FREDDY PRINCE | CH. 13
Chapter Thirteen
Freddy tried calling Fantasia after Kalani left but got no answer. He figured she was at work or busy with her no-good baby daddy, so he left a message and went on with his day.
The thought of Mack and his mom dating wouldn’t leave his mind all afternoon, and he wanted to ask her about it, but every time he tried to remember if he ever saw Mack in the past, his mind went blank.
“Hey Unc, are you busy right now?”
It surprised him when Skylar called him. He knew she was out of school and probably wanted to hang out, but when he noticed her tone was off, he grew worried.
“Nah. Nah, I’m not busy. What’s up? Everything good?”
“Have you heard from Mom? She was supposed to pick me up today, and I’ve been calling her, but she’s not answering.”
A lump grew in Freddy’s throat.
“I’ve been calling her too. Did she work today? Maybe she’s still clocked in.”
“Nah. She said she was off today and would be here early.”
Immediately, Freddy threw on his shoes, grabbed his keys, and headed for the door. After what happened to him and Kalani the night before, and Dahlia being found dead, he didn’t want to waste a second getting to his niece and finding his sister.
“I’m on my way. Go in the office and stay there until I get to you.”
“What’s going on?” Skylar asked, her nerves tying themselves in knots. “Is Mom okay?”
“Do what I said, Skylar. Right now. I’m on my way.”
He hung up the phone and sped out of his driveway like a bat out of hell. All he thought about on his way to Skylar’s school was what if something happened to Fantasia? He loved his niece, but he didn’t know if he’d be able to take care of her if his sister wasn’t around. They were all he had left, and if he lost either of them, he knew it would’ve been hard for him to bear life.
He tried calling Fantasia again and again until her phone started going directly to voicemail. When he called her job to see if she was on the clock or if anyone had heard from her, he was met with the same agony he felt the day he found out his mom got murdered.
“Fuck!” he shouted at her voicemail again. “Tasia! Where are you? Call me back!”
Speeding toward Skylar’s school, he noticed a truck that looked familiar. It was the same blacked-out Tahoe that was parked at his office the night before. Freddy was so frantic about finding his sister and getting to his niece in time that he didn’t realize the truck had been following him the entire time.
“Mothafucka,” he spat, sitting up straighter in his seat. “You wanna fuck with me and my family? I got something for your ass.”
He sped up slightly to see if the Tahoe would do the same. When it did, he slowed down and switched lanes to see if the driver would pass. Lo and behold, the Tahoe got behind him again and started to cruise.
“Who the fuck are you?” Freddy whispered, trying to get a look at the driver through his rearview mirror. “Fucking tints too dark.”
He thought long and hard about who could’ve been following him. Doing the kind of work he did, he had enemies everywhere, but none who were stupid enough to make a move on him.
When it came to his business in the drug game, he ran a tight ship and kept everything low-key. So, unless the person driving that Tahoe was someone who wanted to rob him, he felt like it had something to do with what was going on between him and Kalani.
Instead of taking the usual route to Skylar’s school, Freddy veered off the highway an exit early and headed toward the back streets. He had a connect that way who owed him a favor, and with the Tahoe hot on his trail, he felt like it was time to call it in.
“Prince, what’s up, boy!?”
Gusto, a hothead from the streets of Miami, Florida, was a guy Freddy met on a business run. They put in a lot of work together in the drug game and became close friends over the years. Gusto was too reckless for Freddy to bring into politics, but when it came to that street shit, he was the perfect man.
“I need to call in that favor,” Freddy said. “Somebody shot up my office last night, and now I got somebody following me. I’m off the skirts of your place right now. You think you can cut this off?”
“Shot up your shit?”
Gusto sounded excited and ready to go to war.
“Say no more, Boss. Bring them motherfuckers to the alley. We ready.”
It didn’t take long for Freddy to drive the Tahoe straight into an ambush. The alley of Gusto’s pool hall led to a dead end, and whoever the driver was drove straight into his trap.
They probably thought he would get out, and they’d be able to pop him and back away, but the minute Freddy parked his car and shut off the ignition, Gusto and a gang of niggas came from each door in the alley and started letting off shots like fireworks.
“Yeah! You came to the right place motherfucker!”
Gusto was a straight shooter. Anything that had anything to do with a gun, he loved it. He never got caught up with the law either. He’d been to jail so many times in the past; he learned the ins and outs of the system and found a way to make it work for him every time they tried to bring him in.
Whoever was driving the Tahoe must’ve done the same. They were smart enough to bulletproof their car and sharp enough to speed backward out of the alley before any of the bullets pierced their way through the windshield, though.
“You know that truck?”
Freddy hopped out of his car once the coast was clear.
“Nah,” Gusto shook his head. “But I can find out who it belongs to. We got cameras out here. The tag should be on it.”
“Bet. Let me know what you find out. I gotta find my sister and get to my niece before any more shit happens.”
Taking the back way to Skylar’s school felt like the safest option for Freddy. He made sure the Tahoe was nowhere in sight before he made the turn to the school, then called Skylar to let her know he was on his way to the office.
She was waiting by the door for him to show up. When he saw her, she had so much worry on her face that it broke his heart all over again.
“Did Mom call you back? Where is she? I keep calling her.”
“We gotta go, Sky. Come on.”
Freddy took her backpack and grabbed her hand to lead her from the office. He didn’t know what to say. He could barely think. Being so worried about Fantasia and where she might’ve been, everything seemed cloudy.
“What’s going on?” Skylar asked. “Where is Mom? I’m old enough now for someone to start telling me the truth.”
Freddy kept his eyes on the road. Even though Skylar was right, he didn’t want to tell her anything. He wanted to shield her young mind from the truth for as long as he could.
“There’s a lot going on that you don’t know about, Skylar. Shit, I barely even know what’s going on. All I know is somebody shot up my office last night, and now someone’s following me.”
“Why?” Skylar frowned.
Freddy let out a loud sigh and shook his head. He couldn’t expect Skylar not to ask questions; she was his mother's granddaughter. Asking questions was in her nature.
“I think it’s got something to do with me helping Kalani find out what happened to her mom. Whoever killed her doesn’t want anyone to know what happened, and they’re trying to silence everybody who might know something.”
“Do you know something?”
His mind went back to the night he saw Montgomery and Mack emptying their trunk. He figured it had to be Naomi’s body. For three years, he tried to ignore the facts of the matter, but once everything started to unfold, it made more and more sense.
“I’ma be honest with you,” he said. “And I don’t want you to look at me any differently because I’m still your uncle and everything I do is for the good of our family. Alright?”
Skylar looked worried, but she nodded her head anyway.
“I saw Mayor Montgomery getting rid of something from his trunk three years ago. I didn't know what, or who, it was. But he came to me with a proposition that I couldn’t refuse. Had I known then what I know now, I would’ve declined. But I was so caught up with opening the center, I made a deal with the devil.”
Skylar started piecing together the puzzle just like her grandma Elm used to, while Freddy drove them toward safety, hoping her views of him wouldn’t change.
“So, you knew what the Mayor did and didn’t say anything?” she asked, her voice trailing off.
“I didn’t know what he was doing that night. When I saw the news and he showed up at my office the next morning, I kind of had an idea.”
“But you still didn’t say anything? Why? What if he was the one who killed Grandma? She knew Miss Naomi. What if they were working together to bring him down and he killed them?”
Skylar’s questions were valid, but Freddy kept quiet. He didn’t mention the NDA at all because he knew Skylar was smart enough to make her own judgments about that, and the last thing he needed was for them to be divided during such a dangerous time.
“Hello?”
He quickly answered his phone to avoid her question. Normally, he didn’t answer calls from numbers he didn’t know, but to change the subject between him and Skylar, he picked up.
“Missing someone?” Shonnie’s voice echoed through the phone.
“Shonnie.”
He sat up in his seat and glared at the road in front of him, wishing she was there for him to run over.
“What the fuck did you do?”
Skylar was all ears, so he knew he had to keep their conversation in code. He didn’t want her to hear any bad news from Shonnie, and that was exactly what her call felt like. Bad news.
“Fantasia might’ve been an even better investigator than you and Kalani,” Shonnie taunted. “She found out a lot of shit neither of you knows. I don’t even know how she knows, and I know everything.”
“Shonnie, I swear to God if you put a hand on her.”
“You swear to God what!?” She cut him off. “If you, your mama, your sister, and that bitch Kalani minded y’all business, none of this would even be happening right now. Now look,” she chuckled. “Fantasia caught a bullet that didn’t even have her name on it.”
Before Freddy could process what she said all the way, Shonnie ended the call. Leaving him with tears stinging his eyes and fire flooding his veins.
“NO! NO! I’MA KILL THIS BITCH!”
He shouted and banged his hands against the steering wheel, almost sending him and Skylar into oncoming traffic. If it wasn’t for her thinking quick on her feet and grabbing the wheel, they might've gotten into a head-on collision.
“What happened?” she asked, tears flooding her eyes too. “Was that about Mom?”
Freddy looked at his niece with tears streaming down his cheeks. His voice wouldn’t project, and his hands were trembling so badly he had to pull over to the side of the road to get himself together before telling her.
“It was, wasn’t it?” Skylar cried. “Is she?”
Before she could get her question out all the way, he pulled her into his chest for comfort. He felt like he needed it more than she did because hearing that his sister was dead took all the life he had left.
“Sky.” He sobbed as he held her. “I don’t wanna say it. I don’t wanna believe it. I don’t want you to say it either.”
Skylar held on to her uncle and cried. She held onto him so tight that he felt like he could feel every ounce of pain that shattered her heart. Feeling her pain broke him down but also fueled him up, and there was nothing in the world that would stop his retaliation against everyone who had something to do with causing his family pain.
Comments
Post a Comment