Page 32 of This Is Law 2

I expected a lot of things to come out of his mouth, but never this.

Dutch was truly a person that I thought would die still heavy into the drug game.

It was all he knew. He ate, slept, and breathed that shit.

I knew how much it meant to him. I knew the hard work that him, and my pops put into getting that shit off the ground.

Dutch would always talk about this business being something that he would never just let it go, and that he would pass it down.

He often confided in me about his son Kross, and how he didn’t trust him enough to pass it down to him, so that would never be an option.

I know for a fact that if I’d gone in the same direction as my pops, and Dutch, that that business would have been passed down to me, but I was smart enough to know that that was just something that I didn’t want any parts in.

“A nigga go a few weeks without talking to you, and now all of a sudden you ready to walk away from the game. How you get here?” I asked, wanting to know what led him to make that decision.

“Shit, it’s plenty reasons. Reasons that I’ve known about for years, but I’m just getting serious about moving my feet.

I’m in my 60’s. I’m supposed to be somewhere, laid out on a yacht, enjoying the fruits of my labor, not still running around, micromanaging grown ass men.

I think about all the years that I put into this shit, the son that I have, and I don’t even trust that nigga enough to pass the throne over to him.

That lil nigga too immature, reckless, and the boys in the game don’t respect his ass.

On top of that, I’m seeing too many niggas get hit with RICO cases.

That shit with that rapper Reggie got me shook.

They trying to throw the whole fuckin book at him, and his crew.

I went all this time, dodging the feds, never having to get hit with any prison time, and I just been in my head lately, wondering when my luck going to run out, you know?

Plus, it’s not like I’m doing this shit anymore for the money.

When, me, and Knox jumped into this shit as kids, we were hungry for it.

We needed the money back then. Money hasn’t been the motivation for me for years.

I got more than enough money to live multiple lifetimes.

Every deal I’m making these days, every drop with the plug, feels like it’s a risk that I’m taking, rather a reward.

Now that I’m feeling like this, Ima go ahead, and bring this shit to an end,” he shared with me, bringing up all the worries and shit that I’ve had for him for years.

In life, one of my biggest fears had been that Dutch would finally go down for his role that he played in the drug game, and even though they say that I perform miracles in the courtroom, I was afraid that even I wouldn’t be able to help him out of this jam.

“I feel you. How you going to go about that though? You got a bunch of niggas that’s working for you. They not going to take that well. You taking food out of their mouths. They not going to like that,” I said some real shit to him.

Our waitress came over with the appetizers, and he sat them down in the middle of the table. Dutch waited for him to walk away before he answered my question.

“I don’t plan to just drop this shit on them out of the blue.

Whenever I know that I’m ready to move my feet, I’m going to give them niggas about a month’s notice.

Shit, if they real trappers, and hustlers like me, and Knox were, they will find a way to build their own organization from the ground up, and run it on their own,” he said. I nodded my head to that.

There was fried calamari that was sitting in front of me. I was the one to order it. Yaya put me on to fried calamari years ago, and these days, whenever I went out, I had to make sure that that was something that I ordered as an appetizer.

I picked it up with a fork and chewed it down. As I was doing that, I could feel Dutch’s eyes on me. He cleared his throat, and he sat up in his chair.

“I gotta address the elephant in the room, son. The last time we were around each other, we both know how that shit ended. Not going to lie to you, I was more hurt and offended than anything. I been raising you since you were eight years old. In that amount of time, I think you know from the stories that I’ve shared with you about Knox, the love and the respect that I had for him.

That was the brother that I never got the chance to have.

There was nothing in the world that I wouldn’t do for him.

When he was killed, nigga something in me broke.

Till this day, I haven’t been the same since I lost my right-hand man.

Then, after all these years, we never got street justice because we don’t know who it was that killed him.

I can’t fault you though for side eyeing me when my story changed when you asked me where I had been the day that he was killed.

I always told you that when you wanted to catch a person in a lie, to switch up the way you ask a question, and see if they switched up their story.

I walked right into that trap that you set out for me.

My story only changed because I was caught off guard and offended by your question.

Knox was shot in his back. You gotta know that I ain’t even coming like that.

If Ima kill a nigga, he going to see it coming because it’s going to be a headshot,” he expressed.

I knew this would come up. I didn’t mind a little bit of confrontation, and having to attack heavy conversations, so I was ready for it. Truth be told, I thought that it would start up the second that we sat down.

“Ima keep it real with you man; my mama been saying for years that I needed to watch you. With the state of mind that she’s in, I always just let that shit bounce off, and I never would pay it any attention.

The last time I saw her and when she said that shit, I decided to entertain it.

I only entertained it because my mama don’t say that shit about anybody else.

She never told me that I needed to watch anyone else outside of you.

Her story has stuck the same for years. I let that shit get in my head.

I’m up late night, hearing her voice in my head, and then I started having dreams. When you came to my office that day, I knew I was wrong for coming at you like that, but I did that shit to have peace of mind.

When you switched up the way you told the story, I’m not going to lie, I side eyed the fuck out of you. That’s my truth, man,” I let him know.

He cleared his throat, and brought his head in a little bit, so that I could hear him.

“You a lawyer, Sevyn. I made sure that you didn’t have any parts in this drug business because you were smart, and you were different.

I honored your father’s wishes too because when Knox was here, he made it clear that he didn’t want his son selling dope.

I say all that to say that just because we’re in different career fields, you have that street shit in you, and if you must kill, I know you would.

If you truly believed in your heart that what your mama was talking about was the truth, you would have blown my brains out already.

It’s no way you would have allowed me to walk away from that shit if you thought that I did it.

You want justice too badly for Knox to allow me to walk away scotch free,” he voiced, telling the truth.

I know for a fact if I felt like it was Dutch that had truly done this shit, that I would have killed him.

I couldn’t prove that it was him, so I couldn’t kill him.

Yaya told me that whatever was done in the dark, that shit would come to light, so I was just going to thug this shit out and wait and see what happens.

Right now, though, I don’t know if it made me a stupid ass nigga for thinking like this, but I wasn’t sold that Dutch popped my pops. I didn’t think he did it.

We went through the rest of dinner talking about a little bit of everything.

Me, and this nigga damn near had to come to blows when the bill came because neither one of us felt good sitting here, allowing another nigga to pay for their dinner.

In the end, Dutch was the one to eventually pay it, and I just sat back, allowing him to have something.

We went outside, and the second we made it out front, there God was being funny again because Gina, and her homegirls were out there, standing, laughing and shit, talking about where they wanted to go now that dinner was out of the way.

It’s like them bitches had sensors when it came to me because the second we made it out front, all of them turned their heads, and they looked at me, and Dutch.

Luckily, my car was parked right in the front, and all I would have to do was walk over to the valet stand, get my keys, and pay.

I started to do that, and as I was doing it, I could hear heels clacking, following behind me, so I turned my head, and of course it was Gina that made her way over.

She was a beautiful woman. Truly gorgeous, but I wasn’t on that kind of time with her, and you would think that after the last time we were around each other, that she wouldn’t be on that kind of time with me, either.

“Where you getting ready to go?” she asked me, as if me, and her were in a relationship or some shit.

“Ay, watch out. Go back over there with your girls,” I responded, not wanting to embarrass her, so I kept my voice down.

“Let me go home with you,” her words were slurred, so I knew that her ass was drunk.