Page 114 of The Coldest: Stay Dangerous Part 2

Especially when there’s a nigga in the front seat grilling me before they speed off.

After I get Mars and Ju on a flight, I pull up to the Birch. I’m only in the parking lot for thirty seconds before Reem comes out of the building and climbs in my whip.

“You talked to him?” I waste no time asking.

“He thumbs upped my message, but his lo off.”

I nod, watching the dice game forming at the back of the parking lot.

“You always been a closed book. I never bothered with trying to read you, ‘cause it ain’t no such thing as unknowing shit. I still feel that way, but clearly something higher than us feel like it’s time for you to open up anyway.”

I glance at Reem, his narrowed eyes already on me. His jaw clenches before he sighs.

“Secrets never stay secrets, Rico.”

“I know, Reem.”

“What made you think–”

“I wasn’t thinking,” I confess. “I wasn’t… it’s like, shit was good, then it wasn’t. Then Sean and Fred are dead, and…”

None of the how and why matters to me. I know I owe explanations, but how do I put into words what was going on? I don’t even remember much of it myself. I didn’t think, I just did. Got to Belize. Met Ju. Listened to her tell me she didn’t know who the father of her child was. Left her and Nan and went back to my orders.

“Aight,” Reem concedes. “So why now? ‘Cause of Wyn?”

“Partly. And Nan was ready. And… I mean, I go back and forth, but… maybe it was time for y’all to meet him.”

I sink into my seat and rest my head back. “I got a bullseye on my forehead but I do feel lighter.”

“You feel lighter ‘cause you have someone to carry the load now. Pooh and Nan always put that pressure on you, ever since we was kids. You been a man since you was born damn near. And I mean, I’on know, it’s different when you holding it down with someone you choose.”

My lips twitch. “YT wore yo ass all the way down.”

“Yeah,” he sighs, wiping his face hard. “She did.”

He glances at me, before looking away, almost steeling himself. “I don’t wanna ice you out like I know Ty and them will. You my brother, even when I don’t agree with you. But all these secrets, brodie… you can’t be a closed book anymore. Not when the shit you holding on to affects everyone else. So I’m asking you, right now… is there anything I need to know that I don’t?”

I turn to my brother immediately. “You know what you’re asking?”

He looks away, nodding once quickly. “I can handle it.”

He can’t. I know he can’t. He knows he can’t. But this is the consequence of getting caught lying–the whole truth must come out, or your word means nothing, and a nigga who doesn’t have his word may as well be in the dirt.

Everyone who came up with us knows Pooh had been training me to take over the Hive from birth. In his line of business, knowledge was the ultimate power, so from the time I was five, he began to lace me with way more than game.

No topic was off limits with him except my mother. Everything else, every single morsel of information, no matter how arbitrary, was given freely. I never really talked much, especially early on, my little mind working over time to remember everything he said. Hanging on to his word with all the strength I had.

Pooh was God. And knowing things about my friends’ parents, their parents, and towers I was banned from for reasons unknown, separated me from everyone.

Everyone but Fredo.

Tell him, Rick. He deserves to know.

Reem does deserve to know, but it will break him. I would break him if it meant preserving our brotherhood.

My lips pull into my mouth and I wet them that way, even as my mouth dries from the words I’m conjuring.

Reading ass Kareem Durrell. For a second, it’s the little boy with the skee bald head, holding a bent book from the library in my front seat. The boy Ty-Ty begged me to be nice to, since they were best friends. I almost can’t say what he wants me to.