Not trying to hear what Gee was saying in the way of leaving Ava alone, he told him to mind his own business; he had his personal relationship with the “she devil” under total control. Stackz then reminded Gee that he should be worried about finding the two clowns that needed to be dealt with and leave his pussy problems to him.
Gee assured him he was on it and their time running around town like they’d done no wrong was soon coming to an end. He exposed he had gotten word earlier today that they may have been hiding out somewhere across town. One of his people shot him a text saying that the two MIA small-time thugs had been spotted at the funeral home where Gee and Stackz thought they may have showed up at to see their fallen comrade. Gee also mentioned that Leela was also seen going in the funeral home with them to say her final farewells to one of her fuck buddies.
Stackz rubbed his chin and nodded his head, satisfied their low-level reign of terror on the unsuspecting would be thwarted.
“Yeah, bro, real talk. I knew Leela was probably gonna go to ole boy hookup and whatnot, but she still been on some other shit lately.” Gee put Stackz up on game that Leela had been acting funny toward him over the past few weeks, and he didn’t trust her anymore. Trying to put all the pieces together before he reacted, Gee wanted to find out if Leela knew where they were going to the night of the shootout. Because, as he stated the night the shit had popped off, it wasn’t any random coincidence they just “happen” to be at the club the same night at the same time.
Stackz felt the same as his baby brother. Something just wasn’t right. Without hesitation, he let Gee know he would ask Ava later on tonight when they got together.
“Get together? Again? Tonight? Man, what the fuck? Is you sprung? So, damn, she’s your main bitch now or what?” Gee barked at his brother, not believing Stackz was turning his player’s card in. “Next thing next, your ass gonna be trading in the Range for a station wagon.”
“It is what it is, nigga; ain’t no secret,” Stackz popped right back at him with a huge grin on his face.
* * *
Later that evening after Stackz got his business in order he headed home. Blessed to make it back to his crib and out of the mean streets, he took a deep breath and thanked God. He loved his line of work, because after five o’clock, no later than six at the first of each month, his work day was over. That was the beauty of trapping heroin; you set your business hours and when it’s over, it’s over; fuck it, it’s over. His clientele knew to get all they needed to get them through the night because it was mad crazy dangerous after dark trying to chase that dragon.
Stackz hated it when he used to sell crack. He had to work three times as hard and stay up for days on end—make what in one week what he makes now in one day. After counting up all the money his team got out of the mud today, Stackz rubber banded it all up in thousand-dollar racks. Moving the dining-room table over, he then placed the money in the floor safe he’d had specially built. No one knew where this safe was at; not even Gee. Stackz knew that if he ever died out in the streets, the new owner of his house would be blessed if and when they ever decided to get new carpet.
After calming himself down from the day, Stackz took a long, hot shower. Preparing a fruit smoothie, he grabbed a protein bar as well and caught the tail end of the news. An hour later, he called Ava telling her he would be by to pick her up shortly because they needed to talk. With a raised eyebrow, Ava wanted to know exactly about what; however, Stackz told her she’d find out when he picked her up; just be ready.
Ava hung up the phone and was puzzled about what it could be. She’d noticed something in the way he said, just be ready. That bothered her.
* * *
Stackz picked Ava up like he said he would. They sat at an upscale bar and grill to eat and have a few drinks. After awhile of talking about this and that, Ava finally cut off into him. She knew something wasn’t right with him. She could tell he had something on his mind because he wasn’t himself.
“Okay, dang, bae, what’s wrong?”
“Just one thing in particular, Ava.” Stackz, like her, went right to it. He got straight to the point. He wasn’t going to let no good pussy blind him or get him off his square. “Okay, it’s like this. Somebody told those niggas where we would be the night we all went out. I mean, on some real shit, you think outta all the places in the city, they just stumbled up on us and Gee? Just on the damn humble?”
Ava pushed her empty glass to the middle of the table and looked at Stackz questioning. Then asked him what he was trying to say . . . that she told them where they would be that night? “Hold the fuck up. I know you ain’t trying to say I told them nothing-ass bums to come shoot not only you up but my black ass too! Is that what the fuck you saying?” Her voice grew louder with each passing word.
Stackz told her he wasn’t saying she did it and to calm down. He knew she was official. However, then he asked her the million-dollar question, and that was . . . Did she tell her sister. Ava put her hand over her mouth. It now all made sense to her. Her eyes narrowed as she looked in Stackz’s eyes confessing that she had indeed told Leela where she was going that evening. “That bitch asked me where the turnup was that night right before you picked me up. And I swear to God, I never thought about it or put two and two together that that trick would be so messy!”
“So that explains it then.” Stackz finished his drink, needing another.
Ava knew she and Leela went at it constantly and had been since childhood, but this was beyond a fight over borrowing each other’s clothes or lipstick. This was unimaginable. Ava couldn’t believe her sister would put her directly in harm’s way. “I would be lying if I said she wouldn’t do anything like that to maybe someone else, but the bitch knew I was gonna be with you and didn’t care if I got shot—her own sister! She always been jealous and envious of me. She so damn petty. I ain’t even tell you what she did with the flowers you sent me. That heffa threw ’em away!”
Stackz paused, then gave her a halfway smile. “What you mean threw them away?”
“Meaning, I came home from work and found the flowers, the box, and the note stuffed in the trash.” Ava was in full confession mode, giving Stackz a glass insight on who she was when she got pissed and where her loyalties really lay. “I went in on her silly ass. I already told her she had to move outta my house ’cause she refused to get right. But now, trust, she gotta go tonight! Let’s go. Pay the damn bill!”
Stackz shook his head in disgust at what he was hearing. Waving the waitress over, he told her he’d have another double shot of 1738 and to bring Ava another of the same she was drinking. “Chill out, okay?” he smiled. “Pump your brakes. Let’s just drink these drinks and eat. She’ll be there when you get home.”
Ava was still pissed and not ready to let it go that easy. “Naw, Stackz, I’m tired of carrying that girl on my back, and she the damn oldest! She don’t want jack shit for her or her kids. Matter of fact, me and my momma do more for her kids than she even think about. And the bitch was like fuck my life!”
Stackz got Ava to finally calm down. After a few more drinks and a good meal, she started to feel some sort of way realizing who she was with, and the fact that he didn’t play no games. Cut nothing like her sister, Ava couldn’t have a blatant disregard for Leela’s life like Leela obviously had for hers. Maybe it was the liquor that had changed Ava’s mind-set or maybe it just wasn’t in her to be so callous, but whatever the case was, for her nieces’ and nephew’s sake, she spoke out.
Ava placed her hand over the top of Stackz’s hand. With tears about to bubble over and fall down her face, she begged him not to kill her sister if he really cared about her. “Please, Stackz, please let her dumb ass live. I know what she did was fucked up, and she don’t deserve another chance. And matter of fact, I don’t wanna give her another chance to fuck over you or me either. Trust me, I’m gonna throw her fake ass out as soon as we get back. She’s dead to me, I swear.” She allowed her tears to drop as she pleaded her case
. “It’s just my mother and her damn kids would be hurt if her ass wasn’t around no more. Period. Please, Stackz, for me!”
Stackz took everything she’d said in consideration and against his better judgment, he decided to let Leela live. He knew she was going to be trouble in the long run, and he would make sure she got hers one way or another, but just not directly by his hand. “On some real shit, Ava, I feel nothing for your sister; absolutely nothing. And you’re the only reason Leela is still breathing right now, because I care about you. Now I know you just talking shit about her being dead to you, but you better watch yourself because one day, her good hating ass gonna mess and get you into some shit you can’t cry y’all way out of. Remember, bae, being blood to motherfuckers nowadays don’t mean shit.”
And on that note, Stackz swore to Ava he’d keep this conversation between the two of them, because he wasn’t the one she had to worry about killing her sister. Ava knew exactly what Stackz was saying; he could never tell Gee or especially T. L.
* * *
The ride back to Ava’s house consisted of little to no conversation between the two. They both were in their own thoughts about the whole Leela situation and how it should be handled. Ava was beyond fed up with her sister’s selfish ways. She had her mind made up. Leela had to go; not tomorrow, not next week, but tonight. Ava knew she wouldn’t feel comfortable with her under her roof one more night after Leela’s shadiness had been fully exposed.
Finally pulling up at Ava’s, Stackz came to a complete stop. Reaching under his seat, he grabbed his gun and began scanning the block for anything or anybody out place. Ava sat in the passenger seat with her arms folded looking straight-ahead, trying to think of what to say to Stackz. She was in her feelings with him, and she was sure he was in his toward her. Ava didn’t want to get out of the truck and leave things up in the air. Turning to Stackz, she told him with no hesitation that she wanted to be with him. And if she had to choose between him or Leela, she chose him. Stackz let his guard down for a moment as he looked at Ava and took in what she had just told him. Not having to say anything else, Ava got out of the truck and began to walk toward the porch. Stackz called out to her, and she looked back over her shoulder to see what he wanted.
“Bae, you sure you good?” he threw his hands up.
“Yeah, bae, I’m more than good,” she replied, taking her house keys out of her purse. “’Cause we good!”
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Leela was smoking a blunt, oblivious to the storm that was headed in her direction. She’d heard a car pull up in front of house and peeked outside because the weed had her paranoid. Seeing it was only Ava and Stackz sitting outside in his truck talking, she wanted to throw up. She was on fire with envy, wishing death on them both. Slow strolling to the door, Leela opened it when she saw Ava heading toward the house. Ava had already taken her keys out of her purse, but put them back when she saw the downstairs door.
Ava was determined to make things right with her and Stackz and call Leela out on all her antics; past and present. Walking in with a purpose, Ava brushed past Leela in the doorway, deliberately bumping her with her shoulder. She had no intentions to physically fight her older sister, but when she saw Leela standing there with a smug look on her face, Ava came close to losing it. She wanted nothing more than to ball up her fist and sock Leela dead in her mouth for what she’d attempted to do to Stackz and her that night. She could definitely understand Leela being mad at Stackz for killing Devin, but she was there at the restaurant just like her. And Leela knew good and damn well Devin bought his own one-way ticket to hell that night. Stackz was just minding his business, so for him defending himself and choosing to live instead of die, he was public enemy number one in her mind.
Not saying a word, Ava dropped her purse to the floor and began grabbing anything that wasn’t nailed down belonging to Leela, hurling it toward the front door.
Leela protested, shouting at Ava, “What the hell are you doing throwing my stuff like that? Girl, have you lost your damn mind? What’s this about?”
Ava’s answer was short and sweet. “Bitch, you know what this is and what this is about.” She never let up throwing Leela’s world all into the front room. “I know you told Rank and Mickey where we would be that night. You tried to get me killed, right along with Stackz. You straight foul.”
Of course, Leela denied it and began picking up her belongings with one hand while the blunt still burned in the other.
Ava told Leela she can’t trust her being underneath her roof and won’t carry her any more. “Naw, you can keep denying that bullshit all you want. I ain’t stupid, and neither is Stackz! Your free ride on my back ends tonight.”
“Oh, I see what this is about; this shit is about that murderer.” Leela acted as if she was having an aha! moment.
“Naw, this is about you being just like your dead-ass boyfriend Devin; setting niggas up, crying foul when you get caught. Ole throw-a-rock-hide-your-hand-type of niggas!”
Having heard enough of her rotten-to-the-core sister keep talking slick and threatening Stackz and her lives, Ava physically pushed Leela out the door onto the front porch, but not before taking her house keys.
* * *
Leela was beyond pissed at her sister and the low-down stunt she’d just done. Carrying an armful of her belongings, she fumed thinking how she would get back at Ava for siding with Stackz and treating her like she was no more than some garbage that needed to be thrown away. Banging on their mother’s front door, Leela couldn’t believe they’d figured out it was her that had tipped off Rank and Mickey so easily and prayed Stackz would bring no real harm her way. She knew if the shoe was on the other foot and she’d found out that Ava had basically said fuck her getting shot on the humble, she’d probably react the same way. But the hell with that. Ava didn’t even give her a chance to her grab her lotion, her extra stash of weed she knew she’d had no business even still smoking since finding out she was pregnant, or her toothbrush. Her little sister just came through the door going hard in the paint. The more Leela thought about the fight she’d just had with her sibling, the harder she beat on the door. Close to six minutes of standing on the porch waiting and looking stupid, Leela heard her mother talking loud from the other side of the locked door.
“Hey! Hey! Stop banging on my goddamn door. What’s wrong with you?” her mother slurred, gone off a pint of Crown Royal.
“Damn, open the door, Ma, would you?” Leela yelled back with an inflated attitude while dropping some of her items out of her arms.
Fed up with her daughter’s fire-hot mouth, Mrs. Westbrook snatched the door open and gave her a piece of her mind, half-drunk or not. She called Leela every name in the book except for a child of God. She knew she wasn’t and maybe hadn’t been the best mother in the world to her two girls, but as much as she continued to do for Leela, even though she was grown, Mrs. Westbrook was done kissing ass to keep the peace.
“You’re not going to just keep coming around here when you want to, messing with these kids’ minds. You don’t show up at no parent-teacher meetings. You won’t fill out the paperwork so the youngest can go to day care, and we both know you make me beg you practically every month for that damn benefit card so your damn babies can eat! I’m tired, Leela, I’m fucking tired!”
“Look, Ma, ain’t nobody trying to hear all that bullshit tonight. It’s late as hell, and your ass been drinking. Your daughter, that bitch Ava, put me out, so I need to crash here for a few days until I figure out what to do next.”
“Na-uh, girl! You ain’t staying in my damn house no more. Not after last time. I told you your kids could stay with me anytime ’cause I don’t want my grandbabies exposed to your crazy lifestyle, but you? No; hell naw! So you can go on somewhere else with that stuff you carrying.” She went on to preach that grown-ass women that had a working pussy, fucking God knows who, that’s into she doesn’t know what, shouldn’t be broke. “And besides that, just what in the hell did you do to your
sister to throw you out just like that anyhow?”
Of course, Leela didn’t want to say. Not because she was ashamed, but because she didn’t want to hear any more of her mother’s cruel judgmental speeches. Quickly informed that she could wash her ass there, if need be, and eat a hot meal, Leela’s mother laid down the law, telling her living up in her house again wasn’t going to ever happen.
Leela’s two oldest came from out of the back room half-asleep and saw their mother, who was still getting read the riot act by their grandmother. Both giving her a dry hello, they kept it moving. They were used to her not staying long when she’d stop by, so making a big deal about her presence was low on their list of things to celebrate.
Mrs. Westbrook was in rare form telling Leela she needed to get her shit together so she could take care of her own kids, because she’s getting too old to be playing momma to her grandkids. Defiant and nonreceptive, Leela was rocking back and forth as she stood against the door frame of the dining room. What her mother was saying went in one ear and out the other.
Now Leela was pissed at her mother as well. She asked her didn’t she care if she had no place to stay or not? And in no uncertain terms, her mother flat-out replied no, she didn’t care. And that she must have done or said something way over the top or out of order for her little sister to just put her out in the street in the middle of the night. “So, Leela, what was it? What in the hell did you do this damn time? With you, it’s always something. Hell, I’m surprise she put up with your ass for as long as she did.”
Leela snapped. She stayed silent long enough, hoping her mother would have some sort of mercy on her and let her stay, at least for the night. But she saw that wasn’t going to happen and was tired of letting her run her rum-drunk mouth. “Damn, why in the fuck you always taking her side? I swear you don’t never give a bitch a break!”
“A break? A fucking break? Are you serious? Have you lost your damn mind, girl? I give your ass a break all day, every day, when I keep these kids so you can run around in the streets behind all the niggas getting nothing but a wet pussy and more babies for me and Ava to take care of!”
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