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Chapter Thirteen

SEVYN ‘LAW’ CRAWFORD

I was walking out of court. Today was the first day that my client Justin had to go before the judge.

Before we’d gotten into the courtroom, I had to have a few pep talks with him because he was freaking out, scared to go before the judge.

He was afraid of those big boy charges that he could possibly be looking at.

If I wasn’t there to give him that pep talk, and if his grandma hadn’t come to pray over this entire situation, I really believe that his young ass would have passed out.

I felt like we had a good day in court today though.

I had good shit that I was able to present towards the judge.

I thank God that Justin had been smart in all of this, so with access to his phone, I played altercations in court of arguing disputes between his mom, and her boyfriend.

He had video footage of her bruises throughout the time that she’s been dealing with him.

I had Justin’s grandma take the stand, and a couple of his high school teachers because I needed the courtroom to see that Justin was a good kid, and all he was trying to do was defend his mother.

The key person to this case was his mama, and her ass had showed up to court, just like she was legally obligated to.

She got up there, and she told the truth about everything.

Sad thing is, I don’t think she chose to tell the truth because she was trying to help her son.

If anything, I think she only cooperated, and told the truth because she was afraid of going to jail for lying under oath.

There was a few parts where I felt like she was trying to protect her boyfriend, saying how he wasn’t abusive, and how they would both be over there, putting hands on each other.

The prosecutors had something to argue in retaliation towards every argument that we had though.

When the footage of the arguments were shown in court, of course, they came back, wanting to know why Justin hadn’t just called the cops, instead of recording it.

The biggest thing they were trying to throw out was how this wasn’t a self-defense case, and how it was self- retaliation on Justin’s part, wanting to get his mom’s boyfriend back for all the times that he’d put his hands on her.

A lot of back and forth shit today, but my hope was strong in this case, and I kept my promise to Justin, letting him know that I was going to get him out of this shit.

This was only day one of it. We would meet back in a couple of more weeks, and hopefully that would be the end of it, and he could go home.

Now that court was over, I was heading back into the office.

My days have been busy as hell lately. Taking on this case with Reggie, it was heavy, but I knew that I could handle it.

I met with Reggie for the first time a few days ago, and he had so much wisdom.

I remember Yaya telling me how smart he was, and how he could articulate himself well.

Looking into his brown eyes, he reminded me a lot of myself.

I’ve always been a smart kid, but I would hang around a bunch of niggas that I didn’t have any business hanging around with.

The only difference between me, and Reggie was that I never fell victim to wanting to fit in or be a part of shit that I knew would land my ass in trouble.

In high school, I could be chilling with my friends, and they could start talking about breaking into a nigga’s house, or car, and once them niggas started talking like that, I would move the fuck around and get from around that.

It didn’t have anything to do with me being scared either because that was the last thing that I was.

Growing up, having Dutch raise me, I’ve witnessed a lot of his homeboys be killed for being in the streets, taking shit that didn’t belong to them, or just being stupid.

I also witnessed them niggas getting locked up, looking at football numbers, so since I was a child, I just knew that that was something that I never wanted to be a part of.

This shit with Reggie was going to be tough. It was going to be long, and stressful than a motha fucka, but I looked him in his eyes, told him that I had him, and I was going to do all that I could, so that he could come home, and be a father to the baby that he had on the way.

I pulled back up to my office building about fifteen minutes later.

Upon parking my car, I noticed that there was a yellow Ferrari Spider parked in the lot.

The only nigga that I knew that was getting a lot of money, and that was bold to push that bright ass car because he felt like he was untouchable was Dutch.

Crazy how he popped up on me at the office like this because I had just been thinking about this nigga, and how I hadn’t talked to him in a couple of weeks.

Ever since I went down to the facility to check on my mama, he has been off and on taking up space in my mind.

I had no idea why my mama kept telling me to watch him, but I’ve been thinking about it lately.

She’s often told me times before in the past to watch him, but I wouldn’t dwell on that shit like how I was dwelling on it now.

I parked my car in the spot that was right in front of the sign that read, ‘ Reserved for S. Crawford’.

As a black man, born and raised in Miami, every day that shit is a humbling feeling to pull up to my place of business, seeing that reserved sign out front for me.

It was just a reminder of all the hard work that I’d put in.

Seeing this lot, filled with other luxury cars that belonged to the associates of my firm, was also a good feeling because all the attorneys that worked for my firm were certified big dogs.

They handled their business in this industry, and I loved that shit.

I stepped out of the car, grabbing my briefcase, along with my phone.

I locked the doors behind myself and headed for the glass building.

The second I walked in, I could see Dutch, and he was standing right in front of the desk, where my assistant, Tionna was.

He was leaned over, talking to her, while Tionna was too busy typing away something on the desktop, not paying his ass any attention.

Every time he came down here, he was always trying to holla at Tionna, but she wouldn’t budge for him.

Tionna was a good girl, and I’m sure she knew all about Dutch, and his bad reputation with women.

He was a dog. Even at his big age, this nigga had no thoughts of getting married.

Still to this day, I was surprised that he managed to slip up and have a son because since I was a little boy, I just always remember him preaching about strapping up, so that he didn’t have to be a daddy.

“Man, leave her alone. The last few times that you came down here, trying to talk to her, she wasn’t trying to give you any play. What makes you think that shit would be different today?” I asked him in a joking way, as I walked over to where he was.

The sound of my voice caused him to look up, smile, and he came over, putting his hand out for me, and I slapped him up, and from there, we pulled into a father/ son embrace.

I loved this nigga. I’m not even sure why I was getting in my head, worrying about the shit that my mama was in her room saying because I know that whatever she was trying to paint Dutch out to be, he wasn’t that.

I knew the kind of life he lived. Dutch was cutthroat.

This nigga has killed people for shorting him $5.

I know he could move like he had a heart of stone, but I never saw that side of him.

He was tough with me, but it was love in that toughness.

Since I was a little boy, he would pull me in, kiss me on my forehead, and tell me he loved me, which is why I went on to do that same thing with my sons.

He taught me that a man could be hard and still have soft spots and my children just so happened to be my soft spot.

“They say when you want something, you gotta keep pursuing it. She going to fold one day. They always do. I haven’t met one yet that hasn’t folded,” he talked shit once we pulled away from each other.

Tionna was right there, mumbling something under her breath, more than likely cursing this nigga out, and only she could hear herself.

“What you got going on? You in some kind of trouble?” I had to ask because lots of times when he would pull up randomly on me like this, he would need some kind of legal advice, or one of his men from his crew would be in trouble.

I hoped that that wasn’t the reason why he’d pulled up on me though because I had way too much shit on my plate, and I couldn’t take on anything else.

“Nah man. Nothing like that. I just had a little meeting with a few of my guys down the street, so I figured that I would pull up on you. Ain’t seen you in a little minute,” he said, stepping back, with his arms folded, looking at me.

Dutch was a big dude, just as I was. He was hitting that gym hard, and even though he was older, that wasn’t an excuse for him to not go beast mode in the gym.

He was dressed in an all- white fit. White button down, with the matching white pants.

Because the shirt was short sleeve, you could see the two full sleeve tattoos that he had.

He kept his head bald, and shiny, and he swears that the ladies love that shit.

“Aight. Come on to the back. I got a few minutes to spare,” I let him know.

Before I walked away, I let Tionna know that I was going to head to the office for a little bit with him, and she nodded, letting me know that that was fine. Dutch blew a final kiss at her, and she just shook her head, rolled her eyes, and she got back to work.