“I don’t know if any of this is true, but back in the day, your mama and Fiona’s mom used to do the type of shit y’all out here doing. Get with the ballers around the way or those wealthy men and take their money,” my aunt revealed. “I don’t know who all was involved, but I used to hear Shaunie on the phone, talking about new licks and all that shit. I wasn’t really paying attention back then, because I always had my nose in the books. Me and my sister were as different as night and day. She loved that street life, and I was all about school.” Aunt Bree smiled at the memory and wiped the single tear that was falling down her face. “And Max was crazy about her.” Aunt Bree looked at Fiona, who was texting on her phone. “Your daddy is the reason why Shaunie and your mama stopped being friends.”
“What are you talking about, Bree? My mama left when me and Cowboy were young. Way before Shaunie and Melonee came into the picture,” Fiona snapped.
“She did. But Max, Shaunie, and April used to run together. They were thick as thieves.”
“What happened?” I asked.
“Well, from what I took from the situation, April found out that Max and Shaunie were messing around behind her back and went to confront them. Max told her that it was true, and that’s when she left.”
Fiona started laughing. “You are a lying-ass bitch, Bree. My daddy never mentioned no shit like this to me or Cowboy. The story we were told was that he met Shaunie at some party, got the pussy on the first night, and couldn’t shake her after that. My daddy was so heartbroken over my mama leaving that he latched onto the first pair of perky titties and fat ass that he ran into. The fact that she had a child already was a bonus, because that meant that she could help with his two kids.”
“Do you really believe that bullshit?” Aunt Bree retorted.
“Yep, and you can’t tell me shit differently.” Fiona stood and picked up her purse from the couch. “Let me get out of here before you start spitting more lies and I end up beating your ass, Bree.” She turned to me. “You real foul for keeping that money shit from us, Melonee. I already called a meeting with the clique to discuss this bullshit. You better hope they don’t feel some type of way about this. Then you wonder why they questioning your loyalty.”
“And they can keep on questioning it. I don’t owe anything to anyone but Madison and this new baby I’m carrying,” I told Fiona.
Fiona smiled and nodded her head and then turned and left Aunt Bree’s home.
My back and my head were starting to hurt from this baby and from finding out all the shit that Aunt Bree had just laid on me. My mother used to rob niggas for their money too? I knew she hadn’t worked and would be gone from home for a day or two, but I was sure it had never been anything by comparison to what we were doing with the BWC. My mind drifted to Roman. I wondered if my mother and Fiona’s father had had the same kind of connection with each other that I felt with him. I was not even going to lie. I was a little disappointed that he had canceled on me. I had a good feeling that us meeting up would trigger some sort of memory from that night, so that I could finally figure out who was behind my attack, but I guessed I’d have to wait until he dealt with whatever family emergency had come up.
“You good, Mel? I didn’t mean to drop all of that on you right now, but I felt it was time you knew the little that I do know about your mama and Fiona’s.”
“I appreciate it, Auntie. But can I ask you a question?”
Aunt Bree smiled and placed her hand on my belly and rubbed it. “What’s up?”
“You said the same lifestyle killed my mama. Do you think one of the men she robbed killed her, and not Dezmond, like the police report said?”
Aunt Bree rubbed my belly and talked to my unborn child for a few minutes before she looked at me and shook her head. “Honestly, I never thought that it was Dezmond who killed your mother. He was a little jealous of the love that Shaunie still had for Max, but he was trying to do everything in his power to make sure she saw him as the man for her.”
I winced as a small contraction shot through my body. “Then who do you think killed her if it wasn’t Dezmond?” I winced again.
“What’s wrong, Mel? Is the baby okay?” Aunt Bree asked, panic all over her face.
“Um, something doesn’t feel right. I think I need to go to the hospital.” Another contraction hit and had me damn near falling to the floor.
“Is that blood?” Aunt Bree screamed. I looked down at the white tights I had on and saw a growing red spot between my legs.
“Oh my God! Call nine-one-one! Something isn’t right,” I cried out as another contraction hit me, this time harder than the last.
Bree picked up my cell phone and dialed the police. Because we were in Montecito, it didn’t take any time for an ambulance and a fire truck to show up and rush me to the hospital. The only thing going through my mind was the safety of my child. I prayed that the Lord would see fit that everything was all right and that my baby was okay. If anything happened to me, I would be all right with that. Like I said, mine were gonna be all right, whether I was here or not.
Roman
I swerved in and out of traffic as I flew down the 101 freeway on my motorcycle, headed toward Santa Barbara Cottage Hospital. I’d just pulled up at the Montecito address Melonee sent me when my stepmother, Julia, called to tell me that my father had had a heart attack and had been rushed to the hospital. Julia had been so distraught during the call that one of the nurses had had to take the phone from her and tell me which hospital they were at.
After getting directions to the hospital, I had tried calling Benji’s phone a few times to see if he had any information about what had happened, but all it had done was ring. Marques was still missing in action, and Chasin was still working on my case with Viktoria. I had then called my uncle to tell him what was going on, but he hadn’t seemed to be affected by it much at all. Uncle Kazi and my father had never really gotten along, so I doubted he’d shed a tear for my father if he didn’t make it through this. Finally, I had sent Melonee a text to see if we could meet some other time, and then I’d headed in the direction of my father. Hopefully, Melonee didn’t feel some type of way or think that I had come up with something else to do. Once I checked things out at the hospital, I’d call and invite her over to the beach house or see if she would rather meet somewhere of her choice.
The strong afternoon wind whipped over my exposed arms, causing goose bumps to cover my body. The loud hum of my motorcycle was the only thing I could hear aside from the occasional honk from the impatient drivers going ten miles per hour. While I focused on the road, looking out for cars switching lanes at the last minute, I allowed my mind to drift to my father. A heart attack? Richard Black had been the picture of health the last time I saw him.
After taking my exit off the freeway, I sped past the line of cars waiting to make a right turn and merged with the flow of traffic on the equally busy street. Two minutes later, I was pulling up to the ER doors of the large hospital and parking my bike illegally in the red painted section, not worried about getting towed or issued a ticket. Following the instructions from the nurse I had spoken with earlier, I skipped the crowded hall with the elevators and ran up three flights of stairs to the ICU. As soon as I rushed through the doors, I found Julia standing there, being comforted by an obviously drunk Benji.
“What’s going on? How is he?” I asked as I walked up to the two of them as they talked in hushed tones. As soon as Julia’s eyes landed on me, she began to sob uncontrollably and hug my neck.
“Oh, Roman, I’m so glad you made it. Your father and I were at the Summerland house for a few days just to get out of the city. Everything was going fine until today. He woke up this morning complaining about pains in his chest. I just thought it was heartburn from that spicy Italian food the cook served us for dinner last night. I gave him a couple of Tums and put him in bed, then went to take a swim. The next thing I know, he’s holding his chest and stumbling down the stairs. I didn’t know what to do, so
I just called nine-one-one. When we got here, they took him straight to emergency.” Her sobs became louder. “They just brought him to this room a few minutes ago. Roman, I can’t lose my husband. What will I do without my husband?”
After removing Julia’s hands from around my neck, I walked over to the double glass doors to my father’s room and watched as he lay motionless in the small hospital bed. The face mask over his mouth, which was giving him oxygen, would fog up every time he took a short breath and his eyes would crinkle at the corners, as if he were trying to open them up but couldn’t. All types of monitors were beeping as they kept track of his vitals, and wires were hanging every which way. The green hospital sheet covered half his body, and his exposed chest and arms had all kinds of tubes and IVs attached to them.
My throat went completely dry; and my mind, blank. Seeing my father this way was truly agonizing. I wasn’t ready to see him like this. Right now he looked helpless, weak, and tired. He was not the strong, pompous, arrogant, and on-the-go man that he normally was. Lately, our relationship hadn’t been the best because of all the shit that had gone down with the moral clause stuff, but that didn’t stop me from feeling some kind of way when I saw him like this. My father was the only parent that I had left. Not to criticize Julia or anything like that, but she could never take my mother’s place.
Walking even closer to the double glass doors, I watched as a nurse took my father’s blood pressure and wrote some things down on the clipboard next to his bed. When she came out, I walked up to her and introduced myself.
“Nice to meet you, Mr. Black. Your father is doing okay right now. For a minute there, we thought he wasn’t going to make it, but at the last minute, he pulled through.”
My eyes were still focused on my father as I spoke to her. “Do you know what could have caused this? I mean, my father has never had any issues with his heart. He still works out, eats right, and takes his vitamins. He was okay the last time we spoke. Didn’t look sick at all.”
“Well, Mr. Black . . .”
“Call me Roman . . . please.”
“Well, okay, Roman. And you can call me Tran.”
I finally broke my gaze on my father and looked at his nurse. When her eyes connected with mine, I instantly knew that she was attracted to me. The way she licked her small lips and batted her eyelashes told me she was flirting with me, while trying to be subtle and professional at the same time. I could tell Tran wanted me to give her some kind of sign that I was interested in what she was offering, but when I continued to stare at her with questioning eyes, waiting on some more insight into my father’s condition, she cleared her throat, embarrassed, and began to speak again.
“Um, I’m sorry. Uh, we . . . we initially didn’t know what brought the heart attack on,” she stammered, her cheeks flushing a bright red. “Um, but then we performed some tests and were able to determine that a blood clot outside the heart blocked an artery, which caused the attack.”
“Outside the heart? Is he going to be okay, though?”
“Right now, it’s touch and go, Mr. Black . . . I mean Roman. The first twenty-four hours after a myocardial infarction are the most important. I and the rest of the skilled staff will keep a close eye on his heart and will perform a series of electrocardiograms and blood tests. If he’s stable after these twenty-four hours, we will send him to the telemetry floor, where a cardiac-care team will continue to watch over him. Because the heart attack was pretty severe, he may be here for about three or four days before he’s released.”
I nodded my head in understanding of what Tran had just told me. “Can I go in and see him?”
She shook her head and tucked the hair that had fallen in her face behind her ear. “Not right now. Maybe in a few hours. We still need to monitor your father closely, and we don’t want to risk any kind of stress or anything that would cause his heart to react.” Her eyes traveled over to Julia. “If possible, do you think you or your brother can take your mother down to the cafeteria for some coffee or something? The doctor told her the same thing I’m telling you about thirty minutes ago, and she started going crazy. We almost had to call security to come and get her out of the room, but your brother got here and was able to calm her down.”
When I looked over at Julia, she was standing next to Benji, watching me and Tran. Her eyes weren’t filled with tears, like they were a few minutes ago. The smeared makeup on her face had been wiped away and replaced with a brand-new coat. She looked as if she was camera ready, with her red designer dress, nude heels, and perfectly coiffed hair. The handkerchief in her hand covered her lips as she whispered something to Benji, who looked at me, then back at her.
“I’m sure Benji will keep an eye on her.” I reached in my pocket, pulled out one of my cards, and handed it to Tran. “If anything happens or changes with my father, please have someone call me directly. And if possible, please make sure the media is prohibited from entering this area. Our family already has enough going on in the tabloids. I don’t want this to get out and be on the ten o’clock news.”
“We will make sure no one other than immediate family is allowed back here. Are you leaving right now?”
“I left my bike parked in the no parking section, so I’m going to go move it before someone else does. Then I’ll go to the cafeteria for a bite to eat.”
Nodding her head, Tran tucked my card in her breast pocket and then went back into my father’s room to check his vitals again. Without a word to Benji or Julia, I headed back toward the stairs and took them all the way down to the floor with the emergency room exit. Luckily, my bike was in the same spot that I had left it in and had not been towed away. However, I grabbed the fat-ass ticket that had been placed on it, and made a mental note to take care of it as soon as I got home later that night.
After finding a parking spot near the front of the ER, I sat on a small bench in the outdoor smoking area and pulled out my phone to try to reach Mel. Not wanting to leave a message after the third unanswered call, I shot her a quick text and told her to call me back whenever she got a chance. Once I went through a few e-mails and checked in with Viktoria, I decided to head back inside the hospital to see if there was any improvement in my father’s condition and to grab something to eat. Just as I stepped into the street to take a shortcut to the ER, that crazy feeling I seemed to get whenever Melonee was nearby shot through my entire body. With the hairs standing on the back of my neck and my phone getting wet from the sweat of my palms, I searched the surrounding area but didn’t see her anywhere. If that wasn’t weird enough, a second later, a strong force that felt like a quick punch to my stomach had me crouched over in the middle of the street and gasping for air.
“Are you okay, sir?” asked a nurse who was smoking a cigarette near a tall bush. He put the cigarette out with the bottom of his shoe and then walked over to me.
“Yeah, I’m okay. I don’t really know what that was. Felt like someone hit me in my gut.”
“You’re sure you don’t need any medical help, right?”
I stood up to my full height and shook off whatever that was. “I’m good. Thanks for asking.”
He stared at me for a second, as if he was trying to remember me from somewhere. “You’re Roman Black, aren’t you?” When I didn’t answer, he nodded his head. “Yeah, you are. Those green eyes and your face are embedded in my mind. My girlfriend Googled you after that shit about you being a rapist and shit hit the news.” He stuck out his hand. “I’m Joc, by the way. Nice to meet you.”
“Nice to meet you too, Joc.” I shook his hand.
“For the record, I don’t think you did it.”
“No?”
He shook his head. “Nope. And I’m not saying this only because I applied to be a delivery driver at RTD, either.”
I looked at him with raised brows and laughed. “Your vote of confidence is duly noted, Joc, and I thank you for it. I’ll have someone look into the application you filled out and get back to you, but I gotta go now.”
As I walked away, I thought the short conversation Joc and I had had was over; however, I wasn’t surprised to find Joc following behind me.
“Do you want to know why I don’t think you did it?” he called.
“I’m pretty sure you’re going to tell me whether I want you to or . . . ,” I began as I walked through the ER doors, but I trailed off when I noticed the woman from the picture Chasin had sent me pacing the emergency room floor with a scowl on her face. She had her cell phone glued to her ear and was talking a mile a minute and waving her hands in the air. It seemed that whoever she was talking to was asking a lot of questions and making her more irritated by the second. “Hey, Joc, hold that thought for a second. I see someone I need to speak to.”
Before he could respond, I was across the lobby and was standing in front of the plus-size beauty who I was sure had Chasin’s attention. When she noticed my presence, she looked at me and then shook her head. And then she just went on talking.
“Look, Fiona, don’t call my phone anymore, asking me all these damn questions,” she said into the phone. “If you’re so worried about Melonee, hop your ass off whoever’s dick I hear in the background and come up here.... Bitch, I don’t give a fuck. I told Mel to drop your trifling ass as a friend a long time ago.... On a scale of one to ten? Bitch, are you kidding me? It don’t matter how much pain she’s in! You, as her ‘best friend,’ should be up here to check on her regardless.... Proof is on his way. He had to drop off the munchkin. Wait, why am I explaining shit to you? Bring your ass up here, because Melonee wants you here. If not, trust and believe the next time I see you, I’ma slap the shit out of you.” She ended the call abruptly.
Once her call was done, she turned her attention to me and held her hand up to keep me silent. “I already know who you are and why you walked up to me, Roman. I’m Melonee’s aunt Brenae, but you can call me Bree. They just took her to the back, so I don’t know how she or the baby is doing right now.”
The Black Widow Clique Page 23