The Prada Plan 3: Green-Eyed Monster
Ashley Antoinette
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Table of Contents
Title Page
Introduction
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Epilogue
Copyright Page
Introduction
Fuck life. That’s how this shit feels to me right now—like death, like I’m living in hell on earth. As a man, how do I take this shit? Life was good in New Yitty. A few years ago the only worries I had were getting and spending bread, while making sure I kept my nose clean. Now those days seem to be long gone. Life is full of sleepless nights, bags have formed under my eyes, and burdens weigh on my shoulders. I’m aging before my very own eyes. And for what? In the name of love, right? I used to think so, but now I’m not so sure.
Before YaYa I was cold. Handled women the way that I handled the streets—calculating and efficient, but never getting too close to the fire to avoid being burnt. But when she walked into my world I broke all of the rules, ignored the signs that she wasn’t the one, just because I wanted to convince myself that she was. Now, I don’t know what the fuck this is. I can’t call it.
The day I saw YaYa I knew I had found a bad bitch. Excuse my language. I mean no disrespect, but I’m giving you that real-nigga shit right now. Green eyes, skin with the honey tint, wide hips, fat ass, with the slick lip to match. She was a straight-up East Coast chick, and I felt the arrow pierce my heart from Cupid’s bow as soon as she flashed her pretty smile. I remember how my heart stopped beating in my chest at first sight. Despite me playing it cool, I knew she was my equal.
Shit was official when I started ignoring texts from ten others just to be with this one girl. I knew then that she had me. She had no clue what she did to me, but I had never been more sure of anything in my life. There is something about a man when he’s chosen his bitch—that one woman, his ride-or-die. He becomes territorial and will go to the end of the earth and back for her. Pop any nigga that disrespects her.
Now, I’m no sucker for love. I know you’ve seen that type. You ladies probably run all over that type. Spend his paper then ignore his phone calls because he gave you everything too fast. Nah, that’s not the kid. I’m the one you look at your phone every half hour to see if I’ve hit you with a text yet. The one that you diss your home girls for because you would rather cake it than hit the town. I’m the man that will cop you the new whatever—shoes, handbags, cars—just so you can go to the hood and stunt on all the chicks that hated on you during your come-up.
It took a special woman to make me go to that level, however, and before I met Disaya Morgan, I had done these things for no one. I wasn’t into cuffing a chick, never had been, but she was different. I fell under her spell almost instantly. We were supposed to have our hood happily ever after. You know how it goes. She was supposed to be my Bonnie. Ride shotgun in the foreign whips. Take trips to exotic spots and fuck under the stars on the beach as the waves washed over our toes. All that good shit. Pop bottles in clubs as we sat on our thrones and the hood kissed the ring of the king. King of New York, king of Houston, king of anyplace I occupy because I boss up everywhere I go. I chose YaYa as my queen. On some G shit, I even forgave her after she crossed me repeatedly, because she was the source of my heartbeat. When she walked into a room, I was proud because every head turned to admire what was mine. We had that real black love once upon a time. Not the corny type, but that real hood love affair. Shit could have been good . . . epic . . . and life would have been grand.
So why couldn’t we have all that? Why are we living in a nightmare? How did shit go so far left? I understand every girl from the ghetto has a past, but YaYa’s past is more like the present because it never stays in the rearview. It haunts her, haunts us, haunts me.
I’ve got to be real frank with y’all right now. . . . I don’t know how much longer I can hold on. Shit’s real different around my way lately. She’s different. I’m on hard times. The DEA is breathing down my back, just waiting for me to show them my hand so they can slip a silver bracelet around my wrists and lock me up for life. On top of that, money’s low. Money’s damn near gone. When you’re used to living grand, small money don’t go as far as it used to. Then there’s YaYa. Her entire essence is different. Since the fire, she’s . . . she’s . . . not YaYa.
After everything she’s been through, I would be wrong to leave. Right? But I don’t want to stay out of obligation. I want the connection that we used to share. The one that felt real . . . right . . . I don’t know. Something’s just off with her. She’s not herself . . . but I’m no storyteller or griot in the least, so I’ma pass it to someone who can spin the tale so y’all can feel it. First you heard YaYa’s side, then Leah’s. I won’t call this my story because I’m not a limelight type of nigga. I prefer to play the back, stay low key. Let’s just say that there are three sides to every story: YaYa’s, Leah’s, and the truth.
Now, there’s only two people on the planet that can tell it to you with authenticity. They’re from where I’m from; they move how me and my lady move. They’re the best at what they do. I believe y’all know them: Ashley and JaQuavis. Well, JaQuavis is busy penning his next classic, so he’s going to let Ashley take this solo. So without further adieu, I’m handing it over his Mrs.—New York Times bestseller, Ashley Antoinette. Do your thing, ma.
Chapter 1
“I don’t understand why she hasn’t awoken yet. It’s been a month. Is she going to make it, Doctor?” Zya asked, watching as her medical staff catered to YaYa’s injuries. She stood with her hips cocked and one hand tucked in the silk pocket of her Zac Posen editor pants as she impatiently awaited an answer.
The doctor took his time in replying as he concentrated on taking YaYa’s vitals. The buzz of the many machines that she was connected to indicated that she was alive, but she had yet to open her eyes. “Doctor?” Zya pushed insistently. She crossed her eyes and gave him a stern look, demanding a response.
The elderly Indian man removed his stethoscope from his ears, hanging it from his neck, and then turned to his employer. He had been on call for Zya since she graduated to queen pin status. In her line of work she needed someone with his medical expertise on her team, and he had proven very useful to her—until now. Now it seemed that no matter how much he attended to YaYa, she just wasn’t getting better.
In a lot of ways, YaYa reminded Zya of herself. They each possessed a heart the size of a lion and a hustler’s spirit. Zya hoped that YaYa found the strength to pull through.
“I don’t know, Ms. Miller. Every burn has been attended to. My nurse has met all of her physical needs. We just have to wait and hope that she comes out of this coma. I have worked with some patients who never come out of them, and others who recover in no time. Just be patient,” the doctor said as he packed up his medical instruments and left the room.
Zya sighed as she stood over YaYa. “It will be such a shame if you don’t make it out of this. You don’t even know the greatness that lies in your future. All you have to do is wake up
,” Zya whispered solemnly. YaYa’s eyes flinched slightly, and Zya squeezed her hand gently. “I know you hear me, YaYa. Get your strength up, ma, and come back to the land of the living.”
The sudden blare of the machine rang out in the room, startling Zya. She gasped in shock and stumbled backward. The numbers on the heart monitor dropped drastically, and alarms summoned the doctor back into the room.
“What happened?” he asked as he rushed to YaYa’s bedside and immediately began to attend to his patient.
Zya’s mouth fell open, yet no explanation came out as she shook her head frantically. “I . . . I don’t know. The machines just . . .” She paused and shrugged her shoulders in confusion as wrinkles creased her forehead in concern. “They just started going off. What’s going on?”
“I’m losing her!” the doctor called out. “Start chest compressions,” he ordered a nurse who entered the room in haste.
Zya was pushed aside as she watched the doctor try to bring a dead woman back to life. After what YaYa had been through, it would take nothing less than an act of God to stop her from walking through death’s door.
YaYa stood on the threshold between the living and the dead as she desperately fought the slow, inevitable fate that awaited her. The stench of burning flesh plagued her as her incinerated skin melted away. She could still feel the flames engulfing her. The orange-and-red fire struck her like lightning bolts and nipped at her soul like a rabid dog as the polluted smoke destroyed her lungs. She tried to resist, fought to breathe, but the more she struggled, the worse the pain became.
I’m dying, she thought. Please, God . . . help me. It was a name that she had called upon many times before, one that she wished she had praised more often throughout her life. If I had more faith in Him, maybe my life would not have turned out this way, she thought as tears slipped from her eyes.
Disaya Morgan was in a subconscious state, stuck between darkness and light, yet she felt the pain that she had endured pulsing through her all at once. It all culminated inside of her in this moment. Her life was flashing before her eyes, and all she saw was a string of painful memories: the fire, her child’s kidnapping, the loss of Indie, the death of her mother, the silver shackles on her father’s wrists, being raped as a child. It all came back to her at once, pouring over her, drowning her in sorrow. Everything turned black as her mind spun. Her heart beat so rapidly it felt as if she had stampeding horses inside of her chest.
“Please, God, help me. For once just save me,” she sobbed as she fell to her knees in desperation. She knew that she was dying. She felt life’s force leaving her, her energy and will to live abandoning her. It was as if she was being drained, like she had a slow leak and her soul was seeping out.
Her surroundings went completely dark as a voice filled her ears.
“The reason why your precious God never answers your prayers is because you’re not his child.”
YaYa recognized the voice before she ever looked up to see who was standing before her. Her heart skipped a beat.
“Mommy?” she called out as she raised her head. Her mother, Dynasty, stood before her.
“Hi, baby,” Dynasty replied as she knelt before YaYa and stared into her face.
YaYa hadn’t seen her face in years, but she remembered every feature as if it were yesterday. Dynasty was striking, and YaYa’s heart fluttered anxiously as she looked at the most beautiful woman she had ever had the pleasure of knowing.
“Mommy?” YaYa repeated, her lip trembling. “Am I dead?” YaYa asked as she began to sob.
Dynasty nodded her head as she knelt before her daughter, cupping YaYa’s face in her hands. “Yes, baby girl, you are dying,” she confirmed.
“Is this heaven?” YaYa asked.
“Do you feel pain?” Dynasty asked.
YaYa nodded her head and held on to her mother’s forearms while crying in extreme excruciation. “Yes . . . so much that I can’t take it. I feel it all. I remember it all,” she grieved.
“You’re in hell then, baby. This is it. Dark, lonely, but most of all it’s painful. Hell is not the fiery myth that man has made it out to be. It’s just pain . . . eternal pain,” Dynasty whispered solemnly, knowing all too well that her sins had led not only herself but also her child to this very place.
“Oh God!” YaYa cried. “My daughter . . . she needs me. I can’t die, Ma. I don’t want to go to hell. I don’t deserve to be here! I need more time . . . time to take care of her. Time to make things right.” YaYa was hysterical as she thought of never seeing Skylar’s face again. The mere notion of not being there to raise her child was suffocating. It felt as if the devil himself had plunged his hand inside her chest and torn out her heart.
“There are no do-overs, YaYa. Once you’re here, you’re here. Even if you’re sent back for a little while, you’ll eventually come back. Forgiveness and retribution are for God’s children. Once the devil touches you, you’re his offspring, and it’s hard to go good once you’ve already gone bad. It’s like a loaf of bread: once it stales, ain’t no saving it.
“You’re my daughter. If you’re anything like me, not even God can save you. We’re too hardheaded to live righteous. We want what we want, when we want it, and we’ll use what we got to get it,” Dynasty said as she smiled. YaYa could see her thinking back on years past to the good old days. Dynasty shook her head and said, “That damn Prada Plan.”
YaYa pulled away from Dynasty and looked up at her in confusion. “Why would you teach me that? You’re my mother! You’re supposed to teach me the right way, guide me the right way!” YaYa yelled.
Dynasty cocked her head to the side and put one hand on her hip. “No, no, baby girl, you got to be accountable for your own actions. I gave you the game, but you applied it your way. I said, ‘Use what you got.’ You’ve got a brain to think. Did you use that? You’ve got a conscience to decipher right and wrong. You use that? You chose to work the sweet spot between your legs to get by. You chose the easy route. You could have been anything. Your Prada Plan could have taken you to the moon and back. You chose—”
“To be like you,” YaYa cried. “I am my mother’s child, but I won’t end up like you.”
YaYa closed her eyes and held up her hands to the sky, crying hysterically while on her knees. “God, please forgive me, Father, for I have sinned. I need you right now, Lord. I need you to wrap your arms around me and please take me back to my daughter. Take me back to Indie. God, spare me with your love. I know that I haven’t spoken to you like I should. I haven’t believed in you like I should, but I’m here now. I’m here, not to ask you why so many bad things have happened in my life, but to ask you for the chance to live so that I may learn the lessons that come with those bad times. Please, God, please! Save me, for I am your child. . . .”
“Charge to ten!” the doctor ordered as he waited to shock YaYa’s heart for the third time.
“Help her! Do everything that you can!” Zya demanded as she stood in the background, anxiously watching the heart monitor screen. YaYa had been flat-lined for more than two minutes, and Zya was losing hope.
“Clear!” the doctor called out as he placed the defibrillator on her chest and sent a charge to YaYa’s heart. Her body jerked off of the bed slightly, but her pulse didn’t change. The doctor pulled back and looked at Zya sympathetically.
“She’s gone, Ms. Miller. I’m sorry. She’s been under too long. There’s no bringing her back from this. You just have to let go,” the doctor said.
Zya shook her head and said, “Again. . . . Do it again.”
“Ms. Miller . . .” the doctor protested.
“Do it again! I pay you enough to make miracles happen! Do it again, damn it!” Zya yelled, losing her cool, something that was uncharacteristic for her.
The doctor shook his head, feeling like it was a lost cause, but he followed her orders.
“Charge to twenty!” he instructed. The nurse charged the machine and then the doctor called, “Clear.”
YaYa’s body jerked violently once more, lifting off of the bed slightly. Zya bit her bottom lip, and the room went silent as everyone stared at the heart monitor.
“Come on, come on,” Zya urged. She closed her eyes and dropped her head, but as soon as she was about to give up . . . Beep . . . Beep . . . Beep . . .
YaYa’s pulse showed up on the screen, faintly, but it was there. The doctor looked back at Zya in amazement, knowing that the odds of YaYa coming back to life were slim. “There’s that miracle you asked for,” the doctor remarked as he stabilized YaYa.
Zya sighed in relief, not sure yet why she was so invested in this young girl. “Will she be okay?”
The doctor nodded his head and replied, “We’ll monitor her closely to make sure that she doesn’t code again, but for now her heart is beating. That’s all we can ask for.”
Chapter 2
Leah sat perfectly still as the sound of her heartbeat racing echoed in her ears. Her eyes darted from the nurse to the doctor to the medical aid. Back and forth, she looked at them, trying to read them. Is it bad? she thought, wondering how her skin would look and trying to gauge their reactions to prepare herself for what she was about to see.
In their faces she saw nothing. The medical team that surrounded her was strictly professional as they removed the bandages from her body. The severe burns had taken an entire month to begin to heal. Days of painful infections had plagued Leah, and excruciating skin grafts had been performed, all in an attempt to save her. The doctors were working around the clock to save as much of her skin as possible, but unbeknownst to them, Leah was welcoming the deformity. The more unrecognizable she was, the better her plans would unfold.
She cringed as the sting of the sterile hospital air hit her face when each bandage was removed. The dirty gauze was filled with pus, blood, and dead skin as they took it off piece by piece.
Leah could not stop her eyes from filling with tears. She could only imagine how gruesome she looked. Her looks had gotten her by when she had nothing, but she would easily exchange that for the chance to step into YaYa’s shoes. YaYa had love, an entire world full of people who worshipped the ground she walked on, and if this was the pain that Leah had to go through in order to have that too, then it was worth it.
Green Eyed Monster Page 1