“Ok cool.”
He paused. "And Zu, Watch your surroundings, the streets about to get hot."
“I am, little brother.”
After hanging up, I drove to Mrs. Wallace's house instead of going home.
Mrs. Wallace had been more of a mother to me than my own ever was. When I first got pregnant with JJ, she welcomed me into the family without judgment, taught me how to care for a baby when my own mother was nowhere to be found. Even when Jamie started his downward spiral, she never blamed me, nor did she ever treat me like the college girl who trapped her son.
The street was already lined with cars when I arrived. News traveled fast in the hood. I spotted Jamie's cousin Juice on the porch, his eyes were bloodshot red-eyed but he stood on guard like he worked for secret service or some shit. He gave me a head nod as I approached.
“They all in the kitchen," he said, I found Mrs. Wallace exactly where Juice said, surrounded by women preparing food like death was something that needed to be fed. When she saw me, she opened her arms without a word.
"I'm so sorry," I whispered, holding the woman who'd shown me what motherly love was supposed to look like.
"My boy," she said, her voice hoarse from crying. "My firstborn."
I held her tighter, thinking about how I'd feel if someone took my JJ from me. The pain would be unbearable. Yet here was Mrs. Wallace, standing in her kitchen, accepting trays of food, and hugs as her world collapsed.
Jamie was in the living room with a group of men I recognized as Gizmo's friends. His eyes met mine across the room, and I saw something in them. It wasn’t just grief, but rage.
In that moment, I knew Jamie wasn't going to just mourn his brother. He was going to try to avenge him. And that terrified me more than anything.
Because Jamie wasn't Gizmo. He wasn't street-smart, He was a washed-up ball player with a chip on his shoulder and something to prove. And I knew how niggas in the street moved, because my brother was in the streets, and I knew a nigga like Jamie wouldn’t last. The streets would swallow his ass whole.
“I was actually talking to the nigga, when he got to arguing with some nigga named Yatta.” One of Gizmo’s homies said, who went by the name Vino.
“Lower ya voice bro.” Jamie told him, and they all began to talk in hushed tones.
As I watched him huddled with the guys, I thought about JJ waiting for his daddy to come home. About the future I'd planned versus the one that was unfolding before my eyes.
I thought about my brother Sosa's warning, "the streets about to get hot."
And I knew with a certainty that Gizmo's death was just the beginning.
* * *
Three hours later, I was stepping into Bleu, a club in the Gold Coast I'd heard about but never actually visited. The bouncer, a mountain with arms the size of my thighs, recognized me immediately.
"You Sosa's sister?" He eyed me up and down, not disrespectfully, just confirming.
"Yeah, Zurie," I replied,.
"He's waiting upstairs. VIP." The bouncer unhooked the velvet rope, nodding toward a spiral staircase at the far end of the club.
I made my way through the main floor, hyper-aware of the stares following me. Even on a Monday afternoon, Bleu was buzzing with the type of crowd that spent money like it was allergic to their pockets. It was men in designer clothes ordering bottles to impress women who looked like they'd stepped out of music videos. The muthafucka reeked of weed and new money.
Once I was upstairs, it was a different vibe. It was quieter, more exclusive. The VIP section overlooked the dance floor through smoky glass, giving the occupants privacy while still letting them survey the crowd. I spotted my brother immediately, holding court in a corner booth with two of his homies flanking him like loyal guards.
And next to him, looking out of place yet somehow perfectly at ease, was our mother.
Shaunie Maddox had the kind of beauty that aged like fine whiskey. It was stronger, and more potent with time. At forty-two, she still turned heads with her honey-gold skin and curves that defied both gravity and the years of hard living she'd put her body through.
"Well, look what the wind done blew in," Shaunie drawled as I approached, her voice carrying that familiar edge that always made my shoulders tense. "Miss College Girl finally decided to grace us with her presence."
I swallowed the automatic retort that rose to my lips. "Mama. I didn't expect to see you here."
Sosa stood, wrapping me in a bear hug. He smelled like expensive cologne and the faint trace of weed. At thirty-two, my brother had the confident air of a man who'd carved his own path through life's concrete jungle. We shared the same Hershey chocolate skin and high cheekbones, gifts from our father.