Page 26

The next night before I was supposed to head to one of my clubs, my phone lit up with a call from Mekhi. As soon as I saw his name flash across the screen, I knew what time it was.

“Talk to me,” I said, stepping out of the shower.

“He’s in a rehab joint out in Fort Lauderdale,” Mekhi explained. “The name was fake so that the media wouldn’t have a field day, but one of my guy’s confirmed it. It’s definitely cuzzo.”

With his athletic background, keeping Baarbie’s ass outta the spotlight was a full-time job that wouldn’t have been as easy as it was sometimes if he looked anything like the man many knew.

“Did he enroll himself into rehab?”

“Nah,” Mekhi stated. “Abuelo did, just like last time.”

“When was last time?”

“Last October,” he answered. “Abuelo pre-paid for four months that time. Looks like when we thought Baarbie was wit’ Ken, he was there instead.”

“Shit,” I huffed, hatin’ that abuelo had been the one to do so.

I told my grandfather that I was lookin’ for Baarbie, and honestly, he ain’t even like him that much.

But my abuelo always said family came first. I guess after being a shit father to his kids, he was tryin’ to make up for it with his grandkids.

The problem was, er’body in the family wasn’t worth saving.

“Thanks, bruh. I owe you one.”

“Don’t sweat it,” he said. “Rev was like a brother to me, too. The Baarbie we knew ain’t there no more. The past is memories we shouldn’t be holdin’ onto any damn way. Do what you gotta do, cuz.”

Mekhi wasn’t the kind of guy who let many people in, especially since our family was so complicated. But with Rev? He’d let him in right away. But that’s the kind of man Rev was. He made others feel seen.

We wrapped up a few more details and I ended the call before getting dressed silently since Ri was still passed out in my bed from all the stimulating orgasms after getting fucked so fully by all three of us.

With her currently resting peacefully, now was the time to handle this shit once and for all. My rage had already resurfaced like a good friend who lived next door and was never too far away.

I found Titan sitting in the living room cleaning his pistol, and Storm by the bar sipping dark liquor while looking at something on his phone.

“We found Baarbie.”

Titan’s head snapped up, his eyes going sharp. “Where?”

“Rehab clinic in Fort Lauderdale.”

Storm took another slow sip of his drink, then set his glass down. “So what’s the move?”

“We pay him a visit.” I looked at them both. “Tonight.”

Titan’s grin was savage. “Say less.” He grabbed his bag that was already packed, like he’d been waitin’ for some shit to pop off. With how often he and I randomly went out to violently blow off some steam, it wasn’t surprising. My bag was already packed, too.

“You’ll keep an eye on Santari?” I asked Storm.

He nodded. “Of course, you already know I got her. You two just lemme know if shit gets too complicated.”

Lately, it was also complicated. Only this time, I was more worried about my ability to pull the trigger at all.

&

By the time we got our shit together and made it to the rehab clinic, it was close to two a.m. We parked in the back of a lot a couple blocks down and killed the lights.

We thought we would have needed to call Storm to hack into their system and cut the security feed, but their security system wasn’t shit.

This place was made for people tryin’ to disappear.

We eliminated the parking lot camera and moved silently through the side entrance after I picked the lock.

We made our way to the third floor of the west wing and crept past the nurses’ station to where Baarbie’s room was located.

Once we were outside of the door, Titan gripped my shoulder and forced me to look at him. I nodded, knowing from years of being best friends and fighting side by side that he needed to know I was good.

Usually on a mission, my heart didn’t race. My hands never shook. And I ain’t think twice before pullin’ the trigger. This was muscle memory.This was what I was born for.

Tonight was different though, and even with my silent nod to Titan that I was good, he and I both knew that I wasn’t sure.

We closed the door behind us, Baarbie’s muffled snoring proving that we succeeded in barely making any noise. His room smelled like bleach, pills, and regret. Kinda like the entire fuckin’ place did.

I stood at the foot of his bed, Glock in hand, silencer already screwed on tight. Everything else was quiet. My breath. The world outside. The goddamn war battling in my chest.

He was out cold, hooked up to IVs and a few wires like he hadn’t been responsible for tearing our world apart earlier this year.

Any of us could have caught it that night, but Rev ain’t want that shit.

Santari was right. I couldn’t help but wonder if Boyz n the Hood stayed on repeat because that bastard was still protecting us.

Like he had some sort of sixth sense that we weren’t all gonna make it back alive that day.

As if he wasn’t our core. Our glue. The foundation of The Paradox.

They say in grief you often have false epiphanies about what shit means or how fate would target you next. After the first time I took Ri down from those restraining ropes, I realized that Rev hadn’t only left her The Omega House and everything else because she was his sister.

He’d embedded her into every aspect of our lives in a way where he knew we wouldn’t be able to inhale fresh air, without exhaling nothing but her . And I’d be damned if I let anyone live who had proved to be a threat to what we were building.

That’s why you have to do this. That’s why you can’t let this muthafucka live.

I stared at Baarbie, sleeping like he deserved peace, while my finger tightened around the grip. There was once a time I wished for him to have that harmony more than anyone. Before he let Calvin turn him into a man who I didn’t know anymore.

One pull and it’s done, and I end this fucked-up chapter. We’ll get justice for Rev, for Phil, and for the other men who we lost in the shootout at the gym.

But my hand wouldn’t move.

Not yet.

I looked to Titan for support, finding what I needed in the silence.

‘I get why you’re hesitating,’ his eyes said. ‘Take a moment but make it quick. If you can’t do it, I got yo’ back.’

And I knew he did, just like I also knew that Storm was not only protecting what was precious to us, but also waiting by his phone, ready to talk to me to work through my thoughts and emotions if I needed him.

We often said shit was complicated, but this was different. This wasn’t just some hit. This was my family. I closed my eyes, my jaw locked tight in anger that Baarbie would put me in such a fucked-up position.

Observing him, I saw that his face was thinner than I remembered, his brown skin balmy and his beard patchy. How many times had I tried to get him clean before I gave up and decided just to be there when he fell instead?

This wasn’t the same man who Mekhi and I had been shootin’ the shit with every Sunday when we played basketball at a court in Little Havana before the city tore that shit down.

The one who even though he ain’t play professional ball anymore, still whooped our ass on the court and would do a goofy ass dance every time he won.

But maybe that was the problem. Like Mekhi said, he wasn’t that man anymore. Holding onto memories of who a person was and not is made us weak. When a muthafucka told you who they really were, you needed to listen to that shit the first time.

I moved in closer, pressing the cold steel against his temple.

My hand was steady now, even if my fuckin’ heart was fighting me like it still remembered birthdays at the strip club, blunts on the rooftop of Club Fetish Miami Beach, and sitting in abuelo’s restaurant, laughing hard at stupid shit as we ate whateva he was willing to cook us for free.

I cursed under my breath, seconds away from pullin’ the trigger when his eyes opened, momentarily in shock before they flickered to … resolve. Like it wasn’t fucked up or surprising that I was pointing a gun at his head. But as I studied him closer, I recognized the other emotion reflected there.

Remorse.

But remorse for which part? Baarbie had changed a lot, but right now, the eyes of the man lookin’ back at me were battling with more than he could verbalize, his gaze vulnerable in a way I had never seen before.

I felt Titan step closer, letting me know he was still here. Still present. Still ready to step in if I needed him. But the truth of the matter was, we were here for me to kill my brother. The very one who was an anomaly to me right now.

And Baarbie wasn’t just lookin’ at me. He was beggin’ for something. Not mercy. Not fear. But something deeper than all of that, like he wanted this. Wanted meto be the one to take him out and end his life right here.

That shit stopped me cold. All leads pointed to him.

One of the men who shot at us at the gym and had barely survived had been patched up by our personal doctor and taken to The Pit, an undisclosed place that we used for Paradox business.

Once he was good enough for us to interrogate without him dying, he managed to tell us what we’d already suspected.

That he’d gotten his orders from Baarbie.

I came in tonight ready to end him, no questions asked.

But standin’ here, stuck in some silent war, my thoughts were screaming louder than any bullet.

There was a hollowness behind Baarbie’s eyes.

Like he already made peace with death. A death that he wanted by my hands,his own blood.

Which had me second-guessing what I thought were facts.

Like maybe he wasn’t the enemy after all, but that someone had set me up to take the life of a man who had already lost the fight within himself, waitin’ on me to finish the job his demons started.