Page 12 of Breeze and Melodie

“I told you he’d be taken care of. You need to calm down,” Officer Downing said in a low voice.

“I don’t trust cops, so your words don’t mean shit to me.”

“I understand, but you need to get over it. If you handle him yourself, I won’t be able to protect you.”

“I won’t be caught, but if I am, I don’t give a fuck. I want that nigga dead, and if I have to do it myself, so be it.”

He looked at his watch before looking at me again. “You got an hour or two to spare?”

“Depends on what it’s for.”

“I want to introduce you to someone.”

“I’m not trying to meet any of your people. Being around you this long is causing me to itch.”

“He’s not a cop.”

“Okay. Let me make sure her people can stay until I get back.”

I reentered Melodie’s room and went to her bedside. “I need to make a run.”

“Where to?” she asked.

“Don’t worry about all that. Will y’all be here for a while?” I asked her father.

“As long as we need to be, but if you’re going to look for Sean, I want to go too.”

“Hudson Norwood, I don’t know what Breeze is about to do, but you’re not going with him,” Mrs. Norwood said.

“But baby?—”

“I said what I said, baby. End of discussion.”

“We’ll be here until you get back,” he told me instead of arguing with his wife.

I leaned down to kiss Melodie’s forehead and lips again before hugging Raine, Harmonee, and Mrs. Norwood, then shaking Mr. Norwood’s hand. Officer Downing was on the phone when I returned to the hallway.

“Let’s go. I’ll follow you,” I told him.

“Cool.”

I followed him to the Rush Brothers Youth & Recreation Center. I’d heard good things about the center but hadn’t had a reason to visit because I didn’t have children.

When we met at the sidewalk leading to the entrance, I asked, “A youth center?”

“It’ll make sense shortly.”

He retrieved his phone from his back pocket and began texting. When we arrived at the door, a tall Black man with locs was waiting.

“Wassup, Downing?” the man greeted.

“A lil something. I hope I didn’t interrupt anything important.”

“Nah. I come here on Sundays sometimes to get shit done that I couldn’t during the week.”

“ Rocky , this is Breeze. Breeze, Rocky.”

“Wassup?” I greeted as we shook hands.

“Good to meet you. Y’all come inside. We can talk in the conference room.”

We followed Rocky to the conference room, and he closed the door behind us. As soon as we sat down, we got right down to business.

“Breeze’s girlfriend was attacked by her ex and is currently hospitalized. I assured him I’d have the ex taken care of, but he insists on taking matters into his own hands,” Downing said.

“Understood,” Rocky agreed.

“I don’t fuck with cops, but something about Downing tells me he’s one of the dirty ones. I just can’t figure out which side of the dirt he’s on,” I said.

They both chuckled, but I found nothing funny.

“Downing’s one of the good ones,” Rocky assured.

“That doesn’t tell me much. Look, I’m from the Southside of Chicago and moved down here a little over a year ago. I was into some shit back home and came here to start over with a clean slate, but if I find Sean before the cops do, I’m gon’ end him. It’s that simple.”

Rocky and Downing gave each other a look, communicating something I didn’t understand with their eyes.

“It’s up to you,” Downing said.

Rocky leaned back in his chair and folded his arms across his chest before he began to speak.

“My father abused my mother. When I was ten, he beat her to death.”

“Damn! I’m sorry to hear that.”

He nodded. “For obvious reasons, I despise men who abuse women. Right now, my father is rotting away in prison, but if I had the opportunity, I’d kill him.”

“No doubt.” I agreed.

“Since I couldn’t protect my mother and I can’t kill my father, I have a vendetta against any man who chooses to abuse women.”

I took a moment to process his words, hearing what he told me without using the actual words.

“I understand, but I need in on this.”

“I don’t know if?—”

“Nah. Fuck that. I want to look that nigga in his eyes as he’s taking his last breath. You said way too much not to give me the privilege of watching that nigga die.”

“Have you ever taken a life?” Downing asked, eliciting a frown from me.

“None of yo’ muthafuckin’ business.”

They looked at each other and laughed.

“We’ll take that as a yes,” Rocky said. “Let me explain to you how this works.”

“Where are you going?” Melodie asked.

“I’ll be back.” I kissed her forehead as I slid out of bed.

“I asked you a question.”

“And I gave you an answer.”

It had been a week and a half since Sean attacked Melodie. Before I left the meeting with Rocky, he explained how he and his crew did things. It was hell waiting for them to find Sean, but just as we settled into bed, I received a text from Rocky.

“That wasn’t an answer, Breeze.”

“Baby, don’t ask questions you don’t want to know the answers to. If you needed to know where I was going, I’d tell you.”

I gave her a look, and I saw the moment it clicked for her.

“Breeze—”

“Nah. This ain’t up for discussion. We’re not talking about it now or later. Go back to sleep. I won’t be too long.”

Once I was dressed in all black, I kissed her lips, leaving her speechless in our bedroom. When I arrived downstairs, Rocky was waiting for me. I opened the passenger side door of his truck, but it was occupied.

“My bad,” I told the man.

“It’s cool. I’m Russell, Rocky’s younger brother.”

“Wassup.”

I closed the door and hopped into the back seat.

“My guys were watching his apartment and job, but he hadn’t shown up at either place since they’d started. I suggested they look at the gym on the other side of town, and lo and behold, that’s where they found him. Apparently, he asked for a transfer,” Rocky informed me.

“He must have known I’d come looking for him.”

“Exactly. They’re holding him at our spot. Let me know if you change your mind or?—”

“I won’t.”

We rode the rest of the way in silence. When the truck stopped in front of a small, garden-style house in the middle of nowhere, I didn’t wait for Rocky to turn the engine off before hopping out.

“Slow down, bruh. You don’t even know where you’re going,” Rocky said.

“I don’t need you to hold my hand when ain’t shit else out here.”

“We’re going to the back.”

I followed Rocky and his brother to the back of the small house. We entered a door that went directly to the basement. It was dark, and all that could be heard was our footsteps as we descended the stairs.

We approached a closed door with a dim light shining underneath.

Rocky didn’t bother knocking and went right in.

Two other men were already inside, and Sean was seated in the center of the room.

A cloth covered his eyes, and his hands were tied behind him to the back of the chair.

The floor and walls in the room were covered in plastic.

“What the fuck was that?” Sean asked, panic in his voice, turning his head from left to right as if he could see.

“Shut the fuck up!” one of the other men shouted before kicking Sean in the stomach, catching his chair before it fell back.

The other man put a large piece of duct tape over his mouth.

“We can do formal introductions later. This is personal, so he wants to handle him,” Rocky told the two men.

They looked surprised, and I wasn’t sure if it was because I wanted to handle Sean or because Rocky was letting me do so. Whichever it was, they didn’t question Rocky.

“Cool. He’s all yours,” one of them said with a nod.

“I wasn’t expecting an audience. How do I know I can trust you niggas?”

“Shit, how do we know we can trust you?” the other countered.

“What’s not to trust? I came here?—”

“Aye, chill, bruh. I been doing this shit since I was sixteen. I probably got more bodies than people you know. I don’t have people around me I can’t trust. If you’re here, that means I trust your ass too. Don’t question how I do shit.”

“Who the fuck?—”

“Chill the fuck out, nigga. We’re on the same side with the same goal,” Russell said, stepping between me and Rocky.

I took a deep breath and refocused my energy.

“My bad. You right. I moved alone most of the time back home because I couldn’t trust many people.”

“This ain’t back home,” Rocky said in response.

I took a few steps toward Sean, lifted the blindfold, and ripped the duct tape they’d just applied from his mouth.

“I should’ve known it was you. Melodie’s pussy ain’t good enough for you to have a nigga kidnapped,” Sean said snidely. “She ain’t gon’ even let you hit that shit raw.”

I used my thumb to flick the tip of my nose because this nigga clearly didn’t know this was more than a kidnapping.

“Oh, what? You wanna rough me up to teach me a lesson and drop me off in the middle of nowhere,” his cocky ass continued when I didn’t speak. “At least untie me so it’ll be a fair fight.”

I planned on beating his ass until he was unrecognizable, then finishing the job with a gunshot right between the eyes. However, the more he talked, the less I wanted to waste my time or energy.

“Say something, nigga. I know you didn’t come here to—argh!”

While he continued to talk shit, I reached behind me, grabbed my gun, and shot him right between his legs.

“Are you—are you—ahhh! Oh fuck! You shot my—you shot my dick! What the?—”

I was sick of hearing his voice, so I pulled the trigger again, intentionally grazing his neck to shut him up.

“Shut the fuck up! I knew I should’ve killed your bitch-ass the first time you thought it was cool to put your hands on Melodie. You got lucky and caught me trying to be a decent human and positive member of society. It was cool while it lasted. Say a prayer.”

I pulled the trigger one more time, hitting him between his eyes.

“How will you dispose of the body?” I asked the two men who were here when we arrived.

“You’ll have to trust us. We don’t know you like that,” one of them responded.

“I’m Breeze.” I extended my hand toward the one who’d responded first.

“Semiyon, and this is Noel.”

I shook Noel’s hand and repeated my question. “Now that we know each other, how will you dispose of the body?”

“Yo, Rocky, get your boy,” Semiyon said.

“Breeze, you gotta chill. They got it from here. You ain’t got shit to worry about. Let’s go.”

Rocky and his brother headed out the door we’d come in, and I followed but stopped before heading up the stairs. Semiyon and Noel had already started the clean-up process. I watched for a while, and they seemed to be thorough. Rocky and Russell were waiting near Rocky’s truck when I got outside.

“We’re a well-oiled machine. I’ve been doing this for damn near twenty years. We have people on the inside who support us because it makes their jobs easier. Stop worrying. We got you.”

“I hear you, but you can’t expect me to trust people I barely know. What kinda nigga would you think I was if I didn’t ask questions?”

They nodded and simultaneously said, “True.”

“I’m good now. Let’s go.”