I wasn’t a thief. But I wanted some, and I was going to pour some. Shit, Wilde shouldn’t mind if I took a little. It wasn’t like I was going to take the entire bottle. Looking around the kitchen, I spotted a case of water tucked in the corner. I grabbed one, chugged down half the bottle and poured the rest down the drain. I took the empty bottle and poured some cough syrup inside, being very careful not to spill any.
Lifting my head, I checked the corners of the ceiling and the counters in an effort to see if Wilde had cameras in the kitchen. I knew he had them outside and in the living room. I didn’t see any, but I knew that didn’t mean much. Leaving out of the kitchen, I went back into the bedroom to change into my clothes. Hopefully, KoKo wasn’t far because I was tired and ready for bed. It was crazy that I found myself praying that Wilde made it back home safely.
My molars grinded, and I caressed the trigger of my gun as I held the steel to Boone’s baby mama’s head. She was whimpering and crying, but I couldn’t care less, and I knew Pierre didn’t give a damn, either. He stood in front of her on the verge of losing his composure.
“Call Boone and tell him to get the fuck over here before I slap the fuck out of you,” he spoke through clenched teeth.
With trembling hands, ole girl took the cell phone that he held in front of her and sniffed as she unlocked her phone.
“Try anything stupid, and I promise I’ll go in there and smother your baby with a muhfuckin’ pillow,” he lied. I knew Pierre wouldn’t hurt a child. He was just desperate. Boone, maybe Drew, or somebody shot up my aunt Jada’s house, and she got hit three times. She was in ICU fighting for her life, and Pierre was out for blood.
The phone trilled, and she put it on speaker. Boone answered on the fourth ring. “Yo.”
“I need you to come sit with the baby. I’m bleeding real bad. I think I’m losing the baby,” she cried.
There was a brief pause. “You can’t call your mama or somebody? I’m trying to lay low. I told you this shit I got going on out in the streets is thick.”
“So, I’m supposed to call my mother at four in the morning because the man that got me pregnant is hiding from niggas?”
“Aye watch yo’ muhfuckin’ mouth. I’m not hiding from a soul. I’m just trying to move smart. Give me thirty minutes. I’ll be there.”
“Please don’t kill me. I have a child, and I’m pregnant. I wo?”
Before she could finish speaking, I stepped back and let Pierre do his thing. Brain matter and blood splattered the wall behind her as he ended her life. There was no way we could let her live. That would have been the equivalent of signing our own death certificates or turning ourselves in for the crime. There was no way she was going to know that we killed her kids’ father, and she wasn’t going to say something to somebody.
I never really considered Boone or Drew a threat. At the end of the day, they had an issue with Eric and until it turned deadly, I didn’t engage. Even after they killed Eric, we didn’t touch anyone. Pierre shot up the baby mother’s car because he didn’t want to kill her. But, since Boone wanted to up the ante, we were down. The bullshit I did with Wonder was for shits and giggles, but they wanted to get on some gangsta shit. So, we were about to join the party. Boone’s child was about to be parentless.
Pierre and I waited – not speaking, barely moving – for Boone to come. When we heard the loud ass engine of his bullshit ass Chrysler 300 pulling up in the driveway, we exchanged glances and waited patiently for him to come into the bedroom. The silence in the house was loud as fuck. It was so eerily quiet that a mouse could have been heard pissing on cotton. Boone probably sensed something was wrong.
“Nika?” he called out in an uncertain tone as he neared the bedroom.
The moment I could see his face, I aimed my gun, and he took off running. Pierre was closest to the door, so he made it out first, but I was on his heels. Boone had just made it into the living room when Pierre hit him in the back of the head with the butt of his gun. Boone fell to his knees, and Pierre jumped in front of him and kicked him in the face.
“Nigga, you shot up my mama’s house? Huh? You burned my brother and brought him on the block like you were gangsta of the year? Then my mama’s house?” Pierre asked incredulously. “You’s a bad muhfucka, boy.”
“I didn’t touch yo’ people,” Boone lied as he held the back of his head with one hand. Blood trickled from his nose. He couldn’t even look Pierre in the eyes.
“Oh you didn’t? Okay. My bad, man. Damn, I had the wrong person. Shit. Sorry for killing your BM. I’ll see myself out. Nigga, do I look fucking stupid?!” He kicked Boone in the face again, and the man fell onto his back.
“My baby is here.” Tears streamed down Boone’s face.
“And my mother has grandkids, nigga. Did you think about whether or not they were there before you shot her house up?” Pierre stomped Boone’s midsection, and his sweatpants immediately darkened in the crotch from him urinating on himself. Boone groaned and rolled over onto his side.
“Please,” he panted. “Please don’t kill me.”
Pierre looked at me and chuckled. “This man begging. I thought he was gangsta. He set my people on fire, put him in his car, and put him on the block. That was some gangsta ass shit. And now you’re rolling around on the floor, sniveling, and begging me not to take your life?” he directed his attention back to Boone. “I’m disappointed. You’re supposed to stand ten toesdown behind what you did and die like a man. Did my brother beg?”
Boone didn’t answer, and Pierre glared down at him with even more contempt. “I know my brother didn’t beg yo’ bitch ass.” Pierre finally aimed his gun and pumped Boone full of bullets. I didn’t even flinch as the deafening shots sounded like cannons.
On our way out the door, we heard a baby crying. Our phones were turned off so they couldn’t be pinged to Boone’s location in the event the police ever got on our trail. When we were five minutes away from the house, Pierre powered his phone on and called Nina. Despite everything they went through, she was one of the few people he knew he could trust through anything. He gave her Boone’s baby mama’s address and told her to call 911 from his burner phone that was at her house. He wanted her to have a welfare check done so someone could go get the baby.
Pierre dropped me off at my car, so I could go home and take a shower. I was going to leave home and go straight to the hospital to check on my aunt. My security cameras alerted me when Wonder left the house, so I knew she wasn’t there. Shorty didn’t disappoint because that pussy was A-1. Maybe at some point in the near future, I’d try to get more of that, but my head was in another place at the moment. The petty games were done. I didn’t need her to try and piss Drew off anymore. It wouldn’t have made sense for him to shoot up my aunt Jada’s house, because he was pissed with me, not Pierre. But his friend had just turned shit up, and I knew Drew would more than likely be out for blood, too.
From what I could tell, Wonder was a solid female, and I wasn’t worried about her going to the police. Even if my prints weren’t on the gun, it wasn’t smart to be holding onto a murder weapon, but I wasn’t going to dispose of it just yet. I had to be sure about Wonder before I did that. Of course, without amurder weapon, even if she did talk, it would simply be her word against mine, but I was still going to keep it for a tad longer. Shorty could have just been a good actress. Only time would tell.
A few days later,I went by my grandmother’s house to check on her and my mom. My grandmother was in the kitchen cooking, and I didn’t see my mother. Jada was my grandmother’s daughter, and she was stressed and worried about her. My aunt was still in ICU, and the doctors weren’t too optimistic, but she was a fighter and she was hanging on. My grandmother had seen a lot, and she’d been through a lot. She killed my mother’s father when she was nineteen in self-defense because he was beating her while she was pregnant with Jada. Jada’s father was sentenced to life in prison when Jada was two, and he died there ten years ago.
My grandmother wasn’t a stranger to hardships or death. She lost a lot of people in her life, and she was still standing strong. “What up, G? Where ma dukes at?”
