Page 13

“When?”

“I don’t know, but I woke up from my nap, and she was gone.”

I shot past Auntie Myanne and to the bedroom Merci slept in. I knew it already, but the sight of her cell phone, the one I’d given her, was on the bed.

“Fuck.” I grunted but noticed there was a note.

Hey, Asshole. I’ll be back and no, I’m not with Germaine. He’s too loyal anyway. Go finish screwing whoever you’ve been screwing.

Merci

I had eyes once we found out who was behind that attack. Like I suspected, the dude Charlene dated saw right through her. She made her rounds through a few motorcycle clubs over the years, and when shit didn’t pan out, lo and behold, she felt she’d hit the jackpot when she landed in the bed of a biker from Hells Devils.

We had her in a warehouse ducked off, interrogating her for information—her and the nigga we spotted at the race. We’d been at it for three days. Breeze had knocked her out, but unlike me, he was tired and decided to go home. I came home when I received the call Merci’s ass had left. We had a few prospects there on duty guarding the warehouse, but I didn’t need sleep. I needed answers.

I pulled out my cell and hit up Brick. It was finally time for me to holler at him after I’d been putting it off, but first, I needed to find Merci’s hardheaded ass. If wanting a woman made you do stupid shit like blow the head of the enemy off, I was close to it.

“The fire station.”

“What about a fire station?”

He covered his cell, yelling for some girl to keep sucking him off.

“Shit. Yeah?” He cleared his throat when I called his fucking name. “Truth, man. Tell me what you need.”

“The firefighter nigga, the one that we saw Merci with. When that rumbler comes off that dick, ride by there. Go in and snatch his bitch ass out and demand he tell you where she’s at. His country ass can’t keep her safe. His name is Kane. Damn girl left while Aunt Myanne was asleep.”

He chortled then hissed, causing me to frown when I pulled the cell phone away from my face. This was the reason he could never be president. He left the fucking warehouse before me and Breeze had. He’d fucked up her man and a few others we grabbed but he said pussy called. The fuck?

We couldn’t kill them until we had who we needed. That was Jenson. He’d come out sooner or later. He had to. Jake and Logan had put the word out the Hells Devils had put a hit out on one of ours. The other motorcycle clubs weren’t fucking with that from the Brute Pythons to the Skull Bangers.

“Motherfucker…”

“Look, fuck that. I’ll send Harlem.”

“Naw, Truth. I got you. Fire station. Name’s Kane. Pull up and beat his ass.”

I laughed. He wanted to have a reason to beat a nigga’s ass anyway. If Merci was with him, it would fall on her ass.

“That’s it?” He then mumbled, “Swallow it. All that shit. Yeah… just like that.” This nigga was getting his dick sucked while having an entire conversation. I loved his ass but pussy was going to be his fucking downfall. I didn’t even ask which rumbler it was. That shit didn’t matter since I stopped fucking the help and those that were deemed thirsty fans a long time ago.

“I’m off the grid until tomorrow. Headed to see Beast.”

“Wait!” I heard something fall and then a female shrieking. “I’m sorry, baby. Just a little blood. Not enough to kill ya. Hold still and let me go one more round.”

I hung up on his immature, nasty ass.

I rode for two hours since the prison was west out in Brooksville. It was a small town filled with nothing but prisons and plants. Families earned their money off the land too. Food came from what they grew, which wasn’t a bad idea.

Out in those fields, there was plenty of opportunity to make money, and Beast knew it. The first few years, we did drop offs for him, but once I realized that his shit could land me in prison or dead, I cut him off, not financially, though. I still made sure he was good, but I was done with doing dirty shit. Brick, Alix, and Genny needed me. I was all they had.

I pulled up and parked. I drove my truck instead. I wasn’t scared of any motherfuckers on two feet, but I was a one man team out here. Beast probably had reach, but there were plenty of alliances behind those barbed fences that would kill a Saint unless advised not to.

“Driver’s license and inmate you’re here to see?”

I hated that shit. My father had been reduced to the title of an inmate with a six digit number. The correctional officer knew who I was, and she knew Beast. She chewed her fucking gum like a cow while she batted those wings called eyelashes on her eyes. I wish Mercilyn would fucking do that.

I grunted, realizing how I compared every woman to her. She wasn’t even soft but she was vulnerable under the tough skin she’d developed over the years. It was that vulnerable side that made me feel the need to protect her and make her mine too. I just wished I knew how to do that shit without fucking it up.

“Emric Saint?”

It sounded more like a question. I knew the bitch knew how to read with her country bumpkin ass. She slid my driver’s license back to me, looked down, then waved her hand.

“Follow me.”

That uniform was toddler size. I knew that pussy between her thighs was fighting to breathe.

After I was searched, which I fucking hated, I waited and waited. I watched people eagerly greet their loved ones. They expanded their visitation area or moved it because today we were in an open visiting room. The glass was what I last remembered, a barrier that caged them in but caged us too. Wasn’t shit safe or comfortable about prison, not even for the family that had been left behind.

“Aye, uh… Is Emric Saint coming?” I asked the correctional officer.

His fat ass raided the snack machine before the visitors did. I shifted in my seat as the room filled even more with people. I wasn’t too keen on being in a room filled with motherfuckers and not being strapped.

“Son, I’m here.”

I heard his voice behind me. I wasn’t sure how I felt but my heart raced the same way it did whenever we were in trouble as children. I was the oldest, so everything fell on me. It always did.

“You plan to turn around and give your father a hug?”

I lowered my head, squeezed my misty orbs, and stood.

“Yeah, Beast.”

He opened his arms, and for a split second, I hesitated. Those were the same arms that hugged me as a child, told me I’d forever be safe, and wouldn’t need for shit. Well, he was wrong. Money or not, club or not, it was in that moment I knew I needed my father.

“Hey.” He pulled me in and placed his hand behind my head. He was taller than me, which meant he was easily six foot six. “I really missed you, Junior. So much.”

Only he and my mother called me that. I nodded. I wasn’t strong enough to say it, but I missed the fuck out of my father.

“Let’s have a seat,” he whispered. I took in his orange suit and size fourteen state-issued tennis shoes. He didn’t look a day over forty, even though he was sixty-two. His salt and pepper hair was lightly waved and cut with a fresh tape. He smelled of soap and a splash of cologne.

“Can’t show a motherfucker too much affection.”

He eased down on his chair, eyeing the correctional officer who quickly looked away.

“Scary bitches,” he muttered.

I laughed. He still ran shit I see. It was a prison, but I wasn’t surprised. He had that aura about him.

I took my seat, unsure of what to say or where to start. It had been easily two years. The last time was after Alix graduated from high school. The first person he wanted to show his diploma to was our father. Before the visit was over, he pulled me and asked me the stupidest shit. That’s when I knew Alix saw Beast through a different lens and a lens that could end up getting him killed. He fucked with gaming, but I knew Alix—he wanted to be like Beast. He wanted to be known and praised by the streets and feared. It seemed good until you stood over your mother’s grave at nineteen with a hole in your heart.

“Elias still being hard headed?” he probed, lightening the mood.

“He is, but he’s come a long way. He shows up, puts in work, and handles business. Sometimes, he moves alone and does shit that I want to fuck him up for, but his heart’s in the right place.”

“He’ll follow your lead, Emric. Just gotta speak to that man inside of him. He still finding his way, and when you cut him off, he gets frustrated. It’s in both of you. He just needs time to let that bullshit he falls prey to like pussy not be his outlet. There’s more to pussy than pussy. There is love, too. You both deserve that. Don’t discount it. It makes being out there on the streets a softer landing when you make it home.”

I couldn’t disagree with that since I liked knowing Merci was there, but until I could figure my own shit out, it was pointless to take her down that road. I wasn’t sure she was built for it anyway.

“And Genny? I heard about the explosion.” His jaws tightened as he squeezed his eyes, then opened them. “I call from time to time. I don’t need to ask. I know you’re on it or it’s handled, correct?”

“Hells Devils,” I whispered then looked around.

All occupied ears didn’t mean they weren’t ear hustling. Motherfuckers from all walks of life were in here with family. Some were grimy as fuck. The whispers and their eyes looking our way told me they knew who my father was, and more importantly, they knew me. For all I knew, once I showed up, they probably had plans to set my ass up. I was paranoid as fuck. I could tell Beast noticed it.

“I have a detail on you when you leave… You should know me by now.” He laughed. “As soon as I saw you, the word went out.”

I tucked my lip and nodded, a smile threatening to form. Beast still had it.

“You should know don’t shit move around here without me knowing or authorizing it. This place has a few Saints, son. Well, more than a few. I stay out of your way because I know I fucked it up, but I’m a natural leader.”

“Couldn’t help yourself, huh?”

“Naw.” He pointed to the right of us and tipped his head. “That’s Stoney. See that tattoo on his arm? Saint Rider, son.”

Stoney looked at me, pumped his chest once with his fist, and greeted me.

“What’s up, bro?” I reached over and quickly dapped him up.

“Then by the vending machine with two little girls and the woman?”

I sat up and looked past the woman. He was old as fuck for her to be so young. Beast already knew what I was thinking.

“Aye, that’s Cornbread. He likes them young, but she’s legal.”

My father whistled. It wasn’t loud, but it was loud enough to get his attention. Cornbread lifted his head with dipped brows until he saw me and my father. He smiled and pumped his chest once with his fist. I returned the gesture.

“A few others are in the back, but you’re good. As soon as you are on that road, ain’t no one fucking with you, son. I know it’s been some time, and I understand why you pulled away. You did what was best. When I left, Elias, Genny, and Alix became your responsibility. Myanne had to make me respect it, even though you busted my fucking balls when you cut off my supply.”

“Would you rather it be me in here too?”

“I don’t, even though that’s not why I’m here. So, let’s cut to the chase and lay it on your old man.”

“Speaking of Auntie My, I need to know about Ma, Beast. She won’t tell me, but she said something that made me feel like Ma’s hands wasn’t clean. That maybe her death was as a result of her own doing.”

He looked away with tucked lips. I could tell that even if it were true, he still loved my mother to the point he didn’t want to speak ill of her. He had a few women over the years that came to visit him, but he never loved another woman like he did Enrietta Saint.

“Enrietta’s hands weren’t clean, but neither were mine. All I’ll say is sometimes a man can push a woman to do something she’s not proud of and worse… something she can’t reverse.”

It was no secret he had a few rumblers that flaunted the dirty deeds he participated in. He didn’t love them, but that didn’t mean it didn’t hurt my mother.

“As a man, your penalty is waking up every day and looking at the one thing she did but can’t take back. You still love her, though, and you love what comes with her. Hell, even if what you love isn’t yours, you raise him like he is.”

His orbs filled with tears before he squeezed them and grunted. I frowned, wondering if she stepped out and did the unthinkable. She was killed just months after Alix’s birth. When I calculated that, it all began to make sense.

“Wait, do you mean he’s not?—”

“I don’t love him any differently, Emric,” he intervened, cutting me off. “He’s my son. Always will be.”

He knocked on the table once and took a deep breath. I saw old habits didn’t change, causing me to smile. Damn, Beast had laid some shit on me, but the fact he ate that shit and still called Alix his own made me love him on a whole different level.

“What do you say about getting your old man some nachos with cheese, two Twinkies, a Dr. Pepper, and a honey bun? I can stand to lose a few pounds, but fuck that, my son is here. Eat with me.”

Damn, he slid that on me, but I still had questions.

“Beast?”

“He’s a Saint,” he spoke firmly. “The fuck the DPs could do with him when his mother was a Saint? They would have discarded of him, treated him like trash,” he spat with disgust.

“My heart wouldn’t have been able to handle it. So, after they threatened your mother for staying with me, I took their president Cinco out. Fucking sperm donor. If I regret anything, it was that. That’s why I took my time and sat in this prison so the beef could end with you all. Enrietta’s fate was already written, although I wished it had ended with me in the ground. Trust me. The trouble you’re running into isn’t with the DPs,” he stated. “If they even think about touching you, the Saints would be required to wipe those bitches out.”

I stood and sighed, still trying to process what I’d learned. As I headed to the vending machine, he called my name.

“Yeah, Dad?”

He smiled. I guess because I called him Dad. I didn’t realize it until I had. He was my father, and no matter our history, I was proud to call him that.

“That girl you have stashed away, you’re doing the right thing. At the sign of trouble, that was your job to keep her safe. Guard her with your life, but it’s also okay to give her your heart.”

“What do I do?”

“Nothing.” He smiled. “Jenson’s a pussy,” he added. “I’m on that shit. Trust me. No one comes for my fucking seeds and I not act on it.”

I wondered how he knew so fucking much behind prison walls.

“Trust me, Charlene’s low on the totem pole. Her nigga is Jenson’s nephew. He’s trying to prove himself. He had to befriend a DP to throw y’all off. I told you that truce is solid. That don’t mean hold hands and fuck with the DPs, but it means we stay out of each other’s way.”

I bent down and hugged him like I was a little boy again. I wanted to cry, but I knew he’d tell Brick who would clown my ass about it.

“Hey.” He held me close. “I called in a favor too. By the time you make it back home, they’ll be dealt with. Pull the Saints out from that warehouse detail when you leave here. I don’t want more bloodshed and certainly not on your hands. Give the girl a shot. Besides, I heard she’s feisty as fuck.”

I stood and smiled, shaking my head.

“Auntie My can’t hold shit.”

He laughed. “Never could.”