by Erica Hilton
Was I totally confident? No, I was not. But I was determined. I was determined to bag Nico and take him away from Mia. I was on the verge of achieving my goal, with just one small hurdle left. I knew guys never played that “sharing-the-pussy-that-they-are-wifing” bullshit.
Women could overlook and forgive a lot of shit, but with men, once they know you fucked someone else while you were with them, it usually was a wrap. I was just hoping that it was indeed officially a wrap for Mia.
CHAPTER 25
Mia
My heart was in my stomach when I hung up the phone with Nico. Right away I called Sharmel.
“You OK?” Sharmel asked me as soon she picked up the phone.
“No I’m literally dying right now. Oh my God!” I was uncontrollably trembling with fear.
“Mia, what happened?”
“Tell me the truth and be totally honest with me. Did you tell Ricky anything, about what happened down in Miami with me?”
“Hell, no! Are you crazy? I would never tell him no shit like that. He would be looking at me sideways if I did,” Sharmel replied.
I knew that she wasn’t lying. “Nico knows about Kelvin,” I said, desperate.
“Nooooo! How?”
“I have no idea, but that fucking bitch Jasmine was telling him that she got me on tape with a nigga in Miami banging my back out.”
“She’s fuckin’ lying, Mia.”
“So then how would she even remotely know to say something like that?”
“Kelvin’s from New York, and it could be a coincidence that she recently spoke to him. Don’t stress out.”
“Sharmel, she was down there in Miami! Fuck! I knew I saw that bitch down there.” I started crying.
“Mia, she wasn’t down there. Calm down. That’s just your mind playing tricks on you. All you need to do is tell Nico that you met Kelvin and he was an owner of the club and he got us in the club and bought us drinks, and that’s it. Nico knows you, so he ain’t gonna believe you would step out on him like that.”
“OK, I guess you’re right. I just wish I had listened to you and not fucked that dude. What the hell was I thinking?”
“Mia, that’s in the past. You’re human, and you were really going through it. Things happen. Don’t beat yourself up.”
I sighed into the phone and thanked Sharmel for listening to me. I asked her to keep her phone on, just in case I had to urgently call her back.
After I hung up the phone, I went to my computer and printed out what I had saved of Jasmine’s ads.
I tried to calm down. I still wanted to make sure that I was coming across confident, so I sent Nico a text and asked him, was he coming home to the apartment so I could show him what I had to show him.
Nico didn’t respond, and I looked at that as somewhat positive because, had he really had wind of me fucking Kelvin, there was no way he would have remained silent on that.
About a half an hour later Nico came home. He slammed the door so hard, I thought he broke the locks.
I grabbed the printouts I had of Jasmine and ran to the living room to meet Nico and show him my evidence. “Here’s your—” I said and tried to hand him what I had.
Whack!
Nico hauled back and slapped the shit out of me to the point where I literally saw stars, and I fell backwards until my back hit the living room wall and blood trickled out of my mouth. Then he charged me and grabbed me by my throat and started choking me with one hand. He was applying so much pressure, I just knew he was going to crush every bone in my neck.
“You went down to Miami to fuck some nigga!” he screamed at me. He was so angry, he couldn’t get his words out quick enough and was spitting on me while he yelled.
I was still seeing stars from his initial powerful slap and felt like I was about to pass out, but I kicked and scratched and swung and did everything I could to free myself from Nico’s ninja-like chokehold grip.
“Who the fuck was that nigga?” Nico demanded to know.
I tried to shake my head no, but as angry as Nico was, he had to have known what went down. He flung me halfway across the living room floor.
I was in such pain. I reached for my throat, gasping and coughing, desperately trying to get some air into my lungs.
Nico ran up to me and started kicking and stomping me, and all I could do was scream, since there was no way I was going to physically force him to stop beating me.
Just then the building’s concierge came running into the apartment to see what was going on. He let himself in with the master key.
Nico looked up and saw our concierge, Harry, towering over him. “Everything is a’ight!” Nico yelled to him.
“Help me,” I said. I was certain that Nico was about to kill me.
Harry pushed him away from me, telling Nico to calm down and to just try to relax, and that nothing was worth getting locked up over.
Nico’s chest was visibly rising and falling. Then he spat in my face, and it landed straight in my eye.
“Nico, come outside with me for a moment,” Harry said to Nico, trying to get him to leave the apartment. “The neighbors will call the police if this continues. I told them I could handle it. My job is on the line if you don’t stop this insanity.”
Harry was a reasonable man. He’d worked as a concierge for nearly twenty years and sent his only son to an Ivy League school on tips alone. He knew how to turn a blind eye for the rich. And although he knew he should have called the cops on Nico for hitting his woman, the tip for not calling the cops is what his bottom line was.
“So you’re siding with that whore?” I wiped Nico’s spit from my face. “You won’t even look at what I printed out, because you’re in denial!” I said, grimacing in pain.
“Give me one minute. Just step outside for one minute,” Nico said to Harry. “You got my word, I ain’t gonna touch her again.”
Harry seemed torn but he gave in to Nico’s request and stepped out of the apartment, he left the front door open.
Nico retrieved his cell phone from the living room floor. It must have fallen to the ground when he was kicking me. After scrolling through the phone, he pressed a button and showed the phone to me. Instantly I recognized myself in the hotel room getting fucked by Kelvin.
“You see this shit?” Nico asked me.
“Nico, give me the phone!” I tried to grab it out of his hands, but he pushed me off and held me at bay while I tried to take it from him.
As we tussled, I could no longer see the images of Kelvin fucking me, but I could hear everything I had said totally out of character for me, and my words made me cringe from embarrassment.
“Fuck me harder, you black muthafucka! . . . Pull my hair and fuck me deeper! . . . You like this wet pussy? . . . Smack my ass!”
“Now you gonna tell me that ain’t you?” Nico asked me.
“Nico! Baby, you don’t understand!” I said, tears streaming down my eyes.
“What is there to fuckin’ understand? Tell me right now why I shouldn’t murder you behind this stunt?” Nico hollered at me.
I went up to Nico and tried to hug him, but he shoved me across the room, sending me crashing into a picture that was hanging on the wall. The picture fell to the floor and the glass frame shattered.
Harry came back in the apartment to see what was up.
Nico told him, “Yo, she’s leaving! Get her the fuck up outta here right now! Otherwise, I’m getting locked up for murder tonight.”
“Nico, I’m not leaving until you talk to me,” I said through tears and immense anger.
“Take her ass out right now.”
Harry gently grabbed me by the arm.
“Get off me!” I shouted and flung my arm free. “Nico, everything we had, you just tossing it aside over this?”
“You should’ve asked yourself that question before you flew to Miami to fuck that nigga!”
“God please help me!” I screamed. “This is sooooo frustrating, because that’s not what happened!”
“So while I was calling you and texting you, you was fuckin’ that nigga, and that’s why you was ignoring me, right? Get the fuck outta my crib! And, like I said, consider yourself lucky you still fuckin’ breathing!”
Harry came up to me and tugged me, forcing me to go with him as I wailed and cried.
“This is not happening! That bitch caused me to lose my man! I don’t believe this shit!” I said out loud.
Nico shouted, “No, you caused this, Mia! Nobody forced you to open up your legs!”
“OK, I’m coming with you,” I said to Harry. “You don’t have to pull on me.”
Harry took me to the elevator and explained to me that he was just doing his job. “Is there someplace you could stay the night?”
I closed my eyes and bowed my head. I just paused for a few seconds because I felt like I was going to explode.
“I’ve seen these domestic violence situations before, and trust me, things escalate. So it’s better to leave the house now. In a day or two, no matter what it is, it can be talked out. But if you don’t walk away now, then emotions get more involved and common sense goes out the window, and the next thing you know, things happen that somebody ultimately regrets. You understand?”
I nodded my head. Then I asked Harry if he could go inside the apartment and get my bag with my car keys.
After he got the car keys for me, I got inside my truck and started the ignition. I sat for about five minutes with the engine idling. Then, right before I pulled off, I sent Sharmel a text: Nico showed me a video of Kelvin and I fucking. It’s over for me.
CHAPTER 26
Jasmine
It had only been six weeks since Nico dumped Mia and put her ass out. And within those six weeks, he had moved me in to live with him in the lap of luxury in his sprawling Long Island estate. Even though I had moved in with Nico, I was still in school for nursing. I had a longer commute to Brooklyn every day from Long Island, but it was OK because I got to commute in style in the brand-new all-white X6 that he’d bought for me.
Although I was enjoying the luxuries that came with being wifey, I was wondering just what had I walked myself into by wanting to be Nico’s main girl.
Within the three weeks I had been living with him, two different chicks came by the house looking for him while he wasn’t home. Both of the chicks had the same story and wanted the same thing. They both claimed that they used to mess with Nico and that he had gotten them pregnant, and they wanted to know what he was going to do about supporting his child.
None of the chicks was ghetto or stank in terms of how they spoke to me, so it made me think that there was a lot of truth to their stories. And because they weren’t stank with me, I wasn’t stank with them. But at the same time I was smart enough to know not to trust no chicks. I didn’t tell Nico that they came by. Let him find out on his own and clean up his own mess.
See, not too long ago I was the woman on the outside looking in, trying to get on the inside with Nico, and now that I had that position, there was no way I was going to give any woman even an inch with my man. Because, after all, it was only an inch I needed to bounce Mia out of the picture.
Truth be told though, the women who came by the house were not really my main concern. I was more worried about the cops and the federal agents who came knocking at our front door on several different occasions. But I really got alarmed the last time the feds came by looking to talk to me specifically.
I was just heading out the door and ready to go to school when two homicide detectives met me at the garage door.
“Excuse me, Jasmine,” one of the detectives said to me. “Do you mind if we talk with you for a moment?”
They had flashed their badges, so I knew they were legit. What had me nervous was, they knew me by my first name.
“Well, actually, I’m in a hurry, kind of late for school, so I don’t really have too much time. But I can give you a few minutes.” I didn’t want to totally brush them off and make myself look worried about something.
One of the officers took out a pen and a small pad. “OK, we appreciate it. So, Jasmine, do you know why we’re here?” he asked me.
I was no dummy, and Nico had coached me well on how to talk to the feds and to the police. An innocent person is always direct and never vague, while a guilty person is always vague and rarely direct. So that was why I wanted to be as direct and clear with my answers as possible.
“You’re trying to find out information on my ex-boyfriend Shabazz,” I said.
The agent nodded his head as he looked at me, and then he said, “We’ve interviewed a lot of people about Shabazz’s death and the drugs found inside his vehicle at the time of his death, and the pieces are falling together quickly. If you had anything to do with his murder, you should come clean and make it easier on yourself.”
“I don’t know anything about how he died, or who was involved, or why there were drugs in his truck.”
“Did you know any of the people Shabazz associated with on a regular basis?”
“You mean, his friends?”
“Yes, his friends or associates.”
“Well, yeah, of course.”
“Was Nico friends with Shabazz?”
“Yes,” I said, and then my heart started to beat.
“And what is your relation to Nico?”
“Just friends.” I wanted to bounce, but I didn’t want them to think that they’d pushed the right buttons.
“Was Shabazz OK with you and Nico being friends?”
“Of course. I was cool with everybody Shabazz was cool with and vice versa.”
The agent scribbled down everything I was saying, and then he asked me, “Who do you think would’ve wanted to kill him?”
“That’s something I think about a lot. I don’t know. Shabazz was a street person, so I just said to myself that it’s unfortunate, but that’s just how it is. It’s sad.”
I knew I had given the detectives more than enough of my time, so I told them that I didn’t mean to be rude, but that I had to bounce because I had a quiz I couldn’t miss.
The detective handed me his card and thanked me for my time.
“If you hear anything about Shabazz’s death or the drugs that were in his truck, give me a call,” the detective said, “regardless of what it is or how insignificant it might seem.”
“OK, I’ll do that,” I said and I walked off.
“You’re a nursing student, right?” the detective asked.
“Yeah,” I replied and continued on into my car.
As I started up the car and pulled out of the garage, the detective stopped me. I rolled down the window to see what else he wanted.
“Do yourself a favor. You’re a beautiful girl. Focus on your education and start your nursing career. Leave this world alone. Trust me on that,” the detective said. He was an older black guy, about my father’s age, and the way he came across just reminded me so much of what my father would tell me.
I just looked at the agent and didn’t say anything, and I drove off to school. I wasn’t going to say anything to Nico about the detectives questioning me because I didn’t want him to think I wasn’t built for his world.
Later that night I said something because I was worried. Nico assured me that I had nothing to worry about because the agents had nothing to work with.
“Remember, babe, when they got you, they come to lock you up. When they don’t have nothing, they come by just fishing for information, and then they bounce. They were just shaking the tree to see what falls out of the tree. You’re good. We’re good.” Nico kissed me on the forehead.
Nico went out of town the next day. He told me that when he got back, he would take me out to a Manhattan restaurant and start spending more time with me.
It was all good because I had midterms to study for, so it gave me the undistracted time I needed to get ready for my exams.
I should have known that the peace and quiet I was enjoying wouldn’t last for long. As soon as Nico got back in town, I started to get text messages from Mia. But I knew that the best thing I could do to infuriate her was to simply ignore her, and that was exactly what I did.
Then early in the morning on the day that me and Nico were planning to go to dinner, I got another text from her:
You went from mistress to wifey, but you’re going to soon know that I AM wifey!
Oh, this bitch is so annoying! I said to myself after reading her text. Let it go, bitch, and move on! Dayum!
I wanted to text her back, but I continued to ignore her.
Later that day, at around eight o’clock in the evening, me and Nico found ourselves inside Mr. Chow’s in Manhattan. Right after we were seated the waiter took our order. Out the corner of my eye I spotted two men in suits walking up to our table. I don’t know why, but my heart started pounding.
I was asked, “Are you Jasmine Sinclair?”
I was speechless.
“Yeah, her name is Jasmine. Can we help you?” Nico stood up. “We tryin’ to enjoy a night out.”
The two men flashed their badges. One spoke, “NYPD homicide unit. We’re placing Ms. Sinclair under arrest for the murder of Samuel “Shabazz” Barton.”
“What?” I asked in disbelief.
“Turn around and place your hands behind your back.”
“Nico, help me, please . . . ”
Nico looked helpless.
“Baby, I’ll be on the phone with my lawyer in five minutes. Don’t worry about nothing, and don’t say nothing to these niggas until the lawyer gets there.”