Lies You Tell (DE)

45.

" When you gone talk to pops again," Dre asked Joseph, pouring himself a shot of Dusse as they sat at their bar.

Icon had become their new hang out during the day when it was closed. Their crew was able to have a safe place to hang instead of lingering around a hot trap house until night fell and everyone that worked at the club got to work and everyone that didn't handled business elsewhere.

Joseph looked at Dre crazily, irritated that he kept bringing that up. " I'm not,"

" When is you gone let this shit go. We is family,"

Joseph smacked his lips. " I'm not letting that shit go. He crossed the line and came in here and threatened US like we some random niggas in the street," He explained, again.

" So what, you act like he gone do something. His old ass not on shit. He was just talking shit cause he was mad,"

Joseph shook his head. After learning the things he did from Emily, it made Joseph want to stay away from Max even more because it made his threats hold more weight. Max snaked his own best friend, killing him because of greed. If he could do that to his day one partner, his best friend, brother, and the same person that put him in that very position of success, who knows what he'd do to them.

Dre was just naive and swears that family shit meant something but it didn't. He just didn't know the true dark history of his dad, and it wasn't Joseph's place to say. He made a promise to keep that between Emily and himself and that seemed like the safer option, not even Max knew Joseph knew his dark secrets.

Despite what was going on between Joseph and Max, he still loved his uncle. Max raised him, so Joseph would rather keep his distance than make the situation worse because he'd hate to have to hurt his uncle.

" You don't get it," Joseph said, shaking his head. " And you not going to,"

" So explain to me then Jo,"

" Na, I'm straight. I said what I said and that's that," Joseph responded, standing up off the bar stool and heading towards the back of the club with his hands tucked in his hoodie pocket.

Dre kissed his teeth watching Joseph walk away. Joseph and Max had their share of fall outs as Joseph grew up, they were both very head strong individuals and more alike personality wise than they'd like to admit, but it was never like this. Joseph had never put his hands on Max nor flat out not spoken to him. It had been at least a month since they'd been around one another, and their disagreement had gone far deeper than what happened at the dinner table at Max and Maria's home.

Joseph knew more about Max than what he was willing to say. Heading towards the back to check on Ant before leaving out, Joseph noticed Slug wandering the hall. Furrowing his brows, Joseph stopped.

" Is you lost?" He said, his cold and callous voice startling Slug.

Despite being a tall man, Joseph walked very light on his feet, a tactic Max taught him growing up. He had a habit of sneaking up on people unintentionally.

" I'm just lookin for the bathroom,"

Joseph clenched his jaw scanning Slugs face for deceit as he spoke. " Aint no bathroom back here, you don't got no business being back here,"

" My fault," Slug said, nodding and walking back towards the front.

Joseph cut his eyes, watching him until he disappeared into the front before looking around and entering the utility closet. He did the knock on the broiler room door before entering seeing Ant doing his job with a pair of Beats headphones on, bobbing his head to the music.