“Toine, you okay?” Lady asked sweetly.
I tore my eyes away from Lala for a second to look at her. I could see why Sire was keeping her so close to him. She was beautiful as fuck with her smooth chestnut brown skin that shined under the club’s lights. Big doe eyes that looked mysterious, juicy lips that weren’t too big but just right, cute little button nose, and not to mention her little curvy frame.
“I’m, good,” I said as I put my eyes back on Lala.
Now she was sitting at the bar and she had some nigga rubbing all on her exposed thigh, and she was pushing his face out of her face. I had really seen enough of this shit. I was about to show my ass.
“I’ll be back,” I said.
I don’t even know why I said that because I knew the squad wasn’t going to be too far behind me. When one moved, we all moved; that’s just how we operated. We weren’t trying to have any more incidents like we did when we almost lost Ry a little while back.
When I got to the main floor, I went straight for the bar and didn’t stop until I was right on Lala. This nigga was still in her face and I was doing everything in my power to keep calm. I damn near yanked her arm off as I lifted her from the bar stool.
“Let me holla at you,” I said.
“Whoa, what the fuck!” Lala yelled as she tried to snatch her arm from me. “Antoine, what the fuck are you doing?”
“Hold up nigga, fuck you think you doing?” I heard from behind me.
See, I was going to spare his ass but this nigga wanted to jump fucking bad, so now I had to get him.
“Nigga, I think the best thing for you to do is mind yo muthafuckin’ business,” Sire said.
“Sire, no don’t encourage this shit. Toine—”
“Nah Si, don’t tell his ass shit,” I cut Lala off. “What the fuck you got to say nigga?” I asked him.
“Bitch, I’ll—”
That’s was a far as he got before I hit his ass in the throat, before delivering a two piece that knocked his ass out, causing him to fall on the bar. I didn’t even stay around to see the aftermath. I snatched Lala’s ass up and dragged her out of the club as she kicked and screamed along the way.
“Let me go, Antoine! Let me go!” she yelled.
When we got to the parking lot, I finally decided to let her go.
“This the type of shit you do, Alani? Huh? Where the fuck is my son while you in the club on some hoe shit? You ain’t no better than the rest of the dumb bitches I knocked up, you fall right in with they ass!” I yelled.
I kind of wished I could’ve taken it back as soon as it left my mouth, but it was too late. I was pissed off and I was liable to let any damn thing fly out of my mouth right now. Lala knew that when I got mad I could be ruthless sometime.
WHAMP!
“Oh, shit!” I heard one of the boys mumble in the background, while the whole left side of my face stung like shit.
“Fuck you, Antoine! I regret the day I ever met you! My life as been nothing but hell since the day you walked into my life. I should’ve listened to my family when they said you wasn’t shit, but I chose you over them instead and they barely fuck with me to this day. I fucking hate you! Stay the fuck away from me!” Lala spat before walking away.
I couldn’t say anything or move because the shock from her slapping the hell out of me still hadn’t wore off yet. When her words finally registered, I had to bite my lip to stop myself from going after her and fucking her up.
SREEEEECH!
“What the fuck?” Ryan asked as a truck came speeding past these club.
“Oh fuck!” Sire yelled. “Lala!” he yelled to get her attention.
While he was yelling, I had already taken off towards her.
POW! POW! POW!
“ALANIII!” I screamed as I tried to get to her.
I saw when her body dropped to the ground and it was as if time stood still. I instantly froze and the gun battle around me didn’t seem to matter as the sound of gunfire started to fade out. I went to call her name to tell her to get up but nothing came out.
“Toine…Toine! Come on now, nigga! Now is not the time for you to be zoning the fuck out. She’s still breathing, we gotta get her to Doc X,” Sire yelled to me.
Snapping out of it, I got myself together and ran over to where Sire and Ry were kneeled over Lala, coaching her to breathe and to hang on. When I reached her it was taking everything in me not to break down. Her once white dress was now completely covered in crimson and her hands were shaking and she tried hard to breathe.
“Come on baby, don’t do this to me alright? We have a son that needs you. I…I need you.”
SCUURT!
“Come on, y’all!” Monty yelled as he pulled up on us.
The three of us carefully lifted her up and placed her in the backseat as she continued to fight to hang on. I didn’t have to tell Monty to burn it, he already knew how crucial this was. So he was breaking every traffic law there was and I was praying to God that we didn’t get stopped by no cop. We had to hurry up and get her to Doc X so he could save her.
-$-
I sat in the chair in Doc X’s waiting room to see what the verdict was. Doc was an ex-surgeon that lost his license some years ago for writing perceptions for narcotics, morphine, and a whole slew of other prescription drugs, to local show boys who paid him for his services. He was one of the baddest surgeons Richmond had ever had, and he would still be one had some punk not snitched on him when he had got snatched up by the laws.
Sire and I were locked up with his brother, a militant ass nigga who was like an ex Black Panther or something. He put us on to his brother and give us his info and told us to link up with him when we got out because hospital visits were just something we weren’t going to be able to do. We would just hit up Doc X, get patched up and be on our way. Doc was good as hell at what he did and I had a lot of faith in him, but Lala was bad off when we brought her here.
“You need to smoke or something? To ease your mind?” Sire asked.
Fucking Sire, I swear this nigga was more than my friend. He was really like the brother Anton never was. Anton…
“If you knew my girl was cheating on me or seen some suspect shit, would you tell me?” I asked, instead of answering his question.
“After I confront her ass? Fuck yea I would, just like I would hope you would do the same for me. It ain’t about no snitching shit either, it’s just I wouldn’t sit up here and let you think you get a real one when the whole time she playing you like a fool. Nah, can’t let my boy go out like that,” Sire stated, saying everything I was thinking.
“Listen man, I saw Lexus and some nigga leaving the Holiday Inn where Alisha work. So I got on both of they asses. Here’s the kicker though, you’ll never guess who the nigga was so I’m going to tell you… Anton.” I shook my head.
“Interesting,” Sire said as he rubbed that damn beard of his.
I kind of felt fucked up that I had to be the one to deliver the news like this, but from what I could tell the nigga was acting like he really didn’t give a fuck anyways. I mean why should he? He had Lady waiting in the background and this was the perfect time to take her off the bench and turn her into the starting player.
“My bad man, I…” I stopped when he waved it off.
“Toine, please, that broad ain’t even important right now. The only thing that matters is Lala and her outcome. We gotta get her better so you her and AJ can get right. That shit tonight wasn’t nothing but two people that love each other but are too afraid to be together because of past bullshit,” Sire said.
I just nodded my head because he was right. It was basically the same thing I had been trying to tell Lala since I had been home from prison. The only reason she refused to want to make it work is because she is afraid of the past. I kept trying to tell her I’m not that nigga no more, I’ve grown up and I’ve changed.
“Antoine, Sire,” Doc said as he walked over to us. “Alani is a fighter—I’ll give her that. She lost a
substantial amount of blood so I had to do a transfusion. Even in doing that, I’m going to be honest with you, these next twenty-four hours for her are going to be very crucial. A bullet pierced one of her lungs and I honestly don’t know if she’s going to make it through the night. If she does, it will honestly be a miracle. Even then she won’t be out of the woods. Now I’ve seen plenty of miracles happen so if I were you, I would get to praying,” he explained.
I wanted to sigh in relief but I couldn’t for the simple fact that I honestly didn’t know if Lala was going to be okay or not. I hadn’t talked to God in so long that he probably would look at me funny if I did pray. The last time I talked to him, my big mama was alive and after I lost her, I felt like I lost everything. I felt as if I had nothing to live for until the day I met Alani.
Now here I go in the same situation, where I’m close to losing one of the most important things to me besides my kids. If God wanted me to talk to him, He didn’t have to do this to me to get me to do it.
Fourteen – Ryan
If it wasn’t one thing, it was definitely another. First somebody went after Lady, now somebody did the unthinkable and went after Lala. We had our ears to the street on the Lady situation for a while now, and we finally had hit the jackpot. Two of Sire’s niggas scooped up the culprits whose names were ringing bells over town about their involvement in the break-in at Lady’s. We had them being held at what we liked to call the dungeon. That was basically our slaughter house.
I pulled up the same time Sire did. We hopped out our trucks and walked up to the dungeon together.
“How Toine doing?” I asked.
Toine was family so when he was hurting, we all were hurting right along with him. He was one of the realest niggas I know so I know he had to be taking this shit hard as fuck. I know I would. When we welcomed Toine into the family that meant we welcomed Lala as well. All his other baby mamas were just some bitches that we considered add-ons, and we didn’t really fuck with the broad Heaven like that. We all knew Toine loved Lala’s ass, it’s just they can’t get their shit together enough to be together.
“My boy taking this shit hard as fuck, as expected. For the first time ever, I seen a real nigga cry yesterday. That nigga had the nerve to apologize and be embarrassed. I had to tell him ‘nigga, you live that girl fuck is you apologizing for? If you feel you need to cry, then who am I to stop you?’ You know? I’m honestly just praying for sis because she really don’t deserve this shit,” Sire said.
“That’s some real shit.” I agreed with everything he said.
When we walked into the dungeon, Monty was already here watching these niggas as they stayed tied to a chair with a black bag over their heads. I gave my right hand man a brotherly hug while he and Sire did the same.
“Hold up,” Sire said just as I was walking towards these niggas.
I stopped and watched him as he reached into his pocket and pulled his phone out. I heard the sound indicating that he was facetiming someone and was about to question him until I heard Toine’s voice come through.
“What’s good?” he asked.
“I know how much you wanted to be here and felt a way when I told you to fall back. So this way, you here without being here,” Sire said as he propped his phone up so Toine could see everything that was going on. “Proceed,” he told me.
I walked over to them and snatched the bags off their heads before slapping them awake. It was time to have some fun at their expense.
“Hello gentlemen, it’s so nice of you to join us today.”
“Wh…what the fuck is this?”
I knew then, he would be the weakest link. I could just look at him and see the fear in his eyes and it was evident that he either knew who the fuck everyone in this room was or he wasn’t as built for this shit as he thought he was.
“Nigga, we not here to play with you, you know exactly what the fuck this is,” I spat.
The one with the scar on his face had yet to say shit, he just say there like he didn’t give a fuck and he wasn’t about to give up any info regardless. I turned my head towards the fellas and Sire was already in his weapon vault. Here his ass go with this crazy shit, I thought while shaking my head. I honestly hated when Sire got into this psycho mode because it took a while for his ass to go back to being just regular Sire. Then he would disappear for a few days and no one would hear from him until he just popped up again.
Seeing that Sire had picked out his weapons and was getting his gear on, I tried to spare this niggas one more time.
“Look, it would be better for you niggas to just tell me what the fuck I wanna know because if I let him get to you, you gonna wish you had just cooperated from the jump,” I told them.
“Fuck you nigga, I ain’t saying shit! If you niggas gon’ do something then you need to get it over with,” the one with the scar finally chose to speak.
“Oh, this one’s a Billy Bad Ass, huh?” Sire asked. “I’m going to have fun with his ass,” he said before jamming an ice pick in his thigh.
“Ahh, fuck!!”
“Nah, don’t tell now Scar! You ain’t have shit to say, remember?” Sire taunted as he jammed it in deeper and twisted it.
“Aw, come on man, we ain’t have shit to do with that shooting!” the weak link groaned.
“Hold up, Si!” I yelled to get his attention.
I had to make sure I heard this nigga right because we didn’t have their asses here for the fucking shooting but if they knew something, we might as well kill two birds with one stone. Literally and figuratively.
“The fuck you just say?” I asked.
“I said we didn’t do that shooting the other night. He—”
“Shut the fuck up!” his injured comrade yelled.
“Nah, nigga. You shut the fuck up!” Sire retorted, snatching the ice pick from his thigh and jabbing it in his throat.
“Continue,” I told his weak ass.
“That nigga told us that he didn’t want us to do the shooting because he wanted it done right. He was still pissed that we didn’t pull off the hit at ole girl’s house right. That’s the only thing we’re responsible for,” he sung like a bird.
“Who the fuck is this he, nigga?” Sire tried.
“Anton.”
At that time it was so quiet in the room that you could hear a rat piss on the carpet. A part of me wanted to say his ass was lying. There was no way in hell Anton had a reason to go after Lala or Lady. For one, Lala is his nephew’s mother and they don’t have any problems. Two, Anton don’t even know Lady, he ain’t never been around her ass in the short amount of time she’d been living here.
“Come on now, Si. You believe this—”
POW! POW!
The two bullets to these niggas heads cut off the sentence that was trying to leave my mouth. I looked and they both had a hole in the middle of their foreheads.
“Yo Sire, I think we need to go check on Toine man, that nigga heard that and instantly went the fuck off before hanging up,” Monty said.
Sire and I rushed to the door to go stop Toine from making a move off pure emotions right now. I still wasn’t understanding this shit. It just wasn’t adding up for me.
We all jumped in Sire’s truck, deciding we’ll come back for ours later, while Monty quickly placed a call to the cleanup crew.
“Sire, make this shit make sense for me because it’s not adding up,” I said as he drove.
“What do you need to understand, Ry?” Sire asked. “You were back there just like I was so you heard what the fuck is going on.”
“Yea, but why the fuck would Anton…nah, I just don’t see it,” I shook my head.
“Because Anton is a hating ass nigga that’s apparently been fucking my bitch. For how long you ask? I don’t know but I’ll be damned if I don’t get to the bottom of it. I just don’t have the patience for that shit right now. Then to top it all off, he hates the fact that it’s me and his brother’s name ringing bells in these streets and not Antoine and his.
That nigga doing everything in his power to get back at us. He hit his brother where it hurt and he had to have been watching Lady or some shit, because he already feels like he got one up on me by fucking Lexus. So, do you got it now? You believe the shit now, Ryan? Got damn!”
Now that his ass put it like that, I got it. Anton was just grimy as fuck and there was no way around it. I don’t care how much Sire pisses me off or how many times I want to beat his ass, going against the grain and going at my own brother like that is just something I could never do. I’ll cut his ass off and never fuck with him again before I ever take it to these extremes. And niggas claim blood supposed to be thicker than water.
“That nigga just the low of all lows. If you feel some type of way about your brother, then nigga, go head up with him like a fucking man. Leave everybody else out of y’all shit, especially females. Lala ain’t deserve that shit man, she didn’t even know shit was coming her way. That nigga Anton dragged her into his shit all because his brother hurt his feelings,” Monty ranted from the backseat.
My nigga didn’t say much but when he did, it was always some real shit.
“I’m with you Monty, this shit is like a soap opera or some shit,” I told him.
“And don’t even get me started on Lexus’ ass. No disrespect Sire, but her ass needs to be dealt with accordingly.”
“Don’t stress it Tony Montana, I got something for her ass,” he said as he reached for his ringing phone. “Hold up y’all, it’s Toine.”
“Toine, please tell me you still at the crib man?” Sire answered.
“That nigga gone man, his bitch ass got fucking ghost because he know I’m going to slaughter his ass.”
No lie, it didn’t even sound like Toine on the phone. It sounded like his ass had been possessed or some shit the way his ass was talking. I let go a sigh of relief, not because Anton got away but because Toine couldn’t get to him in the state that he was in. The last thing we needed was for him to be going back to prison again for murder this time. With the shit we were dealing with, we had to think this shit through and come up with a plan. It would be no good if we had Toine out there acting off emotions. Anton was going to have his day, and we were going to make sure of that.
A Lady & Her Sire: A Royal Love Affair Page 7