Brandon Massey - The Other Brother

I would first like to thank the Creator, for giving me the gift of writing and the opportunity to share it with others.

Thanks to my family and friends for the support and encouragement over the years.

Thanks to my agent, my editor, and the entire staff at Kensington, for your efforts on my behalf.

Thanks to the booksellers, for hand-selling my books in your stores and making them available to your customers.

Thanks to the many book clubs that have discussed my novels, and, in many instances, invited me to participate in the discussions, including-and certainly not limited-to: Nia Imani Bookclub in Sacramento, California; GAAL Bookclub, in Atlanta; Sisters Turning Pages, in Atlanta; Imani Literary Group, in Atlanta; Ladies of Color Turning Pages, in Los Angeles; S.T.Y.L.E.S Bookclub, in Atlanta; Circle of Friends (and all of your wonderful chapters); R.A.W. Sistaz (all your chapters, too!); The Cushcity.com Bookclub and Circle of Essence, in Texas; and so many more.

And thank you very much to the readers, without whom I would be unable to do this as a career. Keep on reading and spreading the word. Peace.

(i tanding at his bedroom window, watching a thunderstorm I I building in the evening sky, Isaiah Battle touched the glass and thought about death.

Death comes stealing like a thief in the night, he thought. Death came without warning, without preamble, invading suburban mansions and inner-city housing projects, taking away the young and the old, the feeble and fit. No one was spared. And no one was safe.

Not even him. Especially not him.

For most of Isaiah's life, the veil separating life from death had been as thin as the cold windowpane on which his fingers rested.

He pursed his lips, took his hand away from the window. Ordinarily he did not contemplate such macabre thoughts. But today he couldn't avoid them.

It was like that when you expected someone was coming to kill you.

He was dressed in a gray button-down shirt, loose-fitting Levi's, and black Timberlands. The ends of the shirt flowed over his waist, concealing, he hoped, the bulge of the Glock nine-millimeter handgun he wore holstered on his hip.

Mama knew he owned guns, but she didn't like for him to carry them around the house. Tonight he didn't dare walk unarmed for a moment, not even while in his own home.

There was a rap at the door. Isaiah spun, quick as a cobra, hand flicking to the Glock.

"Dinner's ready," Mama said behind the door.

He relaxed. "Be there in a minute."

He turned back to the window.

The churning April sky, resembling the face of a wrathful god, offered him no comfort. The brewing storm made him edgy. And the urban wasteland beyond the glass-the dilapidated houses, trash-strewn sidewalks, and pothole-riddled streets of Chicago's Southside-fired up an old, familiar anger that simmered in his chest like heartburn.

We deserve a better life than this. We never should have been here.

A battered desk stood beside the window. Photographsclippings from business magazines and newspapers-covered the desktop.

Many of the photos depicted two black men standing together, dressed in expensive suits, clearly father and son, the consummate family entrepreneurs. Other pictures featured only the son, a dapper guy in his late twenties who had life by the balls, and his wide grin showed that he knew it, too.

Resentment rippled through Isaiah.

Another photograph, framed and standing at the edge of the pile, showed the father from the other pictures, in his youth, and a pretty black woman with an Afro. They sat at a table in one of those Japanese hibachi restaurants, smiling as if they would be young and beautiful forever.

He didn't know why he'd pulled out the pictures. Looking at them had the predictable effect of stoking his anger. He supposed that he was in an introspective mood, ruminating on his life and how it was so unfair that it had turned out this way.

He picked up the framed photograph. It was wallet-sized, and the glass front was cracked. It had been damaged when, in a rage, he'd flung the photo against a wall.

He double-checked that his shirt covered his gun and then left the bedroom, tucking the picture in his pocket. He checked in both directions along the dark hallway. Looking for a hidden intruder. No one was in there.

It was just him and Mama, like always. Mother and son against the world.

Mama sat at the kitchen table, smoking a Newport. The table was set for dinner. But she hadn't eaten. The aromas of fried chicken, greens, cornbread, and other foods rose from the battery of pots and pans on the counter and stove.

Mama's gaze flicked across the bulge underneath his shirt. Disapproval flared in her eyes. Mama was a long way from stupid.

Isaiah moved his hand to conceal the gun. "You didn't have to wait for me, Mama"

"It's Sunday," she said, as if that explained everything. And it did. Mama believed in sit-down family meals on Sundays, and he obliged her.

She believed in attending church services on Sundays, too, but he refused to go along with that. He believed in God, but he no longer believed God cared about people like him. His initial realization of God's indifference to his plight came during his first stint in juvenile detention, when two teenage bullies, beating him because he was new, laughed mockingly when he cried out for God to help him.

And his faith hadn't been helped when, as a teenager, he'd seen the pastor of their church a married man with three kids hurrying out of Mama's bedroom one night, yanking up his slacks around his waist.

Fifty-two years old but looking much older, Mama hadn't lured any philandering pastors or other men of note into her bedroom in a long time. She was a short, slender woman, with chestnut skin and almond-shaped, copper-brown eyes. Her brittle hair, dyed red but showing stark gray roots, was pulled back into a severe bun. She wore a shapeless blue dress, like an old church lady.

Isaiah remembered when, back in the day, brothers driving by Mama would honk and yell crude come-ons. She was far removed from the pretty, vibrant young thing who'd posed in the photo at the Japanese restaurant. Although black women tended to age well, years of hardscrabble living, cigarettes, and drinking had taken the luster off her complexion, added a net of wrinkles to her face, slowed her stroll, and drawn dark circles underneath her once lively eyes.

Mama, too, deserved a better life.

She rose, bones creaking, and began to fix plates for both of them. She didn't always get his food for him. But ever since he'd been released from state prison at the beginning of the year, she'd given him extra care and attention, as if he were a wounded bird that required TLC before he could spread his wings again. He didn't have the heart to tell her he'd never flown.

He didn't like for Mama to cater to him, but she'd snap at him if he resisted, so he sat at the table and waited. He looked around at the fancy new things she'd recently bought. The oak dining set. The bone china and silverware and glasses. The new microwave, food processor, rotisserie oven, and mixer.