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“What’s up?” he asked, after a few moments had passed of us sitting in silence. The swing was still now. “Why do I feel like you’re not telling me something?”
I filled my cheeks with air, blowing it out in a rush before I turned to look him in the face. “This stays between me and you for now—they don’t need to know,” I said, gesturing toward the group of Alicia’s people in my driveway.
Brandon shrugged. “Fuck them. They don’t mean shit to me. What’s up?”
Just like before, a heaviness filled my chest as I pulled the memory of that picture to mind. “You remember that snake tattoo my father had?”
Brandon nodded. “The anaconda? Yeah, that shit was tough.”
I grinned. “Yeah, it was. Didn’t your father have one too?”
As I met his gaze again, Brandon raised an eyebrow. “… yeah. It was some brotherhood shit they did. I got pissed when they told me I couldn’t get one.”
“I recall.” I chuckled. “They swore we couldn’t understand what it really meant, while refusing to explain.”
“Pops almost knocked my head off when I bucked up and said it was probably just some shit they thought looked cool in the tattoo shop. No deep meaning, the shit just looked good.”
I pulled in a deep breath through my nose, holding it for a second before I exhaled, pulling the picture from the safety of my pocket to slip into his hand. “Nah,” I murmured. “It was a lot more than that.”
Brandon frowned, then turned his attention to the photograph. “Damn. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a picture of either of our fathers this young,” he mused, his attention obviously still on the faces. “You look like—wait a minute… is that?”
“It is,” I said, then took the photo back so I could return it to my hiding place. With Alicia’s people all over the house, I couldn’t risk leaving it out anywhere. “He had a thorn tattoo and he got it covered up. If your father had the same tattoo… you see the implication there, right?”
“Yeah.” He nodded as he sat back, seemingly dazed by the information. “But… shit, maybe it’s not—”
“There’s too much happening for it to be a coincidence,” I countered, before he could even get the argument out.
For a long moment, he just sat there looking at me. And then, “Where the hell did you even find that?”
“A baby album. One I’ve never seen. I don’t think my mother even knows I have it. But… last night, when she saw those thorns on Onyx, you would think she saw a ghost. She knew exactly what that tattoo on him meant because she’d seen a variation of it before, on my father.”
Brandon nodded. “Yeah… shit. Did you ask her about it all?”
“I haven’t had a chance. I found that picture, went to confront Onyx about it, then—”
“Wait,heknows about this?!” Brandon snapped, sitting forward so fast he almost pitched both of us from the swing. Eyes wide, he planted his feet to steady the violent rocking, glancing around at who might be near before he leaned in. “Tati, what thefuckwere you thinking? Confronting him alone?”
“IthoughtI was sleeping with the goddamn enemy,” I countered. “What the hell else was I supposed to do?”
“Call me.”
“Ididcall you, after he swore he didn’t know anything about my father being a thorn, then took a call from Alicia. And then… he was justgone.”
“And you believe that shit?” Brandon asked, shaking his head. “Youreallybelieve he showed up here as a coincidence? Tati,use your head.If our fathers were involved with thisGardenshit, chances are, Onyx is the cleanup man,” he hissed, verbalizing a possibility I’d already tossed around my mind over and over. “Didn’t he say Renard Belrose has those niggas with him brainwashed? Who’s to sayhis assisn’t hypnotized or whatever too?!”
“That was a possibility even before we knew this about Jesse and Gerard, before I even trusted his ass like you,” I snapped right back. “So don’t you dare tell me touse my head,as if you weren’t acting like your favorite cousin had come to town whenever Onyx was around.”
Brandon opened his mouth to argue, but closed it right back, because he couldn’t.
Hecouldn’t.
What we weren’t about to do was act as if I wasn’t thelastamong us to board the “Team Onyx” train, just because I happened to be riding it—him—a little harder.
“We need to talk to the OGs about this shit. Ozias, Carmen, my mother,” Brandon suggested, backing down from our previous thread. “We need to know what they know.”
“I don’t think this isPredatorshit,” I countered. “Ozias doesn’t have the tat, and ifwenever knew anything about this, I’m betting he doesn’t know either. Our mothers though… they have to know something about this. If he’s got that tat exposed in my baby picture, clearly he had it when they met and he obviously warned her about it, or she wouldn’t have had that reaction to Onyx,” I said. “Maybe your mother has the same experience. How has she reacted to him?”
Brandon shook his head. “He’s never really been around her like that. But I’m certainly about to have a damn conversation with her. When are you gonna talk to yours? Or do we need to tag team?”
