Just the thought nauseated me as he got back into the truck and drove the few miles to the Best Western. My mind was racing with visions of the terrible situation that I was in the middle of two years ago. My stomach curdled as the shots echoed in my mind and I could hear Tim’s cries as the bullets pierced his body. I couldn’t even eat as I sat across from him picking at my omelet as memories of me sitting in that jail raced through my mind.
We didn’t even speak. DeShawn ate his food with his eyes glued to the television. My eyes were fixed on the omelet that I hardly touched.
“I gotta roll out,” he spit after an hour, breaking the silence. I looked at him curiously as he continued. “Let’s roll.”
He stood, reaching in his pocket. I sat there continuing to be confused and agitated with the way he just treated me dismissively.
When he threw a few bills on the table, I had enough.
“Why did you call me if you would have to leave?”
Nonchalantly, he looked at my curiosity with no interest in curing it. “You weren’t hungry?”
“I could have fed myself. Who does that?”
“I do,” he told me in a matter of fact way.
I sighed and shook my head in frustration. “Look, DeShawn. What the hell is going on?”
“What do you mean? I’m paying you for your time so that we can be out.”
“Why do you want my time though? You call me and ask for my services, but you treat me like I’m bothering you when you are with me. You barely speak to me, and you act like you don’t even want to be here.”
“I pay you for your time, so what does it matter?”
His blasé attitude infuriated me. “A lot!”
I had gotten so angry that I was standing up to face him. “I spent a year getting treated like shit. When I left prison, I left being treated like a prisoner there. So no matter what happened in our past, I am not going to let you treat me like shit.”
He was so dry and nonchalant. He just stood there with his hands in his pockets showing no emotion. He wasn’t willing to give me any evidence of what was really going on.
“How is kicking you down with bread treating you like shit?”
“That’s just it though! Why are you kicking me down with bread? Why are you sleeping with me but can’t even talk to me?! It’s weird as fuck! If you tryin’ to get me back- kill me or whoop my ass – do it now! You ain’t got nothing but air and opportunity!”
He had the audacity to smile genuinely at me, as if my fear was amusing to him. “I told you it was cool. I’m not trying to kill you. Chill out.”
But I didn’t buy into that at all. “Then what is it?! Why are you constantly asking to be around me, but then when you are, you act like you don’t know if you want to be?”
Surprisingly, he began to shout. “Because I don’t!”
When he saw that it scared me, he quickly turned that frustration into the soft thug that he has always been. “Look,” he told me while taking a deep breath. “I just want to chill with you. I don’t know why I do, but when I figure it out, I’ll let you know.”
Victoria
“How was your trip?”
I was so glad to be in Dr. Peterson’s office. After getting back to Chicago, I needed this therapy.
Luckily, there were no more run-ins with Lyric, but the bus ride to the airport and the plane ride were very tense. I avoided her, she avoided me, and everyone else looked at us, waiting for us to pop off.
Not to mention that ever since I got back to Chicago, I hadn’t heard from Greg. I assumed that much, but for him to literally begin distancing himself as soon as we got off that plane was a smack in the face. He didn’t even call me to let me know that he made it home after dropping me off at home once we left the airport. I hadn’t heard his voice since we got back. Though it had only been a day, I usually talked to Greg before bed and in the morning. He hadn’t been answering my calls and he answered my text messages when he wanted to.
“It was a hot ass mess.”
I was literally laid across Dr. Peterson’s couch, clutching a small cup of coffee and wearing shades.
I was in a bad mood.
“Why was it a hot mess?”
“I got into the biggest argument with Lyric.”
“Your sister.”
“Possibly.”
“What happened?”
“Well, Tricey tried to make us talk. Lyric got smart with me, I got smart back, she accused me of being a victim and then I lost my mind.”
Dr. Peterson sat up in her seat a bit as she asked, “A victim?”
“Yes! Wasn’t that cruel?! Even if Lyric and I haven’t spoken since college, she knows everything that Jesse did to me. She was right there! She saw every bruise. How could she hate me so much that she would throw that shit in my face?”
“What do you think she means by being a victim?”
“That I use what happened to me in my past as an excuse for how I act now, especially when I started dating Taij.”
“How so?”
“Back then, I didn’t have any family. I had never experienced real love. I thought Taij was it. And even though he had a history with Tricey, I was willing to risk my friendship with her and Lyric if he was willing to give me the love and family that I never had…” Tears were coming, and I didn’t like that. “Let’s talk about something else.”
Quickly, Dr. Peterson asked, “Why?”
“I just don’t feel like going there today.”
Dr. Peterson conceded with a nod. “So what else happened on the trip?”
“Urrgh,” I muttered. “It’s not really what else happened there. It’s what happened since I got home. Greg is acting funny. I know it’s because he’s upset that I don’t want to be with him. I can’t even argue with him on that. But I don’t want to hurt his feelings or lose him as a friend. I don’t want the same thing to happen to me and him that happened to me and Vince.”
“Why don’t you want to be in a relationship again?”
She was patronizing me and I knew it. She knew that I had no good answer for that!
So, I ignored her. But she filled my silence. “You have trust issues.”
“No shit.”
I felt a little better as I pulled up to the boutique. I had gotten so much off of my chest. You can talk to your friends about stuff, but with a therapist, there are no holds barred and you get unbiased advice.
Plus, I did a few lines in the car before leaving the lot of the therapist’s office.
Anyway, I trotted into the boutique with a lot more pep in my step. Greg still hadn’t responded to my text about hanging out that night, but I kept telling myself to just let it go and consider it over. He was done with me, and I would be too if the roles were reversed.
Entering the boutique, I noticed that Tricey was behind the register ringing out a customer.
“Hey, Vic.” She greeted me so half-heartedly that I knew that she was still down in the dumps about being knocked up.
She told me while we were at the airport. I couldn’t believe it. I damn sure couldn’t contain myself when she told me that it was Damion’s baby!
As the customer left, we met at one of the chaises and sat beside one another.
“What’s going on, beau?”
“Nothing,” Tricey answered sadly.
“You still got an attitude?”
“Hell yeah,” she spit.
“Why? Girl, you are going to be fine. Just take this shit to your grave.”
“But how am I going to do this, Vic? This man wants me to have this baby! He’s at home thinking of names and shit!”
My eyes bulged as I replied, “Damn.”
“Exactly! This shit too much to handle. It’s going to break his heart when I have this abortion anyway.”
I sat there speechless. This was a hell of situation to be in, and pretty ratchet at that.
“You ain’t shit,” I snickered in a way to make her laugh.
“I knoooow,”
Tricey whined as she buried her face in my back.
“I promise I will keep my cookies to myself from now on. I swear.”
“You got out of that shit with Amiel by the skin of your teeth and now this.”
“I know, right?!”
I had been glancing back and forth at the television. Not really paying attention but noticing that the news had been covering the same crime scene since I walked into the boutique. But then, as Tricey whined and moaned, Derrick’s picture popped up on the screen.
Frantically, I smacked her leg to get her attention. “Tricey, look! Where is the remote?!”
Derrick copped a lot of weight from Blood last year. He also was my original supplier. As long as I was fucking him, he would give me continuous amounts of free coke.
Then, one day, I was pulled over and taken into the police station. Come to find out, Derrick was the police and was an undercover.
I damn near passed out as Devin and Iyana’s pictures flashed beside Derrick’s; the inscriptions under them reading Derrick Gachett, Devin Tramner, and Iyana Banks.
As Tricey turned the television up and we listened to the coverage of the murder scene discovered a few hours ago, our mouths literally dropped to the floor. The body of these three detectives had floated unto the shore of Lake Michigan, wrapped in garbage bags.
“I knew it! I told you Derrick was the police!”
In response, Tricey could only say, “Oh my God,” as she watched the coverage with her eyes bulging in disbelief.
“So wait a minute. Devin and Iyana were the police too?!”
Tricey didn’t respond. She just looked at the television as sheer terror and fear entered her body while the news reporter told the gruesome details of the crime scene.
“Did you know that Devin and Iyana were the police? Did Blood know?”
Quickly, Tricey answered, “I didn’t know a damn thing. And I would hope that Blood didn’t either.”
The news reporter explained how the bodies were badly decomposed; Officer Gachett’s more decomposed than the others. He had obviously been killed months before Devin and Iyana. She continued on to say how the killer must have kept their bodies contained for sometime before attempting to discard them in the lake. All of them had been viciously killed; shot multiple times and their throats slashed.
All of their tongues had been cut out.
I cringed as the details were revealed. My heart went out to Tricey because I knew that this murder and their connection to Blood was not a coincidence.
“I thought Devin robbed Blood and left town.”
Sadly, Tricey replied, “I did too.”
Tricey
I couldn’t get home fast enough.
Blood had a lot of explaining to do. As I entered the house, I was glad to see that he was there alone with the kids.
I knew that he had to have seen or heard the news. By the look on my face, he knew that I had seen it as well.
“What the fuck is going on?!”
We met in the middle of the living room floor. My heart was beating so fast that there were sharp pains running through it.
I was tired of this shit; the tension, the arguments, the constant threat of danger or Blood being picked up by the Feds. If it wasn’t one thing with Blood, it was beginning to be another.
“Tricey…”
I cut off the passive tone that he was using to soothe me. “Did you know that they were the police?!”
“Baby, calm down…”
When he attempted to hold me, I snapped and fought to get out of his embrace. “Did you know they were the police?!”
My voice ran through the house like a tornado. I could hear the kids playing in the back, but I didn’t care if they heard us arguing or got scared. I was so sick of Blood and his bullshit. I wasn’t perfect, but he was continuously putting me and my child in danger and lying about it!
I glared into Blood’s eyes. I could imagine that my face was hot with anger.
Finally, he sighed and gave in. His shoulders sunk in disappointment as he sat on the couch.
“Yeah, I knew,” he confessed.
As I collapsed onto the other sofa in disbelief, he continued to explain. “But I didn’t know the entire time. When Vic got picked up and found out that Derrick was a dic, I already knew that all of them were under covers, but I had just found out…”
“How did you find out?” He paused and looked like he didn’t want to tell me, so I continued to push him. “How did you find out, Blood?!”
Blood’s tan skin seemed to turn pale before my eyes. Though it was obvious that he was stressed about having this conversation with me, he didn’t seem that stressed that three detectives had been in his camp undercover for years without him knowing and now they were dead! His nonchalant attitude was scaring me even more.
“Ever since I got out of jail and got back in the game, I have been paying the chief of police to keep me clean and keep the people off me.”
My head was spinning. I couldn’t believe it. I knew that Blood sold drugs. I also knew that, because of the amount of money that he made, that it had to be a lot of drugs. But what I did not realize until that very moment was the level he sold it on. Undercover cops, bodies in lakes, and paying off the police was indictment list status.
This nigga was a kingpin, and I ain’t even know it!
I sat on the couch with my head in my hands as so many thoughts ran through my mind. It was getting to the point that I didn’t even know who was living with me. I went from implicitly trusting this man to not even knowing who he was.
“Did Derrick really rob you?” I couldn’t even look at him as I spoke. I had no energy and couldn’t even yell anymore.
I could hear Blood taking a heavy sigh as his footsteps left the couch and came towards me. His weight was now beside me as he sat close to me.
“No,” he answered. Then he grabbed my hand as he attempted to explain.
I smacked his hand as I jumped up to get away from him. “Don’t touch me!” Then, I started to cry.
I could not believe that this man had volunteered such an elaborate lie! It broke my heart that Blood was becoming this man that was like every other man. He wasn’t this super hero that loved me better than anyone else. He was a mortal. He was just like the other ones.
“Did you kill them?”
Blood looked like it was also breaking his heart that I was obviously in so much pain because of him. He couldn’t even look at me.
“I didn’t kill them.”
“But you had something to do with it! That’s obvious!”
“Obvious to you!”
“And obvious to the gawd damn police that put the Undercovers in your camp in the first place!”
“I just told you that I’m paying the chief. It’s going to be okay, Tricey. Trust me, please?”
Finally, he was looking me in my eyes. I saw the desperation in them. He wanted me to believe in him again, but I couldn’t. I was sure that if it was up to him, none of this – Mauri or the murders of Derrick, Devin, and Iyana – wouldn’t be to my knowledge just so that I could continue being the one person in his life that thought he could do no wrong.
But unfortunately, I couldn’t be that naive anymore. He saw the doubt in me and embraced me to encourage me. I couldn’t buy it though. I cried hysterically into his chest in so much pain.
I was so tired. I knew that dating a drug dealer came with certain dangers. I had accepted the fact that in the past he had to make fucked up decisions regarding people’s lives. But killing cops? I’m not ‘bout that life.
LYRIC
“Hello? Cory?!”
I could only hear tears as I attempted to wake up.
It was almost one o’clock in the morning. He said nothing and just continued to cry and that scared me.
I sat up in the darkness and prepared myself for the worse.
“Cory, calm down and tell me what’s wrong. You’re scaring me!”
I had never heard Cory cry.
The way that he was sobbing into the phone broke my heart.
“He’s cheating on me, Lyric.”
Relieved that it was only man problems, I laid back down and got back under the covers. “What happened?”
“I installed that damn spyware, finally.”
“You mean that shit actually works?”
“Yes. I get every text message, but still can’t figure out how to get the damn calls.”
“You are obsessed.”
“For a good reason, obviously!”
“I take it you saw some shit that you don’t like.”
Cory had managed to stop sobbing, but I could still hear his tears clear as day as I lay with my eyes closed, wishing that I was up in the middle of the night having sex with Marcel, rather than listening to Cory cry.
Yet, he was my friend. I loved him to death, so I tried hard to be alert and comforting.
“He lied to me, girl. He is still very much in love with his wife. So says their text messages anyway!”
I wasn’t surprised. I knew Kadeem was up to no good.
“Well, if he can cheat on his wife with you and live a double life, you don’t think he would lie to you?!”
“Honestly, no.”
Cory was like every other woman, thinking that just because a man did it to other women that it was something about our snatch that made him not do it to us.
“He has no reason to lie when it comes to her. I know about her, so why lie?”
“Exactly. Maybe he has something to hide. Did you see text messages from anyone else?”
“A few flirtatious messages here and there. He went out with some guy the other night. This was while you were in Mexico. Lying motherfucker told me that he was at home with his wife.” As Cory explained this ratchetness to me, he was crying a river of tears. I wished that he was here with me so that I could comfort him with more than words, because it definitely sounded like he needed it.
“Did he have sex with him?”
“It didn’t sound like it. I don’t know what hurts worse; him lying to me about being in a loving marriage or cheating on us with somebody else. When he told me that he wasn’t happy with his wife, I thought that it was okay to be with him because one day that marriage would end, since he was so unhappy, and we could be together. But apparently, he has no plans of going anywhere anytime soon! I don’t know what to do.”
Good Girls Ain't No Fun Boxed Set (The SIX romance and urban fiction volumes of the LOVE, SEX, LIES series) Page 97