by Mike Sanders
Carlos walked back to the where Preme and Face were still eating and talking shit.
“Carlos, I’m tellin’ you . . . get what you gonna get outta that nigga now, because I’mma body that muthafucka. He ain’t gonna make it past the summer dawg.” Preme declared.
Carlos exhaled and took a bite out of his chicken wing, he responded. “You can’t kill that nigga now because he getting shit in order on the Westside for me. And right now, I don’t trust too many niggas and I at least know Lil’ Joe.”
“You got War—you don’t need that nigga.” Preme pressed.
“I got other plans for that nigga and for you too—and nothing’s gonna work if you kill that nigga like you been threatening.”
Preme shook his head. Carlos could see that Preme was disappointed in him but at that moment in time, Carlos didn’t care. He needed for Preme, Lil Joe, Face and the rest of his niggas to get along and get money.
CHAPTER TWENTY- NINE
Justice turned on her computer and logged into her Skype account. She hardly ever used the thing except to log in and to check on Toni every now and then when she needed to make sure Phire & Ice didn’t burn to the ground in her absence. Justice saw Sapphire sitting in front of her computer screen. She was shocked seeing that Sapphire had cut her hair short and made it curly.
“When did you do that?” Justice was excited.
“A day or so ago. I went to BobCutz to hang out with Carlos and the crew and after seeing this one woman with the style, I decided I’d try it and I like it.” Justice’s heart warmed up after seeing her friend light up. She decided that she was feeling the Skype thing and she’d have to use it more often. “Carlos looked like he was glowin’ and shit. Did you finally gave him some?”
“I need to be asking if you been gettin’ some.” Justice chuckled. She tried to shift the weight because she knew she couldn’t hide the truth from Sapphire for long. She always seemed to know when Justice had gotten some good dick.
“Yeah, I finally put the end to this dick drought I was in.” Sapphire looked around as if she was trying to see if he was still in the room.
“Girl! Don’t tell me you got me on camera while the nigga still in the room?”
“Well, he’s not in the living room . . . but he is knocked out in the bed.” Sapphire laughed. “Thank God he doesn’t snore.”
“Details, damn it.” Justice was excited and genuinely happy that Sapphire had found someone who’d made her happy. It had been two years since Sapphire had messed around with Cross, and shortly after one of their freak-sessions, he was murdered execution style.
“Let’s just say everything about Lil’ Joe isn’t little. He’s lost all the weight and he’s definitely cut and built in the right places.”
Justice shook her head. “You bold as shit.” Justice reached for the glass of wine she had been nursing earlier and took a sip. “What if he walks in there while you’re talking to me?”
“Then maybe you’ll get treated to a freak show.” Sapphire laughed and Justice smiled. “Naw, I’ll have to turn it off. I don’t want no peeping Tom jacking their dick while watching me and Joe bone, and trust me, Joe knows how to bone.”
“Well, if Joe makes you happy, then you need to know that I’ll support y’all. Do you see it going past the sex?”
“Right now, no.” Justice was startled that Sapphire was being frank. Usually, every time she got a piece of dick, L-O-V-E came along with it. “But we’ll see. I like the fact that he has a legitimate hustle with the tow truck and he shared with me that he’s entertaining the thought of going to Johnson C. Smith and getting his bachelors. Now that he’s a little older and more mature and has some life experience under his belt, maybe college would be a good thing for him. I’m even thinking about going to UNC-Charlotte and taking a few classes even though I don’t know what I’d major in.”
Justice had considered college herself once, but she, Monk, and D. C. were making too much money for her to commit to it long term. Maybe college would be good for her friend, Justice thought. She might get a chance to see life beyond Charlotte.
“Lemme go check on Joe real quick . . . stay on the line.”
“Cool.”
Justice minimized her screen and pulled up a game of Spider Solitaire. She’d never played this game before and didn’t even know she had it on her computer until she saw Carlos playing it. She began clicking on cards that were matching. She still hadn’t beaten the game but it amused her and was a great time passer.
“Justice, you still there?” Sapphire asked.
“Yeah girl, I’m here. I’m playing this game Carlos showed me how to play when he was here.” Justice switched screens and went back to the cam. “He still sleep?”
“Yeah girl, punanny put his ass out.”Sapphire joked and then changed her tone.
“But I wanna tell you something.” She paused and then looked away. “I didn’t think I’d be able to get it in with Joe when I first met him. In fact, it was Carlos’s idea that we go out for a night on the town when I got back from Chicago. We went to a few places and mostly, just sat down and talked. We went to that biker party that Carlos had at the shop a week ago too. Joe has made me feel something that I haven’t been able to feel with a man—comfortable.”
“What you mean by that? I thought Cross made you comfortable,” Justice stated sarcastically.
“Cross was just somebody I got it in with from time to time. Don’t get me wrong, I was devastated when he was killed. But now that I’m older, I realize things with Cross wasn’t getting anywhere close to serious as I see things possibly growing with Joe—at least the potential is there. The reason I said Joe makes me comfortable is because there was a night that happened some years ago that changed my life and had an impact on how I viewed men.”
Justice was about to take a sip of her wine, but decided she needed to hear what Sapphire was saying while she was sober.
“I done did some shit that’ll shock the shit outta you right now and might cause a tornado of confusion. Seriously, you have no fuckin’ clue as to how devious my mind can be at times.” Sapphire found herself getting emotional and had to pause and check herself for a minute before she revealed too much. She took a deep breath and continued. “I’mma tell you about this one episode though. When we were high school, I decided to meet up with this guy I barely knew in a hotel room. I knew I was gonna screw him, but I wanted to chill with him and try to get my grown woman on first. We drank and smoked—I’d never even tried weed up until that point, but unbeknownst to me at the time, the weed was laced with cocaine.”
“Wow, are you serious?”
“Yeah, and that’s not all that happened. I started feeling funny. I remembered what fast ass Joanne an’ ‘nem used to tell me what getting high felt like and my high didn’t match theirs. I told him how I was feeling and he admitted to lacing the weed with cocaine. I was scared—so scared. And to think I was gonna give that nigga some.”
“Who was it?” Justice asked. She thought she knew all the niggas Sapphire was talking to when they were in school.
“He didn’t go to school with us.” Sapphire told her. “But anyway, I demanded that he take me home and the nigga went ballistic on me. He demanded I give him some pussy and he threatened to just take it if I didn’t go along with the program. He started walking around the room screaming and shouting about how I was gonna give him some and how I was gonna do all kinds of shit. I regretted not telling anyone where I was because I realized that this nigga was a lunatic.
“When I got up from the chair I’d been sitting in and tried to make it to the door he grabbed me. He threw me onto one of the twin beds and started choking me while trying to pull off my jeans!
“He squeezed my neck and I felt like I was fading in and out of consciousness. I tried to reach for my purse, but I ended up knocking the alarm clock over. When I was able to get it the second time, I snapped because I remembered what my stepdaddy Ty used to do to me.”
J
ustice shook her head. She remembered how Sapphire’s stepfather used to rape her and how her mother ended up killing him when she found out. A sympathetic jury subsequently acquitted her mother. It was then when her mother started the non-profit program she was so known for. Justice always figured that Ty was part of the reason why she used to accept lower standards and a lower class of men, but as Justice sat intrigued by the tale, she knew that Sapphire was about to reveal something deeper.
“I rushed to get my pocketknife out of the purse as I scratched him. He was foaming at the mouth and had this dazed and confused look on his face. He didn’t realized that I had flicked open the switchblade until it was too late. He was still choking me and I jabbed him. I continued to stick him just as hard as he was choking me. At some point, I passed out.
“When I woke up, I couldn’t remember what happened until I looked at the blood on my hands. I followed the trail of blood from the bed to the bathroom, where I found him lying face up with his eyes open. I threw up in the toilet next to him.
“I panicked and I was scared Justice. I was so freakin’ scared girl because I didn’t wanna spend the rest of my life in jail because this nigga attacked me.
“I took a towel and wiped my prints from everything. I made sure I got the door, the table, the television, I didn’t miss a spot. As I cleaned, I was now glad that no one knew I was at the hotel.”
Justice stared at the computer in disbelief. She couldn’t believe that Sapphire had it in her to kill someone—even in self-defense. “So did they find the man?”
“They found him two days later and to this day, no one knows it was me.”
“Wow.” That was the only word that Justice was able to get out of her mouth. She was in utter shock and disbelief! Her mind reverted to that time period and she began to try to remember if she heard anything about that back then but she couldn’t recall the incident.
“But I’ll tell you this, when I got out of the coma from that incident with Carlos an’ nem’ and began my therapy sessions, I’d learn to forgive everyone, even him. I used to think about that dude every time I smelled weed.”
“That’s why you was so pressed every time Monk and D. C. would smoke around you.”
Sapphire nodded in the affirmative. “But now weed doesn’t bother me. If you noticed, the last time Carlos blazed up around us, it didn’t bother me.”
“Yeah.”
“That’s why I was so into making sure you had inner peace and had forgiven Carlos. I know what inner peace feels like and I want you to know, too. I’ve forgiven him, Preme, Face—I even forgave my attacker from that night at the hotel, although it’s too late for him. I would tell you to forgive Tan too, but-”
“I understand—I get it now.” Justice really did. She’d forgiven Carlos and was even interested in seeing where things could go with them from that moment onward. She relayed this to Sapphire and Sapphire beamed. But there was no way in hell she was going to forgive Tan for what she did to Monk.
“Well, I hear Joe moving in the bedroom. I may need to go suck his dick so I can get my mind off what I just told you.” Sapphire smiled wickedly then she turned around and looked in the direction of her bedroom. “Yeah, that’s him. Lemme let you go.”
“You be careful, okay?” Justice was still concerned. At least she didn’t have to worry about Sapphire being able to take care of herself. After listening to that story, she was convinced that Sapphire would be just fine.
“All right, see you later.”
Before Sapphire logged off, Justice was able to see the sculpted man walk down the hallway. She still couldn’t believe that Lil’ Joe had lost all that weight. Before she could see more, Justice logged off her Skype account to give Sapphire some privacy and to digest what Sapphire had just told her. She reached for the wine glass, but got up and went to the kitchen because she realized she was going to need the whole bottle instead.
CHAPTER THIRTY
Tan walked into their bedroom and admired her sleeping beauty. She hadn’t seen her in a few days since she had been following up on Carlos’s leads about where Justice was located in Chicago.
Tan had revealed her plan to her father earlier, who had not only given her his blessing but offered assistance, which Tan declined. For her, the murder was personal and even though it would’ve been easy for her to send her father’s goons to slump Justice, she felt that this situation needed to be handled alone.
Tan was confident that she was ready to handle Justice—she’d laid low enough and done thorough research and now she was ready to make her move.
Tan sat on the edge of her bed and placed To’Wanda’s newly pedicure feet in her hands, slowly kneading them, causing To’Wanda to come out of her slumber. “Wake up, sleepy head.”
To’Wanda slowly awoke; she almost didn’t recognize the woman making her feel calm and sedated. Gone were Tan’s long, curly locks that she had come to admire. In its place was a short mane, dyed chocolate brown with platinum blonde streaks—almost the same styling Monica had for her Still Standing album cover.
“Wow, babe . . . I like it.” To’Wanda said. Groggy, she sat up and ran her fingers through Tan’s short mane. “So that time’s near, huh?”
Tan nodded silently to answer her question. “Well, you do what you have to do.” To’Wanda sighed.
Tan moved closer to the bed and sat next to To’Wanda. “You know I’m comin’ back, right?” Tan assured her with a smile. To’Wanda shook her head. “That bitch will pay for what she did to us. That I guarantee, but the only way to make sure she get it is if I go myself and give her the bizness. I wanna see the look on her face when I confirm the fact that I was indeed the one who slumped Monk.”
“I just want you to be careful,” To’Wanda said as a lone tear fell from her eye. Tan reached over to the dresser and pulled open the drawer. Inside, she felt for the cloth-like envelope that had To’Wanda’s name on it. “I got this for you three days ago.” Tan put the envelope in her hand. “Open it.”
To’Wanda opened it and she shrieked when she realized she was holding two tickets to fly first class to Paris, France. The departure date had been set for three days in the future. “Oh my gosh! Tan!” A tear fell from To’Wanda’s eye.
“See baby.” Tan cuddled To’Wanda in her arms. To’Wanda’s face was buried in her breast as Tan started playing with To’Wanda’s hair. “I’mma be gone for two days. When I come back, me and you . . . we you goin’ to see the world,” Tan promised. “Paris is just the beginning.”
To’Wanda sat up and looked Tan in her eyes. “But what if you don’t come back? What if somethin’ happens?”
“Take Marques, I’m sure he’ll enjoy the trip,” Tan joked. However, she was confident that Marques would not be accompanying To’Wanda. Tan told her about the suite near the heart of Paris that they would be staying in. She had gone online and viewed the layout of the suite, and instantly fell in love with it. “But I promise you, Marques will not be making that trip with you.” Tan brought To’Wanda’s face to hers and they shared a passionate kiss. “You’ll be making that trip with me,” Tan whispered.
Tan slipped in between the sheets with To’Wanda and pulled To’Wanda’s nightgown over her frame. After Tan got undressed, she began to use her tongue and her fingers to work To’Wanda’s body into a frenzy. She dedicated herself to making sure that no one, man or woman could please her girl the way she could. As she watched To’Wanda gasp from pleasure after achieving her first two orgasms, she enjoyed the look of pleasure in her sultry eyes. She knew that after she left Justice dead and stinking, she’d have something pleasant and sweet to come home to.
CHAPTER THIRTY- ONE
It was rare for Carlos to lounge around BobCutz without doing business, but today he decided to show his face and just hangout for a while. Carlos took a seat in one of the barber chairs at the back of the shop. He and the fellas there had been shooting the shit and telling war stories for a while when he heard a loud voice calling his name.<
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“Carlos! Carlos!” Sabrina walked in talking loud and ghetto. Everyone in the shop cut his or her eyes toward her. “Carlos!” she yelled again.
“Fuck wrong wit’choo?” Preme limped to her and strongly grabbed her arm. “This a place of business.” He was preaching something that he hadn’t practiced when he and Lil’ Joe had almost gone to blows in Carlos’ office and again at the bike party.
“Well, I need to speak to Carlos.” Sabrina issued the demand.
Carlos rose up and walked to the lobby. He saw Face roll his eyes and he knew that seeing Sabrina made him salty. He gotta get over that shit, Carlos thought to himself. “’Brina, what’s up?”
“I need to talk to you,” Sabrina said with much attitude.
“Like you ain’t got my number.”
Sabrina rolled her neck and spoke to him as if she were his woman, or at least some bitch he was fucking. “I need to talk to you face to face.”
“Crazy bitch,” Carlos muttered under his breath. Then he relented, not wanting to disrupt his customers any more than he already had. “Let’s go to the back.”
Carlos allowed Sabrina to lead the way and saw the nonverbal exchange between her and Sapphire. When two bitches fucked the same nigga, animosity was inevitable, no matter how much of a time span has elapsed. He pushed Sabrina along because he knew Sapphire wouldn’t hesitate to beat her ass in the shop if she said something out of the way to her. And the last thing he needed in BobCutz was for another fight to break out.
Once Sabrina and Carlos were in the office, he closed the door and locked it. He stood at the door. “So what the fuck is so important that you had to come and disrupt my business?”
“I just wanted to let you know that Uncle Winkie won the lottery,” Sabrina said in a hushed tone, as if others in the room could hear her.
“Fuck outta here.” Carlos laughed at her. Carlos couldn’t believe that Winkie, the recovering crackhead from the neighborhood, had won the fucking lottery. He remembered when he and Winkie were in the county jail together when he’d been locked up for that bogus charge with the Feds. He had taken care of the man while they were in there.