Long As You Know Who You Belong To 2

by Bri Noreen

  From the moment the driver’s side door opened, I was transfixed. A pair of gold Sophia Webster lace up gladiators hit the pavement, making my mouth water. I hadn’t expected a bad bitch to come to my rescue, but she had to be good in order for my father to have trusted her. I let my eyes travel from her shoes to the white Alexander McQueen fit and flare dress that skimmed her fit and curvy body impeccably, all the way up to her pretty brown face. I blinked a few times as my eyes fell on her face because there was something oddly familiar about her. She was around 5’9” in her heels and sported a body that could have graced the cover of Black Men and Women’s Health magazine. She had curves out of this world, but everything on her was toned like she spent hours in the gym every day. Her face was striking, and even though I could tell she was older, I’m sure she had the young niggas falling out over her ass. She was gorgeous like a supermodel, but her features caused me to pause. I stayed stuck as she sauntered over to me with a walk as graceful as a dancer. She smiled widely at my facial expression, and I cleared my throat in an attempt to get the words out.

  “Who…who are you?”

  “Everyone calls me Nine. But you can call me Mom.”

  Kimani

  August 2015

  My mind was all fucked up. I couldn’t get my shit together even if I tried. Over the last few months I had come so far in my attempt to get over Blu, but after what happened a week ago, it was like I had just lost her all over again. Seeing her there, in my club, fucked with my head. I replayed everything over and over again in my head from the moment we busted in on Nakami, to the moment when I handed her over to the nurses at the hospital. How the fuck could this be possible?

  I had paced around the waiting room like a madman anxious for the doc to come and give me some good news. When I had brought her in I knew that her chances of making it were slim, but I was praying that God had my back on this one and would give her the chance to survive. I will never forget the moment that the female doctor walked out of the ER and made her way toward me. The look on her face said everything before she could even open her mouth. My body crumbled, and just before I hit the ground, my brother came rushing in to hold me up. Too torn up to see her, I shed my tears and walked out without saying a word. I was so distraught that I barely made it to the funeral. I made my brother promise to have the casket closed. I didn’t want to see her like that…lifeless and absent. I couldn’t bear to look at her cold body laid up in a coffin without losing my shit. So technically, I hadn’t seen her dead body, but this shit was blowin’ me.

  How the fuck could she be alive and not reach out? How could she let me suffer through the pain of losing her when she wasn’t really gone? The fuck type of shit was she on? The crazy thing was how she reacted when she saw a nigga. She wasn’t happy. She wasn’t sad. The expression on her face was more of confusion than anything else. And because she had bolted out of the club without saying anything, there was nothing that I could do to find her so I could figure out what the fuck was going on. I had gone to all of the spots I could remember she liked or frequented and had come up empty handed. The only thing I had was the footage from the security camera that had caught a decent look at the license plate of the car that she’d been driving. I had reached out to one of my brother’s people. This white dude named Dustin was a dope-ass hacker. I had asked him to do some straight illegal shit to help me track Blu down, and he was on his way to meet me at the club.

  I walked behind the bar to pour myself a drink, and as soon as I was finished, Dustin came in the door. I smirked at the dude because he was by far one of the quirkiest people that I had ever met. Rocking a Mohawk, an eyebrow piercing, and a faded concert t-shirt, he smiled when he saw me and came walking over. I gave him a head nod to say what’s up, and he let out a meow. I raised an eyebrow before I laughed. Dude was crazy.

  “You got that for me?” I asked.

  “Yup. The license plate belongs to a rental car.”

  “Fuck!” I shouted.

  “But—”

  “But what, man? Spit it out!”

  “But I was able to hack into the rental car’s reservation system and get some information on the person who’d rented it. It was rented about a month ago on a month to month basis. It states that the return date will be the day after Labor Day. The name on the reservation is Chris Thomas, but I’m pretty sure that’s fake. But the address more than likely is real.” He handed me a piece of paper with an address scribbled on it. “I took the liberty of looking up the address and some information on the building. I don’t know if it’s relevant or not but it’s owned by a guy named Israel Nueva.”

  Damn, that name sounded familiar. I thought about it for a few seconds, but I couldn’t place where I’d heard it before. Nonetheless, I was happy that Dustin had been able to come through for me. I told him I’d be right back. I ran to my office to get his payment. I offered him a couple of grandsfor anything he could find out within twenty-four hours, but he’d wanted something else. It was an odd request, but I ain’t here to judge. I came back from the office and handed him his payment. He opened up the box, and the expression on his face was much like the one a kid has on Christmas morning.

  “Wooo hooo!” he screamed. He took a pack of the scratch-n-sniff markers out of the box, popped the top off of one, and took a whiff. He’d had me order him three cases of grape scratch-n-sniff markers because the company that made them had banned him from ordering them. Apparently he’d bought too many and the company was trying to avoid a lawsuit in case his crazy ass got high and died from sniffing that shit. “Grape is awesome!” He smiled.

  “Uh, yeah…thanks, man.” Hoping he took the hint. He was creeping me the fuck out now.

  “Later, mann,” he said, walking out the door with the boxes under his arm.

  “Yeah, much later,” I mumbled.

  Armed with this new information, I decided to check the address out. So I locked up the club and went in search of my dead ex-girlfriend.

  Roman

  August 2015

  This bitch just didn’t get it, huh? I had warned Blaze not to fuck with me, but she just had to go touch the fire to see if it was hot. I had told her ass that she going to help me kill the mothafucka she’s sexing, and she turned around and got engaged to him. But that was okay. I had something for her ass. She was going to see things my way because I had something up my sleeve that was going to force her to.

  Pulling up in the driveway of Karma’s childhood home, I took a deep breath. Reel it the fuck in, Ro, I told myself. Things were not going according to plan at all. All the fucking planning and waiting I had done to make sure things were perfectly aligned and set up seemed to be for nothing because every time I look up, some piece of the puzzle wasn’t fitting right. I hadn’t spoken with Karma in a few days, and although I was concerned about our plan falling apart, I also missed her ass. Her loose cannon-ass temperament was such a turn on that I found myself getting off to the images of her I had saved in my head. I was craving her presence, and since she wasn’t returning my calls, I’d decided to ride up on her.

  As I walked up to the front door, I caught a glimpse of my reflection in the window of the storm door. I adjusted my grey suit jacket and rang the doorbell, anticipating Karma’s beautiful face coming into view. After standing around for a few minutes with no sign of movement inside, my patience wore thin. I pulled out the duplicate key I’d had made without Karma’s knowledge. Unlocking the door, I stepped inside and was immediately greeted with the foul stench of rotting trash.

  “What the fuck?” I mumbled.

  The Karma that I knew was borderline OCD. She was one of the most organized people I knew. The fact that she had trash piling up in her home made me automatically think that something was off. Pulling out my gun, I cautiously walked through the foyer and surveyed the office and dining room before I walked into the living room, finally finding the source of the horrible smell.

  “Got damn it!” I roared.

  Lying in
the middle of the floor in a pool of her own blood was Ashlynn. There was a bullet hole in her chest and another one in her forehead. And by the looks of it, she’d been dead for a couple of days. I knew Karma had done this, but the question was, why? Ashlynn had been an important part of the plan, so for Karma to kill the bitch, something had to have gone wrong. Although I wished that she would’ve said something before she started fucking killing bitches, I knew that she had to have murked her for a reason. Resisting the urge to punch the wall next to me, I pulled out my phone to make a call, but it was already buzzing.

  Yo!” I barked.

  “Uh, we got a situation,” the voice on the other end spoke.

  “Tell me about it.” I groaned. I couldn’t take anymore deviations from the plan. Shit was going all sideways! “What is it?”

  “We got a visitor ahead of schedule.”

  Fuck.

  Blaze

  August 2015

  Stretching and yawning, I sat up straight in the bed in the hotel suite feeling like a brand new woman. I sneaked a peek at my ring finger and smiled widely at the band of diamonds that now sat in its place. I wished that I could roll over and plant kisses all over my soon to be husband, but he had already left for an early flight to Atlanta this morning. So I fell back against my pillow in a fit of giggles at the thought of being someone’s wife. Never would I have thought it.

  “My, my, my. Don’t you look like you don’t have a fucking care in the world?” The voice caused me to shoot straight up in the bed.

  Looking toward the patio doors where the voice had come from, I almost shit myself when I confirmed the source. There she was, clad in the best hood gear and synthetic weave that government money could buy. I could see the smile in her eyes even behind the dark frames she wore. I could tell this brought her pure, unfiltered happiness to see me so shaken at her sudden appearance.

  “What? Not happy to see your big sis?” She walked over to the bed and plopped her ass down on the white comforter. “I see you livin’ real swanky out this bitch.” She ran her fingers along the plush sheets and smiled.

  “What the fuck are you doing here, Porsha? Let me guess this has something to do with Roman?”

  “Still the smart one, I see. Enlighten me. How much does a ritzy lil’ suite like this run Grey’s pockets? Does he know that he could’ve just taken you over to the Red Roof Inn and got that same head treatment?” she cackled.

  “Get the fuck out,” I hissed.

  Porsha hopped up from the bed and walked around the room. Her fingers grazed the dresser across from the bed, and she stopped to primp in the mirror. My eyes roamed her body in disgust. Dressed in a dress that would be too revealing for a porn star, platform sandals that looked like they were picked straight from a stripper’s catalog, and a black and grey Ombre wig that was in dire need of a wig brush, she looked just as I remembered her. Roman was really pulling out all the stops to get me to go against the grain, but I was firm in my plan to tell Grey everything. There was nothing he or she could say or do at this point to make me change my mind.

  “Or what?” she finally replied. “You’ll kick me out? I don’t think you understand the pull that this Roman nigga has. I don’t think calling the front desk for security is going to help ya, playa.”

  “You can tell that bastard that I’m not going through with it. Grey is my fiancé. I’m not helping that crazy nigga kill my soon-to-be husband. So both of ya’ll can kick rocks.”

  “So you’re willing to go back to your old life and settle your debt on your own? Now I know that we ain’t that close, but I know you better than to believe that’s what you’re going to do.”

  I hopped up from the bed and approached her. Spinning her around, I pushed her out into the living area of the suite and towards the door. I didn’t know what she had planned, but I needed her out of my sight before I reverted back to the old me in 5…4…3…2…

  “Never mind the fact that you stole his stash, but you started a trend among the girls, and he basically had to restock the stable when you took off.”

  “Sounds like a fucking personal problem to me.” I spat.

  “It is personal. You owe him the $2 million you stole or your life. Roman is paying me two hundred stacks for my silence and he’s willing to pay me two hundred more to rat you out on his go ahead. I know we’re related by blood, but so are me and him, so my loyalty is split,” she said, smirking.

  “He was our father, you dumb bitch! Your loyalty is split between the sister who tried to get us out of that hell hole by any means necessary and the man that forced you to lose your virginity at twelve to a paying customer? You’re fucking mental!”

  “I may have been a young whore, but at least I wasn’t Daddy’s little slut.”

  I raised my hand to smack the dog shit out of her, but she caught it in midair. She held it there as tears threatened to spill from my eyes. A sinister smile came crawling across her face.

  “Roman found Harmony.” My heart stopped, and I felt my body lose all strength. “So you either help him get to your fiancé or he’ll hand your kid over to Daddy as payment for what you stole. It’s your choice.”

  I felt the urge to scream, but nothing would come out. All of my secrets were unraveling at rapid speed, and I felt like there was nothing I could do to stop it. My plan to come clean to Grey sounded less and less helpful and more like a suicide mission. If I told Grey about what Roman wanted me to do, I would have to explain the fact that my father was a pimp and I was his down-ass bitch beginning at the age of ten. The sick bastard molested me as soon as I started sprouting ass and titties, and by the time I was nineteen, I was pregnant with my first child who was really also my baby sister. Shit was twisted. How could anyone love someone as damaged and fucked up as that? If I chose not to tell Grey, I would risk losing him by the hands of Roman and him finding out about my betrayal. Plus it wasn’t like I knew what hand I would have in this. I had no idea what Roman was planning to do or when. I didn’t know the first thing about the man, and so what would telling Grey really do, but have him spinning his wheels? At this point, I couldn’t figure out which was worse.

  “I see those wheels a twerkin’ so I think I made my point. See ya around, sis.” She smiled brightly and walked out of the suite.

  I stood in the same spot for about ten minutes, frozen with fear. I wanted to cry, scream or lash out, but I couldn’t get my brain to process my anger or anguish. All I could think about was saving Grey and our relationship. A crazy idea formed in my head, and I almost shook it off. But it was so crazy that I thought it might actually work. Knowing that it was the only option to avoid the complete destruction of Grey’s and my life, I ran back into the room to get dressed and started.

  Karma

  August 2015

  I checked the briefcase one more time before I closed it. The $1 million that Roman had given me to help aide him in his takedown was stuffed into that briefcase and ready to be handed over to its new owner. Glancing over at the door in anticipation, my mind took me back a few days to the day I met my mother.

  “You’re my mom?” I gasped.

  “Technically, I’m just your egg donor.”

  “Wha…how…”

  “Girl, spit the damn question out! What do you want to know? If you popped out my pussy? Why I haven’t been in your life? My relationship with Hero? What?”

  The nastiness that dripped from her tone caused me to reel back. How could this bitch just drop a bomb on me like that and be mad that I had fucking questions? Mother or not, this bitch wasn’t going to talk to me crazy. Little did she know I had crazy down pat.

  “All that shit. Where the fuck you been?” I asked.

  She got a kick out of that. She laughed like I had been on the stage at Def Comedy Jam. Ain’t shit funny bitch.

  “I see that you got your personality from your dear old mom.” She smirked before she let out a small sigh. “You sure you want to do this right here and now?”

  “You�
�re the one that let the cat out of the bag. Damn straight I want to do this now.” I said, growing irritated.

  She threw her hands up in the air and walked over to the hood of my car. Gently she rested her body against it, and I followed suit, anxious to hear what this broad had to say. There had been many a nights that I had sat up wondering what my mother had been like and how different my life would have been if she wouldn’t have died. But low and behold this bitch was still breathing.

  “As you already know, I’m a hired hit man or woman, or whatever, if you’re into that feminist shit. Back before Hero, I was young and I thought I knew all the tricks of the trade. My murder game was sick, and I had the bodies to prove it. One day, I was contracted to take Hero out. I thought that I would seduce him just like all my other marks, but Hero was on to me as soon as I approached him.” She smiled at the thought. “He let me believe that I was going to kill him when in fact he almost killed me. You were what saved me.”

  “What?” I asked, confused.

  “He told me that he would let me go on three conditions. One, that I give him the name of the person who had ordered the hit so he could take them out personally. Two, I had to remain on his payroll until he no longer needed me and inform him of any hits on him that may come across my desk. And lastly, I had to give him an heir to his throne.”