I wouldn't trust my family with my life, they could very well just take it. Roberto Stone

This could not be happening.

Not his sister, dead. Why was his family going through this again?

Everyone met up at his mother's house. Lix, Rosaline, Brandon, Keily, Risé, and all his nieces and nephews, even his great nieces and nephews. He held Zahara in his arms as she cried uncontrollably. Losing her mother, when she just had a baby herself was devastating. He would have to step up and look out for her.

Only nineteen, she should not have to go through this.

"Who fucking killed my child!" his mother yelled, a cigarette between her shaking fingers, smoke filling the area. Her mother had been a chain smoker all his life. He remembered he and Nas sneaking a few when they were pre-teens, then coughing up a lung. Never again for him. Nas still smoked occasionally.

"Ma, let's just calm down some of the fam don't need to hear all this." Lix of course, was taking charge. He looked around the room. "Rosie, take the babies out of here. They don't need to hear any of this."

"Whatever you guys need, I'm here for you," Rosaline kissed Lix's cheek. "I'm family. She was like my sister too."

Prince was not there, probably home with a nanny. But Erica's son Drake, Kendra's son Michael, and Zahara's daughter, Bre'yoncé. That was not even all the babies in the family. Rosaline gathered them all and headed off.

"Who could have done this?" Erica asked.

"Somebody with a fucking death wish!" Jae jumped up from her spot on a rickety chair. "You mess with one Stone, you mess with them all."

"Aye niece," Brandon stated. "Me and your father got this, we fo' sho gonna handle this."

"Bran," his sister Risé stated, already drunk or high from whatever she was still using even though she was supposed to be clean now. "You just got out of prison, we don't need you going back."

"Sis, I'll go back any day protecting my family."

Brandon was a better man than him. He never wanted to see any parts of jail. There were ways to get away with a crime without ending up in jail. The few he had committed over the last year and a half no one ever suspected him. Retaliation for killing his sister...if he knew who had done it, he would strike back soon as possible.

"I need everybody to calm down," Lix stated. "We just need to talk this through. Now, who was the last to see Tamra?"

His eyes went to Nas, his niece that was only seven months younger than him. They grew up together so they were more like sister and brother. Like him, she looked up to Lix and would do anything to please him. She went off to college and studied the same thing as Lix. He took his smarts and started his own IT company.

That was only one of his companies in his empire now. He was also co-owner of SexxRoom, an adult store that sold every kinky sex thing one could imagine. And that was not all he had in store, but the family wasn't ready to hear about that yet.

"She was up at Sextacy with her hands out," Jae said, then turned to Nas. "You went off with her, what did you do?"

Nas hunched a bit in her seat, did not look at Jae, and mumbled. "Gave her money and kept it moving."

"What?" Jae asked, not hearing what Nas said because she was a distance away, but he sat beside her, still comforting Zahara.

"Jae now is not the time to pester your cousin after what they are going through." He rubbed Zahara's back. She had not stopped crying since they all gathered. "Just back off."

"Oh, nooooo!" Jae said with a neck roll. "I solved the last crime towards this family, I can solve this one."

He hated to bust Jae's bubble, but she did not solve anything. She got it all wrong actually. She went to the police, told them what she thought happened, and they made the arrests based on what she gave them and the evidence they had.

Plus he had a cop in his pocket, who was in love with his girlfriend, he could get him to do anything for him.

Lix finally stepped in. "Anybody else talk to your mother yesterday or-"

"She came over here for money," his mother said, flicking her cigarette. "I gave her what I had, and that was that."

"Who else was here?"

"Demetrius, of course."

He knew his mother was lying. She was holding back something else.

"What did she say, Grandma?" Zander asked. "Did she seem okay?"

"Oh, my sweet baby girl seemed happy. Was happy. Told me she was seeing someone new and they were talking about having babies."

"Babies?" Nas laughed uncontrollably. "On top of being old as hell, Mom had her tubes tied years ago. Sheesh!"

"Well she said-"

"Mom was losing it!" Nas shouted out. "If she was seeing someone, it's obvious he's the one who did this to her. She never made good choices in men."

"Agreed," Lix said with a head nod. "Ma, she says what's this cat's name? Where he lives? Anything?"

"No. Said he was rich...although that had to be a lie if she was still begging for money."

"Rich? Ha!" Nas laughed again.

"Why didn't I know about some dude Ma was with? Ma tells me everything," Alex said. "It must not have been serious."

"Boy shut up," Michelle said, pushing him. "You don't know everything about Mom. Lil momma's boy!"

All he could do was sit back and observe everyone. His family. Sometimes blood was not thicker than water. It was thinner than cold melted ice on a hot, humid day. He did not trust any of them. Not a one.

Lix could have gotten rid of her because she was always a nuisance, and he had to take care of her like another child.

His mother could have done it because she was a looney case.

Any of Tamra's six children, for various reasons, one, being the embarrassment they must have felt with a grown woman behaving the way she did.

His brother Brandon was newly released from jail. He already almost killed someone before.

Keily was married to a loser he did not trust.

Risé, she never said much, kept to herself, so he never knew what was up with her.

Jae, oh she was a hot head, would not put it past her.

Kendra, she was married to a lawyer, and he never trusted lawyers.

Erica, she was involved with a drug dealer, enough said.

As for him, he could have done it himself, he's done it before, same M.O. A slit to the throat, clean kill. Why would he do it?

Tamra teased him growing up, because of who his father may have been. She knew something but would only taunt him, when he was a kid, talking five or six, not having any idea why all the other kids in his school had fathers, Sometimes those fathers were in and out of their lives, but they had them, knew who they were, had a name at least, a faded picture of what they looked like. He had nothing.

Guess he was no different from the rest of his sisters and brothers. None knew their fathers.

But Tamra knew who he was. She was the only one that would at least say something to him about it. Alix had to know as well, after all he was told he was a friend of Lix. Once when he was seventeen after he graduated high school, he asked Lix, but Lix brushed him aside and gave him money.

As if that would fix anything.

This is why blood meant nothing to those in the room with him. They may not care who was the other half of their bloodline, but he did.

"Lix, let's just have the cops do what they do and we stay out of it." He made sure he made eye contact with Brandon. "No one needs to go back to jail."

"Jail ain't shit, baby bro!" Brandon shouted out. "Someone come after my family...hell, that's all I have, I'm going to come after their ass."

"You can't help anyone in jail. You're on probation. You're even linked to any crime again you go back."

"Fuck you and your soft, nerdy ass. computer boy. Grow a fucking backbone! That's your sister!"

He only shook his head at his older brother. They all, except Lix, treated him horribly as their baby brother. Fuck all of them.

"You two boys calm down." His mother came over to him and pulled Zahara from him, still inconsolable state, and continued to comfort her. Baby of the family, he could understand her plight. Loved his mother, but she was also toxic.

What kind of woman fucked anything in sight, made babies with random men and never told them a thing about where they came from? Was his father Black, Hispanic, Asian? Looking at himself in the mirror, he knew he had to be part African American...maybe, he could be from African royalty or from one of the islands. Brown skin was not equal to African American. He could be from somewhere he didn't even know their culture.

No, being fucking for real, he was born in the hood with junkies and drug dealers, pimps, and prostitutes, there wasn't any Kings fucking his mother. Unless it was the neighborhood drug Kingpin.

"We need to find out who Tam was seeing. Find his ass before the cops snatch him up," Lix stated.

"Good luck with that!" Keily stood, a bit wobbly then caught her balance. "Nothing here for us to do. I have to go, my husband worries if I'm gone too long."

"Aunty, you're in no condition to drive." Jae stood up. "Let me take you."

One by one everyone began to leave but he continued to stay planted where he was till the only ones in the room were he and Lix. His big brother, the enabler. Tamra would not be so fucked up in life if he had not treated her like a child. Never once did she act like a mother to her kids, everyone else stepped in.

He and Nas raised themselves at a young age, then went on to raise the rest of Tamra's kids. Two spoiled rotten boys and girls so lost in this world.

"You good, bro?" Lix asked him.

"No," was all he could reply.

Lix walked over, sat next to him, and put an arm around his shoulders. "I got you, little bro. Anything you need, come to me. No one is tearing our family up. No one."

"Easy for you to say when you have built a perfect family." He moved away from his brother and stood up. "I want to know who my father is, and where can I find him. And you're going to help me."

A/N: And things will get interesting soon! There is a parallel in Roberto and Nas' life, that's all I'm saying.

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