Chapter Four
Marcus had never felt sick before a mission. His gut was never in knots, and he didn’t get nervous.
But he wanted to vomit.
He couldn’t even look at Katarina. Not when he knew what they were facing.
This would be the hardest mission he’d ever been on. Killing a man, that was easy. He could just close his hands around their throat and squeeze. Or a quick series of motions with a knife would put all of a man’s insides on the outside. Wham, bam, and done.
But this? This was asking him to watch Katarina do that to herself. For a revenge that wouldn’t change anything. This wasn’t her saving herself. She was only digging a deeper, blacker hole that she’d never crawl out of.
All of her insides would be on the outside and there’d be nothing left.
He was grateful for the nice accommodations, at least. He had to put on the show like he was ballin’. They’d been set up in a condo on Jarboe, right on the Country Club Plaza. It was brand new and went for a cool million.
He’d always been amazed when he was a kid how such poverty could exist only a few blocks from luxury. How hunger could exist next door to gluttony.
Tin hadn’t worked out all of his angle yet, but when he approached Tre, if Tre would even talk to him, he’d say he worked for a powerful man. Maybe another Russian interested in getting in on the action. Bloods were only loyal to themselves. They wouldn’t give a shit about infringing on Yukodvich’s territory.
He had a couple burner phones and knew he’d have to make the call to Tre’s mother. She kept a landline. It had been years since he’d seen Tre.
He thought about his own mother and his siblings. Wondered if he should at least try to see them, but in the end, decided that since they hadn’t cared to speak to him before, the simple matter of proximity didn’t change anything.
The hole in his heart was still an open wound, no matter how much he tried to heal it. Marcus imagined it always would be, but he couldn’t change his family. Nor could they change him. He didn’t want to change. He liked the man he’d become, the work he did, the difference he made in the world.
When he’d been talking to Katarina about fat babies, he’d never once imagined his mother having anything to do with his children.
It was bittersweet to come back to a place that had been home and now it was as foreign as it was familiar—a strange sensation.
“When are we doing this?’ Nickel asked as soon as she dropped her duffel.
“I don’t know. I need to talk to Tre.”
“Daylight’s wasting.”
“Some things need to happen first. You don’t look like merchandise I’m trying to sell.”
“Excuse me?” She put her hands on her hips.
“Look, you’re always beautiful, but you need to go get a blowout and get your nails done.”
Instead of arguing with him, she smiled. “I’ve got this handled. Poppy texted that she made appointments for me. It’s already all taken care of and new clothes should be delivered to the suite in a few hours. We’re on this.”
“Yeah. On this.” He nodded. “Is there a car coming for you, too?”
“Should be soon.” She snatched up a burner phone. “Text me if anything happens, yeah?”
“Yeah.”
She narrowed her eyes. “I mean it.”
“What, you think I’m going to send you off to go do something and then try to run off to the mission without you? You make your own choices. You’re a grown up.”
“Glad you see it that way.”
“I’ve got to make a call.” He went into the bedroom and for the first time, he closed the door on Katarina.
Marcus stared at the phone. He remembered Mama Turner’s number better than he did what had once been his own. He brushed his thumb over the screen of the phone. What was he doing here?
Nothing good could come of this. Nothing at all.
But it was the mission.
He exhaled and dialed.
The scratchy voice that answered was so much deeper than he remembered. It was all those Kools she loved so much. “Mama Turner, it’s Marcus Grant.”
“It’s good to hear your voice, child.”
Relief flooded through him. For a moment, he’d been afraid that she’d reject him just like his mother had. That wouldn’t have changed the op, but her acceptance was something that he hadn’t realized he needed.
“It’s been a long time,” he agreed. “How are you, Mama?”
“Gettin’ along, as I do. I expect you’re looking for Tre?”
“Yes, ma’am.” No need to sugarcoat it or lie. Mama Turner could smell a lie like three-day-old roadkill.
“He’s here, baby. Let me get him.”
Expectation and sorrow knotted up in his chest.
“Who is this and why you callin’ my mama’s house?”
His tongue was thick, weighted. It was hard to speak. “Hey, Tre. It’s Marcus.”
Silence reigned on the line and for a moment, Marcus thought he’d hung up. Then he said, “It’s good to hear your voice, man.”
“Yeah. You too.” They’d sworn they’d be brothers until the end. That end had come quickly and with a bloody reckoning.
They breathed at each other for long moments. Marcus just didn’t know what to say because there was too much on the tip of his tongue, too much in his heart.
“Are you home?” Tre finally spoke.
“No, just in town for a few days on some business. Some business I’d like to talk to you about, if you’re interested.”
“For real? That’s why you called after all this time?”
“I didn’t know what to say. Hey, thanks for not killing me?” He tried to make light of everything he was feeling, but it still cut deep. Much deeper than the wound at his neck.
Tre laughed. “Yeah, man. Yeah. All right. Let’s do this in person.”
Just what he hoped he’d say. “Hamburger Mary’s?”
“Are you high?”
Hamburger Mary’s was a vintage hamburger stand, but the waitresses were all drag queens.
“Nobody’s going to be listening to our conversation, are they?”
“I guess you’re right about that. I can be there at one.”
“Sounds good.”
“Where you stayin’ at?”
“A condo on Jarboe my employer picked up for me.”
“Guess you did find your way out the ghetto. So why you comin’ back?”
“I’ll tell you everything at Mary’s.” He hung up.
Of course Tre would be suspicious. He’d be stupid not to be. And Tre, Pookie, and Big D—none of them were stupid. They were sharp predators with business acumen that rivaled Wall Street.
He got to Hamburger Mary’s early and scoped the place out. It hadn’t changed.
Marcus chose a table where his back would be against the wall and he could see the entrances and exits. He was strapped like a motherfucker, just in case. As much as he still loved Tre even after everything, he wasn’t going to let him get the upper hand this time. It had been a lot of years since then and Marcus was bigger, stronger, faster, and better trained.
Waiting for Tre, there was part of him that wanted to abandon the mission, abandon Elite, and take Katarina far away from all of this. Even knowing that she didn’t want that, he couldn’t think of any other way to protect her.
To save her from what was coming.
Darkness loomed on the horizon, a hurricane that once it made landfall, there’d be nowhere to hide.
Tre walked in a short time later. He looked like a walking advertisement for Calvin Klein, a favorite among the Bloods. C.K. for Crip Killer.
Attire wasn’t what he noticed most about Tremayne Turner. It was his eyes and the soul deep exhaustion he saw there.
Marcus stood, now towering over Tre. When they were kids, they’d been about the same height. They shook hands, but ended up in a half bro hug with a back slap, but it was somehow more sincere.
“It’s good to see you, man.” Tre spoke first. “It looks like you’re moving some serious green.”
He nodded his head. “I’m doing okay.”
“Okay enough lunch’s on you?” Tre eyed him.
“Of course. I’m the one with the pitch, right? Get something for Mama T, too. I miss her Sunday dinners and I’m sure I owe more than a few meals out.”
“Look, about that night—” Tre began.
“I get it. I knew what would happen to me if I went back and said I wanted out.”
“You almost died.”
“Yeah, and you’re the one who almost killed me. That’s how it goes, right?”
“You a real motherfucker, dog.”
Marcus cocked his head to the side.
“You had to know you were putting me in that situation. You’re a motherfucker for doing it.”
“I guess I am.” Marcus shrugged. “I didn’t want it hanging over me.”
“Now it’s not.”
The silence between them was absolute, until the waitress asked them what they wanted, but then wrinkled her nose. “Babies, I see you needs to talk this out. Can’t have drama over my delicious meat and by meat, I mean burgers. So, Lola gonna come back in a few.” She patted the table with ridiculously long, pink jewel-encrusted nails.
“We don’t have drama,” Marcus finally said. “We just have a past.”
“Basic bitches drinking lattes and post inspirational shit on they walls have drama, playa. We got struggles. For real.”
“That shit’s over, Tre. What we have now is opportunities.”
“Yeah? What you got?”
“My employer is aware of—”
“Nah, fuck that. Talk real.”
“You’ve got an in with the Yukodvich Brotherhod running security for their supply. We want in.”
“Why?”
“Money. Why else?”
“What’s in it for Big D?”
“Same thing. Money.”
Tre scrubbed a hand over his jaw. “Look, I don’t know if you’ve done business with the YB, but they’re straight up O.G. You get me?”
“And we’re not? Man, fuck those guys.” Marcus sneered.
“I’m just sayin’.”
“Yeah? You just sayin’ you don’t want your cut of fifty large to get me and some merchandise into a house party? Come on.” He was incredulous.
“I didn’t say that.”
“Then what are you saying?”
“I’m saying I’m not gonna die for this shit. If you’re willing to pay that…” Tre shook his head. “I don’t know, man.”
“I’ll say one more thing and let you think on it, but after that, you either take it to Big D, or I bounce. There’s other ways in. But why did you think I came to you?”
“You been out the game a long time.” Tre’s mouth was a thin line.
“No, because I can trust you. And you can trust me. You held my life in your hands. After I came back and put it in your hands of my own free will. You know me. I know you.” The lies were sour on his tongue and tasted like shit.
Or maybe that was his own blood. He’d been choking on it that night.
“I trust this merchandise is female?”
No, not Katarina. Anything but Katarina. Except this was the mission. So fuck everything he felt: all the bad feelings, the despair, the fear. None of it mattered. They’d both signed up for this. “Yeah, she’s a hot little piece of ass. Speaks Russian, too.”
“Bring her by D’s.”
“She’s not for mass consumption.”
“Motherfucker, you want in or not? D will decide how he security checks her.”
“She’s worthless if you break her before we get to Biscayne.” Even as the words came out of his mouth, they disgusted him. As if all of her worth was tied up in her vagina. To these people and the Russians, it was.
Practically to everyone she’d known.
Even him, in the dark of some lonely nights.
He hated himself in that moment. Hated himself, the op, and everyone involved. Even Tre.
Goddamn him.
Goddamn Katarina for demanding they do this.
“D’s. Tonight. You know where he stay.” Tre stood and looked him up and down for a moment. “And quit with that fancy shit. You talk like you went to White Boy School. Remember where the fuck you from before you get there.”
Tre sauntered out and Tin found he had no appetite after all.