Page 6 of The Impossible

I chuckled. “Fetish ass nigga. That’s not me; that’s you.”

“Mhmm.”

“They got it set up in there or what?” I asked, throwing my head in the direction of the closed off room.

“Hell yeah they do. When I said that nigga’s name he was hogtied in a trunk less than thirty minutes later.”

I chortled. “Folks are hungry and they want that couple Gs you put up.”

Otto shook his head. “It was either that or you went to see the nigga’s mama. I know how you run.”

I shrugged. When it came to a rat, nothing was off limits. “Shit happens.”

We walked deeper into the warehouse, hearing whimpering from afar. You couldn’t do what he did and cry like a bitch. It was unheard of, but apparently it happened more often than not. The entire time we walked the warehouse, work was still being done, crates moving and machines beeping.

When we entered the freezer room where I had them hang ol’ boy, I couldn’t help but chuckle. Everything always came full circle. Shit it had to.

“I swear, Hondo, I didn’t have any other option. It was either give you up or take a bid. I have a family depending on me,” Jeremy sobbed.

“Fucking accountant. You coulda made that shit go away or took the bid,” Otto said before I could respond.

He whimpered, dangling from the gambrel hook in the ceiling like a slaughtered pig or cow.

“You know why I paid you so much? Not because you can fucking count or you’re some fucking math wizard. Not at all, because there is always someone out there who can count better. I pay you so fucking much so when shit like this arises, you take the bid. You do a couple years in federal prison and earn your fucking stripes.”

“But Hon—” He began crying, but I didn’t feel anything for him.

“You are paid to take the fucking fall at all times. But now you're about to die a rat, broke and stupid because you trusted those people who told you they could put me away if you gave them everything you had… which actually wasn’t a lot.”

The only thing heard in the room was crying, a grown man who knew he was fucked. He had found himself on the wrong side of history.

I glanced over Jordan, someone who worked for me and handled the messier things I didn’t want to be a part of. “Make it hurt. Gut his ass alive and then make him disappear.”

I turned and left the same way I came in, mentally closing that chapter. Now I was on my way home to actually get some rest. I hadn’t technically slept since all this shit happened. I wasn’t too worried, but the fact that it was all happening made any type of rest impossible. How could I close my eyes peacefully when I had motherfuckers tryna throw me in jail and fuck up my livelihood?

I woke up still tired as fuck, almost like I didn’t go to sleep in the first place. When I left the warehouse last night, I came in and passed out after a shower where I busted a nut thinking about Nic. I had several motherfuckers on standby who would gladly handle that for me, but the closer I got to Nicolette being mine, the less I craved anything from anybody else. I wanted her, and it made me uncomfortable because I wasn’t used to not having what I wanted when I wanted it. I wasn’t used to not controlling things. Titus had asked me to let them break the news to her, and that I would, but I wasn’t the most patient. Hell, the only patience I planned to have was her.

I didn’t have any business to tend to today, so I dropped by my parents’ house to get whatever Mama was cooking and talk to Pops. He was never the type to hover or anything like that, so when he gave me the reins, he stepped all the way back. Because, one, he trusted what I could do, and two, he was actually done.

“Have you spoken to her yet?” he asked, cutting his eyes between the door my mother had just entered and me.

“We had dinner Friday.” I nodded and drank from the glass of brown liquor in my hand.

“And you’re sure you want this… her?” He peered at me.

“Never been so sure of anything in my life. She’s mine, isn’t she?” I asked, summoning a chuckle from him.

He shook his head. “You’ve been in love with that girl since before I told you. I guess I’m just shocked it took you this long.”

I shrugged. “She needed time to grow into who she was meant to be and so did I.”

“You sound like your mother, son.”

“Probably, but I’ve thought about this over and over. Had those charges stuck Friday, the only thing I would’ve regretted was that I didn’t go after her sooner.”

“And what if she’s in a relationship? Or sh⁠—”

“Nah, she isn’t. Made sure of that.” I laughed.