by Shan
“Talk about what? The last time I saw you, you were waving a gun in my damn face,” Jahzara said as she pulled her hand out of her purse, and I saw see that she had a grip on a small .357.
“Damn! It’s like that? You don’t trust your husband anymore?”
“My ex-husband! What do you want, Quin? I replaced your shit, so you have no business contacting me.”
“Why did you take my shit in the first place, and why the fuck did you give it to that nigga?”
“Excuse me? Why did I take your shit? Why didn’t you leave me any money to pay the damn bills? Look! I’m not about to stand out here and discuss this with you. I promised my parents that I would stop by to see them and let them know that I am okay after the bullshit you pulled at their home.”
“You’re gonna let them know that you’re okay? Have you looked in the mirror lately? You look far from okay.”
“As long as I’m alive that’s all they care about. I gotta go.”
“Jahzara, wait!” I yelled as I jumped out of the car and grabbed her by her arm before she could get away from me.
I didn’t want this conversation to be over since I hadn’t gotten adequate answers to my questions yet. Jahzara looked down at the hand that I had on her arm and raised her gun a little higher than waist level.
“My bad. Can we just go somewhere and talk? I’m not trying to do anything but talk. I got a lot that I want to get off of my chest, and I wanna hear what you have to say, too.”
“I don’t have anything to say, Quin. I said everything that I wanted to when I signed those papers.”
“Damn! It’s that easy for you? Can you, at least, come with me and hear what I got to say?”
“I’m listening.”
“Not here. Can we go somewhere else? Back to the house or something?”
“Hell, no, nigga! I’m not going anywhere with you! You put a gun in my face the last time you saw me and treated me like a damn stranger.”
“I apologize for that. I was wrong as fuck, but I was, also, pissed. I’ve thought things over, and, now, I wanna talk. Is that cool? Can we do that?”
“Quin, I don’t have anything to say. I’m happy where I am,” Jahzara crossed her arms over her chest and stared at me defiantly.
“Well, can you just listen to what I have to say then?” I slid my hands into my pockets and waited for her answer. She looked around before dropping her head into her chest.
“Yeah, I guess so, but I’m only listening. I’m not saying anything.”
I nodded my head in agreement and walked her around to the passenger side of the car to help her in. I decided that taking Jahzara back to my house was the best thing to do, considering this was where we’d had our fondest memories. I hoped that, by taking her there, she would remember all of the good times we’d had and agree that we had both fucked up and that our relationship was worth working on. I hated that things were the way they were now and really wanted to get to the bottom of how it had gotten this way.
Once I pulled into the driveway, I get out of the car and proceed to walk around to open Jahzara’s door when the deafening sound of gunshots resonate through the air. I ducked down behind the back of the car but realized that it was too late when an agonizing pain radiated through my back. I tried crawling around to the other side to get to Jahzara, but I was hit once more in my leg and then another time to my shoulder.
“Quin!” Jahzara yelled.
I wanted to get to her. Try to stop her and tell her to run and hide, but I was unable to move my mouth to say anything. I was forced onto my back and made to look down the barrel of the gun that was pointed at my head. Blood filled my lungs, and breathing suddenly become exhausting and something that I no longer cared to do. I closed my eyes at the sound of the next shots that were fired.
POW! POW!
I waited for death to take over, waited for the excruciating pain to leave my body, hoped that I saw the light that people always talked about when your time on earth was up.
“Quin! Oh, my god! We gotta get you to the hospital!”
My eyes flickered open, and that gun was no longer there, but Jahzara’s bruised face was now looking down at me. She reached down and grabbed my arms and began to pull me in the direction of the car. Her face strained with pain, and sweat dripped from her forehead from the struggle of trying to get me to the car.
“Hang on, Quin! Just hang on!”
6 Imran
"Aye, Kira! Where you at? I bought some take out!" I yelled, while placing the Chinese food containers on the cabinet. I grabbed a beer out the fridge and a small saucer for my food.
"You need to pick the phone up and talk to that damn girl. She's been calling here every hour looking for you. What if Jahzara answers the phone?" Kira said in her southern drawl. She casually strolled over to the food containers and looked inside.
"Jahzara will have to open her mouth and speak before she can even answer the phone."
"Mmph! Well, had you come home and checked on her and not gone straight to your room, then you would know that Jahzara has done a lot more than talking. And had you checked your messages, then you would know that she is visiting her parents right now."
"What do you mean she's visiting her parents?"
"She got up this morning and said she wanted to go see her parents. Let them know she was okay because they sounded worried when she called them the other day."
"Why the fuck you didn’t tell me she was talking, Kira? I go in the damn room every day, and she stares upside my head like I’m a damn foreigner or some shit!” I said angrily and grabbed a glass from the cabinet.
“When she first started talking, she said that she didn’t wanna see you, and I let her have that, but I thought you would’ve had, at least, noticed by now. But you’ve been coming in so late and going straight to that damn bedroom. She said she wanted to see her parents, and I thought that was fine.”
“No, they should’ve come to visit her! She took a fuckin’ bullet, and you thought it was fine for her to leave the house!"
I rushed out of the kitchen and into the bedroom, hoping that Kira was playing a joke on me and that she had not let Jahzara out of this house. She was in no shape to be up out of the damn bed. It'd only been a few days since she had been damn near beaten to death and suffered a gunshot wound.
"I didn't think it would be a problem. The doctor said that if she was up…"
"I don't give a fuck what the doctor said. I paid you to look after her, take care of her, and you let her go back into the streets! You better be glad we're fuckin' family!"
I stormed out of the room and back into the kitchen where I had left my keys. Kira was my cousin on my mom's side, a damn good nurse that lost her license because she couldn't keep her nose clean. Whenever one of my soldiers get into a lil’ problem in the streets, she was the first person that I called to come and handle the situation.
"Imran, where are you going? You should just wait until she comes—"
My front door flew open, and I reached for the pistol strapped to my side until I realized that it was Jahzara. Her face and clothes were covered in blood. Her eyes held a look of terror, evident that something had her shook. Kira and I both ran over to her and pulled at her clothing to try and figure out where the blood was coming from.
"Baby, what happened? Talk to me! Did your wound come open?" I frantically asked.
"They shot him. Right in front of me… they shot him, like he was just a dog in the street," Jahzara said as she looked down at blood that covered her hands. Her hands began to tremble as if she were just noticing the red substance for the first time.
"Shot who? What happened? Are you hit?" I asked.
I reached for her shirt, pulled it over her head, and tossed it to the floor. Everything was still patched up perfectly as it was before.
"My husband! They shot Quin! They shot Quin!" Jahzara cried out in agony.
My face contorted in anger, listening to her refer to that muthafucka as her
husband. The relationship between the two of them was over. She had signed the papers and come to me. The last place she should have been was in his company.
"You left here to go see that nigga Quin?" I couldn't help but ask.
I couldn't tell what angered me more, the fact that she left my home to go see about this cat or the fact that them muthafuckas killed him in front of my chick.
"No. I went to see Honey and then to see my parents. And… then… he was there, and they tried to kill him! Right in front of me! I shot at them, and that was the only thing that stopped them."
"Tri… a'ight. Let’s get you out of these clothes."
I ushered Jahzara into the guest bedroom and helped her to get out of the bloody clothes. Jahzara and I had only been together for a short amount of time. I knew that I had nothing on the years and time she had spent with Quin, but I did know I loved her. The love I had for her was the only reason I didn't give up on us after she killed my seed. Something about Jahzara's charisma made it so easy to fall for her. Her personality wasn't one that you found in most women. She had the ability to be real and sexy at the same damn time.
"I got it, Imran. I can put my own damn clothes on," Jahzara fussed as she snatched her clothes from my hands.
I stepped back and watched as Jahzara struggled to get her shirt over her head. Crossing my arms over my chest, I began to pace the space of the bedroom floor. My mind was boggling with the info just revealed to me, and I wondered what made Jay think it was cool to pop off on Quin right in front of Jah. I had never had any problems with Jay handling business for me, and he had never been sloppy or inconsistent in his work, but, this time, he had fucked up.
It took a couple of hours before the fear and anxiety that Jahzara felt rubbed off and, for her, to fall asleep. Soon as I heard the light snores pour from her body, I left so that I could clear my mind and figure out how I wanted to handle this situation with Jay.
****
Time is money (mula) Mind is funny (yes)
Trust me she lying if she denying she love me
Make up ya mind you been on and off (Ross)
Platinum Patrón come take shots with a boss
I pulled up in front of Jay's crib, honked the horn, and waited for him to come out. Before going there, I rode around bumping Rick Ross, trying to wrap my head around things. Jay had purely disrespected the game when he shot Quin in front of my lady, and I had to see him about it. On top of all that, Quin was still breathing. According to a couple of my street lieutenants, that muthafucka was sitting in Parkland Hospital with a breathing tube down his throat. He'd been hit by four bullets, but none fatal enough to kill him.
"What up, son?" Jay yelled as he slid into the passenger seat. Once he settled in, I deafened the volume on the stereo and passed the blunt over to him.
"Not a damn thing, bro. I’m just been cruising through the hood trying to figure shit out. Ya know?"
"Word, so did everything check out on that job? Nigga ready to get paid."
"Yeah, I had a couple of my dudes check things out… and everything is good. ‘Bout to go pick your paper up right now."
"Already!" Jay clapped his hands together and rubbed them as he usually did when he was excited. "I swear I never regretted the day I decided to team up with you and not rob you."
I turned the volume all the way to the max and smirked at Jay's last comment. Moments later, we pulled up to a spot that I used to trap out of. It was located deep in South Dallas, right down the road from the Fair Park. I'd had plenty of good days and nights out of this house, and I had seen many sunrises and sunsets in this place, as well as a lot of damn money.
Jay and I got out of the car and headed into the trap, where my uncle B.B. was already inside, waiting for us to arrive. I followed directly behind Jay and waited for him to enter before pulling my pistol from my waistband. Jay made a huge mistake by not making sure Quin was dead, and he had made an even bigger one when he did the shit in front of Jahzara. His mistakes put me at risk. There is a chance that Quin could’ve found out that it was me that ordered the hit if he talked to the right people. Him finding out meant that he could go back and tell Jahzara what I'd done, and I didn’t need that happening.
"So, this what it is, son?" Jay asked.
He turned and faced my direction with an evil grin across his face. He already knew what time it was and that there was nothing he could do about it. This was part of the game. Mistakes will get you killed. Unfortunately for Jay, his mistake had him on the other side of the barrel.
“What you mean ‘this what it is’? You telling me you didn’t see my chick when you shot that nigga up? And you telling me before you left the muthafucka that he was dead?”
“I didn’t see the bi… I didn’t see the chick until after she jumped out of his ride, and, by then, I’d already shot that nigga twice. She damn near blew my head off.”
"Sorry, folk, but you fucked up." I said as I squeezed the trigger.
POW! POW! POW!
7 Jahzara
Several weeks had passed since Quin was gunned down right in front of my face and I was forced to get him some help. I hadn’t talked to him since then, but I did call the hospital daily to learn his status. Things were looking up for him, and the doctors were predicting that he would make a full recovery.
On the other hand, shit around this way hadn’t been so sweet. Imran had been watching me like a hawk, and that shit had been really getting on my nerves. I respected the fact that he had looked out for me, cared for me, and made sure that Kira had nursed me back to good health. I was not at hundred percent, but I felt a whole lot better than I had since all this shit happened. My wounds were healing nicely. Most looked as if they won’t leave a scar, and, just last week, I was given dental implants to replace the teeth that had been knocked out of my mouth. I was grateful to Imran for all he is doing for me, but, at the end of the day, I was torn between two men. I may have chosen to leave with Imran, but I don’t know if I’d made the right choice. Seeing Quin that day, although he had frightened the hell out of me, triggered a range of emotions that had me always contemplating packing up my things and leaving. Knowing that he could’ve died was what got me feeling that maybe, just maybe, I hadn’t thought things through clearly.
While looking into the mirror, I rubbed Victoria Secret’s Love Spell all over my body and frowned at the way my curves had become so flat. The amount of weight I’d lost in these weeks had me looking terribly skinny, and I couldn’t wait to get my figure back to what I was used to. The bathroom door creaked as it opened, and Imran peeked his head on the inside. I flashed a smile at him, which to him was an invitation to come inside. He slowly walked in my direction and wrapped his hands around my waist. He placed soft kisses along the back of my neck and slid his moist tongue into my ear. The hair from his neatly trimmed goatee tickled my neck and caused my pussy to vibrate sensationally. I stared at Imran through the mirror, admiring his mocha skin and deep brown eyes. His ability to love me through the mistake I’d made of killing his child always left me in awe.
Imran was a good dude who deserve a whole lot better than what I could offer him. Time and time again, he had apologized for his error in not coming forward when he found out that his rival was my ex-husband Quin. He, also, was sure to breakdown the relationship the two shared, how it went bad, and, also, made sure I knew that he was not playing me. In the beginning, I had my doubts and wondered if he was really being truthful with me, but Imran had a set of eyes that didn’t lie. He was the type of person that, if you stared into them long enough, you would see everything that you needed to know. Looking at him, I knew that he loved me. Unconditionally. The problem was I couldn’t give him that same love back.
“You smelling good. Where you think you about to go?” Imran asked as he rubbed his hands across my back and began to give me a deep tissue massage.
“Honey’s hearing is today, and I wanna be there to see what happens to her,” I said with grief in my heart.
“Why? Haven’t you been through enough with this bitch already? Let them white folks decide what they gonna do with her and wash your hands of that shit.”
“No, I already missed Tomeka’s funeral and I’m not gonna miss this. Somebody has to be there to represent for her. She really don’t have family and—”
“Why do you need to stand up for her? She was there helping Honey. She set you up just as Honey did.”
“Are you serious? Honey manipulated Tomeka just as she did me. I don’t blame Tomeka for what happened to me. I blame Honey… and I’m going to the trial.”
Imran shook his head but didn’t argue with me any further. His demeanor showed that he was obviously disappointed by my choice and more so that I was not going to change my mind about going. I had to be there to see what laid ahead for Honey’s future. It might have been easy enough for the next person to say, “Leave it alone and wash my hands of her,” but I couldn’t do that, not before I saw this thing to the end.