Ahkeem tried to clown about me not wanting to share my brother, and little did he know, Priest and I shared the same sentiments. It had always been us, and that was how it would forever be.
Chapter Ten
AHKEEM
The tunesof the organ being played filled the church as I walked hand in hand with Jazzlyn and carried Saphir at my side. We were paying our respects to Nymir, and shit was weighing on me heavy. It ain’t feel right burying my homie. He was just living it up at my reception a few weeks ago, and now he was about to be buried underneath the dirt.
Mourning cries wailed out of family members. Some I met; others were new faces to me. At the front of the church, Nymir’s casket was open, and his cold and lifeless body was on display. I hated fucking funerals. The way funeral homes tried their best to preserve how you looked when you were alive always bothered the fuck out of me. To me, it never looked the same. The body looked… heavier, almost as if they were never ready to leave earth.
I felt the same way when my mama died. I would have preferred a closed casket over an open one any day. I could have gone without seeing my mother’s dead body and the visual haunting me for weeks. Now I was having to face the same shit for Ny. My homie was gone, and the shit was fucked up.
My family and I took our seats right next to Javi, Moe, Jersey, Diamond, and Amina. I pushed my Cartier buffs onto my eyesto conceal my emotions. No one really went in depth about this part of the hustle. How one second your homie could be here, then the next he wasn’t. Shit was unfair, but it came with the fucking territory.
We all paid our respects to Nymir before taking our seats again. The service was beautiful; however, it was still gut wrenching.
“Would you like to say any words about my grandson?” Ms. Mae approached me with tears still cascading down her face.
I really thought she would have continued to pay me dust for the entirety of the funeral. I went up to her to give her some flowers and give her my condolences, and she looked straight past me.
I nodded my head before getting up. Jazzlyn shot me an encouraging smile. I took the podium, and all eyes were on me.
“I ain’t too good with words like this, so I’m just gone speak from where it hurt.” I shifted my eyes to the left and saw Nymir’s lifeless body in the casket. We sent him out looking sharp in Tom Ford.
“Nymir was the homie. He was loyalty when things got shaky. He was laughter when the room felt too heavy. He was a kind soul who would show up even when he didn’t have to. Life ain’t fair, and it don’t give warnings, but what it does give is moments, and Nymir made his count. Every memory, every laugh, every late night—we carry that now. That don’t die with him. We gone miss you, my brother. But you ain’t gone. You live in us. In how we move. In how we love. In how we protect each other. Rest easy. We got it from here, baby boy.”
I walked over to Nymir’s casket and took one last good look at him. This was our goodbye. The rest of the funeral was a blur. A few of Nymir’s cousins, myself, Jersey, Moe, Javi and Diamond carried his casket out and loaded it into the hearse.
My eyes scoped around the vicinity of the church, and they landed on a GMC Acadia and a Charger that were parked on the curb across the street from the church. My intuition told me some shit just wasn’t right about the cars. The tints were too dark, and the engines were still running. I looked over my shoulder and made sure my wife and son weren’t too far behind me.
“Lovey, go back inside,” I instructed her as I reached into the waistband of my slacks to retrieve my strap.
She shot me a look of confusion. Everyone was piling out of the church, so we could all head to the burial. “Ahkeem, what are you doing? Saphir is right here!” Her eyes widened at me while she quickly turned Saphir away so he wouldn’t see me toting my gun.
Moe, Diamond, Javi, and Jersey sensed my energy. They all went to clutching their guns. Soon as the back door of the hearse shut, the GMC and Charger sped from the curb they were parked at and bust a swift right toward the church.
“Everybody, get down!” I screamed in hopes of getting everyone to hear me. We were already burying my homie; I didn’t want or need anyone else losing their lives.
Just as I expected, the GMC and Charger slammed on their brakes in front of the church and let their dark tinted windows down. My and my niggas were too on point and instantly went to bussin’ at them as soon as they pulled their triggers. The nigga who was riding in the Charger hailed a Desert Eagle from the window and aimed it right at Nymir’s hearse, which happened to be in the same direction Jazzlyn dropped and was laying on top of Saphir.
Anger ripped through my veins at the fact that these pussy-ass niggas had the audacity to put my wife and son in the line of their fucking bullets. I jogged down the steps of the church without giving a fuck about the bullets that were flying. I kept myheat in front of me and rained down on those pussy-ass niggas. Spinning on us during a funeral when so many innocent civilians and children were around proved to me that Silas was nothing but a pussy-ass, hating-ass nigga!
Screams of terror and cries wailed out of people who attended the funeral as they all desperately tried to protect themselves from the gunshots. Bullets ain’t have no fucking name on them, and I was praying to God that my son and my wife remained untouched.
One of my shots hit the nigga in the passenger seat of the GMC. His blood splattered against the onyx black exterior of the truck, which was enough to get the rest of the niggas to peel the fuck off. As the rubber of their tires burned against the pavement, me and the guys chased their cars to the end of the block on foot, still letting bullets rain from our guns.
Once they bent the corner and sped off, we stopped chasing them. “I’m gone kill every last one of them if it’s the last thing I do!” I roared.
The entire block shook with mayhem. So many people were screaming, crying, and running that I didn’t even know where to look for my wife and son. I sprinted back over to the church, panic setting in as my eyes desperately darted around in search of the red dress my wife wore. My heart felt like it was getting ready to fall out of my ass as I snapped my head in each and every direction.
“Jazzlyn! Saphir!” I called out for them while bulldozing through people to find them.
“Ahk! We’re right here!” I heard her shout back. It was like my ears were able to tune out all the chaos and zero in on her voice. The sight of her with Saphir in her arms instantly caused a wave of relief to wash over me.
I darted straight to her before wrapping my arms around them. “Y’all good? Blue, you not hurt, is you?” I took him from her arms to ensure he hadn’t been struck.
He shook his head as tears glossed his brown orbs. “No, but, Daddy, I’m scared.” His voice trembled as he clung to me.
That shit broke my fucking heart. I did what I had to do to protect my son, but he shouldn’t have been in that situation in the first fucking place. I kept him far removed from shit like this, and now I had just exposed him to it all.
