“Nah.”
Monte stepped out from behind me.
He walked around so he was visible and he looked at Mazi and I looked at Monte and understood everything in about three seconds. This was Mazi’s boy. The one he had grown up with.The one who had been inside Tavarus’s operation since before Mazi ever walked in. He had gotten Mazi in.
Monte had been the connect the whole time.
“I can’t let you do it,” Monte said to Mazi. “You got too much ahead of you. NFL draft. Your whole life. I’m not letting you carry this.” He looked at Tavarus. “This one’s mine.”
Tavarus looked between them and I watched him calculate his options and come up short. Just as Tavarus was about to pull the trigger…
Monte moved fast.
When it was over Tavarus was on the floor. The room was loud for a second and then quiet again. Monte was already stripping everything off him. Watch. Chain. Phone. The money from his jacket pocket. He worked fast and without hesitation like somebody who had done this before.
When he was done he stood up and looked at Mazi.
“Get your cousin and go,” he said. “I’ll handle everything here. You were never in this house.”
Mazi stared at him. Then nodded. No words needed to be said. Everything was understood.
“Your brother is heavyweight champion of the world, your father just got his justice tonight you getting drafted to the NFL and Melo to the NBA. Don’t let this take all of that away. This nigga Tavarus was a waste of space.” He looked at me. “Take him and go.”
I looked at Monte standing there in that dark house and felt nothing but respect for a man I barely knew. He had just made a decision that most people never had the courage to make.
I nodded as I walked towards the door with Mazi behind me.
“I’m going to get at you,” I told him. “When things settle. I’m coming to find you.”
“I know where I be. Get at me.” he said.
I grabbed Mazi by the arm and we went out the front door and got in my car. I pulled away from that house, drove and didn’t look in the rearview.
Mazi was quiet in the passenger seat for a long time.
Then he said — “Is it always like that?”
“Like what?” I asked, confused by his question.
“That fast. That final? He was gone in the blink of an eye.”
I kept my eyes on the road. “Yeah,” I said. “It is.”
He nodded and looked out the window.
We drove back toward the city in the dark and I thought about Amara. About Sandra. About Simone’s changed locks. About Street and Brielle finally being in the same place after everything it had taken to get them there.
I thought about Monte standing in that house making a choice he could never take back so that a kid with a future didn’t have to.
Some people gave everything they had for the people they loved and never got anything back for it.
I understood that differently tonight than I ever had before.
I got a private call and I ignored it. When my phone rang again, I answered it.
“Deon. Where are you? This is Sandra, I’m using my house phone. Please be careful. Tavarus has taken my phone and mycar. I think he might be after you. He knows. I don’t know how, but he knows.” she cried into the phone.
“Calm down. It’ll all be fine. Thanks for the heads up, but I’m out of town right now, so don’t worry or stress about that. Call me a little later, and chill. Okay?”
