Page 26

CHAPTER 25

Stephon

M y eyes popped open in the darkness. When they focused, I glanced at the clock to see that it was approaching three a.m.

Something isn’t right.

My eyes scanned the room, trying to pinpoint if something was off or if someone was inside. After being sure there wasn’t, I began listening to the sounds around me. The thermostat kicked on the heat, and Jourdan, lying on my chest, began to stir. I was certain that the noise and the sudden shift in my heartbeat and breathing had woken her.

“Stephon, what’s wrong?” She rushed out.

“Shhhhh.”

“We’re not doing this shit again; tell me what’s going on,” she said as she started to sit up. I gripped her tighter to my chest, stopping her movement. I listened again. There shouldn’t have been anyone on this floor, but I heard the slight sound of footsteps .

No one should be working at this hour.

“Stephon, what the….” Jourdan started to speak, but I pushed her to the floor just as the door was kicked open. The light that filtered in temporarily blinded me. I reached behind me under the pillow and took out my gun that I’d attached a silencer to before going to bed, letting off a shot that went straight through the head of the man who kicked our door in. I flipped over the bed, crouching beside Jourdan as we waited to see if he was alone. As another man entered the door, my eyes and ears perked up in the darkness. His fate was the same as the first. I rounded the bed to make my way to the door, placing my back on the wall beside the frame.

An armed man reached inside with his gun pointed; he was scared to enter fully. I pulled him in by the wrist, flexing it until it broke, and he dropped the gun to the floor. When I had his body inside, I put him in a headlock, squeezing until I heard his neck snap. He fell at my feet along with the other two men. I let another bullet go to make sure he was dead.

“Jourdan, you good, Baby?” I asked. She popped up from behind the bed and aimed her gun straight at me.

What the fuck?

My face balled up, and I put my hands up in confusion. Then she squeezed the trigger. The bullet whizzed past me, dropping the last man who stood behind me with the chamber pointed at my head.

“Stephon, did you think I was about to shoot you?” I was embarrassed to answer, but I did so truthfully.

“Hell yeah. I mean for a lil’ second. Your ass has a few screws loose, Baby. I didn’t know what the hell was about to happen. Let’s talk about this shit later. We need to get the fuck out of here. Get all our shit. I’m about to start wiping everything down. We need to be out in ten minutes.” I peeped out the door, making sure there was no one else. I dragged both men’s bodies inside the door, closing it while we did a partial clean-up of prints and hair. I would have to call my guys here to come in and do the rest. I probably should have had them watching Miller all along. However, this was a personal situation that I didn’t trust anyone to handle, only us.

“You really thought that I was going to shoot you? I thought you said you trusted me,” Jourdan asked teasingly as we cruised down the streets of my old neighborhood. We were in Brooklyn, headed to my mother’s old brownstone. It was the only safe space I knew of until we could get some rest and head home.

“You still on that, Jourdan?” I said and smirked

“Baby, the answer is yes, I do, without question.” As I responded, a text came through. I glanced down at my encrypted phone to read it.

Cleanup

Here. Handling it now .

It was from my cleanup crew, telling me that they’d arrived at the hotel. I tucked the phone back into the cup holder and continued down the street until I found a spot. It was a typical New York-style brownstone, a staple in the city. It had been easy for my mother to sell the three-story dwelling.

“When was the last time you were here?” Jourdan asked.

“I haven’t been here in years, not since I repurchased it. When we left New York, my mother sold it and used the money to help us start fresh in Cypress. Of course, that money went quickly before I had to step in. So, I would say about seven years ago. My realtor, Jason Saunders, who is licensed to sell in several states, caught wind that the previous owner was selling. I repurchased the property and put it in my mother’s name. She doesn’t even know that she still owns it.”

“That’s so sweet, but why haven’t you told her?”

“Shit, I don’t even know. Probably because I feel like she won’t give a damn. My mother never talked about New York after we left, ever,” I told Jourdan. I helped her out of the car and walked the block to the house. I fished out my key ring before we reached the stairs. This was probably the only house I owned in which I hadn’t added a keypad. I believed nostalgia made me keep it in its original state.

We walked up the brownstone stairs, and I used the key to open the foyer door.

“I knew y’all lived like the Huxtables,” I heard Jourdan say under her breath as she looked out and down the street at the rows of houses on each side .

“Is that what you think?” I responded, laughing at her statement.

“I mean, we were doing all right when we lived here. My father was a Construction Manager, and my mother was an inner-city Social Worker. We didn’t always live like this, though.

“What in the hell is this?” I whispered into the small room. I found the floor littered with mail. I kneeled and scooped up the multiple envelopes. Under the moonlight, I held one up to read its addressee. It was from a local accounting firm, addressed to my mother. I ripped open the mail to see it was a twenty-five-thousand-dollar check. I read further and saw that the payee was Julius Miller.

“What in the fuck,” I said aloud as Jourdan took the mail from my hands, reading it. I ripped through the other envelopes, finding the same amount in each one, paid every quarter. There was a total of seven hundred thousand dollars. I’m assuming the accountant had sent them here when he searched and found her name listed as the owner.

I stood, brushing my hands over my curls.

“Jourdan Baby, I’m so confused right now,” I said, taking a deep breath.

“You said beside you, right? We can figure this out together. You got me, and I got you. Let’s go inside.”

“Baby, Miller has this address in some capacity. I’m tired as shit, and I don’t feel like shooting any more motherfuckers tonight. ”

“Well, it’s a good thing you got me because I can do this all day,” she said, taking her hands and acting like they were two guns. She squeezed her imaginary triggers twice for added effect.

“And I got two real ones, too,” she said again as she wrapped her hands around her body, placing them on the guns that rested under her arms in the holster.

My baby.

She smiled as she did it, but I could see in her eyes that she was serious.

“Bring your ass on. I had the place furnished. It’s too bad I can’t show you the room I used to knock down all my high school shorties,” I smiled, but the look Jourdan gave me back was deadly. I laughed again. We walked inside to find my Mother’s Brownstone in the same condition as my house in Mount Vernon. It was clean but covered in a light coating of dust.

“I’m just messing with you, Jourdan. Adriana Rockwell would have tackled me harder than a three-hundred-pound linebacker had she even thought I had girls in here.” I said as I walked around the house, turning on the lights. It was a mind fuck because I wanted to see the house the way it used to be. However, it was just furnished. It was missing the cozy, homey feel that my mother always seemed to bring to all her homes, including mine.

“See, that’s why I love your mother,” she said and smiled. I gave Jourdan a tour of my childhood home and threw in a couple of stories about the times I spent with my father. I missed him; my time away from this home and all my life’s changes had pushed the pain to a place that wasn’t easily accessible. In that revelation, I truly understood why she acted as she did. If something other than a freak work accident had taken my father up out of here, I could see myself taking the same rash path to avenge him. For that same reason, I knew she wouldn't have returned to Cali even if we hadn’t crossed paths.

With all these new thoughts running through my mind, I was desperate to shut the world out. After getting some rest to reset, I was heading back to North Carolina and Cypress Crest. My mother owed me some answers.