by Leo Sullivan
Nodding, Caesar looked away from me, but I could still see the doubt in his eyes.
“Yeah, you’re right,” is what his mouth said, but his expression showed something different.
I realized the unconditional love I had for Katie was something that he simply didn’t share for her… or for me.
“You can leave now,” I told him and began to walk back to the door. “I need to finish pumping milk for our baby and get ready to see her in the morning.”
“I want to go with you.”
Standing, Caesar came over and reached out for me. I stood still as a statue as he gripped both of my arms and then ran his hands over my skin. He was looking at me with stars in his eyes, but I also noticed that he was marveling over my surgery, inspecting every inch of my face up close.
I wasn’t convinced that this sudden change in him wasn’t due to the fact that I was ‘back to normal’ in the physical sense. Through our time together, Caesar had often joked that I was a trophy wife, and it was no secret that he openly enjoyed the fact that people credited him for being the one to steal King’s girl.
I saw the look in his eyes when men stole a glance at me; he enjoyed it. His pride and ego loved being able to call the girl everyone wanted his girl. That’s how I knew, when I first saw my face after waking up from the coma, that he would leave me. It was a hard pill to swallow, but he was shallow.
“You don’t need to go with me,” I said, pushing him away. “I’m good to go on my own.”
“I wasn’t asking,” he replied with grit in his tone. “You’re my woman, and she’s my daughter. I’m going with you, so hit ya moms up and let her know I’ll be stayin’ over tonight.”
My eyes screwed tight. “Excuse me?”
“Is that a problem?” he asked, staring at me with accusing eyes. “I used to stay over here with you before we got our own place, so why I can’t now? You got another nigga who been over here visitin’ you?”
“What?” I frowned, playing off my anxiety.
In the back of my mind, I couldn’t help but think about King and feel guilty. I knew that it showed all over my face, and I hoped that Caesar couldn’t see it.
“No, I haven’t had anyone seein’ me over here. I’m not worried ’bout anything but my daughter.”
“Just checking,” he replied, but the suspicion and doubt were still in his eyes.
“Well, if you don’t mind, I was pumpin’ milk for Katie, and I need to finish.”
The arm of the chair that Caesar was on creaked under his weight. He shifted his position and then shrugged.
“Go ahead. I just wanna talk to you, so as long as you’re listenin’ and your mouth still works, I’m good,” he said.
I hesitated and gave him a hard look. There was definitely a lot of skepticism on my part about whether or not we were on good enough terms for me to be comfortable taking off my top in front of him, even if it was just to pump. Then, I took another moment to look at him—to really look at him—and I saw how hard he was trying to act normal though he wasn’t. For someone who had always been so athletic and strong, he was winded, breathing hard like he’d run a few miles before walking to the door.
“How did you get here?” I asked, for the first time thinking about how he didn’t have a car.
The car that he used to drive, the Benz that King bought for me, I’d given my mama to use for work. Until I got used to seeing out of only one eye, I refused to drive it.
“I caught a ride.” He seemed agitated in his response. “Yo, can I get some water or somethin’? It’s hot as hell in here.”
“Yeah.” I nodded, realizing that he’d broken into a sweat. “Go ahead and help yourself to whatever you want in the kitchen. I’m about to start pumping.”
Hesitating for a moment, I watched as he took a deep breath before standing up from his seat and then slowly made his way to the kitchen. Although he was trying hard to control it, he was walking with a limp, and there was a lump poking out from the oversized sweatshirt that he was wearing.
Does he still have the… colostomy bag? I couldn’t help but wonder. A wave of nausea came over me, and I swallowed hard to force it down.
With a heavy exhale, I shook the thought from my mind and began my walk down the hallway into my room to return to what I was doing before Caesar decided to stop by. It was strange seeing him after so much time had passed. In the back of my mind, I had imagined that life had gone back to normal for him while I’d been suffering through my new reality. Now, I saw that neither of us had managed to end up unaffected by what we’d been through.
Maybe that’s why he’s been so distant, I thought, feeling like I was understanding his struggle for the first time.
Caesar had always had a lot of pride. To be technically handicapped and to have to look at me and his daughter, who were also suffering from the things that had happened that night, probably pained him in the worst way. He was a man who couldn’t protect his family when it mattered; the realization of all that surfaced every time he saw us, I was sure. That was possibly the reason why he stayed away.
“Do you remember anything else about that night other than what you told me?” Caesar asked, walking into my bedroom with a red cup in his hand. One look in his eyes told me that he was high. Most likely, he was still taking pain pills.
I didn’t bother to look up as I attached the pump to my breast and then turned it on.
“No, I told you everything I remember.”
“Nobody said any names except for that one you heard… Daze?”
“Yes, that was the only name.”
To be honest, I really wasn’t thinking all that hard because I didn’t want to relive that moment.
“I need you to think long and hard about it and tell me what you can remember. It’s important. I need to find the niggas who did this to me—to us,” he corrected himself. “As soon as I can, I’ma handle them. You know what I mean?”
Though I nodded, I really didn’t. How in the hell would he be able to do anything in the condition that he was in? It looked like it was a struggle for him to simply walk to the kitchen.
“Aye, you got any of those pills left? The percs they gave us both after the surgeries?”
Nodding my head, I pointed to my dresser across the room. “Over there. You can have them.”
He was only too happy to oblige himself and I focused on my current task.
“Damn,” he said, all of a sudden, and his tone made me raise my eyebrows.
When I looked up, he was staring hard at my chest. It was partially covered, but the small bits that he could see nearly had him salivating at the mouth.
“I know shit has been crazy ever since this stuff happened, but I was hoping that we could go back to how it used to be. I miss you.”
Lifting my head, I gave him an even look but didn’t say anything. In my mind, I had a lot of questions, but I also couldn’t say that I didn’t miss having him around, especially during times like this, when I was home all alone.
“We can work on it,” I finally said. “I would love for you to be with us, me and Katie, but it’s going to take time for me to trust that you’ll never leave us again.”
Caesar walked over, dragging his feet as he made his way to me. I looked in his face and tried to ignore the way that he was staring at me as if in awe of what he saw. It wasn’t anything like how he’d looked at me when I first woke up from my coma before my face was changed.
“I won’t leave. What man in his right mind could walk away from someone as beautiful as you?”
Bowing my head, I focused back on the task at hand, so when morning came, I could feed my baby. However, I couldn’t rid the thought in my head that the only reason Caesar was dealing with me was because I’d gotten plastic surgery. King loved me no matter how I looked, but it was obvious that Caesar didn’t.
15
King
* * *
“How far out are you?”
Glancing down at the navigation
screen on my dash, I checked the ETA for my next destination.
“About five minutes,” I replied.
“I can’t wait to see you,” Makita said in a melodious, flirty tone that she’d been using more and more in her conversations with me. “You’ve been away for so long, I kinda feel like you’ve been avoiding me.”
“Never that, love,” I said, though it was only partially true.
“Good. The door is unlocked, so you can just come inside. I’ve got a surprise for you.”
I hadn’t been exactly avoiding her, I’d been avoiding the conversation she would want to have once I saw her. At this point, I couldn’t avoid meeting up with her any longer. Besides being my ex and the woman who had been by my side while I was serving time, Makita was my friend and a much-needed member of my crew. She was handling things that the streets taught me to only allow men to do, and she was completing the tasks better than they did.
As promised, I pulled into her driveway five minutes later, and I couldn’t help but raise my brow at how she was living. Although she’d never been one to live in anything less than luxury, her current crib was on a different level. While I was locked up, I knew that I needed her, but from the looks of things, she needed me, too. In all the time before I pulled her into my fold and had her running my operations while I was locked up, she had never lived this good.
Makita’s home was plush with wall to wall, expensive Persian carpeting and high cathedral ceilings, which elegant chandeliers hung from. Pricey paintings adorned the walls of the hall that I traveled through as I walked in, listening to the sound of talking over the blare of a television. When I stepped into the large living room, I was surprised to see Gunner sitting with Makita.
After catching up with Caesar the day before, there was nothing more that I wanted to do than to put a bullet in his head. It wasn’t even about the fact that he was with Sunday now, but for the reason that he was mistreating her when she and their daughter needed him most. That was some shit that only lame niggas did. You didn’t disrespect the people who held you down. That was one of the reasons that I was still dealing with Makita on any level.
By the time I arrived at the meet up spot, Bulletproof and Dolo had already roughed Caesar up enough to have him scared shitless. The moment he saw me step through the door of the abandoned condo unit, he immediately began to beg for his life.
“I’m not goin’ to kill you,” I had told him. “You have Sunday and Katera to thank for that.”
His eyes screwed tight in confusion. “Sunday and who?”
Snorting a burst of air out through my nostrils, I shook my head in disbelief. This shit was pathetic. The nigga didn’t even know his own daughter’s name.
“What have you found out ’bout the men who killed your brother and raped Sunday?” I asked him, deciding to move on to the principle matter at hand. “You’ve been lookin’ for them, right? What have you found?”
His pupils scrolled from me to the ceiling before his jaw dropped slightly, as if he were dumbfounded.
“Um…”
My eyes narrowed. “You ain’t found out shit? Somebody killed your brother, tried to kill you, your girl, and your child, but you ain’t found out shit since you been beatin’ the streets all this time?”
“I—”
“You have been lookin’ for them, right? Ain’t that what you been tellin’ Sunday? Or are you still trying to convince her that the hit was ordered by me?”
Caesar tensed, clenching his jaw tight. “They said your name.”
“Yeah, but you know better than that shit,” Dolo said, tapping Caesar in the back of his head with the barrel of his gun. “That shit was sloppy. Plus, The JDBs don’t kill babies and rape women. Stop tryin’ to play stupid, nigga.”
Not responding, I watched Caesar’s expression change, showing that he knew what Dolo said was right. We all knew it was true; the only reason he’d held on to that fake ass story about me being behind the hit was so that Sunday, and whoever else he could convince, would hate me for it.
“The only thing I know is that my girl said a nigga by the name of Daze had raped her. She also saw the face of the man who shot her… a white boy. I don’t really remember him, but he was part of Daze’s crew.”
Locking eyes with Dolo, a few unspoken words passed between us. Daze was a small-time hustler who could’ve made it to big time in any other city but mine. I didn’t fuck with him on any level, and I put word out that my crew better not either. He wanted to be a JDB in the worst way, but my conscience wouldn’t allow it. He was known to be a merciless killer; had no problem killing innocent women and children if it got him what he wanted. I couldn’t be down with anyone like that.
“What else you found out? You know where they are?”
Caesar shook his head. “Nah.”
“This nigga ain’t good for shit!” Dolo scowled at him while stroking his gun with his finger.
I knew he felt the same way that I did. Thinking Caesar might actually be useful was a waste of time, and so was he; a better option would be to put a bullet in his skull and keep it moving. The only thing stopping me was Sunday. I wasn’t lying when I said she her and her daughter were the only reasons that I was keeping him alive. If I killed him, she would never forgive me.
“Yeah, but he’s goin’ to change that,” I said with my eyes still on Caesar’s face. “From now on, you work for me. In two days, I’ll be back. If you don’t have any information that’s of use to me, shit ain’t gon’ be sweet. I suggest you get to work beatin’ the streets and try to find somethin’ good.”
When I met back up with him two days later, he had something for me, and the shit made me sick to my stomach. Gunner, one of the niggas I trusted with not only my life but my mama’s life, had betrayed me. From what Caesar said, while I was locked up, Gunner had been trying to rally a team of men to find the dope and money I’d hidden after leaving Colombia. He wanted to get his hands on it, so he could make his own team and take over The JDB under his rule. Once I escaped, his plan changed but only slightly.
Now he was planning to get me to tell him where my stash was, pretending to help me flip it since I couldn’t do it myself, and then he would call the Feds to turn me in and collect the bounty on my head. I didn’t want to believe it, but only my closest partners even knew that I had stashed that dope and money. I hadn’t told anyone outside of Makita and Gunner; everyone else thought that I’d given it all to Bulletproof and Dolo before I surrendered in exchange for Sunday.
“Man, it’s good to see you, nigga!” he said, standing up to greet me.
I slapped hands with him before pulling him in for a hug, looking curiously over his shoulder at Makita who was sitting behind. She had managed to lure Gunner there, but it didn’t seem that he suspected a thing.
Not saying anything to me, she allowed the desire in her eyes to do all the talking. Standing to her feet, she sashayed across the carpet, gave me a hug, and kissed me sweetly on my cheek. She didn’t let go and held onto my hand once the embrace was over. The smell of her perfume should have gotten to me, but my mind was elsewhere, suspended in a myriad of intricate thoughts.
“Yeah,” I replied to Gunner. “It’s been a while. I haven’t seen you since y’all broke me out at the courthouse. What you been up to?”
Shrugging, he shook his head. “Not too much. Just had to lay low for a minute. My girlfriend found out about my side bitch, and she’s been threatening to tell the police that I helped get you out of prison. I’ve just been keepin’ my distance. Didn’t want her crazy ass startin’ shit.”
“And that’s the only reason you been layin’ low?” Makita asked. She pulled her hand from mine and crossed her arms in front of her chest as she gave him a sideways look.
With a slight frown, Gunner shrugged. “Yeah. Shit, I thought we was all kinda layin’ low for a while. The Feds know that The JDB broke you out. I’m surprised you still here to be real ’bout it. You got to leave the country. There is a massive
manhunt like I never seen before. How you been gettin’ around?”
I felt Makita’s heated stare on me, and I knew what she was thinking. She’d been telling me the same thing about leaving. On more than one occasion, she’d said that we needed to charter a plane to take us to Cuba, but there was just one problem; she wasn’t the woman I wanted to go with me.
“I still got a few tricks up my sleeves,” I vaguely replied. “You know they got a price on my head. I’m an enemy of the government, and they dropping a few mill for my life. You heard ’bout that?”
Gunner’s brows shot up to the sky. “Word? Damn, I ain’t know that. That’s a lot of bread.”
“Enough to make friends turn to enemies,” Makita said and took a step forward.
Her eyes were filled with fury as she glared at him. Gunner caught the change in her disposition, and he frowned as he looked back and forth between the two of us, reading her expression. Just a few moments ago, they’d been sitting together, talking like friends, and now she’d swapped the script.
“Nah, it ain’t that much.” His face went stone cold as he stared back at her. “Ain’t no amount of money in the world worth turning on someone you consider your brother.”
I nodded in agreement with what he was saying, although I doubted that he truly believed it.
“You called Shotti?” I asked Makita, attempting to break the tension. “We need all hands on deck to get everything and bring it back.”
With a nod, Makita pulled her attention away from Gunner and checked the watch on her wrist.
“I called him but let me grab my phone so I can see how far out he is.”