Page 5 of Saving Grace

My emotions had gotten the better of me that day, I’d ended up showing him a glimpse of who I used to be.

I’d turned back into that weak little boy from Mississippi—only for just a split second, but he’d seen it.

I had no choice but to tell him about her, but regrettably I told him too much.

“Go get Mr. Davis, If he doesn’t want to come willingly, make him.”

Tank narrowed his eyes. He knew whatever I was about to do could cause more trouble than I needed at the moment. “You sure, boss?” He asked firmly.

Am I sure?

He questioned me again when I didn’t respond right away. “Are you sure?”

I needed a minute to think. Maybe seeing Grace was clouding my judgment. I waved Tank forward as I made my way back to my office. He fell into step behind me.

Did I really want to possibly start a war? I knew without a doubt Mr. Davis would lose his fucking mind and do something stupid once I involved his very clueless wife. I also knew his family would back his stupidity. Marcus Davis’ father and uncles were all well known in the South Florida area. They sold drugs, weapons, and pussy. Basically, anything illegal—they were involved in it. They were also known for handing out swift and lethal punishment to those who crossed them.

Even though Marcus had managed to screw over more than a few people in his family, judging by what I heard. They still offered him protection. Killing him would cause a lot of animosity between our families.

But if I was honest, I didn’t really give a fuck, nor was I scared of retaliation. I could get to them just as easily as they could get to me, maybe easier. Nobody was untouchable, and he deserved to die. Now or later was the question. I knew eventually I’d kill him, whether he paid me or not, simply because he had the misfortune of marrying Grace.

I hated that he had any kind of ownership over her. I hated that he knew what she felt like. How she tasted. No man who had the pleasure would walk the earth at the same time as me.

But I also had to consider how my grandfather would react.Fuck!

After a few minutes of thought— I figured I’d just have a conversation with him. Talking to him wouldn’t hurt, would it?

Tank stood next to my desk like a sentinel, awaiting my answer.

“Make the call and make sure whoever you send gets to him before she does.”

“Ok,” he answered, sounding unsure about the whole idea, but I knew he would do what I told him. He was loyal. He’d been my friend since the day we’d met in prison and he’d become my right-hand man soon as he was out.

He pivoted on his limited-edition Jordan covered feet, headed to do my bidding. Memories of our past expanded, replacing his presence.

Uffes was Nigerian by birth. When he was ten his mother had immigrated to America, running away from Africa and his abusive father. Later she’d met a man and moved to Brazil leaving sixteen-year-old Uffe to fend for himself. Even after being abandoned, he never held a grudge. Soon after turning eighteen, he’d went to pay her a visit. Her new husband convinced him to carry drugs back into the US for him. He had been caught as soon as he stepped off the plane. Despite it being his first offense, he’d been sentenced to fifteen years in federal prison. When I got there he had already served half of his sentence.

He was quiet and kept to himself.

I tried to do the same but only a month into my sentence a group of Skinheads had tried to force me to join their group. Obviously, they knew nothing of my mixed heritage or they wouldn’t have been so inviting. To everyone, aesthetically I looked like a white man, but I knew my momma had been Black, or mixed race passing as white. I remembered little about her. I wasn’t even a toddler when she left, but I had seen the pictures of her that my daddy had tucked away in his old trunk. Though her skin was pale as ivory, her features told a vastly different story.

Sometimes my daddy would get so drunk that he’d talk about her before he blacked out. On those nights she was the “half nigger bitch” that had the nerve to leave him. I often wondered how someone with Black blood flowing through their veins could ever get involved with such a fucking insufferable bigot—let alone have a child by him, then leave said child alone with him. I never thought too hard on it. I didn’t want to think about why she’d left me behind knowing how evil he was. I didn’t need that kind of resentment for a woman I had very little memory of — added to the weight of the chip on my shoulder.

The faux Nazis were very insistent. I was just as insistent when I declined.

My own father had tried to indoctrinate me into that backwater way of thinking ever since I could remember, but even as a child, before I even knew who my mother was or before I’d met Grace and her granny— I knew we weren’t better than anybody just because of our skin color. How could we be? We were poorer than most of the Black people in town and my daddy was the laziest man I knew. Every month he would only work long enough to buy a few canned goods from the dents makes cents store, get himself something to drink and pay the power bill so he could sit on his fat-ass and watch TV.

I refused to be anything like him. I told them so. They could feel all the White pride they wanted, just as long as they left me out it. As you can imagine, that didn’t go over so well.

I was on the verge of getting my ass beat by a group of them —when Tank stepped up to help me out. He beat six of the ten that tried to jump me by himself. At six feet, five inches and two hundred sixty pounds, it had been an easy feat. After that I considered him family.

The sound of knocking brought me back to the present.

“Come in”

Tank opened the door. Standing at the threshold, he nodded. “It's done, boss. They already know where he’s at and she’s heading in the opposite direction. He should be here within the hour.” He reported.

His face was serious while he spoke about Marcus, but as soon as the last word left his mouth his grin from earlier returned.