Page 80 of A King’s Obsession

Outside, I headed toward the truck before realizing E had stopped behind me. He stood staring back at the warehouse, rubbing a hand down his face.

“You good?” I asked, turning toward him when he didn't immediately follow.

“Bro, we gotta get the fuck out this shit.” E finally looked at me, and something about his expression told me he wasn't just talking because of what had happened inside.

I turned toward him.

“I’m serious, Chi. We too fucking old for this.” E shook his head, dragging his hand over his beard before looking toward the truck. “We got more money than we know what to do with. Vice, properties, investments, Miami, the restaurant with Jru. Our kids’ kids can be straight without us touching another dollar from the streets.”

He wasn’t wrong, but getting out wasn’t as simple as saying we were done.

“Too many people eat off what we built. We can’t shut everything down tomorrow.” I folded my arms, thinking about how many different things we had going on and how many people depended on them.

“I know. I’m not saying this shit gonna be easy for us to step away from. We been in it too long, and it’s too many moving parts. But this shit gotta happen before something happen to one of us, bro.” E looked at me, waiting for me to understand that he wasn't talking about some temporary change of heart.

My mind went straight to Ashlynn and the baby growing inside her. There was a time when I accepted whatever came with this life. Now I had a wife waiting at home and a child I wanted to watch grow up.

“After marrying Ashlynn and finding out this baby on the way…” I nodded, letting out a slow breath. “Yeah, man. I feel you.”

“We do it smart,” E said. “Start pulling back. Move what can go legit. Shut down what can’t. It might take time, but long as we moving toward the door instead of deeper into the room, we good.”

I could live with that.

I reached for the truck door, then caught the look on E’s face. The nigga was rubbing his beard trying not to smile.

“What the fuck you done did?” I asked, narrowing my eyes at him. I knew that look too damn well, and it usually meant he'd done something I wasn't about to agree with.

His grin broke loose. “Since we talking about wives and shit, I married Jru.”

I stared at him, waiting for the punch line that never came. “You did what?”

“I married Jru,” he repeated, looking entirely too pleased with himself.

“When?” I asked, still trying to figure out how the fuck that could've happened without me knowing.

“Today.”

Something wasn’t adding up. Jru had been raising hell over this nigga moving her belongings. There was no way she’d turned around and happily married him a few hours later.

I narrowed my eyes. “Does Jru know she married?”

E rubbed his beard. “She knows she signed some papers.” The grin on his face told me everything I needed to know before he even finished answering.

There it was.

“E.” I stared at him, already knowing I wasn't going to like whatever came out of his mouth next.

“She thought they were for the restaurant.” He shrugged like he'd just told me something perfectly reasonable.

I stared at this motherfucker. We had just finished discussing how we were too old for bullshit and needed to make smarter decisions, while his ass had secretly married a woman.

“Nigga, what the fuck is wrong with you?” I asked, dragging a hand down my face.

“She should’ve read everything before she signed it.” E said that shit with a straight face, which somehow made the situation even worse.

“You married a woman who don’t know she married?” I looked at him, trying to give his ass one last opportunity to hear how crazy that sounded.

E shrugged. “She told me she was waiting until marriage.”