“You’re not dealing with it, we will,” Dad assures him again.
“You didn’t even know that you were in trouble, Roman. So, yeah, I think I am dealing with this shit too.”
“Okay, what you’re not going to do is talk to us like we’re fucking children,” Uncle Cutter stands and says, grounding his pointer finger into the table to emphasize his stance. “It was our fix and so we’ll handle the heat just like Rome said. Why you had to bring the kids into this–“
“I brought the kids into this because they are not children anymore. They are fair game and they have the right to know. You think the people you’ve fucked over give a shit that they are our children and we love them? It only makes them bigger targets. Wake up.”
The room is thick with a kind of tension between my family members that I've never seen before.
“The old man is right,” Dad says, making an abrupt about face.
Uncle Camden mumbles something under his breath in defiance of that declaration, but from what I know about my Uncle and Grandpop, one could say the sky was dark and the other would most assuredly say that it’s light. They’re like oil and water. They just don’t mix well.
“What we do is not a game and our kids need to stay alert and look out for each other in a way that they never have before,” Dad says, specifically looking at Uncle Camden when he does.
“That’s it,” Aunt Jade slams her palm against the table. “Gigi, needs to move home.”
My brother, Seven, asks the question I’ve been dying to ask since I walked in the door. “Where is Gigi?”
“Evidently, my brother and his wife did something to piss my niece off, so she refused to come tonight,” Uncle Cutter explains.
“Yo, was this meeting optional?” my other brother Bronx inappropriately blurts out.
I realize he's trying to be funny, but this is not the right time for Bronx’s irreverent sense of humor. The mood is too tense. My mom motions for him to quiet down as if he were still ten-years-old. I’m going to have a long talk with my brothers after tonight.
“You can’t keep an eye on her all the way down on South Street when we live up here,” Pop Joe says. “Tell her to come home temporarily.”
“And if she refuses to listen?” Aunt Jade says. “It was never a good idea in the first place for her to move so far from us and now she’s being defiant.”
“Why does she have to move home?” Grandma J asks. “She just moved out on her own not that long ago and she has nothing to do with this.”
“If what Joseph is saying is true than Gigi has everything to do with this,” Aunt Jade says. “She’s Camden King’s daughter.”
My Aunt Sloan props her elbow on the table and cocks her head to the side to ask Aunt Jade a question that she probably shouldn’t have. “Since when did you, the tough-as-nails, around-the-way girl become like this?”
“Like what?”
“You’re being super scary. We own the apartment building that Gigi lives in. Cutter handpicked that apartment himself because of its safe location and even if he didn’t, Gigi is a grown woman. When are you going to stop treating her like a little girl?”
“When you start minding your own damn business for once,” Aunt Jade retorts.
Aunt Sloan gives Aunt Jade the middle finger, which she decides not to address once Uncle Cam lays his hand on her thigh to quiet the raging mama bear inside of her.
“How do you think they’ll come at us, Joe?” Uncle Stone interrupts, who’s always the one with the least amount to say, but also the one everyone listens to when he decides to talk.
“They’ll be smart about it. They don’t get their hands dirty. They hire people to make a point.”
“People like us?” Uncle Cutter asks. “People hire us to make a point all the time.”
“Yes, people like us.”
“Do you know anything else other than that there’s a vague threat against us?” Dad asks.
“I don’t have an exact name, if that’s what you’re asking. All I’ve heard is that it’s not just one person we’re dealing with. There’s a consortium of people with a common interest who spend a lot of money to stay anonymous.”
“And what exactly did we do to piss them mysterious people off?” Mom asks.
“The Hollywood executive you all put in jail for ten years to save Reynold’s ass was on this group’s payroll. He made them a lot of money and got them a lot of access.”
“He was a pedophile!” Uncle Cutter exclaims angrily. “We did a public service for the entire city by putting him in the clink.”
“Unfortunately, he also has some very important people supporting him.”
“Yeah, probably a consortium of other important pedophiles.”
My father takes a final swallow of the whiskey neat he’s drinking, then calmly chimes in.
“Thank you for the heads up, Joseph, but the three of us will discuss this further and handle it ourselves. We stand behind the fix and the choices we made to help our client and so we’re prepared to deal with whatever blowback that may cause.”
Uncle Camden then slides back from the table and places a napkin on top of his half-eaten plate of food.
“Juliette, thank you for a wonderful meal, as usual. You should have opened up your own restaurant a long time ago. Jade, let’s go.”
“Wait, Camden,” Aunt Jade responds. “Sit down.”
“Jade–”
She points to the dining chair with authority.
“Sit because we’re not leaving this room until we’ve figured this thing out.”
Three
Knox
* * *
You can literally hear a pin drop in the room. Uncle Camden is one of the toughest men I think I know (outside of my Dad), so it’s surprising to see him sit down and lean back quietly in his seat. My Dad doesn’t seem surprised though. He just pours himself another drink, shaking his head with a small smirk on his face.
“I agree,” Mom adds her two cents. “If I’ve got three boys with targets on their backs, I don’t want us to take this too lightly.”
“Who says they’re taking it lightly?” Aunt Sloan interjects. “I’ve got two kids away at college, and I have no doubt that these three will keep them safe. Do we have to hash out all the details tonight because Jade says we have to?”
“And who says we’re easy targets, Mom?” Bronx says as if he’s offended. “We’re just as smart as Knox. We can handle ourselves at school.”
He nudges Seven under the table.
“Right, we can take care of ourselves,” Seven says, oblivious to what he’s even agreed to. His head deep into whatever he's doing on his cell phone. Probably plotting the world's destruction.
“We do not need to debate about something that we’re all in agreement on. We will handle this threat as soon as possible and we need to protect each other while we do it,” Dad says.
“There’s no argument about that, Rome,” Aunt Jade agrees. “All I’m saying is that I’m not walking out of this room until I have certain assurances that this mess will not touch my children, especially Gigi.”