Page 11 of The Fire We Make

“T-t-three,” he sobbed.

“Ah, so clearly you can count.” Moving his grip from Tyrell’s collar to his neck, Ace squeezed and stood bringing him with a crushing grip on his windpipe. “So either you’re incompetent and can’t handle simple counting or you lied to my motherfuckin’ face. Did I give you the impression I played them type of games?” Ace asked through gritted teeth.

Tyrell whimpered and did his best to shake his head. Ace squeezed Tyrell’s throat tighter and sent a punch to his mouth. “I don’t speak sign language nigga. Did I ever give you the impression that you could play with me or my money?” Ace asked again, voice booming above the sound of the music.

“No,” Tyrell wheezed out, breathless with pain.

“No,” Ace echoed. “This ain’t charity nigga. I ain’t running a Salvation Army.” Still unsatisfied, Ace released Tyrell letting him fall to the floor then began raining punches down on his face. Ace relished in the crunch of bone under his fists as he administered blow after blow to the man beneath him.

He put all 260 pounds of his weight behind each punch, showing no mercy as he doled out his punishment.

“Ace.”

The calm voice of his brother Jrue cut through the fog of his rage, effectively pausing his movement. The single word a signal that the man on the other side of his fists had had enough. Reluctantly, Ace stood, leaving the thief a bloodied, broken mess on the ground.

Of Ace’s four siblings, Jrue was the second oldest—directly under Ace—and the only one who could help reign in his violent tendencies when he let them off the leash.

Straightening the sleeves of his suit jacket, Ace spoke to Tyrell who laid barely conscious clutching his mangled hand. “I want my money in 24 hours or you won’t have to worry about those fingers because you’ll have a bullet in your fat ass skull,” he said.

He looked to Tyrell’s friends who sat by with horror stricken expressions. “Get him the fuck out of my face,” he ordered through gritted teeth.

The men quickly and wordlessly helped their friend off the floor, dragging him to the exit.

As he exited the section, Ace rotated his shoulders to relieve some of the tension that still sat there. He hadn’t gotten his hands dirty in a minute and like an addict, once he got started, it was hard to stop. He accepted the damp towel that Jrue extended, using it to wipe the blood from his knuckles and face.

“Feel better, Menace?” Jrue asked, with a mocking smile as he clapped Ace on the shoulder, jokingly referring to him by his full nickname.

Ace chuckled. His nickname had come from a shortened version of Menace. From a young age, it was clear to all of the men in the family that he would be the ruthless heir to their family business they’d all hoped for.

“That boy gon’ be a Menace,” they’d said whenever he passed the lessons in his training with flying colors, sometimes doing more than necessary.

His mother didn’t take too kindly to that name. “Don’t be calling my baby no Menace. I don’t even want y’all to speak that over him,” she’d said. So they’d shortened it to Ace.

Unfortunately for her, refraining from speaking danger and destruction over her son hadn’t stopped a damn thing.

He was every bit the Menace they called him.

“I’m straight,” Ace replied. He pulled the sleeves of his suit jacket over the cuff of his pale blue dress shirt that held small smatterings of Tyrell’s blood. “I’ll see y’all boys later. I have court in an hour.”

As the judge readied to give his ruling, Ace side eyed the prosecution.

The new pale skinned Assistant District Attorney across the aisle walked into the courtroom as the ones before him had — with slicked back hair, a cocky smile, and the misguided assumption that this would be the day he became a hero. Now, the man was sweating bullets and his perfectly coiffed hair was tousled from running his hands through it.

He looked like he’d gone 10 rounds in the ring, and in a way, he had.

Ace spent two hours playing with his food, objecting and interrupting until the kid was disgruntled and poking so many holes in his case it wouldn’t hold water let alone a conviction. At this point, it was a hazing ritual to let Ace beat up on new prosecutors and by closing statements, ADA Michael Thomas had been informed all too late that he’d stepped into the ring with the heavyweight champ.

Ace chuckled and shook his head.

For years, prosecutors had come after Ace and his family’s clients thinking they would make a name for themselves off the backs of young Black attorneys representing known criminals. They all soon learned that the Kings didn’t go down easy and they didn’t fight fair.

Thomas looked Ace’s way and when their eyes met, he winked, twisting the knife.

The man huffed and quickly looked away. They both knew what the verdict would be before the judge even opened his mouth.

“After hearing arguments from both sides and reviewing the evidence presented to the court, I am ruling to drop the charges against the defendant and dismiss this case,” Judge Holcomb announced, banging his gavel to punctuate the ruling.

Beside him, Ace’s client released a sigh, his whole body slumping in relief.