Petty Rage by Thandiwe Mpofu

Chapter 18

NOAH

Present

ME:Just to be fucking clear, I give it three days.

Kim Possible:Excuse you? Why the fuck do you still have my number?

ME:Why do you still have mine? I’m going to make you quit.

Kim Possible:Like hell.

ME: Kimmy,you don’t want to play this game with me.

Kim Possible:Bring it on, asshole!

Kim Possible:And one more thing, FUCK YOU!

Ismirk as I read her last text, then tuck my phone back in my pocket.

For what I’m about to do right now, I should be fucking arrested and charged, and have the key thrown in the deepest part of the ocean.

I know all that, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to turn back and go home, praying that no one sees me. Instead, I keep going anyway, clutching the knife I have in my leather clad hands.

I pull my hoodie down, looking left then right, then I climb over the stupid, decorative fence the compound has for their tenants.

Her car stands out—I mean why the fuck not—even though it’s new, it’s an ugly piece of shit that deserves to be in the dumpster. I have no idea why it fucking bothered me that she got rid of her other car. I mean it had some kind of sentimental value.

In the back of it, she and I sat in the dark and drank Jack without saying a fucking word to each other.

It wasn’t that big of a deal but fuck if I understood it all.

For the longest time I didn’t want to know where she lived, too afraid that if I had her location, if I could imagine where she might be, I’d find myself in my fucking car, driving to her.

But nope, not this time.

This is war and she played with the wrong one!

Things are different now and I need to nip this in the fucking bud and make sure she fucks off and leaves my family alone.

So, I do what all good sons do when their mothers are faced with a threat they can’t see.

I slash all her tires.

But I’m not a coward. I don’t want her to wonder who could’ve done this or why; so, I take out the little sticker in my pocket, then stick it right where she’ll see it and know that it was me who did this to her ugly ass car. I mean it’s only fair, she did a fucking number on my baby.

With a smile, I walk away as quietly as I came and make my way home.

Kiss my fucking ass, Kimberly.

* * *

After dealing with Kimberly’s ugly car, I drive back home and head straight to my room. The envelope I left is still fucking there, unopened, creased to death, judging by the number of times I messed with it.

I want to read it. I want to open it and see how else Craig is going to fuck up my life but at the same time, I don’t want to because now I can’t stop thinking about what fucking Spider said.

So, I grab my phone and call up the boys—this time, I even include George on the call.

“Do you fucking know what time it is?” King is the first to speak up and the first to curse me out all at the same time.

Emmett’s stoic and impassive face comes on, and then finally, George shows his face.

George is literally next door but for the time being, I can’t stand being face to face with him. I’d knock his teeth out if I looked at him for long.

“I have an issue,” I grit out.

You can almost physically see King and Emmett reel back all the insults that were getting ready to be launched at me.

“What’s going on?”

“I talked to Spider.”

“Well shit,” King mutters.

“What was that?” I hear a soft feminine voice in the background. King winces, then he looks to someone beside him, his fucking facial features softening. I swear, King has never been one to look like a love-struck ass, but here he is now, gone, whipped and fucking happy.

It feels right in a wrong type of way…

“It’s okay, baby,” the asshole mutters softly. “I have to take this call.”

“At this time?” Astraea asks sleepily.

“That’s what I said. Give me a moment to curse the fuck out of Noah.”

“Oh, it’s Noah? Tell him not to mess with Kim and her job,” Astraea whispers as if we all can’t hear her. I close my eyes, feeling the onset of a headache coming on. So, Kim told her that she’s now working for my mother? Fucking brilliant! It just makes things better.

Not!

She so fucking deserved those slashed tires now.

King turns to look at me through the screen, but he doesn’t say anything.

“I’ll tell him, Star. Rest, baby,” he whispers. “Precious cargo and all.”

Fuck! I’m going to be a freaking uncle—well, I already am, but I haven’t spent any time with George’s kid. Too much enmity between us.

King starts moving away. Soon, he enters into a familiar room he does all his undercover shit in: his fucking office.

“Kimberly is working for you?” he mutters. I guess that unmutes Emmett as well because the asshole has the nerve to crack a smile.

“Do you see Kimberly working for Noah?” he scoffs. “She’d eat him alive. She’s working for Christina.”

“Well damn,” George whistles. “Christina just stepped her game up.”

I think all eyes shift to him but then again, it’s difficult to tell. “What the hell do you mean by that?”

If George was a simpering fool who couldn’t hold his own, if he wasn’t the son of a fucking legend, then he’d probably cower from all the hate he’s currently getting on this call alone.

But George has never been that guy and he’ll probably never be that fool either.

“Oh, come on,” he starts. “Wasn’t it you who said Christina is keeping something from you?”

“Yeah…”

“And then you also said she got a cryptic letter from that lawyer you both saw two weeks ago.”

I stare at George, blinking slowly. There’s only one person I told all that shit to and…

“How the hell does he know all this?” I seethe, staring directly at Emmett.

“What? You think there’s nothing George can’t find out about? Now that he’s being bankrolled by his long-lost daddy?” Emmett says. “Besides, I was helping you?”

“Helping me with what? We still have no answers! We still don’t know if what Spider said is true or not.”

“What did he tell you to begin with?” King asks, looking annoyed now that he’s away from Astraea.

“He told me that I was looking at the whole Craig thing as if the guy actually committed suicide.”

“Well, didn’t he?” Emmett asks, now paying attention.

“I don’t remember seeing the gun.”

It grows quiet.

I swear I can hear the hum of King’s refrigerator we all stare at each other, no one saying a word.

The absence of the gun speaks volumes and we all know it.

“Then what does that mean?” King demands.

“I don’t fucking know is what I’m telling you!” I snap. “If the gun wasn’t there, then what happened to it? It’s not like he blew half his brains out then walked to the fucking window and chucked it out.”

It’s silent again. I can literally hear the collective conclusion right before I say it.

“If that’s the case, then I’m moved to think of only one thing…” I whisper, feeling defeated somehow. “My brother was murdered.”

I don’t have to ask to see that they all arrived at the same fucking conclusion.

“Have you told Christina?” George asks.

“Hell no! Are you out of your fucking mind?” I snap.

“Well, in George’s defense, he’s comfortable sending the entire world into a tailspin,” King grits out. “After all, what better way to cause chaos and confusion by taking your friends for granted, forcing them to lie to the people they love, and then turn around and fake a death all in the name of his own happiness while some of us are still mourning the loss of a baby.”

And with that, King hangs up.

I don’t blame him. I really don’t but for just this once, I needed him to reign in his temper at George to fucking help me figure this shit out.

George looks remorseful, I’ll give him that. And I can see the hurt in his eyes, but no one can help him now. The asshole dug his own grave and now, it’s time to fucking lay in it like the fake grave that’s still at the cemetery.

“Yeah, well, now my one question is… if he didn’t kill himself, then who did?” Emmett questions just as a new text from King flashes in my notifications, exactly word for word what Emmett just said.

But then he sends me another one which simply reads: I DON’T TRUST DAVE.

What the hell am I supposed to do with that, King? Asshole!

“I’ll see what I can find out from my contacts, Noah,” George says. “I’ll call you tomorrow.” Then he hangs up, leaving Emmett and I just staring at each other.

“You good?” he finally asks.

“For now,” I mutter. “You?”

“I’m not the one who just found out about my brother’s violent, vicious murder,” he says. “Do you think it’s Dave?”

I blow out a rough breath, my mind racing.

“I know it’s him.”

“Then what’s the issue? We can find him and nail his ass to the fucking concrete then bury him under piles of rubble.”

“It’s just something Spider said that I can’t get out of my fucking head. Then the lawyer,” I mutter looking at the envelope. “Because if I listen to what Spider said, and the fucker is never wrong, then it means David killed Craig. But if I listen to what the lawyer said, and connect some of what Spider said then…”

“Then what?”

“Then there’s more under the surface.”

“Then what are you going to do?”

I look at the envelope on my bed, half-tempted to open it and half not fucking interested at all. I feel like I might set the damn thing on fire for all the torment it’s been causing me for two weeks now.

“For the first fucking time in my life, I don’t know what I’m going to do about this,” I mutter. “What I do know though, I’m not going anywhere until I get answers.”

I’m about to hang up until George and King both start calling at the exact same time. I swipe right, accepting their calls.

“What the fuck?”

“Did you get mail today?” George demands, his voice breathless.

“What?”

“Did any of you get mail?”

“I didn’t…”

“I’m coming over! Open the fucking door!”

As he hangs up, I look at King. His camera’s on, but he seems frozen, staring down at something.

“King? What is it?”

He looks at the phone, doesn’t say a word then pulls up whatever he’s holding until it comes into full view.

It’s a picture of… Kim with two little girls as well as Ivy, Astraea, and a baby… George’s baby girl.

All of them are laying on the bloody floor with their throats slit and eyes wide open, a crappy photoshop job but so fucking brazen with the intent and message clear as day.

“What the fuck?” I demand.

King flips over the paper now, showing me the message on the back that turns my blood cold.

“One by one, I’m coming for you

Give Daddy Monty what he wants on the day;

or it’ll be the death of three, or all, on you.”