“No problem,” she said, and it was my turn to be shocked.
“A’ight, I’ma be right back,” I said, and she nodded her head. I didn’t know why she didn’t give me no pushback, but I wasn’t about to ask too many questions, either. I turned and headed back out the door before she changed her damn mind.
I made a quick run to the store to get the tests that I needed and stood in line, waiting for the slow-ass cashier to finish ringing up the three people who were in line in front of me. Had to love the hood. Why did they have ten damn registers in a store but never had more than one of them open?
When I walked back to Lauren’s apartment, I was shocked to see that the door was opened. I walked in and saw Lauren tied to a chair.
“What the fuck?” I asked, and she started bouncing around in the chair like she was trying to say something to me. I took several steps toward her before I was hit in the back of the head and knocked out.
* * *
Whap! Whap! Whap!
Three hard slaps to my face brought me to . . . and I found myself face-to-face with Rasheem. This nigga had a crazed look in his eyes, one that I knew all too well. I didn’t think I was gonna make it outta here alive, and if I didn’t, I was glad that I’d told Mika that I loved her before my life was taken from me—and by the nigga who coulda done right by her and fucked it up. Ain’t it funny how a muthafucka will blame every-damn-body but the nigga in the mirror for the bullshit that he did? Whatever he had in mind and whatever he did to Lauren and me, I knew for a fact that Mika wasn’t taking his ass back.
I was sitting on the floor with my hands cuffed in front of me, and my feet duct-taped together.
“So, you thought you could take my wife and my son?” Rasheem yelled at me, holding the gun to Lauren’s head.
“I ain’t tryin’a take shit. If you was takin’ care of business with your wife instead of out here making babies, I wouldn’t have been able to slide up in her—I mean, there,” I taunted him. I knew I was at a disadvantage, and egging his ass on wasn’t wise. But there were two rules that any street nigga knew could make or break a life-or-death situation. One, never show fear. Two, try to knock your opponent off his square and take the opportunity to get the advantage on his ass.
“You think you funny, huh, li’l nigga?” he snapped, turning the gun on me.
“Hey, best bitch! It’s done! That nigga gon’ be gone for a long-ass—”
POW!
The door opened, scaring his ass, and he fired without paying any attention. A white bitch fell into the house on her face, and a little boy, who had my whole face, rushed to her, screaming and crying.
“Auntie! Noooo!” the boy who I assumed was my son, Jasheem, yelled, hugging the woman in his tiny arms as she bled out from her chest. “Why you shoot my auntie?” he yelled at Rasheem, whose face was twitching.
I could tell that he didn’t care that he’d traumatized my child for life. He was more concerned with the repercussions of shooting the bitch, whoever she was. If his ass wasn’t goin’ to jail before, he sure as hell was now. I knew that he was planning to kill us all now, and then try to get the fuck outta here before one of the neighbors called the police. Yeah, we were in the projects, but this wasn’t one that had much gunplay, so it was only a matter of time before them red and blues came flashing.
Thinking fast, I eased up the wall while he stared at Jasheem and the white bitch on the floor. By the time he caught on to what I was doin’, I was on my feet and lunging at him. I didn’t care about getting shot. I just needed to get the gun off my son. That was all I could think about. He tried to move his gun hand toward me, but I swung my cuffed hands and knocked it away.
POW!
“Mamaaaa!” Jasheem’s scream made me look over at Lauren, who now had a bullet hole in her chest.
Fuck, man! I thought. This nigga was reckless as hell and had just killed two bitches in this fuckin’ house. I knew that if I didn’t get the best of his ass, Jasheem and I were next.
“Look what you made me do!” he yelled at me, like any of this was my fault.
I didn’t even entertain that bullshit. Clasping my hands together, I swung and hit his ass in the head with a double fist. He fell to his knees and dropped the gun, then fell backward with force into the chair where Lauren was, knocking her over with him. I managed to crawl over to him and started pummeling his ass in the face with my hands still clasped together. I was trying to kill that nigga with my bare hands but stopped when I thought about the fact that my son had seen two people already die today. I didn’t want him to witness a third death and definitely not by my hands.
I was breathing hard, and my adrenaline was pumping. Trying to compose myself, the sound of my son’s wails brought me back to my senses. Looking down, I pushed Rasheem’s head to make sure that he was unconscious. When I was convinced that he was, I looked over at
Jasheem. He looked so helpless, and it was fucked up that he’d lost his innocence at such a young age. I could tell that he was a sweet boy like I was at his age—before the world got ahold of me.
“Jasheem,” I called to him, but he was rocking back and forth, looking between his mother’s limp body and the white woman who he had called his aunt. He was covered in blood, and his face was wet with tears. “Jasheem,” I called out to him again.
He finally looked at me, but his little body was shivering so hard. I tried to stand up, but my feet were still bound. I needed to get to my child and comfort my son. Seeing him like this was killin’ a nigga on the inside.
“Do you know who I am?” I asked him.
He nodded his head weakly, and that made me smile. I was happy that Lauren had at least told my son about me. And it was obvious that he was my son. A blind man could see that shit, and that let me know why Shontelle was so mad about it.
“You’re my daddy,” he said, and hearing that in his voice made my heart melt.
“Good. I need your help, OK? I need you to be a big boy for me, a’ight? I know this is hard, but I wanna try to see if I can help your mama and your auntie. Can you help me out?” I asked as calmly and soothingly as possible. It was strange how easily this fatherhood shit was coming to me. I never liked kids before, but I guess it’s different when it’s your own seed.
“Oh . . . O-O-OK,” he said, standing up and walking toward me.
“You know where some scissors are?” I asked him, and he nodded his head, running off down the hallway. He came back with a pair of safety scissors, and it was so cute that I wanted to laugh, but I knew that this wasn’t the time for all that.
“Here!” he said, proudly handing me the scissors.
“Those are great, but I need some that are stronger so that I can cut your mama and me free,” I said, and he looked confused. “Do you know where any grown-up scissors are?”
“Mama said that I can’t play with those, because she don’t want me to get hurt,” he said, still respecting his mother’s wishes, even when it was clear that she couldn’t do anything to punish him. Lauren had done a great fuckin’ job with him, and it showed. That was definitely her doing, because having my DNA inside of him, his ass should’ve been happy to do some shit he ain’t have no business doing. I knew I would’ve done the shit at that age.
“And she’s right. But just this one time, I need you to get them for me,” I said, then thought about it. “You know what? Can you tell me where they are?”
“I’ll go get ’em. You can’t walk. But only if you promise I won’t get in trouble.”
“I promise. If your mama gets mad about it, I’ll tell her I told you to do it, OK?”
That seemed to be good enough for him because he took off again, but this time, he went to a different room from the one that he had gone into initially. I assumed the first room was his, and the one he’d just gone into was his mama’s. He came out, carrying the scissors, walking with them slowly. It took a second for me to realize that he didn’t wanna run with the scissors. I said a silent prayer that Lauren wasn’t dead. I
wanted to thank her for being a great fuckin’ mama to my son.
While he was going to get the scissors, I searched Rasheem’s body, looking for the keys to the handcuffs that he’d put on me. I couldn’t find them, and that pissed me off. I needed to be fully capable of handling this nigga if he came to before the cops got here. I blew out a frustrated breath, shaking my head, looking down at this nigga. All this was because of him, and he was still ruining lives. One thing that my mama always told me was that a man’s ego was the biggest weakness that he would ever possess. Rasheem Blake was proof of that shit.
When Jasheem finally reached me, he handed me the scissors like he didn’t wanna chance getting caught with them. I smiled at him, and he stood there, big-eyed, watching my every move. I leaned down and cut my feet loose, finally able to stand. I tucked the scissors in the waistband of my joggers, picked my son up, and looked into his eyes. He gave me a tight hug, and I swear it was the best thing that had ever happened to me in my life.
“Nice to meet you, my nigga,” I said to him, and he smiled at me. He being able to smile in the midst of what was going on showed me just how strong he was. Suddenly, I heard a moan and realized that it was Lauren. Walking over to the couch, I put li’l man down before rushing to the chair that Lauren was tied to. I cut the tape from her arms and legs first and then pulled the tape from her mouth.
She fell forward, and I caught her in my arms. She was barely breathing, but I was happy that she was breathing at all. I put her on the floor and went over to the white lady, but I could tell by the look in her eyes that she was dead. There was no saving her. I didn’t want to make Jasheem panic, so I had to think of something to get him away from this situation. I didn’t know if his mama was gonna meet the same fate that his “aunt” had, but I didn’t want him here to witness the shit, just in case. And I didn’t want him to be in harm’s way when Rasheem woke up.
“Jasheem,” I called to him, and when I looked up, I realized that he had been standing on the sofa, watching everything that I did.
“Boy, get your shoes off my couch,” Lauren moaned, making us both look at her. I was happy that she was a fighter, and I was sure that it was because of our son. Either way, seeing her open her eyes, even if they were rolling back in her head and she was in obvious pain, them bitches were open. She had a chest wound that was bleeding pretty badly. But it wasn’t in the same spot as the other woman’s.
Jasheem slid down onto the couch and then off the couch and onto the floor. Running over to his mama, he kneeled beside me, grabbing her face in both of his hands and kissing her all over it. She gave him a weak smile, but I could tell that she needed medical help soon, or she would be meeting her maker.
“Get my phone, ca-ca-call 911, and go to your special place,” Lauren said to Jasheem. I was glad that she had prepared a strategy to protect him in case some crazy shit happened to her, and he was home. She was grown as hell, and just like me, she knew the kinda life she was living and how the shit could go wrong quick as hell. But that didn’t mean that our son had to be hurt because of it. I was getting more and more respect for her by the minute.
Without another word, he ran to the table and picked up his mama’s phone and hurried off toward his room. I looked at her, and her eyes were starting to close again. I hated the fact that cops were always in a rush to lock up a nigga, but when we needed their asses to protect and serve, they were missing like a stripper’s thong on a big-money night.
“Aaaah! Daddy!”
Hearing Jasheem scream out, I looked in the direction of the sound and felt my stomach drop. I had been so excited that Lauren had come to that I hadn’t paid attention to the fact that Rasheem’s ass had too. And this coward-ass nigga was holding my son by the back of his neck—with a fuckin’ gun to his damn head.
“Yo, man! Yo’ beef is wit’ me, not my kid. Let him go, and you handle this shit with me like a man,” I said, and he laughed like I’d made a joke.
“Nah, my nigga. You took something of mine, so I’m gon’ take something of yours too.”
“Rasheem, what the fuck are you doin’?” I heard behind me. I wanted to turn around to be sure that it was who I thought it was, but I didn’t want to take my eyes off my son, or Rasheem because I knew this nigga was unstable, and I was trying to find an opening so that I could get my boy away from this muthafucka.
“I knew you would come sniffin’ behind this nigga’s dick,” Rasheem said, confirming that it was Mika who had come into the house. I looked up to the heavens and prayed that we all made it outta this shit. But I had a feeling that, if Rasheem was going down, he planned to take as many of us as he could with him. He was already a body and a half down, and now, he had three more hostages. Where the fuck are the cops? I thought, hoping that Mika had called them since Jasheem hadn’t had the chance to.
Chapter Nineteen
Mika
Previously
Right when I was about to pay for my room for the night, I had gotten a call from Ky’Imani saying that she was worried about me because her daddy kept calling her. This nigga was pulling out all the stops to try to make me take his ass back. She said she had a bad feeling and would feel better if I came home, so I did. The way my child hugged me sent a chill down my spine. I made sure to lock the door, set the alarm, and send Joy my location and a message to activate Plan B, in case some shit popped off. Today had been a crazy day, and I wanted to get ahead of anything else that might happen.
After a bubble bath, giving each other pedicures, and dinner, it seemed that Ky had calmed down some. We’d decided to make ice-cream sundaes and have a mother-daughter Netflix and Chill night to ease both our minds.
Beep-Beep-Beep! Beep-Beep-Beep!
“Dang, Mama, can’t you turn that thing off?” Ky fussed, pausing the movie we were watching.
“Work calls, hon,” I said, and realistically, the only reason that I was about to return the call was that it was Jakeel’s mama. Anybody else would’ve just had to wait. Like Joy said, a bitch deserved a mini vacation.
“Hey, Ms. Greene, everything OK?” I asked, knowing that if she were calling me, it wasn’t.
“No. Jakeel didn’t come home from y’all’s check-in. Is he with you?” she asked, and that chill came back.
“No, he’s not. I left him at my office,” I told her, and she got quiet. I didn’t speak because I was racking my brain, trying to figure out where the hell Jakeel had gone. “Maybe he’s at the girl’s house that has his son.”
That was the last thing that I’d asked of him, and I hoped that it hadn’t been a mistake. If he had gone over there and slipped back inside of her pussy, that shit would destroy me.
“I don’t know, baby. But I just got this weird feeling that somethin’ ain’t right,” she said, and the worry in her voice made me check my location app that we used for all of our parolees.
“I’ve got his location here. I’ll try to call him, and if I can’t reach him, then I’ll go check,” I told her.
“Thank you, Mika. Please, let me know?” she almost pleaded.
“I promise,” I vowed before ending the call. If I knew one thing, it was that a mother’s intuition was rarely wrong. If she felt that something was wrong with her child, then that was probably the case.
“Mama, where you goin’?” Ky asked, and I could see the worry all over her face.
“One of my parolees missed curfew, baby. I gotta go get his ass,” I said, trying to make it sound like a routine violation.
“Something don’t feel right about this. Is this the parolee that Daddy keeps accusing you of sleeping with?” she asked, and I immediately became pissed. He knew better than to tell our child some shit like that!
“Yes, baby. But that’s not for you to worry about.”
“Are you sleeping with him?” she asked, and I nodded my head.
“But it’s more than that, baby girl. I wanted you to meet him because, well, we’re in love.”
“Oh boy,” she said, shaki
ng her head. I didn’t have time to discuss this with my child right now. And if her father weren’t such a dumb ass, I wouldn’t be discussing it with her at all, until the time was right. I didn’t want her to find out like this.
“Listen, I promise I’ll be right back. And then we can finish our mother-daughter night,” I promised, hoping that I would be able to keep both the promises that I had just made to Ms. Greene and Ky’Imani.
“Mama, please be careful,” she begged, and it made my stomach flip. She always told me to be careful when I went to violate a parolee, and it made sense because my job was dangerous. But there was something in her voice tonight that made me feel like it wasn’t Jakeel that concerned her.
“I’m always careful,” I said with a huge smile across my face. I was trying to calm her spirit, but I knew that she wouldn’t be OK until I made it back home.
Giving my daughter a tight hug, I ran upstairs and put on my bulletproof vest, a black hoodie, black leggings, and some black steel-toed boots. I put on my waist holster and checked to make sure that both my Glocks were loaded before putting them in the holsters. I put my revolver in my left boot and made my way toward the door.
“I love you, Mama,” Ky yelled at me, and the strain in her voice was breaking my heart. It made me want to stay here, but if I stayed home every time she was worried about me, I wouldn’t have been as successful in my job as I had been. I turned around, running into the living room, and kissed the top of her head before heading out the door. I made a mental note to be extra careful because of the uneasiness that Ky was feeling about this particular encounter.
* * *
I made it to the location that Jakeel was showing in record time. I was driving like a bat outta hell, but it felt like something was on my side too. I hadn’t gotten stopped by any cops or red lights. I just hoped my luck didn’t end when I got there. I saw Jakeel’s truck parked in the parking lot and pulled up to the curb. Throwing the car in park, I hoped that I would be able to figure out which apartment he was in. I put my badge around my neck so that I was identified as law enforcement, hoping that it would motivate someone to help me. Getting out, a woman frantically rushed up to me.
Finessed a Dope Boy's Heart Page 16