“This isn’t your fault, baby. You couldn’t have known they were going to kidnap Mariah,” I assured her.
“No, but I know the person who did it,” she said with her head lowered. “I’m the reason they have Mariah. It’s my fault. I know Dash’s son Tony.”
“How... do ... you... know him?” Harris asked with deadly calm.
London didn’t answer. She just looked down at the floor in shame, giving us all the answer she didn’t want to speak. My daughter had been sleeping with the enemy.
Harris
55
My in-laws usually saw me as a rational man who sought answers through logic rather than violence. Unfortunately, when it registered in my mind that London was sleeping with Tony, I was incapable of rational thought. All I could see was Tony Dash taking what belonged to me. First, he’d taken my wife, and now he had my daughter. No wonder Vinnie was always smiling and laughing in my face when we met. He had a secret. Vinnie, his brother Tony, and their father, Sal, had their own private joke at my expense—and it was all London’s fucking fault.
I have no memory of how I got across the room, but before I knew it, I’d grabbed London by the shoulders and was shaking her violently.
My mother-in-law screamed first.
London didn’t fight back. She just stared at me with a blank look as I yelled in her face, supremely hurt and betrayed. Orlando and LC were yelling something, but I didn’t hear them. I didn’t really hear myself, either. I was in a rage. It was like I was out of my body, staring down a dark tunnel. Events unfolded over which I had no control. Everything seemed to be happening all at once.
Orlando was trying to pull me off. Junior brought his large arm between London and me, forming a wedge that he used to pry me away. I fell backward as my feet became entangled with Orlando’s legs. The two of us hit the floor, and something came tumbling out of my coat pocket with a dull thud.
Someone yelled, “Gun!” and the entire house went silent, except for the security guards running in, weapons drawn.
Junior came over and casually picked up the gun, holding it up to the light for inspection.
“Hmm. This yours, Harris?” he asked me. Of course he knew it was.
“Um, yeah,” I said, coming up to one knee. I wasn’t sure if my brother-in-law was going to allow me to take another step, so I stayed put.
“What are you doin’ with a gun, Harris?” Junior probed further, trying to hold back an amused grin. I was never one to carry a firearm, and they all knew it. I fought my battles with words and the law, not with bullets. When I needed that type of help, I went to them.
“Serial number’s been filed off,” Junior announced, no longer sounding so amused.
“You planning on shooting someone?” Orlando asked.
I had to think fast. “Someone took my daughter. When I catch up with them, I plan on putting a bullet in their head personally.”
“Where’d you get it?” LC asked.
“On the street,” I answered honestly, hoping that would be the last of the questions.
LC nodded to Junior, giving him permission to hand it back to me. Junior removed the bullets, then handed it over.
“This is a piece of shit,” he said. “No accuracy from over a few feet. When you’re ready for a real gun, ask us for one.”
He handed it back to me pistol grip first—the same way Sal Dash’s man had handed it to me a mere hour ago. I hated having it in my hands. I had always avoided guns like the plague. They reminded me too much of my father’s life, a life I’d spent my whole youth vowing never to emulate. And now here I was, married into a crime family, with the Mob holding my daughter hostage. If Junior had left the bullets in, I might have used the damn thing on myself right about now.