AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Sighing, Tripp lowers his head and stares at his feet, his arms crossed in front of him.
“I don’t have all night, Tripp,” I mutter impatiently.
“Your parents are dead,” Tripp says suddenly, shocking me but not surprising.
“They’ve been dead to me for a lotta years. If you remember correctly, I wasn’t at home if I didn’t have to be.” I bite out harshly. The past is just that, the past. I don’t need or want to think of anything that pertains to it.
“Yeah, that’s why we’re here, and you aren’t getting the call later from the city morgue. They overdosed, but the kicker is, they left a baby behind."
I blink at him, not sure I heard him correctly.
“You got a baby brother. Name’s Justice, he can’t be more than four months old. Sutherland is looking into the hospital for his birth records that the social worker didn’t have on him yet. You being next of kin, you got the option of taking the kid or putting him in the system.”
It takes me a moment to process this whole crazy situation. My parents, who were neglectful junkies, had another kid. A kid who’s young enough to be my own kid.
Fuck.
I’m thirty years older than this kid. My mom had to be in her mid to late forties, and I didn’t think you could have a kid that late in life. She had me when she was fifteen.
Now both my folks are dead, and I’m left with a baby brother. There’s no way I would put him in the system. That shit ain’t about to happen.
“Where is he?” I roll my shoulders, trying to alleviate some of the tension building.
“He’s at the station with a social worker right now,” Tripp answers.
“Right, so why couldn’t we meet at the station and had to do it out here?” He still hadn’t answered me.
“The thing about your parents’ overdose, it seems they’d gotten themselves clean. They were going to meetings. The social worker, Genesis, who’s watching the boy right now, knew them. She was their case worker. Just took over for the previous one after Justice was born. Genesis told me and Sutherland that she never thought they’d go back to drugs. Evidently, they talked about you a lot. Anyway, according to Genesis and the previous social worker, they’d been clean for five years.”
They’d been clean?
Jesus.
“Something happened to either make them shoot up or it was forced on them,” Tripp finally states, getting to it.
“You think someone could have done this?” Tripp nods, and I continue. “If that’s the case, then who would do it? And why bring me into it besides the fact I have a brother?”
“Cause my theory isn’t something I can do legally and get away with it. You and I both know there’s no getting away from the past, and you know exactly what I mean.”
“You want me to confront those bastards,” I state what he’s not saying.
“Yeah.” He jerks his chin up.
“Point ain’t in charge of them anymore. Gave control over to his cousin, Tweak, about a year ago,” I inform him and grimace. Tweak had never liked me. Hated the fact Tweak was overlooking him and taking me under his wing, grooming me. When Tweak took over things with that gang got worse. I’d heard about it, and we’ve had our run-ins with them as they’ve tried to push for our territory. That ain’t happening.
“If it was Tweak, he could have gone after you already, why wait?” Tripp asks.
“Don’t know, but I’ll find out if they’re involved and let you know. Now, I’ve got to go get my little brother.”
* * *
“We’ll need to set up an in-home visit to make sure everything is in order, but both Detective Sutherland and Detective Sanchez have given high recommendations that you are suitable to take care of Justice,” Genesis, the social worker who Tripp told me about, explains.
I nod, holding a sleeping Justice in my arms. He’s small, smaller than I thought. “Does he need anything special? Formula? Diapers? Medicine?”
“He was born prematurely, but he’s healthy,” she says and goes on to tell me what formula he takes and how much he eats per day.
“Grimm,” Scorpion calls my name from behind me, and I whirl around to see him and Sabrina making their way to me. Their eyes on the little boy. “You wanna tell me why we’re in a police station at four in the morning and you’re holding a kid?”
