FREDDY PRINCE | CH. 15
Chapter Fifteen
“Kalani?”
Freddy frowned when he saw her sitting on the couch in his living room.
“What are you doing here? How long was I knocked out?”
She closed the diary and looked at him. A lot was swarming through her mind after she read his mother’s deepest, darkest secrets. At the forefront of it all, she wondered how she would tell him that Mack was his father. And he was the one responsible for her death.
“It’s been a few hours,” she said. “Skylar called me after you guys got back here. What happened today?”
Freddy sat up and placed his hands over the headache he felt brewing. Life was blurry for him at that moment. Everything happened so fast; he felt like he could barely remember the faces he saw or what he heard about his sister. The only thing that made sense to him was to retaliate. But he knew that if anything happened to him, Skylar would be left alone in the world.
“Fantasia’s dead.”
His words sent a shiver through Kalani’s being. She already knew, but hearing him say it made it feel a lot more real.
“I’m sorry.”
She sat next to him on the couch and placed her hand on his knee.
“Is there anything I can do for you?”
Although Freddy wanted to break down again, her question held him up. He felt comfort in knowing she cared enough to help him fight through his emotions and stay strong for Skylar.
“I don’t know right now.”
He sighed and leaned back on the couch.
“This shit is fucking with my head. Somebody was following me earlier. She was supposed to pick Skylar up from school but went ghost. When Skylar called and asked me if I heard from her, I knew something wasn’t right.”
“What happened to whoever was following you?”
He sat up and grabbed his Don Chaidez bottle again.
“Hey.” Kalani took the bottle from his grip and gave him a stern look. “You can’t drink this away. Here, look at this.”
She shoved the diary in his hands instead. Freddy wasn’t surprised to see her be so demanding and take control. After all, she was the daughter of Corbin Montgomery.
“This is your mother’s diary, and there’s a lot of stuff in there you need to read. But right now, the most important of it all is Mack.”
“That white dude your dad got in his ass crack? The fuck he got to do with anything?”
She took the diary from him and opened it to the pages of Elm’s revelation. When she handed it to him again, he looked terrified to read what it would say.
“What’s this?” he asked.
“Read it and make sense of it yourself. Your niece took this from your sister. I think whoever came after us that night and followed you today might want this back, and that’s why Fantasia’s dead.”
Freddy quickly clutched the diary and started to read through the pages Kalani marked off for him. His eyes grew wide and then lowered again as he read. Kalani sat in silence, wondering how what he read made him feel. He was so quiet as he read past her marked pages; she didn’t know whether he would lose his mind and make her Virginia’s latest victim.
When he closed the diary, there was complete silence in the room. The air between them felt still enough to touch, yet lethal enough to know better.
“All these secrets,” he said. “All these years. He was right there.”
Kalani didn’t know what to say, so she sat quietly as he rambled off his frustration, trying to make sense of everything. The biggest obstacle for him seemed to be Mack being his father.
“Why wouldn’t she tell me that man was my dad?” he asked. “Why would she keep something like that from me? I've seen this man in passing. He came to my office with Montgomery, and now I have to find out he’s the one who killed her!?”
“Keep your voice down.” Kalani shushed him softly. “I don't want Skylar to hear this. She’s already going through a lot.”
Slowly but surely, she was tearing through his heartstrings with her bluntness. Freddy loved how caring and nurturing she was, and the subtle way she reminded him that Skylar was his responsibility moving forward.
“Look,” she said. “I can’t speak on why your mom kept that from you, but I can say that she loved you and your sister. Skylar too. Her family was the center of her world. It showed in her work and throughout the community. She was a tough woman, and she would’ve done anything to protect you. So, maybe she didn’t tell you because she didn’t wanna hurt you.”
Freddy tried to look away to hide the tears in his eyes, but she wouldn’t let him run from his emotions. She wanted him to feel them. Process them, and then release them. Nothing could be done about the past, so they had to move forward.
“Ah, man.” He wiped his eyes and picked up the diary again. “Thank you for that. For real. I needed that pep talk so I could figure out what the fuck is going on.”
“No problem.” She smiled. “Now, we really need to figure out what the fuck is going on.”
Freddy skimmed through the pages of the diary, looking for anything that stood out. His recollection of the day slowly faded into the picture while he read, and Shonnie came to mind. He remembered she was the one who called him to tell him Fantasia was dead.
“Shonnie killed my sister.”
He blankly stared into space while Kalani tried to wrap her mind around what he said.
“She called me earlier to tell me she was dead.”
His tone was very monotone and dry. His stare was even more lifeless, and his heart shattered a little more each time he spoke about Fantasia.
“Shonnie seems to be the butt of everybody’s problems,” Kalani said.
“What you mean?”
She took the diary from his hands and flipped to the pages about Shonnie. She was the one who killed her mother. Naomi was going to expose her father for forging prison documents that granted Shonnie’s boyfriend an early release.
After their divorce, Montgomery threatened to take everything from Naomi. He was the one who had stepped out of their marriage, and he was the one bitter because she chose to leave. The irony of it all was a slap in the face, even for Kalani. If it wasn’t for Elm’s diary, she might not have ever found out why her mother was killed.
“Shonnie killed your mother.”
His voice was low when he uttered the words.
“I mean, it makes sense that it was her. Your dad is an asshole, but he seemed to really love your mom. He just couldn’t get away from Shonnie’s crazy ass, and it’s probably because she’s holding dirt over his head. That might be why he was so angry about the divorce. Of course, he couldn't tell your mom that. It was bad enough that he stepped out on her. ”
Realization set in for Freddy.
“Why though?” he questioned himself. “To cover up the fact that Montgomery got her boyfriend out of prison early? Is her boyfriend the president’s son or some shit?”
“Close enough.”
Kalani pulled out her phone and pulled up a picture of Shonnie’s man. Ahmad Ali. He was a Persian guy whose family was highly ranked in the world of politics. They were dangerous too.
“His dad paid my dad a lot of money to forge the documents to get him released early. I was the one who covered his story. It's why Shonnie hates me so much. Apparently, my mom found out my dad got him released while they were completing their divorce and threatened to tell on him because he wanted to take everything.”
“That would’ve caused a lot of shit for Shonnie and her man,” Freddy said. “Montgomery too. Shit, that whole family.”
The more he pieced things together, the more they made sense. The only thing he hadn’t figured out yet was how Mack and his mom were connected in everything.
“Your mom knew what happened to my mom,” Kalani said. “She didn’t wanna believe Mack played a part in it, because she loved him so much, so she waited to confront him. When she overheard him talking to my dad about getting rid of my mom's body, she told him she was going to the police.”
“And that’s why he killed her.”
Freddy's voice trailed off as the mystery of his mother’s death closed itself out. He felt furious on the inside, but also free of the burden of why. For three long years, he had no answers about what happened to his mom, but after reading her diary, he found out.
“Wow,” he scoffed. “We got some fucked up parents.”
“Yeah.” Kalani chuckled a little. “Tell me about it. But what do we do now? Go to the police with everything we have, only for them to find a way to lie their way out of it? My dad has a lot of connections with the police as a former Marine. I don't trust them.”
Freddy thought about what he would do. What he wanted to do was take matters into his own hands and get his own justice. But when he thought about his future as a philanthropist, he knew he had to take a different approach.
He had too much on the line to get his hands as dirty as he wanted to, and he had to be there for Skylar. She had already lost everything she’d known to the crookedness of politics; he didn’t want her to lose him too.
“I have a friend who works with the FBI,” he said. “Shit feels crazy going that route because of where I come from, but shit.”
He let out a sigh and shook his head. Ratting was something the streets didn’t take lightly, and calling in a favor from the FBI seemed a lot like ratting to him.
“You can’t back away from this because you’re scared of being labeled a snitch.” Kalani frowned. “This isn’t some small-time petty bullshit ass crime; this is your mother’s life. My mother’s life. Your sister. You’re really gonna back away from doing the right thing again because of what the streets might say? Streets that probably don’t even give a damn about you anyway? Maybe you’re not the man I thought you were.”
She folded her arms across her chest and waited for his reply. It took longer than she expected, but he broke free of those intrusive thoughts and made the call to the FBI.
Investigator Lance Taylor was a guy Freddy met at a seminar in Spain. They crossed paths when he was introduced to a woman Lance was protecting. Nina Monroe, the richest woman in Spain, was part of the drug cartel that wanted to do business with Freddy.
He turned her down at the seminar. It was something Lance found commendable because Nina was a very sexy and persuasive woman. Yet, Freddy didn’t budge.
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