bronx hit me up earlier, saying his dun in there with him. He talkin.’ Mentioned a nigga from London who hired him to do the hit ain’t pay him for the work.” Jug’s hacking this time made my stomach turn. “The nigga said the funny talkin’ nigga hit him up recently for another job in Montclair. A dance club.”

My head shot up to Ashira, yawning while pouring cream into her coffee mug. A familiar emotion incongruent with what I’d been feeling over the past few days crept in. It was something I could quickly identify as my flesh, as a million possibilities ran through my head.

Ashira toed over to me with morning sniffles and puffy eyes. She sat on the sofa across from me, sexily yet beautifully blowing into her steamy mug and thumbing through her phone. And per her usual self, the mother of my child—my first adult crush—was aloof, naïve…unaware of dangers lurking around her. Just living her life of luxury carefree without guards. I suddenly had a revelation of what God must feel like each milli-second of the day, constantly watching over us, dispatching angels to war on our behalf against demonic spirits we have no idea are out to destroy us.

“Say less,” pushed gruffly from my lungs. I heard more grumbling from Jug’s end of the line. “Yo, where are you?”

“Shit,” he panted. “This shit got me spittin’ up blood.”

Yawning, I opened a text from my cousin, Betty, inDella.

Betty:Shi-Shi its ya cuzzin betty we know you on your vacation rose said she got the joint oils ready for when you cum to della see you soon

First of all, I hated that Betty never used punctuation. Let alone feeling she had to announce who she was in text messages as though she wasn’t saved as a contact in my phone. Texting was still a foreign method of communication for her, so I never complained. But this cryptic message about my joint oil and seeing them soon was odd. Aunt Rose regularly provided me with an oil mixture to bathe in and moisturize my skin with to combat inflammation.

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