“Looks like the conversation is done.”
Marcus stepped beside me. “She’s good. You can go.”
“Marcus don’t—” I started.
“I’m not talking to you,” Street said to Marcus. Still flat. Still controlled. But something underneath it that made the air on that porch feel different. “Step back inside.”
Marcus looked at him. “This is my house.”
“I know whose house it is. I don’t give a fuck either!” Street held his eyes. “Step back inside and let me finish talking to Brielle.”
“Xavier.” I put my hand on Street’s arm. “Stop.”
“Since the nigga can’t mind his business, tell him what I told you Brielle.” Street kept his eyes on Marcus. “Ask him who his father is. Ask him why he knows so much about my career. Ask him about that phone call you overheard that morning after my brother was in the hospital. This nigga been using you.”
Marcus went very still.
And that stillness was the most damning thing that had happened in the last five minutes because a man with nothing to hide didn’t just get quiet like this A man with nothing to hide would speak up for himself.
Marcus went still and looked at me and in his eyes was something I had never seen before in two years of being with him.
He was calculating what I knew.
“Bri.” His voice was softer now. “Come inside. Whatever he’s been telling you—”
“Did your father have my father to hook us up because of Street? Did you pursue me with an ulterior motive?” My voice came out louder than I meant it to and I didn’t care. Two years. Two years of this man in my home in my bed at my dinner table while his father had blood on his hands that went back twenty years and connected directly to the man I had loved my whole life. “Answer me right now.”
Marcus looked at me for a long moment.
Then he looked at Street.
And the look he gave Street in that moment told me everything his mouth hadn’t said yet. It wasn’t confusion. It wasn’t denial. It was the look of a man who had been found out and was now deciding his next move.
Street saw it too.
I felt Street move beside me and I grabbed his arm with both hands he was beyond livid and I understood why. His father had been killed and if that wasn’t enough, the possible killer may have still been fuckin with Street and his family, and unknowingly using me to help.
“Don’t,” I said. “Xavier. Don’t.”
Street stopped but his whole body was locked and his eyes were on Marcus. Street knew that legally, he couldn’t put his hands on anybody without losing everything. I just needed him to calm down. I could feel everything in him that was right on the edge of coming forward.
“You need to get your things,” I said to Marcus. My voice was shaking but I kept it steady enough. “And you need to get out of this house. I don’t even know who you are, but you can bet that I’m going to get to the bottom of all of this.”
Marcus looked at me. “You’re making a mistake.”
“Get. Out.”
He looked at Street one more time. Then he turned and went back inside.
I stood on that porch and my legs were not cooperating the way I needed them to. I grabbed the railing and held on. I was trying my best to breath and Street was right there beside me and didn’t say anything. He didn’t touch me, he just stood there and let me have the moment which was exactly what I needed.
After a minute I looked at him.
“I’d never do anything to intentionally hurt you and I pray that you know that. I’m taking your word on this because you’ve never lied to me. I don’t know what to do right now, but I’m gonna get answers. Marcus silence was more than enough. Please, just leave before you do something that you can’t take back if you stay here and wait for him to come back out.”
Street looked at me and I didn’t know what to make of the expression.
“You know with every action, it’s a consequence. I’ll respect you today, but I’ll die behind my family. And I refuse to go out the same way my father did. Marcus, his pops and yo pops too, they’ll be handled if I find they had anything to do with my brother getting shot.”
