by Briann Danae
After Lano and the guys’ stunt with Tez, Corrine, and those other guys killings, shit had been hot. Sen and Juvie headed back home a day after everything went down and had no plans of returning soon. They touched down, handled their business and got the fuck out of dodge. Sticking around was much too risky.
“Knock, knock,” Rylee called out cheerfully from the bedroom door.
Lina and DeNelo’s guest room had become Anika and Lano’s room. In fact, the entire left wing of the crib was theirs now, until they returned home. Though due to unfortunate situations, Lina loved having Anika and Lano to keep her company. Days with them being there reminded her of Lano’s younger days when he’d crash at her place for days at a time just to keep an eye on her.
Walking out the bathroom, Anika gave Rylee a warm smile. “What’s up.”
“Nothing. Was just letting you know I’m about to head home. Going out with a few of my girls. I wish you could come.”
They hugged, and Anika climbed in the bed with her MacBook nearby. With modeling pushed to the back burner for a while, she found comfort in typing out her feelings while going through her healing.
“Me too. Thank you for checking on me girl. We can still go out to eat next week if you’re up to it,” Anika told her.
“I’m always down for some food, but how about I cook for you? No need to be out in the public if you aren’t ready boo.”
“Well, I’m tired of being in the damn house that’s for sure,” she grumbled.
Rylee gave her an empathetic smile. “So, dinner it is. Out of the house.”
“Yes. Just text me the day before.”
“Sure thing. You need anything before I leave?”
Anika shook her head no as her brows furrowed with recognition. “Lano still down there playing the game?”
Rylee laughed and nodded her head. Lano had been in the living room with Tone and his other cousin, Rylee’s brother Mellan, for hours. Black Ops had them occupied, reminding Lano of the good old days where he could take niggas heads off for fun and not for a price.
“Yes, girl. Mell gon’ be stuck here playing with me. He always wants to ride with me but be mad when I go a million and one places.”
Anika snickered, just as a text from Solai and Tesh came through from their group message. “That’s men for you. Be safe. I’ll see you later.”
“Okay, boo. Have a good night,” Rylee said, walking out the bedroom and down the hall, before descending the steps. “Mell, let’s go if you riding with me.”
Mellan glanced away from the TV screen, and his eye diverted right back. “I’m good. I’ma stay here.”
“Okay. Love y’all!” Rylee called out walking toward the front door.
“Yo, Ry. Hol’ up,” Lano said, standing to his feet.
Walking over to her, Rylee smirked at her handsome cousin. The two had always gotten along when they were younger and were thick as thieves before he moved to KC. Now that he was back, and with Anika, she didn’t want him to leave.
“What’s up, big head,” she grinned.
Lano smirked. “Shit, yours wobbling too. Just wanted to let you know I appreciate you coming through and keeping her company.”
Rylee waved him off. “You know I love Anika, so it’s nothing. You need to be keeping her company, though. She’s in a good mood today.”
Lano nodded, thankful to hear that. Every day, Anika’s mood switched up which was to be expected. Only issue was, Lano wasn’t equipped for the duties placed upon him. Yes, he had always showered her with love, affection, gave her strength, and motivated her, but Anika needed more. Her moods weren’t the “I’m too tired to get out of bed” type. They were the “A piece of my soul was snatched from me, I don’t even know who I am” type.
“I hear you. I’ma go up there now. Be safe a’ight?”
She kissed his cheek and shook her head at his head full of hair. “You ever gon’ cut this mess?”
“Mess? See, now your ass being a hater. Get out,” he chuckled
Lano stood at the doorway and waited for Rylee to pull off before he went back inside the house and jogged up the steps to he and Anika’s bedroom. The neighborhood his parents lived in had security so on their job, there was no getting inside the residential area without following protocol. Anika was typing away on a document she had started on earlier that day but stopped when she felt Lano’s presence.
Looking up, she gave him a smile admiring his get up for the day. Dressed in a pair of burgundy, grey and white camo shorts, a white V-neck and hair wild, he looked damn good to just be chilling in the house.
“What’s up, baby?” he asked, leaning over to kiss her lips.
Lingering in her face, he commanded her attention as their gazes stayed on one another. Without words, Lano had assured her that she’d be good, that the niggas behind her attack had been taken care by him except two. One of the four men had died in a car crash the day after all his partners’ funerals. That bitch Karma came back quick, and she wasn’t finished yet.
“Hey. You look good,” she complimented as if she hadn’t seen him all day.
“You do too. Your eye is healing up good. You been putting that shit on there that my mama gave you?”
Anika nodded. Lina had whipped up some homemade face cream for Anika’s bruises so her marks wouldn’t be as visible once healed, and so far, the cream had been doing the trick.
“Yes. You got plans today or something?” she asked, seeing him get preoccupied by a text that had just come through from Samia.
“I didn’t, was about to kick it with you for a little minute, but Samia just texted me.”
Anika rolled her eyes. “I’m so sick of this bitch, for real.”
Lano frowned. “She ain’t did shit, Nik.”
“So, you taking up for her now?” she scoffed with a disbelieving chuckle following. “Boy, I tell you. Y’all be blind as a bat to the sneaky shit these hoes be trying to pull.”
“Y’all? Yeah, you tripping today.”
Lano stood to his feet, and Anika swung her legs to stand from the bed. “Where we going?”
“What you doing all this for Anika? Get back in the bed. We ain’t going anywhere.”
“Yes, we are. Where this bitch been at?” she asked crossing her arms over her chest.
“What you mean where she been at?”
“You don’t find it strange that she goes missing and out the blue pops up and texts you? What the message say?”
Going back to the messages on his phone, he handed over to Anika freely. Lano had nothing to hide, and even if he did, Anika still knew the name of the messaging app that allowed you to receive incoming text messages from someone else’s phone as long as you had the other person’s number. She’d hate to have to go back down that route, but she would and with pleasure.
Reading over the message thread quickly, Anika rolled her eyes at some of the shit Samia sent him. One minute, she was keeping it professional and strictly about the business, and the next, she was flirting. Lano never responded though. He was beyond good on her and happy with his boo.
“She gon’ make me beat her ass for real this time,” she said handing him his phone back.
“Ain’t no need for all that.”
Anika sucked her teeth. “Yeah, okay. But, answer my question though. You don’t think it’s strange that she goes missing for all those weeks and pops back up telling you she needs to meet with you?”
With them not having kept in contact for years, Lano didn’t find it strange. Not in the sense that Anika had. Samia went from texting Lano almost every day on some “I want to get my ass beat,” to being a straight ghost until just now. Anika was a woman. A woman who had gone through the most traumatic experience in her life, but she wasn’t dumb. Them niggas may have knocked her across her head, but Anika knew a sneaky hoe when she came across one. Samia was up to something, and she knew it.
Lano hadn’t thought nothing of it. “You thinking too much into it,” he replied just as
another text came through from her.
Anika looked at him with a pensive stare right before his head lowered to read the text. Lano’s top lip curled at her question. It wasn’t what she said, but why she said it. Why now?
“What?” Anika questioned. “Let me see.”
Lano handed her the phone, and her expression matched his, only worse. Samia asking how Anika was, was some bullshit. No, she didn’t expect the girl to stop by and check on her or none of that fake shit, but to consider Lano “family,” and not utter one condolence in weeks to him, regarding her attack, was mad suspect to Anika.
“And, you think it’s not strange,” she chuckled and handed him his phone back. “Got the bitch asking about me all of a sudden.”
“You think she had something to do with what happened?” Lano asked, not wanting to beat around the bush. If that’s what she was hinting at, he wanted to know.
“Right now… I’m not putting shit past anyone. She stops blowing you up, I get attacked and then she’s right back on your line once I’m up and moving around?” Anika laughed. “Yeah, okay. I’m starting to think… nah. Nope. Never mind. I’m good.”
Watching her move about the room slowly, Lano was trying to figure out how and why she pieced Samia having something to do with her attack. On one hand, it could have made sense that she was involved, but for what? On the other, Lano just knew she wasn’t on no bullshit like that. She couldn’t have been.
“So, let me get this straight. You trippin’ over her hitting me up weeks after I checked her about blowing my line down. You told me to check her ass, and I did,” he said, and Anika turned to face him.
“And, she listened now for what? You’ve been telling her from my understanding, and now she listens? The fact that you’re even standing here defending another bitch is pissing me off.”
Lano sucked his teeth and adjusted the single chain around his neck. “I ain’t defending anyone. What I’m not trying to do is have an argument with you about a female that doesn’t cross my mind, ever. Stop tripping on her, Nik. For real. This my last time discussing her in any of our conversations.”
Fluffing the pillows on the bed, Anika climbed atop it and grabbed her MacBook. “Okay.”
“Okay?” Lano’s head drew back, and Anika looked up at him after he chuckled.
“What? You told me to drop it, right? So, that’s what I’m doing. I’ve exhausted all my energy on this conversation and guess where you’re about to go? Right over her daddy’s crib for a meeting about who knows what. What happened to communication? Ever since we moved out here, I’ve been out of the loop, pushed into the background. It took for me to get—”
“Don’t say that shit,” Lano said calmly staring her down. “I can admit I’ve been on one since we touched down, but you knew what this move was all about. I don’t tell you everything because some shit just ain’t meant to tell. You know that. You know how I move. You know me, Nik.”
Anika shook her head and felt herself about to cry, but she wouldn’t. Not until he left at least. “Nah, I don’t know this Lano. You aren’t yourself with everything going on, and I’m trying to get it. Trying to be understanding, I really am. I just hope this life and your actions doesn’t change the man I fell in love with.”
Lano’s heart skipped a beat. This was the conversation he had been trying to avoid. They’d danced around the topic for so long, he should’ve saw it coming, but everything in his life lately seemed to be at a distance. In a blur. Out of his reach, unable to stop the drama from unfolding. Lano hated it, but most of all, he hated how it was causing friction in his relationship. At a time like this he needed Anika more than anything. His peace and sanity from the fucked up world he dove into. The killings, violence, sneakiness, and drama were taking not only a toll on him, but on Anika as well. He just hoped she stuck around. Her leaving is what terrified him most, though he’d let her walk if that’s what she decided to do.
Stepping closer to the bed, Anika turned her head his way. “Just give me a little more time, and all this will be over,” he said, softly caressing her cheek with the pad of his thumb. Cupping her chunky cheeks in both hands, Lano kissed her lips deeply. He needed to remind her that the man she loved was still there, just tucked away. He couldn’t have his guards down right now. Not anymore. When it was down, it costed him twice. There wouldn’t be a third time.
The meeting with Stefon was a fluke. Lano respected him and everything he had groomed him on growing up as a youngin’ in the rough streets of California, but Lano wasn’t with all that gang shit anymore. His recent moves may have given off that impression, but that was far from the truth. Retaliation was one thing but being heavily in the streets with a team of niggas who moved on his word, wasn’t what Lano ever wanted to be a part of again. Orchestrating a team full of killers wasn’t his thing. He was a killer himself; a one-man army.
After declining Stefon’s offer, again, Lano contemplated his next move. Everything in him was telling him not to pop up on Samia, but his mind. The mind, when in shambles, was a dangerous thing. As the thoughts of he and Anika’s conversation played on loop in his head, he concluded that the only way to settle his conscience, if even for a small period of time, was to go to the culprit.
Lano rang the doorbell and was surprised when the door opened so quickly. Surprise danced across Samia’s face before a light smile followed. Seconds passed as she checked him out.
“Hey. Come in.”
Removing his hands that were tucked in his pockets, Lano stepped inside. Following Samia into the kitchen, he peeped how well put together her place was. Not a decoration, throw pillow, remote or dish out of place.
“I wasn’t expecting you to drop by. Did you get my text?”
“Yeah. I got it.”
His dry reply made her take a seat. “So, what do I owe the pleasure of this visit?” she asked, pulling her chair out to sit.
Lano remained standing tall. “What you ask me about Anika for?”
A momentary look of discomfort crossed her face, but Lano peeped it. “I can’t ask how she’s doing?”
“No. You don’t care about her, and I know you don’t, so there’s no need for her to even cross your mind.”
For his woman, he’d check whomever. Especially a broad Anika only knew of because of him. Samia didn’t deserve to even utter Anika’s name, let alone question her well-being. The more he thought about it, and how random the text was, the more Lano began to think maybe Anika was right. But, he wasn’t going to jump to conclusions. The fake and snakes always revealed themselves.
“It’s not that serious, but okay.”
“It is that serious. You ain’t hit my line in weeks, and that’s the first thing you say? What bullshit you on, Samia?”
Lano stared her in the eyes, trying to gauge any disloyalty. Not to him, but to her brother and their family. Samia had always been sneaky, hence them fucking around on the low before Saon was told. Back then, Lano knew she wanted to keep their dealings on the low because he was her brother’s best friend, so the sneakiness got a pass. Now though? That shit wasn’t going to fly.
Samia rolled her eyes. “I’m not on any bullshit. Ashley mentioned something about her being in the hospital, and I was just wondering.”
“You were being nosy. Me and Ash don’t even rock like that for her to be running her mouth,” Lano spat calmly.
The shrug of her shoulders made Lano’s jaw flex. “Well, that’s between you two. If that’s what you came here for, you can leave. A simple reply back would have sufficed.”
That quickly, she had gotten irritated. His impromptu visit excited her when she saw him on her camera pulling up. After letting it be known that he wasn’t here for her at all, Samia was ready for him to leave. Her texting and asking about Anika was her being funny. Ashley, Lano’s cousin, didn’t know the details behind why she was in the hospital, but thanks to Lina’s sister, word had gotten out and clearly to the wrong people.
“I’m not obligated
to ever respond to you, Samia,” Lano chuckled. “The fuck you think this is? On the real, we don’t have shit to discuss. I’m handling what I came down here for, and your help hasn’t been needed.”
Before Samia could respond, her doorbell rang. Strapped always, Lano didn’t feel threatened anywhere he went. He knew he had some enemies, especially now, but they bled just like him. Only difference now was that he was at Samia’s crib. Her male company standing at the door was a nigga Lano didn’t know. He fell back on the gunplay for a second, but he wouldn’t blink nor hesitate to lay another body down and have the city in an uproar if Samia’s company was on some bullshit.
Lano didn’t wait for her to head toward the front door; he moved on his own time. Pulling the door open, a nigga with dreads, a scowl on his face, and menacing eyes is what greeted him. Samia wanted to pass out. When Lano came to the door, she expected for it to be her boo, but was surprised to see it wasn’t him. With them now standing toe-to-toe, she hoped nothing popped off.
“What up,” the dread head spoke.
“Shit,” Lano said evenly before heading to his car.
He didn’t bother to say any farewells to Samia nor give her company any type of greeting. Hopping back in the car, he pulled off in deep thought. He and Anika had been away from home for months now, and though he was eliminating the bullshit that had almost cost him his life, more seemed to be created. Every day it was something new and more than revenge, Lano wanted peace. The calmness once surrounding his life and in his home was missing. He’d never been desperate for anything, but for a peace of mind while he made moves in the streets. Anika had been that, and Lano still couldn’t get over her attack. It was eating him up inside knowing that because his enemies couldn’t touch him, they violated her.
Squeezing the steering wheel tightly, Lano went to make a phone call to his boo, but the blaring sounds of sirens halted his movements. Peeping his side mirrors and rearview, Lano cursed under his breath at the sight of flashing red and blue lights behind him. He hadn’t been pulled over in years and thought about running from their asses just for the fuck of it, but his better judgment won as he veered the car to the right side of the street he was on.