by Kiki Swinson
“But what if something happens to you? It’s not safe outside, honey,” my mother said.
“I am a big girl. I can handle myself.”
“Yes, she’s right. She handled herself so well after that car pulled away from her house that she ran back into her house and packed an overnight bag quicker than I could blink my eyes,” Alexia commented sarcastically.
“Please don’t tell us you’re going to be with Reese,” my mother said while she, my father, and my sister huddled around me.
“I’m not gonna tell y’all anything. Now if you guys don’t leave me alone, I will leave out of here and I won’t come back,” I threatened.
One by one, they moved out of my way and allowed me to leave the house. My sister stuck her head out the front door and said, “I know you’re going back home to be with Reese. So, be careful. Don’t wanna get a phone call from the cops saying that you were killed.”
I was going to hit Alexia below the belt with a nasty-ass comment, but I decided against it. I had better things to do and she wasn’t one of them.
* * *
It felt good to be going home to meet Reese. I knew he’d done some ridiculous things, but the fact that he came to get me from my parents’ house so he could get me out of harm’s way said not only that this man loved me, it also said that he wanted to protect my life at all costs. So, why not leave town with him? I knew that if he changed his ways, there was a strong possibility that I wouldn’t file for divorce.
Immediately after I got into my car, I called Reese. He answered my call on the second ring. “I just left my parents’ house,” I told him.
“Okay, well, be careful. And take the long way home just to make sure nobody is following you, because I’ve got to make one quick stop at the terminal and then I’ll be home after that,” he told me.
“I will. Don’t worry,” I assured him.
* * *
The drive to my house was a very long one considering the route I had to take. A couple of times I spotted a car going in the same direction as me, but when I switched things up and took exits and streets that weren’t on my route, I felt a sense of relief when I lost them.
I finally arrived in my neighborhood forty minutes later. But before I was comfortable enough to get out of my car, I drove by my street to make sure the coast was clear. After circling the block twice, I drove up to my house, parked my car in our garage, and lowered the garage door to make people think that no one was at home.
Once inside, I went into my kitchen to get a bottle of water and then I went into my bedroom to see if there was anything out of place. And when I realized that everything was still intact, I took off my clothes and lay down on my bed to watch a little bit of TV. I figured watching a few episodes of Black Ink Crew: New York would suffice until Reese made it home. Watching reality shows always kept my mind occupied. So, I guess tonight wouldn’t be any different.
* * *
I couldn’t believe that I dozed off waiting for Reese to come to the house so we could talk about where we were going when we left town. When I looked at the clock I noticed that I’d been sleeping for a couple of hours. And what’s crazy is, something told me to wake up. When I talked to Reese, he told me he was leaving his grandmother’s house and gonna make a quick stop to NIT and then he was coming straight here. So where the fuck was he?
Before I could grab my cell phone and dial his number, my phone started ringing. I picked it up from the nightstand next to my bed and looked down at the caller ID. I let out a sigh of relief when I saw that it was Reese calling me.
“Hello,” I said.
“Did I wake you up?” he asked. He sounded kind of weird.
“Reese, where are you?” I asked him, totally ignoring his question.
“I’m about to pull up to the house, so put on something and meet me outside.”
“Meet you outside for what? Do you know what time it is?” I screeched. He was making me angrier by the second because he was displaying some very odd behavior.
“Please don’t ask me any questions. Just do what I say,” he replied calmly.
“Bye,” I said, and then I disconnected our call.
I was furious at the thought that I had to get out of my bed and put on clothes to meet him outside. What kind of fucking game was he trying to play? I grabbed a sweatshirt and a pair of sweatpants from my dresser drawer and a pair of sneakers from my closet and got dressed. I grabbed a jacket from the hall closet and headed toward the front door. My adrenaline was pumping. I was already thinking of what I was going to say to him if he was making me come outside for nothing. He was going to feel my wrath once and for all.
Blinded by the headlights of Reese’s car parked in our driveway, I blinked my eyes a few times and then I held up my left arm to shield my eyes. I saw Reese’s silhouette in the driver’s seat, so I closed the front door behind me and walked over to his car. I was heading toward the driver side, until he rolled his window down halfway and told me to get into the car from the passenger side.
I obeyed his instructions and got into the car with him. As soon as I closed the door, I turned around and looked at him. “What the fuck is so important that I had to come outside and get into the car?” I asked him.
Reese wouldn’t open his mouth to respond.
“What’s wrong with you?” I questioned him.
A voice from behind me said, “He’s dead!”
I turned my face slightly to the left and saw an Asian man with a gun and a silencer pointed directly at me. My heart dropped in the pit of my stomach. Anxiety and fear crippled me as I slowly moved my eyes away from the Asian man, back to my husband’s face. At that moment, I realized that blood was seeping from a bullet hole in his head. I instantly froze. I knew then that this man was about to take my life too. “Where is my money?” He said softly.
“I don’t know,” I replied, heart beating uncontrollably. I couldn’t think clearly with Reese’s body starting to slump over in front of me.
“Look, bitch, I’m only gonna ask you one more time,” he warned me as he gritted his teeth.
“I swear, I don’t know.” I began to cry. I sat in the front seat of Reese’s car completely alone, in sheer terror. I had no one around to help me. What was I to do? How was I going to walk away from this situation alive?
“It’s in the house,” I lied.
“Get out of the car slowly,” he instructed me as he continued to point the gun in my face.
“Okay,” I said and grabbed ahold of the door handle. “I’m getting ready to open the door now, so please don’t shoot,” I begged him, hoping he understood what I was saying.
“Slow,” he replied, keeping the gun aimed at me.
I slowly opened the door and backed out of the car, never turning my head once. “I’m getting out now,” I explained while I watched the barrel of the gun. I knew that if I made the slightest move in the wrong way, he was going to blow my fucking head off my shoulders. And I didn’t want that. I wanted to live. I wanted to have a baby and love that child before I left this earth. But I wasn’t sure if that was going to happen. I see now why my father and everyone who loved me warned me about Reese. Reese was a ticking time bomb and he finally exploded. And from the way things looked, he was taking me down the same road too. I never deserved to reap all the bullshit he sowed. So why was I being punished for his misdeeds?
After carefully backing out of Reese’s car, I stood straight up and watched the Asian guy try to do the same. But when he moved to stand up, I pushed the back door against him like three times, making him collapse on the ground and drop his gun. I heard the gun hitting the pavement and then I heard it slide. He started cursing in his native language and I made a run for it.
I put one foot in front of the other one and ran toward my front door. I figured all I needed to do was get inside my house, lock my door, and call the cops and everything would be all right. Boy, was I wrong.
When I reached my front door and grabbed ahold of the d
oorknob and turned it, the fucking door wouldn’t open. “Shit! No! No! Please don’t tell me I locked myself out!” I began to cry, periodically looking back at the Asian guy as he searched for the gun. After making five attempts to open the front door, I decided to make a run for my next-door neighbor’s house. “Mrs. Mildred, Mr. Tom, please help me!” I screamed at the top of my voice as I ran toward their front door. I leaped across their lawn and made it to their front porch in less than three seconds. I immediately started banging on their front door. “Mrs. Mildred! Tom! Please open the door. Someone is trying to kill me!” I yelled.
Thankfully, Mr. Tom heard my cry and turned on the living room lights. “Who is it?” I heard him yell from the other side of the door. “It’s me, Dawn. Your next-door neighbor. Somebody is trying to kill me!” I continued to cry out. But then the front door opened and the light in the living room of his home shined brightly. A sense of relief fell upon me. And boy, was I happy to see this man’s face. He took a step toward me and said, “Who’s trying to kill you?” Before I could answer him, I felt a whoosh of air brush by my ear and a big hole opened in the middle of Mr. Tom’s forehead. Seconds later blood started leaking from it and then Mr. Tom collapsed down on the floor. I screamed and tried to make a run for it, but as soon as I stepped foot over Mr. Tom’s body, I felt heat in the back of my leg. I knew then that I was shot, and collapsed on the floor by Mr. Tom’s head. I turned around slowly to get another look at my killer. He was a short Asian guy. He looked like he was a young man, mid- to late twenties. He also had a look of death plastered on his face. That alone let me know that he was going to kill me. No matter what I did or said. Reese owed him money and I saw his face. That was the recipe for murder.
The Asian guy brought me back to reality when he said, “You Americans no good.”
“Fuck you!” I said. And for the life of me I couldn’t tell you why I said it. I guess I wasn’t afraid to die. Maybe Reese’s lifestyle had rubbed off on me, like my family said.
“You trash,” he said, and then I heard, “You killed my husband!” I opened my eyes and saw Mrs. Mildred open fire at that fucking Asian guy. Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom! She had a shotgun aimed at him and let him have four consecutive rounds. He fell backwards against the wall by her front door with four bullet holes carved through his little-ass chest.
“You fucking killer!” I yelled at him. “How you feel now? You can’t come around here and not think we’re gonna fight back, you fucking piece of shit!” I roared. I cursed at the dead guy for at least another fifteen seconds while Mrs. Mildred called 911 and held Mr. Tom in her arms the whole time.
I felt bad looking at her hold his lifeless body in her arms. If I hadn’t come over here, he wouldn’t be dead. Damn! I knew I was gonna feel fucked up about this for the rest of my life.
I just hoped that Mrs. Mildred didn’t hold any ill will toward me. I didn’t mean for her husband to get killed. Maybe one day she’d see that.
EPILOGUE
The paramedics decided to take me to the hospital even though I hadn’t suffered any major wounds. I was pretty beaten up by the images of Reese’s face after the Asian guy shot him. I didn’t know if I could ever erase that image from my head, but I did know that my husband died to protect me, and I owed him the world because of it.
While I was lying in the hospital bed, my mother, father, and sister showed up. Everyone looked happy to see me when they pulled the curtain back. “Baby, are you okay?” my mother was the first to say as she hugged me.
“Yes, how are you?” my dad wanted to know.
“I am beaten up a little bit, but I’m okay,” I told them.
Then Alexia walked over and stood next to me. A few seconds later, she smiled and hugged me. “You know I love you, right?”
“Yes, I know you love me,” I assured her as I kissed her on her cheek.
“How are you really feeling?” my mother asked.
“Mom, I am so torn up on the inside. Whether you guys liked him or not, I loved him with all his flaws. He will be truly missed.”
“Has someone contacted his grandmother?” my dad chimed in.
“I’m not sure. I’m hoping they’ll wait until morning; that way she won’t come out of the house this time of the night,” I said.
“Yes, I agree with you one hundred percent,” my mother commented.
“What kind of drugs have they given you?” Alexia asked me. And I knew exactly where she was going with this conversation.
“I’m not telling you,” I told her, and then I turned my attention to my dad because he walked closer to me. “What’s up, Dad?” He looked like he had something important on his mind.
“I know that I was a jackass when it came to Reese. So, right now I wanna say I’m sorry for how I treated him. And that I hope he’s going to a better place,” my dad said, as a tear appeared in his left eye.
I placed my hand over my dad’s cheek so I could catch the tear when it fell. I even used my other arm to embrace him. “I really appreciate you saying that, Daddy.”
Everyone stood around my bed until the doctor walked into the room. He introduced himself and then he used a few medical terms to sum up the diagnosis. After that, he expressed his sympathy because I lost Reese. I thought that was kind of him to say, especially since he didn’t know my husband. And before he left my room, he gave me specific instructions on how to treat my wounds. I thanked him and allowed my dad to push me out of the hospital in a huge wheelchair.
The wheelchair ride down the elevator to the front sliding doors of the hospital was one bumpy ride. “Stay right here, I’m gonna go and get my car,” my dad said, and then he raced off into the parking lot.
The night air was cool and breezy and the stars were out, shining on us. The light hit my face softly while I tried to look at the bright side of things because I was still alive, and my God in heaven and my neighbor made sure of that. But at the same time, it was bittersweet because I knew I wouldn’t see Reese ever again. I tried to come to grips with the fact that after I got in my dad’s car and left this hospital, my life would forever be different.
While I stared at the sky, in my peripheral vision I saw my father’s car coming toward us. “Are you ready, baby?” my mother asked me.
“Yeah, I guess,” I told her, looking up at her where she stood on my right. And when I turned my attention back toward the pickup area, a car pulled up in front of us with the passenger-side window rolled down. I gasped when I looked into the car and saw an Asian guy with a gun in his hand, pointed directly at me. My heart dropped into the pit of my stomach when I realized that this was the same car that had been parked outside my house all those times. “That is the car! He’s gonna kill—” I screamed but it was too late, the Asian guy had already pulled the trigger.
Boom! Boom!
Kiki Swinson, the bestselling author known for “fast, tension-packed” (Library Journal) novels featuring the glamour and grit of Virginia’s most notorious streets, shows what happens when a criminal partnership takes a detour that puts its members on the road to jealousy, revenge, and murder. . . .
THE SCORE
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LAUREN
Present Day
My feet moved at the speed of lightning. I could feel the wind beating on my skin so hard it made snot wet the inside of my nostrils. My entire body was covered with a thick sheen of sweat and I could feel it burning my armpits. My breath escaped my mouth in jagged, raggedy puffs and my chest burned. My heart felt like it would burst through the front of it. Even feeling as terrible as I did, I would not and could not stop moving.
“Move!”
“Get out of my fucking way!”
“Watch out!”
“Move!”
I screamed command after command at the nosy-ass people who were staring and gawking and being in my damn way. My legs were moving like those of a swift and agile cheetah as I swerved and swayed through the throngs of people on Virginia Beach Boulevard. I was met by
more than one mouthful of gasps and groans and I could faintly see more than one wide-eyed, mouth-agape stare as people gawked at me like I was a crazy woman. I guess I did look crazy running through the high-end shopping area with no shoes on. I had run straight out of my Louboutins, my expensive embellished Balmain skirt was hitched up around my hips, my vixen weave was blowing in the wind, and my Chanel caviar bag was strapped around my arm like a slave chain. I could feel that my makeup was a cakey, smudged mess all over my face and eyes. But I didn’t give a damn. I wasn’t going to stop running. No matter what. Looking crazy was the least of my worries.
I had run track in high school and it was still paying off now, but clearly I wasn’t in the same athletic shape. Still, I wasn’t about to go out like this. I wasn’t going to get captured on the street and probably murdered for something that wasn’t totally my fault. I had been pushed and provoked to do everything that I did. All of the mistakes. All of the grimy shit I had done over the years. All of it was because I was born at a disadvantage from day fucking one.
I didn’t want to die. I had always seen myself growing old with a few kids and grandkids surrounding me when I was ready to be settled. I would’ve given anything to be old and settled at this moment. But, of course, life threw me a curveball.
I could hear the thunderous footfalls of the three men chasing me. If they weren’t so damn gorilla big and slower than me they would have caught me by now.
“Hey! Are you okay?” I heard a man on the street yell at me as I flew past him, nearly knocking him over. Why the hell was he asking me such a dumb question when you could clearly see that I was being chased by three hulking goons dressed in all black with their guns probably showing on their waists or maybe even in their hands? Thank goodness I am always so alert or they would’ve walked right up on me while I unsuspectingly ate my lunch at the posh restaurant and grabbed me. It was the fact that I had only been back in town for a few hours, the disappearance of my lunch companion, and the suspicious looks that had alerted me in the first place. How could I have been so trusting? So naïve and stupid, too.