“No more mistakes, Angelo. I promise.”
“Oh my God. Let me see. What made you do this shit?” He snatched his shirt off and grabbed my hands and started wrapping them up in it, trying to stop the blood.
I winced because it stung, but didn’t pull my hands back.
“We gonna get my daughter. I don’t care where I have to go or what else I have to do. All I want is my daughter.”
“Yeah, Honey, we gonna get our princess I promise. On my life, I swear we’ll get her back.” He kissed my forehead, smoothing my hair back, and I drifted into sleep or passed out, I wasn’t sure which. But my last thoughts were of a beautiful little baby girl with golden skin and chubby cheeks. Smiling at me through long, curly-ass lashes, it was a smile I’d seen a million times and I felt as though I hadn’t seen that smile in a million years—it was my smile.
When It All Comes Down
66
All the shit Honey and Angelo put me through to get me locked up and not one ounce of it could stick. Jim went to the DEA and all the charges against me were dropped within a week. The pistol that was used to murder Larissa was also the same gun used to kill Rasheed. There was no way I could have been in Virginia at the time he was murdered and when they ran the gun through forensics they found a second set of prints along with mine that belonged to Trenisha, also known as Honey. They did an autopsy on Curtis’s body and his estimated time of death placed me at Chuck E. Cheese with the kids. They even pulled the photos from the hard drive in the booth from that day to help verify I couldn’t have been the person to stab him and then cut off his arm.
It was such a relief to be treated like a normal member of society again. They’d reopened Honey’s case to determine how someone declared dead could be walking around committing murders. Honey was on all the bulletins and wanted ads; they had an older picture from her first prison arrest, but it was a close enough resemblance for someone to identify her, and it did not surprise me at all that she’d suddenly vanished off the face of the earth along with Angelo and Lania.
With Honey and Angelo in hiding I was anxious to find Keyshawn and the kids. I’d asked Jim to pick me up a new phone since I’d dropped mine, and even though he was watching the house, I was still too scared to go back to that place. I dialed Keyshawn’s number.
“Michelle?” he answered, and I could hear the kids screaming for me in the background.
I breathed a sigh of relief. “Yeah, it’s me. They let me go. Honey fucked up and had her prints on the gun. I guess she wasn’t expecting me to grab it, but combined with the footage from my home surveillance and Jim’s security info to back me up they didn’t have anything to tie me to the murders. I had an alibi and they had no material evidence. We even got records of Larissa’s calls to Lania the day she disappeared.”
I could hear the stress in his voice. I could only think what he was going through tryin’ to keep up with two kids. “I’m so sorry. I tried to keep you and the kids safe for as long as I could, Michelle. Angelo’s my half brother by marriage so goin’ against him would have caused major shit with the family. I had to do whatever I could to keep me safe and pray you would still make it out of there okay. I had no idea why they wanted to get to you; all I knew is Lania and Angelo’s new woman had it out for you since the day we met to look at that property, and, as part of the family, I either went with them or I was automatically against them.”
I had to give Honey credit, she’d set this shit up damn near flawlessly. If I hadn’t had the foresight to grab her gun after I’d knocked her unconscious there wouldn’t be any reasonable doubt to stop them from pressing full double homicide charges against me.
“I wanna see my babies, Key. I miss you guys so much. Where are you?”
“Meet me at the spot where we first met. You already know Trey and Taya been missin’ you something terrible. I have been too.”
I was still paranoid as hell and I called Jim to make sure I wasn’t being followed before I left the hotel I was staying in. I sent someone ahead to scope out the only place I could think of that Keyshawn could have meant. After getting the all clear from Jim I rented a car and went to see my babies, all of them. As I pulled into the circular driveway I couldn’t help but notice the place was just as I remembered it; not a hedge, leaf, or stone was out of place. So much of our heartache started all because of this property, and I couldn’t help seeing the irony in the fact that here I was once again, right back at square one.
“Momeeeeeeee.”
Tears streamed down my cheeks as I knelt down to hug Trey. There was a point when I thought I’d never see my son again; looking into his bright eyes and kissing his smiling face filled me with so much joy.
“I’m so glad you made it out of all this okay.” Keyshawn walked out of the back door holding Lataya in his arms. They both had the biggest grins on their faces.
Standing, I couldn’t hide anything as I walked over to kiss them both. I felt at peace and there was so much love in my heart for Keyshawn. No matter what doubts I’d ever had about him or where our relationship would go, he’d saved my children for me and I’d always owe him my undying gratitude for that.
“So what do we do now?” I looked at him still holding Lataya and tried to figure out how we could still make it out of this and salvage something from our relationship.
“We leave Florida. Angelo and Honey gonna be lyin’ low for a minute. Lania’s pretty much wanted right now for her connection to Larissa goin’ missing. I say we see what Cali is like, or Maryland.”
I understood what he meant, but I couldn’t see me running from yet another situation. “I say, we like Florida, and we stay right here. You keep playin’ ball for the Legends and I’ll keep doing what I do. When they come for us, if they come for us, we’ll be ready.”
“So you wanna stay right here? Right in the middle of Angelo’s stompin’ ground?”
“Keyshawn, what good is leaving gonna do if they’ll follow us wherever we go? If Angelo gonna send men out to wherever we are? We’ll be runnin’ our entire lives.”
He handed me Lataya and was looking at me in disbelief, like he couldn’t imagine me wanting to stay in Florida. “I can’t do that shit, Michelle. I was supposed to take Honey her daughter that night and put Trey back on a plane to Virginia. They both probably want me dead. If not now then they will as soon as they’ve realized that I ain’t do what I was s’posed to do.”
“So what are you telling me, Key?” Looking him in his eye I dared him to tell me he was gonna leave me, standing right there with my son and my daughter like we weren’t shit after all we’d been through together. I couldn’t see it happening. But he didn’t need to tell me anything. Kissing me on my forehead, he turned and walked toward his car.
I couldn’t believe this nigga was walkin’ out on us like this, but I expected it. These weren’t his kids, I wasn’t his wife, and he had his own problems to deal with. Grabbing Trey’s hand I walked into this new, cold, empty house. It was time for us to start over. No drama, no bullshit, no ghosts, and no craziness. I didn’t need anyone else to help me with my kids. I could and I would do this all on my own.
Might As Well Go Out With A Bang
67
“Where’s Uncle Key goin’, Mommy?” Trey asked me quietly.
I fought the tears and the heartache; I needed to be stronger than what I thought possible. “He’s going home, baby.”
I’d barely closed the back door when I was knocked off my feet. All the air whooshed out of my body in one painful breath. Trey yelled and Lataya wailed.
“Trey, go upstairs! Take your sister upstairs!” I rolled onto my side, clutching my stomach as he scampered away, half dragging his crying sister behind him.
“How did I know this is where he’d meet you? Of all the places, he’d have you come here.”
Lania was standing above me, her eyes wild with fury and hate. She glared down at me, shotgun in hand—muzzle to the ground. She was leaning on it like a crutch, s
lightly swaying back and forth.
“All he did was bring me my kids, Yylannia. There’s nothing to us. You want him, you got him.”
She sneered down at me. “You can’t give me what’s already mine, bitch. He’s so damn caught up with your ass he’s willing to die. I’m not worried about you. I just need the little girl so Angelo will let me and Key live in peace.”
The meaning behind her words was all too clear. I slowly struggled to sit. No one was going to touch my daughter and the thought alone ignited a fire in my soul.
“You’re going to have to kill me to get her. Is all of this really worth it? Do you think it’s going to be that easy?” I glanced around, looking for something, anything to use in defense.
“Oh, Chelly. Poor Chelly. Misguided, thinks-she-owns-the-world little Chelly. I can do whatever the fuck I want, bitch! Angelo’s my brother, sweetheart. We own Miami.” She laughed, and it was the most deranged-sounding witch’s cackle I’d ever heard in my life.
I watched helplessly as she raised the barrel of the shotgun. My mind was going berserk. I tried calculating how much time I’d have to stand and lunge or roll to the side. Can I even make it to her before she pulls the trigger? I didn’t have a choice; my babies were not going to see me laid out in this floor.
“Stand the fuck up and take this shit like a woman. I’d hate to have to tell everyone I killed a cowering bitch.”
Slowly I dragged myself upright. I didn’t plan it and I sure as hell didn’t fully think it through. I lunged at Lania’s feet. The sound of the shotgun momentarily deafened me and she screamed as the bullet smashed through the door behind me. I didn’t give her a chance to get any kind of leverage on that shotgun. I hit her in the jaw so hard I was sure my hand was broken.
Nothing prepares you for those split-second moments. They happen faster than lightning and you are all instinct and reaction. Before Lania could react I’d grabbed the gun, stood, and before I could think about consequences or anything else I fired. I hit her center mass—square in the chest. Shotgun still in hand I ran to get Trey and Lataya. They were hunkered together on the bottom of the stairs, crying hysterically.
“It’s okay, babies. I promise everything is okay. Let’s go get in the car.”
I led them around Lania’s body, turning their heads into my leg so they wouldn’t look. There was a hole the size of tennis ball in the back door and the light from the sun cast a lonely ray through it. I turned the handle and nothing could stop the scream that escaped me. Nothing could have prepared me for what I saw and my heart split in two as tears streamed from my eyes. I dropped the shotgun and knelt down.
Keyshawn was lying outside the door. I already knew he was gone. His eyes stared unblinking toward the sky and blood covered his chest. He was still holding a bouquet of flowers in his left hand. God, he must have reconsidered what I said and decided to come back. There was so much bloodshed surrounding me and all of it was because of Rasheed and his hoing-ass ways. I was tempted to dig his body up from wherever it was buried and shoot him again, several times, just for all the pain we were going through.
I didn’t know where I got the strength from, but I stood. The kids were still beside me; their little scared faces would probably scar me for life. Kissing my fingers I touched Keyshawn’s eyes and closed them.
“You two okay?” I asked quietly.
I looked at my babies, and I knew for a fact Honey wouldn’t stop until I was dead and Lataya was back with her. I called the police and waited in my rental car for them to arrive. Officer Towanna, the one who helped me, was the first one to get there.
“Michelle, right? You all right?” She approached me with her weapon drawn.
“I’m good. You won’t be needin’ that gun though, they ain’t gonna move.”
She radioed for backup and smiled reassuringly. “Well, you sure do seem to keep a lot of drama surrounding your ass.”
I smiled at her attempt to ease the tension. After I explained everything that had happened, Towanna offered to personally escort me and the kids to a new hotel while everything was being investigated. She didn’t trust anyone else, since Lania and Angelo were known to pay off police officers and at the moment I didn’t trust anyone.
“Y’all need me, you have my card and my cell phone number.” She was standing at the doorway to the hotel room.
“Thank you for everything, Offi . . . Towanna. I just want a hot bath and sleep right now.”
I watched as she closed the door and it felt as though a chapter was closing. My heart had been ripped out, replaced, and ripped out again, and I had no idea how to rebuild it this time. Every fiber in my body was screaming for me to just break down. I wanted to scream, cry, crawl into a hole, and never come out. There was now a gaping wound in my heart and nothing aside from my kids would ever be able to fill it again.
Everyone close to me was gone. It was just me and my two little ones, and if Honey wouldn’t stop until I was dead . . . well, then it only made sense for me to try to kill her first. She’d made this game strictly life or death, and above all else I was choosing life.
Baby Momma Saga Page 36