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“Don’t touch me, right now, Pretty Boy,” she snapped. Sumo held his hands up in surrender but Juju refused to move. I walked over to her, putting my hand over the barrel of the gun and lowering it.
“Put it down, baby,” I said.
“He’s the fucking reason Truck is gone!” She shouted, bucking against me to get at Sumo. There were no tears in her eyes though. Only flames. She wanted Sumo’s throat and I didn’t blame her.
“I need to say goodbye,” Sumo said quietly. “I need to apologize and say goodbye to Truck, King. Please.” His voice was thick with emotions and it shredded my heart. Pretty Boy went to the car and came back holding Truck’s urn tight to his chest like a guardian. He was his brother’s keeper too.
“Fuck you!” Juju spat, trying again to get at Sumo. I noted the large purple bruises on the sides of his face and the cut on his bottom lip. Some of the lower-level kings must have caught him. Knowing Sumo’s slippery ass, he got away.
“Why should I let you say anything to my brother?” I asked Sumo, holding Jupiter’s gun so she wouldn’t do something reckless.
“Because I need to atone. I have to do something. It’s eating me alive. I didn’t pull the trigger but I might as well have. I just want to apologize to him and y'all.” He looked from me to Pretty Boy.
“If you want to pay your respects, come to the apartment. If anyone sees you outside like this, you’re a dead man,” I said to him. Juju looked at me like I was crazy.
“What the fuck are you doing? You can’t let him into the apartment. He doesn’t deserve to say a motherfucking thing to Truck.” Her passion was burning bright and hot.
“Ju, chill. Let me handle this.” I looked at her and my jaw flexed. She softened and nodded her head quietly. She knew when I was in the process of weaving a web.
We all headed silently to the apartment that now felt emptier since Truck wasn’t there, and Pretty Boy sat Truck’s ashes on the pool table. We stood back watching Sumo as he approached. Quietly, I reached a hand around to my back and lifted my shirt, pulling my pistol and clicking the safety off.
Pretty Boy’s eyes went to my gun and then to me. It would have been so fucking easy to blow his brains all over the pool table but I thought about the fact that his head would be all over Truck’s urn. I thought about the fact that Sumo didn’t deserve a quick execution. He needed to suffer like we all would suffer without Truck.
I put the safety on and lowered my gun, tucking it away again.
“Yo, King…Pretty Boy, can I talk to y'all alone?” Sumo looked over his shoulder at us and I glanced at Jupiter. I knew she would react. Something turned subdued in her though. She walked over to the couch and sat down, staring out of the window while she held onto Truck’s chain.
“No,” Pretty Boy said quietly. “You can talk to all of the three kings or none of us, Sumo.” I heard the strength it took for Pretty Boy to even say his name. Quiet rage bubbled beneath both of us.
The silence of the room bolstered by the soft ticking from the clock in the kitchen made for tight tension. Clouds broke up the stream of golden sunlight filtering through the windows and patches of yellow fell on Sumo’s face. It was like Truck was there forcing me to look at this man I wanted to kill.
“Three kings?” Sumo scoffed.
“I swear to fucking god, if you say something about Juju right now, Sumo…you won’t walk out of this apartment,” I warned in a steady low voice. I wasn’t in the mood for his mouth nor his thoughts toward Jupiter. He didn’t like her. I got it.
“Is she one of the…three kings?” Sumo asked, it was tough for him to wrap his mind around the concept of three instead of four too.
“She is.” I walked right up to him, inches from his face, my chin lifted. “And what the fuck do you have to say about it?” My words came out as a clenched growl. A threat. A fucking dare.
“Nothing, King.” Sumo lowered his head then slid his hand down his face. “Can I hold court with the three kings?” He looked at Juju for the slightest second.
“As soon as you respect the King of Clubs with an apology, sure,” I shrugged.
“The King of Clubs?” Sumo fumed, his brows pushing together and his scowl deepening.
“Yeah, nigga,” I said reaching behind me for my gun.
“Is there a problem?” Pretty Boy asked Sumo. “Because if there is, I’m willing to die and kill for my brother Juju.”
“King shit,” I said, tightening my grip on the gun in my waistband.
“King shit,” Juju said from the couch. She stood and walked over to us, fatigue evident in her pretty eyes. She’d been a wreck since Truck died.
It changed her forever and I knew it.
“Honestly, Sumo, I’m tired. I hate you and I want to get this court shit over with so let’s go,” She said, snapping her fingers. We all sat around the pool table, Juju was sandwiched between me and Pretty Boy. The way it should have been. We would have both killed for her and there was no question if she’d return the favor. She was locked in now. Jupiter was an official king of the highest-ranking. It meant any disrespect toward her would get you killed on the spot. No questions asked.
That would have been the case with me anyway. Anyone that disrespected Juju would get their head blown off. She’d survived trauma with me. She’d saved my life. I owed her everything.
