by Mercy B
“So how do we make all of this disappear?”
“I’ll handle it.” She shook her head. “Gauge, the demise of Sosa Law was my big break. I work my ass off to prove that I’m just as good as the guys in my precinct and even better than most. But because I’m a woman, everything gets downplayed or overlooked. Before anyone knew who Sosa Law was, I was on his trail. He was painting the city white with his cocaine operation and red with the blood he smeared of anyone in the way of his success.”
“Destiny, I didn’t agree to meeting so that you can convince me of why you want to take him down. You said that you were in. Are you, or do you wish to continue pursuing Sosa?”
“I gave you my word, but I just wanted you to know of the huge risk I’m taking.”
“Like the one where you gave up your parental rights the day I was born?”
“Gauge, let’s not throw stone for stone.”
“I’m not, but you should know that I never doubted the amount of risk you were taking. I’m just doing what I have to do to secure stability in my child’s life.”
“In which I understand. Speaking of which, what are you having?”
“I don’t know yet,” I admitted rather than giving her a hard time. She’d made it completely clear that she was on my side. If we were going to begin building a relationship, then we had to start somewhere.
“When do you find out?”
“I’m not that far along. I just had my first appointment a little over a week ago. I’m only twelve weeks.”
“Three months.” She beamed.
“Yeah, basically. I don’t know if my mind is playing tricks on me or if time is really flying by. I wish it would slow down.”
“That’s because you want him here every step of the way. Trust me, time is not flying.”
I hadn’t considered it, but she was right. I wanted him here every step of the way. “Yeah, I guess.”
Shrugging, I dragged my straw through the chocolate shake that I’d been babysitting since we sat down. We’d chosen Red Lobster, of course. With everything that was being shoved down my throat, I had no appetite.
“I have to get back to work. I was thinking that we could make this a weekly thing. Just you and me conversing over dinner. Your choice, but I’d rather return to this restaurant, knowing it is your favorite,” she initiated. I wasn’t opposed. In fact, I was looking forward to the next meeting. I was hoping she’d make some leeway in the dissolving of Sosa’s case as well.
“Aside from all of this, how are you? Are you happy about the pregnancy? Were you guys trying to have a baby? Was it a surprise?”
Before speaking, I attempted to calm my nerves. With her line of questioning, they’d gotten all out of whack. “No, it wasn’t planned. I think Sosa has been trying for months and finally succeeded. If I have to be honest, I’m scared. I didn’t have a mother to show me what motherhood looked like. The only direction I’ve gotten is from my best friends. She’s amazing with her girls, but she’s still learning as she goes. It’s all very overwhelming for me. I’m just trying not to lose my mind.”
“I’m to blame for that. I didn’t know how to mother, and I let the fear of failing keep me away from you throughout your entire life. Still, I don’t know much, but I want to learn too. Maybe we can learn together.”
“Maybe. I won’t hold you any longer. I’m goin’ to head out. It is getting late.” The sun had settled. I could see the darkness peering through the windows.
“Same time next week?”
“Yeah. Sure.”
So that our departure wasn’t awkward, I tossed a twenty on the table to cover both of our shakes and stood to leave. I wasn’t expecting her to say anything to me as I exited, but I could feel her staring daggers into my back. She wanted this, and I wanted my man. We could both win if we each played our positions.
As I crept up the steps to my porch, I noticed a single envelope just before the welcome mat. Taking a peek at my surroundings, I tried finding its source. Silence covered the dark street I’d resided on for years. I bent to retrieve the envelope and continued into my home.
Relieved was an understatement. I’d gotten great news and pertaining to the disposal of Sosa’s case, and I was genuinely looking forward to the next meeting with Destiny. Our kindling wouldn’t happen immediately, but if she was willing to drop the case on Sosa, then I was willing to put my best foot forward.
My couch was the most comfortable when I’d had a long day. I sank into the cloth and began ripping open the letter I’d received. There was a single card inside with one line. It was instructions for me to tune into the nine o’clock news. There was no signature and no return address.
Checking the time on my watch, I noticed it was right at nine. Quickly, I snatched my remote from the ottoman and flipped the television on. I had two minutes to spare, so I used it to grab a bottle of water from the fridge. The cold liquid was heavenly, sliding down my throat as I stood in the kitchen and nearly lost track of time. After clearing an entire bottle, I grabbed another and headed back into the living room. The news had already begun, and I was praying that I hadn’t missed anything important.
After the first story concluded, the banner that appeared and introduced the next caused my chest to ache. The bottled water in my hand fell to the floor, and my breath shortened with each pull. It felt as if I’d sucked all of the oxygen from the room and left none unused.
“Songwriter and producer Raphael Uren was found unconscious in his studio this evening. Reports say that the renowned star suffered from major blood loss due to several of his fingers being cut off. Resources tell us that Raphael has been in surgery for the last few hours to try and reattached his fingers. In his line of work, they are very useful. Our prayers go out to the Uren family as we hope that Raphael pulls through, and his health improves. He is listed in critical condition. We will have more updates as this story develops,” the reporter concluded before continuing on to the next story.
The cold water had pooled around my feet as I stood in the center of my living room, waiting for this sick joke to be over. Everything about Raphael’s assault had Sosa’s name written all over it. What were the odds that he gave me his number not even three days ago, and the same hands he used to give me his card had been butchered?
The blaring of my cell stirred me from my thoughts, causing me to jolt. Without screening the call, I answered with the idea of who’d been calling me. This was the third unknown call I’d received in the last ten days.
“Hello!” I bellowed into the receiver.
Silence.
“You sick piece of shit! If you’re so worried about me fucking with someone else, then why don’t you man up and bring your ass back!”
There was no need of holding back the anger sprouting its ugly head. Sosa had crossed every line imaginable. The things that my mother had mentioned at dinner were beginning to resurface. It made sense now. Though I didn’t want to believe it, Sosa was as ruthless as she’d described him.
Silence.
“You sick, selfish, inconsiderate bastard!” I wished I could see his face. God, I would’ve slapped the shit out of him.
Silence.
“He has a family for Christ’s sake, one that he hasn’t abandoned and that depends on him!”
Sosa had left my child and me to survive on our own, yet he had the resources to reach out to a man that showed the least bit interest in me. I wasn’t desperate for love or searching for it, to be honest, so I didn’t understand why he felt threatened. If anything, he should’ve felt a greater urge to return.
More silence.
“I had no intentions of calling him! You’re so fucking delusional! Asshole!” I paced my living room floor, yelling and becoming more enraged by the second.
Silence.
“And why the fuck is someone following me? What type of sick, psychopathic bullshit are you on? You fucking lunatic! I hope my baby grows up to be nothing like you, you sick piece of shit!” My eyes prickled
from the tears threatening to fall.
I disconnected the call. He wouldn’t respond no matter what I said to him. I’d been racking my brain to figure out who was calling and holding the phone. To be quite honest, I’d still be playing the guessing game hadn’t the envelope been at my door and the call hadn’t come through the minute the complete story was ran.
“Urgh!”
I tossed my cell across the floor, shattering it into pieces. At the moment, I didn’t want to care, and neither did I want to cry. Yet I found myself scooting to the floor and covering my face with my hands. The stress was becoming unbearable. Sosa was just as much a heartache as he was a savior. He’d given me the sunshine, but all I’d been feeling lately was the rain.
His disappearance was enough to send me to the insane asylum, and here he was, calling shots and bringing people I encountered closer to death than they’d ever been. It was all too much to stomach, so I refused to.
Standing to my feet, I picked up what was salvageable from my cell and lowered myself onto the couch. The news had continued in the background, but I quickly shut if off. Suddenly, anything but silence needed to cease. On the couch, I stretched my legs and rested my head. Sosa wasn’t playing fair, and instead of getting caught up in my feelings, I needed to curate a plan to reciprocate the bullshit he was sending my way.
If there was nothing more he knew me for, it was my persistence and determination. There were two things on my agenda that would require them both. One was getting him home, and the other was making him suffer once he returned. I’d do everything in my power to get him back safely, but I wouldn’t show him an ounce of sympathy upon his return.
Sleep didn’t come easy, but I was happy when it did arrive. Even though I was highly upset with Sosa’s latest stunt, I could admit that I felt an immediate sense of relief, knowing that someone somewhere was lurking in the shadows and keeping me safe. Unknowingly, I’d been holding my breath and praying that my safety was intact. Surely, it was.
I didn’t wake until after eight. I’d exhausted myself the previous day. The first thing I did was check the time on my phone, in which I was highly disturbed after remembering I’d shattered it to pieces. The broken glass was still scattered on the floor, waiting for me to clean it, much like the water I’d spilled and the bottle laying beside it. Needless to say, I had my work cut out for me. But before I sought to any of it, I needed a shower and to freshen my breath. It tasted stale and smelled like I’d been eating onion in my sleep.
“Shit!” I nearly jumped from my skin at the sound of someone knocking at my door.
Though my phone was out of commission, I was certain no one had called. It was shattered, but the screen still glowed, which meant the ringer worked more than likely. Still dressed in the previous day’s clothing, I slowly crept toward the front door. Through my window, I could see a delivery man walking through the driveway before getting back into his truck. Realizing I’d ordered a few pieces of clothing from online to accommodate my growing fetish for baby shopping, I opened the door.
There was a single box on the porch, not resembling anything that I was sure would look like came from a baby shop. The brown box was addressed to me. I bent to pick it up and began shaking it from side to side to see what was in it. I didn’t want any more surprises, especially if it was anything like the one I’d received the previous night.
Inside of my house, I cut the brown wired tape around the perimeter and pulled the box apart. A white iPhone box fell to the counter, nearly giving me a heart attack. Sosa, I concluded. It had to be him. As I surveyed the contents of the box, my mind began to wander.
How could he know I broke my phone? I asked myself. No one was in the house with me. So how could he see?
“Dammit!” I yelled to no one in particular, my senses finally kicking into high gear.
Leaving the phone where it was, I grabbed a hammer from my kitchen drawer where I kept things as such as nails, screws, and screwdrivers. My first stop was the living room, where I observed the area that I’d shattered my cell phone.
There were only two places with a clear enough angle to capture the moment. One was in the left corner above my couch, and the other was in the right corner, next to the entryway of the living room. I flipped on the light so that I was able to see clearer. The black speckle on the wall would go unnoticed by the average eye and anyone who wasn’t searching for an indication of surveillance, but I was.
Disbelief washed over me like a tsunami, smothering me and threatening to drown me in its waves. After the realization that I was being watched by the sick bastard that had left me to fend for myself, I sprang into action. The bar stool at the island style counter was the most reasonable in height, so I snatched it and propped it up in the corner. Before hammering the camera to shreds, I was sure to give Sosa—or whoever watching—a quick lashing.
“You know, I really never pegged you for the creepy son of a bitch that you are. While everyone was telling me that you were some deranged lunatic, I tried giving you the benefit of the doubt because I love you. But you’re proving to be some sick ass maniac. You don’t get the luxury of seeing me every day, while I haven’t seen you in over a month. That’s not fair to me! That’s not fair to us! So until you can bring your ass home, then you won’t get to see shit else. It doesn’t matter who is reporting back to you. You won’t get to see me for yourself!”
The small camera was no match for my hammer. “I can’t wait to see you either. I’m whooping your ass for old and new,” I fussed as I smashed the small dot before pulling it from the wall.
There were two small wires connected that I would be cutting later. For now, I had to find the other cameras. I knew there were more. To my surprise, there were five more. I got my workout in smashing them and pulling them out of the wall.
Kitchen.
Hallway.
Front door.
Guest bedroom.
Back door.
They all came crashing down under the stress of my hammer. By the time I made it to my own bedroom, I was exhausted. As I lay on the bed, I recalled several nights of me crying out for Sosa or even the dreams I had that involved him. They all left me with stained pillows and cum on my sheets.
As the thought occurred, I lay on the bed and began surveying my room for the camera that was surely inside. I spotted it on the wall beside my television. The anger that had controlled me minutes prior subsided and was replaced with my arousal. I felt just as sick as Sosa as I stripped down to my underwear before sprinting toward the shower. I smelled like yesterday.
The bird bath only lasted five minutes because I was too anxious to return to my bedroom. Once I was back inside, I dried my skin before putting on lotion and allowing my towel to fall to the ground. I lowered myself onto the bed and opened the nightstand drawer to retrieve the vibrator that I’d used many nights before Sosa came swinging his hood wood and putting it out of commission.
Chapter 5
Sosa
I had eyes everywhere. Gauge couldn’t take a piss without me knowing. Though I hated her more than life itself, it was my job to protect the being growing in her belly. That was a product of me, and I would die before I let anything happen to her while carrying my seed. It was as simple as that.
Gauge wasn’t to be trusted. Since I’d been gone, she’d had two meetings with her mother, the one she claimed to not have any dealings with. That shit made me wish I’d pulled the trigger that night, but watching her stomach grow made me happy that I hadn’t.
Being a father was never in my plans, but neither was falling in love. I was still kicking my ass for slipping and getting attached to Gauge’s flesh. She’d hooked me the first night she put the pussy on me, and I was still trying to retrieve the pieces of me that I’d left her with.
For the entire month I’d been away, I had been battling with pleasant thoughts of her, replacing them with the naked truth and forcing my body to rid itself of the likes of her. She wasn’t worthy of me. Gauge had g
one against the grain, and once she dropped my child, I would make sure that she lived a life of misery and regret. I wouldn’t let up on her, not until I felt that she’d gotten everything that she deserved.
Her loyalty was nonexistent. The minute I skipped town, she was crawling to her mother’s doorstep. They talked for hours over milkshakes and cheddar biscuits. There was no way she was being honest about her lack of involvement with Destiny Shaw.
To make matters worse, she had placed herself back on the market as if she wasn’t carrying my child as if I hadn’t had my dick in her ribs weeks ago. The shit was trifling. The nigga who she’d accepted into her personal space would be the last. As long as she was carrying my seed, there was no other nigga.
No one existed. If they weren’t thoughts of me, then she wasn’t supposed to be having them. Just like I’d gotten him out of the way, I’d do the same for any other nigga that pushed up on her and she accepted their invitation to continue a conversation. It was simple. That shit was for me, and once she realized it, she’d help save a lot of motherfucker’s lives.
“Fuck,” I whispered as I watched the feed I’d been watching for weeks die out.
She was finding each camera I’d had installed and taking them bitches down with the hammer she’d gotten from the kitchen. She’d figured me out, or at least one of my methods of keeping up on the latest. It was all good though. The next time she was scheduled for the doctor, I’d have them reinstalled.
I watched and waited for her to put the final one out of commission but was surprised to see her walk out of the bedroom once she’d located it with her eyes. She returned minutes later with wet hair and a towel wrapped around her. Against my will, my dick hardened as I witnessed her rubbing her skin with lotion. The minute the towel dropped, I nearly lost my shit. Immediately, I removed my dick from my basketball shorts.