“Ain’t no concern. Like I said, it’s your problem. What you gonna do, call the feds and say, ‘Officers, go talk to the big bad Black man, I don’t know nothin’’? Please.”

I stifle a sigh. If there was a way to bottle all the energy men used to posture and puff out their chests, I could run the entire planet with it. “Antoine, I know your mama is smart, so maybe you got dropped on your head when you were a child. It’s our problem, yours and mine. How did the feds know I had Tane in the first place? Who knew he was with me? Who saw him with me?”

I sit back in my chair and watch Peaches figure it out. His eyes narrow.

“You think one of mine told them,” he says.

“Unless you did.”

“The fuck would I do that for?”

“Then you have a mole, Peaches. Somebody told the feds they saw Tane Kamaka ride off on a motorcycle with me.”

Peaches looks up at the ceiling, thinking. “Who were the feds came to your brother’s house?”

“Special Agent Alisha Rondeau and Agent Scott. Rondeau is a Black woman. Scott’s a bald White guy who seemed extremely pissed about everything.”

Peaches brings his gaze back down from the ceiling. “I know Scott,” he says.

“How do you know him?”

Peaches smiles. This one isn’t unpleasant; it’s the smile of someone who’s pulled off an impressive magic trick. “Who you think I took Tane away from?”

“You … stole Tane from the FBI?”

From his corner, Billy says, “Peaches don’t play.”

“Start from the beginning,” I say. “Start with my uncle.”

Peaches takes a long breath, then lets it out slowly. “Your uncle and me, we do business from time to time. I provide services for him, and sometimes he lets me know things so I can avoid future problems. But this time, he wanted something big.”

“Tane Kamaka,” I say.

Peaches nods. “And he was willing to pay. Had to pay a lot. Wanted me to bust him out of federal custody.”

“You had to break him out of prison?”

“He wasn’t in no prison. Federal custody, I said. Like witness protection. Scott had him in a motel down in College Park.”

“Why was Tane in witness protection?”

“Your uncle said he saw something.”

“Saw something?”

“Something los Sureños didn’t want him to see. A group of them, anyway.”

Sureños 13 again. They keep coming up. Why would my uncle be involved with a prison gang run by the Mexican Mafia? I look at Caesar, who gives me a tiny shrug. He doesn’t know, either. “What do you mean, a group of them?” I ask.

“A new one trying to move into Atlanta. Run by a man goes by Bala. They ain’t welcome.”