by Tracy Brown
Frankie’s face fell instantly. “Pregnant?” His body language showed that this news had caught him completely off guard. He put his hands in his pockets, then wiped his mouth. Finally, he folded his arms across his chest.
Gillian, on the other hand, didn’t flinch. To Camille, she looked almost numb, as if the pain of losing her father had drained all the fight out of her.
“Nine weeks,” Camille confirmed, staring at her rival. She turned her attention back to Frankie. “You may not want to be with me anymore, but now there’s a child. When you’re ready to talk, I’ll be at home waiting.”
Gillian had looked to Frankie for his reaction. He had stood there in obvious shock as Camille calmly sauntered out, confident that she’d ruined their fairy-tale plans.
Frankie had been calling the house ever since. Camille’s cell phone battery was dead so his calls went straight to voice mail. Frustrated, Frankie had started calling Camille at home. There had been no answer, and the ringing phone had tormented Misa, who had just committed first-degree murder.
Camille glanced at her sister, who was sitting there looking so dazed. She gripped the phone tighter, wondering how the hell she could tell Frankie that his brother was dead—that Misa had killed him.
“We have to talk,” Frankie said.
Camille shook her head. He had no idea how right he was. “Frankie, I can’t right now … Misa’s here…”
“Camille, come on. This can’t really wait.”
“I’ll call you back.” Camille hung up before Frankie could protest further, before he could ask if his brother was there. She looked helplessly at Misa. “We have to call the police.”
Misa shrugged her shoulders again. She didn’t care. The pain of knowing that Shane had been touched inappropriately by a perverted freak was more punishment than any the police could dish out. “Call ’em.”
Camille took a deep breath and dialed 911. Two rings later, an operator answered.
“What is your emergency?”
“Somebody’s been shot.”
Truth and Consequences
Police swarmed Camille’s beautiful home. They sealed off the kitchen—the crime scene—as well as the dining room where Steven’s blood stained the wall, and were attempting to interrogate Misa in the living room. Misa, however, had so far refused to answer most of the officers’ questions. She had acknowledged that she was the shooter. But aside from that, she was not cooperating much. To each of their questions, she answered simply, “I want to talk to my lawyer.”
Camille had to laugh at that. Misa had no damn lawyer. Neither did Camille. In fact, Camille didn’t have shit! Everything was Frankie’s. And Misa had just murdered Frankie’s brother. Camille trembled as the enormity of the situation became crystal clear. Her sister was going to jail, and Camille had no idea how they would manage to get her out. Now, the police were asking where her husband was—the brother of the dead man. Camille felt as if everything were moving in slow motion.
“I’ll call him.”
They watched as she slowly, deliberately dialed Frankie’s cell phone number. Camille didn’t miss the irony that he was eagerly answering her phone calls ever since she’d dropped the pregnancy bombshell on him. Recently, he’d been ignoring her repeated attempts to reach him, but not tonight. She took a deep breath as his deep voice filled her ear after only two rings. “Hello?”
“Frankie…” Camille’s voice was barely above a whisper. She looked around at the police milling about her home, snapping pictures and searching through things that had nothing to do with the crime scene. She looked at her sister again and saw that Misa was trying to be tough. Still, Camille could tell that she was scared to death and that she wanted to cry but was fighting that urge. Her own voice was shaky as she spoke. “Steven is hurt. You need to come home right away.”
Frankie immediately panicked. Had Jojo—the Nobles family’s murderous enemy who’d had a thirst for revenge ever since his brother Dusty had disappeared—come gunning for Steven as a way to get at Frankie? He climbed out of bed and walked into the nearby bathroom, leaving Gillian lying awake in the dark. She sat up and tried to listen closely to his end of the conversation.
“What’s going on, Camille?” he asked, the desperation in his voice so clear. “Are you all right? Is somebody there with you? Where’s my brother?” Frankie whispered, too, now hoping not to alarm Gillian.
Camille began to cry. How could she tell him that Steven’s body was at that very moment being toe-tagged and bagged up? Thankfully, the senior officer on the scene took the telephone from her and cut to the chase. He identified himself as Sergeant Denton and asked if Frankie was the homeowner. When Frankie confirmed that he was, Sergeant Denton explained briefly that the residence was being processed as a crime scene and they had a suspect in custody at the scene. “Mr. Bingham, we have a deceased victim here, whom we’d like you to come home and identify, as your wife informs us that you are his next of kin.”
Frankie heard the word “deceased” echoing in his head again and again. He closed his eyes and tried to digest all of it. “My brother? He’s dead?”
“We believe so, sir,” the officer answered honestly. “But we’d like for you to come down and—”
Frankie hung up and felt like he was living a nightmare. Steven was dead. First his father figure, Doug Nobles, had been murdered, and now his brother. Tears filled his eyes as he sat in the darkened bathroom, digesting what he’d just been told. He wondered if things could possibly get any worse.
Frankie went into defensive mode and called some of the goons to come over and secure the house until he came back. Assuming that whatever had happened to Steven was retaliation for Dusty’s murder, Frankie surmised that the entire crew was now under attack. And as far as he was concerned, Gillian was the most important person among all of them. If a hair on her head was touched, he would never forgive himself. Hanging up with his boys, he went into the bedroom where Gillian was still lying in bed, and started getting dressed.
He replayed the conversation with Sergeant Denton in his mind. Steven was dead. A suspect was in custody. With a million thoughts racing through his head, Frankie spoke over his shoulder as he put on his clothes. “Danno and Biggs are coming over to keep an eye on things until I get back.”
Gillian was confused.
“What’s wrong? Why do they need to come over here? What did Camille want?”
Frankie looked at Gillian. Her long hair hung loosely around her bare shoulders and the moonlight caught her face so delicately that she looked like a porcelain doll. It had already been a whirlwind evening since Camille had dropped her bombshell. Frankie had spent the past two hours reassuring Gillian that, kid or no kid, he was in love with her and not with Camille. Now, he was being called home to deal with the apparent death of his brother and the possibility that Camille was also in danger.
Gillian got out of bed and pulled on her long black silk bathrobe with concern etched on her face.
“I thought I heard you say that your brother is … dead?” She covered her mouth with her hands as she said it, her voice catching in her throat. She prayed that she hadn’t heard him correctly.
Looking at Gigi, Frankie felt so sorry for her. Her father had just been murdered and her brother seriously wounded. Doug Nobles’s funeral had just occurred only days prior and Gillian was still clearly fragile. Frankie didn’t want to upset her further—at least not until he had all the facts.
“I don’t know if it’s him for sure. I’m gonna go and see. But I just want to make sure you’re all right while I’m gone.” Frankie quickly kissed Gillian on the forehead before dialing Tremaine’s number.
“I need you to come with me to Staten Island,” he said into the phone. “We got a problem.”
* * *
Earlier that evening, Toya had come home from work, exhausted. Noticing that her screen door was unlocked, she had cursed herself for being careless and forgetting to lock it when she’d left for work that morn
ing. But when she saw her front door was also unlocked, she knew immediately that something was wrong. Toya pulled her gun out of her purse and slowly opened the door, stepping quietly into her house.
She looked around for her dog. Her Pomeranian, Ginger, usually met her at the door, eager for a walk after being locked up all day with the wee-wee pads. But Ginger was nowhere to be found. She noticed the kitchen light on and knew that someone was in there. She slowly inched toward it, ready to fire at the slightest movement. Entering the kitchen, she cocked her gun and stopped, stunned.
Her father, Nate, stood against the kitchen counter holding her dog in his arms. He had picked her locks and waited for her to get home. Toya would have shot him on sight, but he had an advantage. Ginger was her weakness and there was no way she would ever put her dog in danger. Nate knew this, after having watched her from a distance for weeks, and was using it to his advantage.
“I just want to talk to you, Latoya. Now I’ve tried to call you, tried to come by here and you keep refusing. I didn’t want to go this route, but you forced me.”
She had wanted to spit in his face. “Talk, bitch! And it better be good or I swear to God, I’ll kill your ass tonight.”
Nate had known that his daughter wouldn’t be happy to see him. After all, he’d been a brutal and often cruel parent and Toya had certainly suffered the worst of it. Knowing she wouldn’t need much of an excuse to shoot him, he wasted no time getting right to the point.
“I’m about to die, Latoya,” he had said solemnly. “And before I die, I wanted to come and tell you that I’m sorry.”
Toya had slowly lowered the gun then. She wasn’t sure why, since part of her wanted to pull the trigger and speed up his death. But there was something in his tone that made her pause. Toya could hear defeat in his voice, something she’d never sensed from him before. Nate had always been ready for a fight, but tonight he looked as if life had kicked his ass. Sizing him up, she noticed for the first time that he appeared to have lost a lot of weight. She had always recalled her father being a menacing presence in her life. Now, he looked frail, thin, and drawn.
Nate cleared his throat.
“I need a bone marrow transplant and so far they can’t find a match for me.”
Toya smirked and held her gun tighter. “Mmm-hmm. So you thought you could come here to convince me to be a donor?” She shook her head. “Let me save you the trouble. You can drop dead as far as I’m concerned.”
Nate cringed a little. “Latoya, I’m not here to ask you for nothing.”
“Good.”
“I came here to talk to you. And all I want is a chance for you to hear me out. Hear what I have to say to you. Then you can cuss me out and kick me out if that’s what you want.”
“What could you possibly have to say to me?” she asked, shaking her head.
“I do want to tell you that I’m sorry, Latoya, but there’s a lot of things you don’t know, a lot that I need to explain to you before it’s too late.”
Toya thought about it. It seemed to her that this tyrant wanted to clear his conscience before he went to meet his maker. Again, she considered squeezing the trigger and ending it all. He didn’t deserve a chance to be heard.
Sensing her hesitation, Nate said, “Please, baby girl. Just hear me out.” He held Ginger close to his chest, and the dog squirmed and looked pleadingly at Toya.
Toya hesitantly put the gun’s safety on and led the way to her dining room. She sat at her dining room table across from her father, and he finally set Ginger free. The dog ran over and jumped into her lap.
“Hurry up and say what you gotta say,” she demanded.
“I watched my daddy kill a man when I was twelve years old,” Nate said, matter-of-factly. “And by the time I was seventeen I had killed a man myself while defending my mama. I came home from work one night and found Mama arguing with our landlord. The nigga called my mother a bitch and when she protested, he slapped her.” Nate shook his head. “He ain’t never slap nobody else after that.” He sighed. “By the time I met your mother I had seen a lot of things. I had grown up long before I moved out of my mama’s house. Seeing the shit that I saw made me tough. I guess it made me a bully sometimes. But when I met your mother … she brought out the best in me.”
Toya sucked her teeth. “That ain’t how I remember it.”
Toya’s mother had been a teacher. And although her salary had been paltry, she had a degree and a career—two things Nate had never had in all his life. Nate had quit school at the age of fourteen and worked at a steel mill, long hard hours for such little pay that it frustrated and angered him. That anger reared its head whenever he drank, which eventually became a daily occurrence. And Nate was a mean drunk.
“I have a thousand memories of you telling her that she was a dumb bitch, that she was lucky to have a nigga like you for a husband.” Toya shook her head, recalling those painful words.
She had never understood why her mother—a woman who came from a family of college graduates, old money, and prestige—had fallen for and married a man as good for nothing as Nate. Hailing from Georgia, Toya’s mother, Jeanie, had moved to New York City in search of some fun and excitement and found both in Nate. He lived in her Brooklyn neighborhood and was a fixture there. He worked at a steel mill in New Jersey but his main source of income was his gambling. Everyone in the neighborhood knew Nate. Jeanie was a lovely new face on the scene. The unlikely pair had an unmistakable chemistry in the beginning. Nate was proud to be the object of Jeanie’s desire and had considered himself lucky to have found such a good woman. His lack of education didn’t bother her. She was too impressed by his Brooklyn swagger, good looks, and sense of humor to care. Plus, Nate was making a decent wage at his job, and in the beginning things had been perfect. As their family grew, Nate worked longer hours to make ends meet. By the time Latoya, their fourth child, was born, the family was barely getting by. Nate’s drinking had increased and Jeanie was dismayed when he was finally fired from his job. She had to shoulder the financial burden all by herself and it seemed that no matter what she did, it was never good enough.
“I was cruel to your mother,” Nate admitted, his eyes downcast. “I used to cuss at her, call her names.”
“You used to kick her ass.” Latoya didn’t want Nate to forget that little detail. “Brutally! You used to kick all our asses.”
Nate looked at his only daughter and was ashamed. He nodded. “Yes, I did.”
Latoya was relentless. “You felt like a man when you did that? Beating up on females and little boys made you feel powerful? Is that what it was?”
Nate didn’t know how to answer that, so he sat in silence and looked at Toya.
“Wanna go down memory lane?” she asked facetiously. “Let’s talk about the time I came home from school and found you fucking that bitch Miss Crystal right there in my mother’s bed!” Toya shook her head as if her father should be absolutely ashamed of himself. “Your wife’s best friend. You couldn’t keep your dick out of anything!” She felt her blood boil, felt her hand instinctively inch toward her gun lying on the table. “Remember that night when you came in my room when my friend Stephanie had spent the night?”
“Now, Latoya, I told you—”
“She was only thirteen years old, you fuckin’—”
“I was high…”
“You tried to pull her pants down and fuck my friend … She was just a little girl, you sick bitch!”
“Latoya, I told you I was out of my mind that night.” Nate lowered his eyes, ashamed of the ugly truth. He had spent years getting high and drunk as a way to forget the events of that night. He had come home and found that Jeanie wasn’t there. For some reason—a reason he was never able to fully come to terms with—he stumbled into Toya’s room and found her friend sleeping there in the spare bed. Nate had snapped out of a twisted trance only when Toya clawed at his face and Stephanie kicked him in his nuts.
“I didn’t know what I was doing.”
/> Toya’s fingers brushed against the cold steel of her nine as she glared at her father, remembering the terror she felt that night when the father she already hated had the nerve to cross a very sick line. “I should have killed you then,” she said. “I should have plunged a knife into your chest and watched you die.”
Nate stared at her, knowing that she was contemplating it now.
Toya thought back on that hot summer evening when her sweaty and belligerent father had entered her room, clawing at her friend in ways they both knew weren’t right. Toya had fought him off savagely, crying and kicking at her father until he retreated in pain when she hit her mark. She was embarrassed, ashamed of what had happened to her friend. Stephanie had been scared and so had Toya, and Nate only made them more afraid, as they watched him go from apologetic to menacing in minutes. Nate had apologized to Stephanie, begging her to keep her mouth shut about what happened and swearing that it was all a misunderstanding. Then he threatened to kill Toya if she ever told her mother. Toya had kept that dirty little secret among many others over the years, never wanting to bring more pain to her mother than what she was already enduring.
“I was never a good father or husband,” he said.
Toya laughed as if this were the biggest understatement. Nate tried not to notice and continued.
“When you guys were little I used to drink a lot. And when I would get drunk, I would turn into somebody else.”
Toya recalled how her father barked orders at her and her brothers, even when they were little. Whenever he came home, the drama erupted.
“I mean, you come in here and make it sound like you were just unkind. You were a muthafuckin’ monster! You would go out there in the street and get so drunk and so high that you would pass out on the fuckin’ porch and sleep out there all night in a heap on the doorstep. We would have to step over you on our way to school. All of our friends used to see you out there like that. And then when you woke up, you would terrorize everybody. You cheated on your wife openly. You used to beat the boys until they cried like girls. You would make my life hell and beat your beloved wife bloody all the time. Don’t you think that’s why God is snatching your miserable life away from you?”