Page 36 of Mr. Calloway

My heart felt full again as my hard exterior began to turn into putty. Knowing she finally called me put me somewhat at ease, but a nigga had questions.

“Mars? Where are you?”

“Listen to me. They kidnap?—”

The phone went silent. “Hello! Samara!”

The beat of my heart began to pick up. I knew something wasn’t right, and if any of the Zoo thought I was going to sit back and wait, then none of them knew me at all. I didn’t know where Mars was, but as sure as my name is Dionysus Jackson, I was going to find her.

I tried calling back quickly, but it went to a generic voicemail. “Shit!”

I hurried to the front desk, where a Poindexter was sitting. “I need help,” I said to him.

He paused whatever he was doing and looked at me oddly. “Okay… how can I help you?”

I held my phone up with the picture of the plates. “I need to find it. They stole something from me, and I want it back.”

His brows narrowed in. “Well, you need to file a police report. We can’t give any?—”

Agitated, I ran my hand over my face. “How would you feel if something so important to you was stolen? Something that you couldn’t live without? I’m really trying not to come out of a bag on you, but nigga, you better start pecking at that muhfucka and give me the address to the person you rented this bitch to before I light up all of them fucking cars on this lot.”

His rapid blinking said he was afraid. Just as he started to type, a big dude came from the back. “Do we have a problem here?”

I heard the sucking of teeth. “We will if your mans don’t do what’s asked,” Beans chimed in.

The big dude glanced at his co-worker. “If they want to be arrested, so be it. Give him what they want.”

My lips curled, and my nose flared. “Nigga, I don’t have all night. Hurry up!”

Poindexter’s fingers began moving fast. He jotted some shit down and handed me the paper. “Shantel Simmino,” I muttered.

Samara’s momma. I knew the bitch was up to something. Beans and I backed out of the building. When we were outside, I turned to him. “I need you to do your nerd shit. Take this number and find out whose phone it is. Give this address to Chev and Z. I’m about to go get my girl.”

I hopped on my bike to leave when Streets stopped me. “Nigga, the fuck you going to do?”

“Some crazy nigga shit. Do that solid for me. I’ll get up with y’all,” I told them before taking off.

If Samara’s mother thought she was pulling one over on the Zoo, she was about to learn what type of man her daughter committed to. I wasn’t just some regular nigga. I was a nigga with loose screws and menace fucking ways.

Clark

“Mr. Mercier, there is nothing left. With what you have from Toussaint State, there are little to no funds available unless you sell this business,” my accountant said to me.

“How is any of this possible? Cynthia said she is selling the home. I will not sell this place. It’s all I have left.”

I wasn’t selling FBP. His silence spoke volumes as he glanced over the books before looking back up at me. “I mean, essentially, if your house sells for a reasonable price, it still wouldn’t be enough not only to sustain your lifestyle but also to afford me as well. Clark, the bottom line is you're going broke, and it doesn’t matter how much I mix the numbers up; it isn’t going to change anything. Maybe you should have done right by your investors.”

To think that all my money had been depleted was one thing, but to hear that it had been was another. However, I had one last bullet in the chamber, one I had been holding onto so tightly because I figured at some point, I would outgrow the situation, but the truth was, I hadn’t. For all the years I’d walked the earth, I may have possibly been reaching the end of an era of wealth. It took a lot to get where I was, and not a soul was going to pull me down.

My mother, who loved me less each day, broke me. I had done so much to please her, and yet, it wasn’t enough. The love I longed for since my father died, I craved from her, but it wasn’t until after her death that I felt some love when I received the money from her insurance policy.

Grace, my sweet, precious daughter, had betrayed my trust not only by having a baby but by breaking the promise of ever reconnecting with him. She swore on her life, and it cost her. Even then, that money after her death barely made up for the deceit she caused.

Last was The Tyrant. Had he died that day, not only would the policy Matthew and I had on him have paid, but that trust would have been mine.

Different breeds of animals walked the earth. Animals that became savages because they had to, and animals that were born with no souls. I was soulless. It wasn’t that I hated everyone; I hated those who got in my way, and John Doe Calloway was one of them.

My accountant stood from the table, tucking his folder under his arm. “Well, Mr. Mercier, I guess my job is?—”