Page 4

“So far, they don’t have any suspects. There wasn’t any DNA evidence left behind. Once I caught wind of the conversations, I went in and scrubbed all of the video files. That doesn’t mean that you’re in the clear. We have to stay in front of this,” Psalm explained.

“If the police aren’t looking at me, whose radar could I possibly be on?”

“His camp knows that he had some dealings with you. They also know how we get down about you,” Bishop revealed.

“But y’all didn’t do this, right?” I asked, looking around the room.

There was a brief pause before we all looked at Syre.

“I don’t know what the hell y’all looking at me for. The last thing I know is Liam beat his ass, and he was history.” Syre shrugged.

“From the looks of things, that’s exactly what happened. That’s why they’re looking at Divine. They’re thinking that one of us ordered Liam to take care of him for good.”

“But you didn’t,” I retorted.

“They don’t know that, though, especially since Liam was the last one seen with him, D,” Maven said, shaking his head.

“Liam wouldn’t do that, though…” I refuted.

“Wouldn’t he, though?” Psalm countered.

“No! He wouldn’t. I wouldn’t put murdering a man past one of you nut cases, but not Liam. He’s not like y’all.”

Bishop scoffed. “Isn’t he, though?”

“I wouldn’t have hired him if he wasn’t,” Syre declared.

“So what? You all think he did it too?” I asked.

“It doesn’t matter what we think. The only thing that matters is what we can prove,” Bishop said.

“I haven’t been able to discredit their theory that either one of us or you had Liam to kill Sherrod,” Psalm added.

“So…now what?” I asked.

“Now, we have to go on the defensive,” Maven told me.

“What does that mean?” I frowned.

“Sherrod was plugged in with the Whitmore family. Apparently, his grandma is Big Bruce Whitmore’s sister. His son, Zane, took over the business sometime last year. He was cleaning up their money through Rod’s shows. Zane reached out to me for a one-on-one meeting. They want in on our business.”

“So, Bruce’s hog headed ass don’t give a damn about his nephew. He’s just worried about the business?” Syre asked.

“Well, like I said, they can’t prove their theory,” Bishop stated. “They can’t prove that we had something to do with his murder, and we can’t prove that we didn’t.”

I looked between Maven and Bishop and waited for one of them to get to the point. I knew that it wasn’t as simple as that. If that was the conclusion, we wouldn’t have been sitting at this table looking crazy.

“Well, why even come to us with it? Sounds like everyone is at an impasse.”

“Zane says that his aunt is positive that we took her boy out, and she wants revenge. We lost a lot of manpower and sting when we severed ties with Monroe Black. We’re trying to back out of the game. We can’t afford to go to war right now.”

“Who’s talking about a war?” Syre quizzed.

“Sharon Whitmore. She’s second in command, and according to her brother, she wants blood.”

“Fuck what they talking about. I’m not about to let anyone get to Divine,” Syre spat.

Shaking his head, Maven held up his hand. “No one is getting to my sister, bro. That don’t mean we don’t have to try to rectify this shit.”