The Cartel - Ashley Antoinette Snell [71]
“Man, what the fuck are you doing?” Carter asked as he turned around to look at Mecca. He saw that he was shirtless and bloody. The atrocious smell of liquor and blood invaded Carter’s nostrils.
“Don’t look! Stay turned around! They watching,” he said as he lowered his voice and stayed crouched down out of sight. “Yo, fam, pull off so we can talk.”
Carter pulled off, and once they were clear of the house, Mecca sat up and looked around nervously. “Man, they trying to kill me.”
“I know. Taryn told me what was going on. Man, tell me you didn’t do what they say you did.”
“Hell nah, I didn’t kill Money. I told you I saw them mu’fuckin’ dreads running out when I came. I didn’t have my banger on me, so I couldn’t get at them.” Mecca kept his eyes moving.
Carter immediately had skepticism, because as long as he knew Mecca, he was always strapped. It didn’t sound right, but he was going to give him the benefit of the doubt. “I knew it couldn’t be true, man. You know we have to get at them niggas, right? We have to go to war.”
“Most definitely, but I can’t, with my grandfather on my ass. I have to lay low for a minute.” Mecca’s voice began to break as he explained to Carter how he jumped off his balcony to get away from Estes’ goons and landed in his pool. He needed medical attention for his wounds and was losing blood rapidly.
Carter looked at Mecca’s bloody shoulder. “We have to get you to the hospital, man.”
“Nah, I can’t go to the hospital. Estes will find out. He has the whole city in his pocket. I need to holler at Doc,” Mecca said, referring to one of his father’s old friends that happened to be a surgeon. “Then after that I am going to have to lay low, feel me?”
“I got you. I’m gon’ hold you down. I have an idea,” Carter said as he jumped on the highway. He had to make Mecca disappear for a while and only knew one place where Estes would never look for him.
Chapter Fifteen
“This ain’t Flint town, baby. Money flows like water in Miami, and I got a crazy connect. I’m getting the birds straight off the boat . . .”
—Carter Jones
Taryn looked directly into Mecca’s eyes. A part of her was relieved that he was safe and sound, but another part of her ached at the fact that he could possibly be responsible for Money’s demise. She could never imagine him committing such an act of sin. Certainly the hands that had shed her son’s blood were not those of his brother. It couldn’t be.
“Mecca, I need to ask you a question. I will only ask you once, and I need to you to be honest,” she stated. Her voice cracked from emotion. She was losing everything that she and Carter had worked so hard to maintain. She composed herself, and once Mecca’s eyes met hers, she asked, “Is it true? Did you harm Monroe?”
Mecca fixed his lips to answer honestly. He wanted to be truthful with his mother, but the look in her eyes revealed her inability to forgive. Killing Monroe wasn’t a trespass that she could dismiss, and he loved his mother too much to give her a reason to hate him. He couldn’t change the fact Money was gone, but he was still breathing and needed his mother’s love like a newborn that hadn’t yet been removed from the womb, so he lied.
“No.”
The lie ripped through his heart like a hollow-point, and he couldn’t contain his emotions. He held onto his mother, trying to feel her heartbeat through their embrace while he wept on her shoulder, mourning the death of his brother and the loss of his sanity. Ever since he had killed Monroe, his head wasn’t the same.
“Everything is going to be all right, son. I love you. No matter what your grandfather says, I know in my heart that you would never do what you’ve been accused of. Monroe was your other half, and you are too selfish to hurt a part of yourself.” Taryn held Mecca’s face in both hands. The sight of him so weak and exposed reminded her of his childhood years, and she wished that she could turn back the hands of time. She wanted to go back to the days when her husband was their protector, but those days were lost, and now it was up to her