FREDDY PRINCE | CH. 5
Chapter Five
Although Freddy allowed Kalani to interview him that afternoon, he didn’t agree to help her investigation right away. For reasons unbeknownst to her, he respectfully declined. The NDA that hung over his head from three years prior wouldn’t allow him to speak on anything concerning Mayor Montgomery. Unless Kalani found a loophole.
But even so, he couldn’t tell her he had the same feelings about her father after what he saw the night before her mother’s body was found. Nor did he want to be exposed for accepting the mayor’s payout to stay silent.
“How was it?” Mo asked, after seeing Kalani off. “What did she come all the way back to Virginia for? I looked her up while y’all were talking. The girl is Mayor Montgomery’s daughter!”
“Yeah, I know.”
Freddy replied with a distant tone as he slipped into his jacket to leave for the afternoon.
“She wants me to help her prove he was the one who killed her mother.”
He brushed past Mo as he headed for the elevator, leaving her standing in the middle of the room with her mouth wide open. She turned around to follow him just as the doors opened but stopped in her tracks when she saw the dreadful look on his face.
“I need you to stay here and take my calls for the day,” he said. “Tasia wants me to pick Skylar up from school, and I gotta make a few runs after, so I won’t be back at all.”
“Aw snap! Okay. I’m glad y’all are back talking.”
She noticed something off about him but didn’t ask what. As long as he was okay, Mo didn’t stress him about his personal issues.
“You good?” she asked before he disappeared.
“Yeah.”
He quickly nodded to keep her suspicion low.
“I’m good. I’ll see you when I get back in the office tomorrow.”
Skylar Prince, Freddy’s fifteen-year-old niece, took after him and his mom in a lot of ways. She was very outspoken and never backed down from what she believed in. She was also popular with the ladies, just like her uncle.
Her dream was to follow in both his and her grandmother’s footsteps to change the world for the better. But when all of that got stripped away, she fell into a shell and would only talk to him about how she felt.
Often, Freddy and his sister, Fantasia Prince, were at odds because of what she knew he did. She found out about the money he accepted from the mayor after the murder, and it disgusted her to her core. She saw him as a hypocrite. Not a man who sacrificed his dignity for all the women to come, as he psyched himself to think he was.
For a long time, Fantasia forbade him to come near her or her daughter. But when she started to lose her grip on her own child because Freddy was the only one Skylar would talk to, she had no choice but to let him back into their lives.
“I’m waiting in the parking lot. Hurry up, scrub.”
He texted Skylar when he pulled into the parking lot of her school, knowing she’d be eager to see him when the bell rang. Him picking her up came as a surprise to both of them that afternoon. Fantasia had to work late, and she didn’t want Skylar to take the bus home alone because she was fearful of anything happening to her.
The prep school Freddy got her into was nearly an hour away from where they lived. Even longer on the bus. And after what happened to their mom, both Freddy and his sister were afraid to let Skylar breathe too hard on her own.
While he waited outside of his car, he scrolled through his messages to make sure he was up to date on everything. He noticed a text from Kalani and caught himself smiling at the fact. His smile didn’t last long, however. The thought of how sexy she was wearing her Hijab was quickly replaced by the memory of what her father did three years ago.
“Fuck,” he cursed himself.
“Excuse me? You should not be cursing on school grounds.”
The voice of a teacher crept up behind him. She was a gorgeous woman. Didn’t really look like any of the teachers Freddy remembered growing up with, though. She was more youthful and modern-day sexy; thick in all the right places and had a smile that could take any man's breath away.
“My bad,” he chuckled. “I didn’t know anyone else was out here.”
“Un-huh,” she playfully side-eyed. “Who you here for?”
“Skylar. Skylar Prince; my niece.”
It didn’t take the woman long at all to think of who Skylar was. She was a popular kid on campus. Though she liked to keep to herself most of the time, Skylar was known for the uplifting speeches she gave at all the school functions.
“You’re Freddy Prince?” The teacher looked stunned. “The lone wolf shaking things up in VA. Good job.”
She looked impressed. More so, she looked interested in more than just who he was there to pick up or what kind of noise he made in their state. The sway in her hips changed, and so did the tone of her voice when he said more than two words to her. She was more flirty and eager to let him know she followed his platform and was a huge fan.
“I am.”
He licked his lips and leaned in to shake her hand. “And you are?”
“Ms. Fletcher,” she smiled. “I’m the sophomore English teacher. I have your niece in my homeroom, and she is an absolute doll.”
He got a lot of compliments about how great Skylar was. Especially from women who were dying to sleep with him. There were times when he used his niece’s good standing to sleep around with women, but when he got older and found his footing in the world, all that came to an end.
Sure, he still had his friends with benefits, and they met up from time to time. But when it came to getting seriously involved and settling down in a relationship, it was important that he found a woman he could grow old with.
“Speak of the devil.”
A wide grin crossed his cheeks when he saw Skylar rushing toward him. It had been a few months since they’d been able to kick it like they used to. Fantasia was so serious about punishing Freddy for his actions, she threatened to tell on him if he even thought about overstepping her boundaries with Skylar.
“What are you doing here?” Skylar asked as she hugged him tightly. “I thought my mom hated you now.”
“She probably still does, but she needed somebody to pick you up, so here I am. I was just talking to your teacher here; she says you iight.”
Both Skylar and Ms. Fletcher let out a laugh. Freddy had a certain charm about him that could make anyone laugh, even when they didn’t feel like it. Skylar was that way too. It was part of the reason everyone at her school liked her so much.
“I said you were a doll,” Ms. Fletcher laughed. “Don’t go twisting my words now.”
“Yeah, my uncle is always hating on me.”
After saying goodbye to Ms. Fletcher for the day, Freddy and Skylar got into his Tesla and headed toward his surprise. Although his niece had grown older and over the years a lot of her interests changed, he believed in keeping their family traditions alive.
When she was younger, she loved going to the arcade with him to shoot hoops and see who could win the most tickets for the best prize at the end. Since Fantasia was always working and footing the bills to keep a roof over her and Skylar’s heads, she rarely had any extra money to spend. And it didn’t help that Skylar’s father was in and out of their lives, running up bills and not helping pay them.
“What you been up to, clown?” he asked, playfully nudging her shoulder with his fist. “It’s been a minute since I saw you.”
“I know, right? My mom was tripping. I don’t even know what made her go so hard on you, but man, I hope she doesn’t get in one of her moods again. It felt like I was going crazy without Grandma already, and she tried to take you away from me too.”
It broke Freddy down to know how hard Skylar took their separation. She already had a hard time coping with the fact that she would never see her grandmother again, so he couldn’t imagine what she felt like not being able to reach out to him too.
“Yeah,” he slowly nodded. “Your mother and I have some things to work out to get back on track the way we were. We’ll always be family though. No matter what.”
When they got to the arcade, the place was already closed. He hadn’t been by in a while and was surprised to see the building locked up so early in the day, but not Skylar. Unbeknownst to him and her mom, she used to sneak off campus and spend the day there when she needed an outlet.
“You came out here by yourself?” he asked. “Skylar, you know you're not supposed to be wandering off by yourself. What I tell you about that shit?”
“I know,” she rolled her eyes. “But listen, I was so stressed out at one point I didn’t know what else to do. And my mom didn’t make it any better. The arcade was the only place I felt close to you and Grandma again. When they started closing early, I just stopped coming because I never made it in time.”
He had no comeback for what she said. Her words were too heartfelt for him to contest. Freddy was just glad she stayed safe and nothing happened to her on one of her journeys to the arcade. Otherwise, Virginia might’ve had another killer on the loose.
“Well,” he sighed and leaned up against the door of the arcade. “What we gon do until your mama get home?”
“I don’t know.”
They ran into Kalani as she was leaving a nearby nail salon. Her head and face were still covered by the Hijab she wore to his office earlier that day, and she still looked just as good.
Freddy hoped she’d only taken a trip to the salon to get her nails done, and that she wasn’t out interviewing more people for her investigation. But, seeing how serious she was about solving her mother's murder, it didn’t surprise him to learn she was doing just that.
“You serious about this, huh?” he asked, giving her a really focused gaze.
“Dead serious.”
She frowned through the opening of the cloth that covered her face, stunned by his question.
“Why wouldn’t I take this seriously?”
Freddy stood quietly for a moment. He was pondering whether he wanted to travel the road opposite the mayor again and tell Kalani about what he saw. The first year of his life after being paid off by the man was a nightmare. Montgomery had people following his every move; he made sure his speeches were censored and even shut down a few of Freddy’s seminars when reporters asked questions about what happened to Naomi and his mother.
Montgomery was so afraid Freddy would turn on him and go back on his word that he kept a close watch for a long time.
In Freddy’s mind, he was playing his cards the way they needed to be played. He figured if he kept the mayor in his pocket, or at least close by, he would open his community center and be able to right his wrongs in the end. But when Kalani came back for justice, his plans got a little rocky.
“So,” she asked again. “Are you gonna help me or not?”
“Help her with what?”
Skylar’s voice broke the eye contact between them. He was still lost in thought about the whole thing, but quickly changed the subject because he never talked about work in front of Skylar. She was way too smart and already on an investigative journalist path of her own, so the last thing he wanted her to overhear was anything he was a part of.
“This is my niece, Skylar.”
He cleared his throat and gestured for Kalani to cut the conversation short.
“We have to find something to do to occupy our time until her mom gets off work. Can we maybe schedule another meeting and talk about this more then?”
Kalani wasn’t pleased with the way he dodged her question again, but she respected the fact that he kept the gruesomeness away from his niece. If she were in his shoes and experienced half of what he had, she would have done the same thing for her own niece.
“Fine.”
She tilted her head and squinted her eyes at him through the slit in her Hijab.
“Tomorrow. Same time as today?”
“Tomorrow.” He nodded while admiring the beauty of her fiery green eyes. “Same time as today.”
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