7. Capri
CHAPTER 7
CAPRI
I sat in my driveway and smoked a blunt with my window cracked. Kidnapping Lisa hadn’t done a thing to make me feel better. I didn’t need confirmation that Sintonio was a bitch ass coward, but her words made me realize he was a little worse than I thought. I was sure that all expecting parents prayed for healthy children. In the event that the child wasn’t healthy, I would hope that the child would still be loved the same. Losing Caprice had turned me into a bitter savage but seeing Lisa cry and hearing her say her son might not make it, tugged at the tiny piece of heart that I didn’t know I had left. It damn near made me regret my decision. Especially when she said that Sintonio might not even care about me having her. That was one lame ass nigga.
Even if he wasn’t going crazy over Lisa being missing, I prayed that he was going crazy thinking that he was next. I wanted him stressed. I wanted him paranoid and looking over his shoulder. Lisa being missing had made it to the news. There was a picture of her abandoned car, purse, and her cell phone that had been tossed onto the ground. There were no leads and no suspects. The news anchor did say that Lisa’s family was distraught, and they wanted the pregnant woman to come home safe and unharmed.
I was torn, and I didn’t like that shit. Suddenly, the urge to kill her wasn’t as strong, and I was pissed at myself for deviating from the plan. There was no room in my life for softness. I despised feeling weak but even in my bitter state, I knew that letting Lisa live wouldn’t make me weak. I had just pressed the button to start my car engine when Robin pulled up in my driveway. With a kiss of my teeth, I flung the car door open and stepped out.
Robin emerged from her car with a timid expression on her face. I didn’t speak. The glower on my face had to let her know that I wasn’t in the mood, but her throat bounced as she swallowed hard, and she spoke anyway.
“I was wrong, Capri. There is no doubt about that. I love you so much. When it happened, I was angry but from the moment it was over, I regretted it. I knew if I told you the truth, you would leave me. But had I given birth and suspected she was Dolph’s I wouldn’t have let you get so attached to her. Caprice looked just like you. I knew she was yours, Capri. I made a mistake. It never should have happened. I regret it so much.”
I kissed my teeth. “I don’t appreciate you coming to my home uninvited wasting my time and your breath. There’s nothing you could ever say to make me forgive you. You’re dead to me. Stop coming to my crib,” I warned in a low venomous tone.
“Capri, you can be upset. You can even hate me, but denying me some of her things is wrong. I’m trying really hard to handle this among ourselves, but if I call the police, I’m sure they’ll say that I can get some of her things and the rest of mine.”
Before I could catch myself, I had taken a long stride and was up in Robin’s face. I gripped her neck and stared into her eyes as I slightly restricted her breathing. “Playing with me is the quickest way to lose your life. Rather than thanking God that you’re still alive, you choose to come over here where I’m minding my business and bother me. I’ll never tell you again,” my grip tightened. “If you don’t want your mother having to buy another black dress you’ll stay the fuck away from me,” I gritted before letting her neck go.
Tears filled Robin’s eyes as she rubbed the place where my hand had been. “No matter how you feel about me, she was my daughter too.” Tears streamed down her cheeks as she walked back to her mother’s car. I was going to sell the one that I didn’t let her take from my home. I didn’t even have the desire to drive it myself.
Being that I was holding a woman captive in my home, the police were the last visitors that I wanted at my house, but Robin wasn’t going to make me do shit. She had almost blown my high. I got in my car and backed out of the driveway. I planned to stop by each of my businesses, and then I was going to sit outside of Sintonio’s crib and see if his bitch ass was home. I didn’t want to deviate from my plan, but if the urges I had to just let Lisa go didn’t dissipate, it was going to be another thing for me to stress about. She’d seen my face, she knew who I was, and where I lived. Letting her go and killing Sintonio would be beyond stupid. Anger had me snatching her up without a care in the world, but her tears and the bombshells she dropped had thrown me for a loop.
She was going through enough, and the fact that I even cared irritated me. She was right about one thing. What Sintonio did wasn’t her fault and if her son did survive, how fair would it be for him to have to be raised by her parents?
“Shit!” I hit the steering wheel. I had messed up. I didn’t even want to give the weed and alcohol credit for clouding my judgement. It was bitterness and rage. Losing Caprice had me not thinking straight.
I spent about four hours working. Every fifteen minutes or so, I checked the cameras in my mancave, and Lisa was behaving. She alternated between sleeping and sitting with her back against the headboard and her knees drawn. There were times she’d place one hand on her belly, and I could see her shoulders moving up and down as she cried. I couldn’t just kill her and get it over with because she was still pregnant. It was either get rid of her ASAP or let her go. I just couldn’t see myself letting her go.
When I was done with work, it was dark, so I sat outside of Sintonio’s home. His Dodge Ram was in the driveway, and there was a light on in the living room. I sat and watched the house for about ten minutes before he walked out to his truck. Sintonio didn’t look like a man that had a missing, pregnant fiancée. He was dressed like he was going out for a night on the town, and that shit pissed me off. I literally saw red. My daughter was no more, and his lady was missing. Meanwhile, that fuck nigga acted as if he didn’t have a care in the world.
I followed him, and when he pulled up at a bar, my trigger finger literally twitched. I doubted he was drinking his pain away. When I wanted to drown my sorrows in a bottle, I didn’t give a damn how I looked. I didn’t get fly to go out and drink the pain away. I watched Sintonio walk inside the bar. I had no way of knowing if he knew who I was or not. There was no telling how he would react if he saw me, but I needed to see him up close and personal. I needed to see if the nigga was suffering, or if he was truly the piece of shit that I thought he was. I checked the cameras and saw Lisa in her usual position on her side. I stared at her for a little longer than I should have before locking my phone and shoving it in my pocket.
There was a nice size crowd in the establishment, but it wasn’t too packed. I found an empty seat at the end of the bar. Sintonio was a few people down from me. Patiently, I waited for the bartender to get to me, and I ordered a double shot of whiskey. A slight buzz remained from the blunt that I’d smoked, but I wouldn’t consider myself high. I knew the alcohol would boost it, however, and I’d feel it a little more. After taking a few sips of my drink, I looked over and saw that Sintonio was engaged in conversation with a female. I couldn’t see his face, but she was smiling and talking, and I chuckled angrily. The nigga was really a waste of space. He didn’t even deserve to be breathing. I took another sip as I watched her giggle and flirt shamelessly with his lame ass.
I finished my drink and ordered another. Being in the same space with Sintonio while I was under the influence wasn’t the smartest idea because the urge to drag him off the bar stool and beat him senseless had me bouncing my leg anxiously. I had seen what I needed to see. He didn’t give a damn about Lisa and his unborn child. She’d barely been missing for forty-eight hours, and he was already out in a public setting with the next bitch all up in his face. He really had no shame. Killing her might not make him feel any kind of way, and that was sad as hell. People like Sintonio and Robin deserved one another. When drink number two was done, I paid my tab and left a tip. Easing off the stool, I walked right by Sintonio’s hoe ass and out to my car.
These days, I kept a blunt rolled, so I grabbed it from my ashtray and sparked it before pushing the button to start my car engine. I smoked the entire way home and by the time I pulled up in the driveway, I was damn near seeing double. Inside, I took another shot of alcohol and made a sandwich to take Lisa. After grabbing a few water bottles and some fruit, I went toward my man cave. I placed the food on the bed and the water bottles on the table beside the bed. She didn’t say anything, but I could feel her gaze on me. I was going to leave her uncuffed. At that point, I didn’t even know what the hell I was doing with Lisa or what I had planned for her.
The next morning, I woke up with a headache. That was one thing that I didn’t miss about drinking. I knew my limits, but I didn’t care enough to stop before it got too far. I was spiraling, and I knew it. The sad part was that I didn’t care. I checked the cameras, and Lisa was laying on her side. I took a shower, brushed my teeth, and then downed a bottle of water before making her some oatmeal and toast. Scowling, I realized that I was about to give her the last of the fruit, and that meant I’d have to go to the grocery store or at least order groceries.
When I entered my mancave, Lisa didn’t budge. She was staring straight ahead with dried tears on her face. I set the tray on the table and turned to walk out of the room, but something stopped me. I turned back towards Lisa, and she wasn’t moving. She was barely even blinking. Of course, she was somewhere she didn’t want to be, and she was probably scared and unsure of what was going to happen. I couldn’t front, she was handling the shit like a G.
“He usually moves a lot when I’m asleep. I haven’t felt him move in a while.” Her tone was robotic and void of emotion. “Usually when I press my stomach, he moves. He’s gone. I know he is. You got what you wanted. A baby for a baby.”
“Don’t put words in my mouth,” I growled. “I’m not that nigga. I’d never harm a child.”
“Whatever,” she kissed her teeth. “Go ahead and kill me. You’d be doing me a favor. There isn’t shit in this cruel ass world that I want to keep going for.” She was dead serious, and I hated the way my gut twisted from her words.
She was suffering, and her nigga was somewhere fucking off. I didn’t know Lisa from a can of paint, but I wanted to believe she didn’t deserve that. “I know a doctor. I can get him to come by and check you out,” I sighed.
G was a hood doctor, and he’d seen some shit. He got paid so much for tending to street niggas and not contacting the police, that he only had to work at the office part-time. He’d patched up countless gunshot wounds and even gave side chicks abortions, but I wasn’t so sure about him coming to see about a woman whose face had been plastered all over the news.
Lisa’s gaze lifted. She thought her son was gone, but I saw the hope in her eyes when I mentioned the doctor. “I’ll call him. Eat.”
I walked out of the room and locked the door. Losing Caprice had damn near turned me into the devil himself, but there was just some shit that I couldn’t do. That baby for a baby line threw me for a loop because that was never what I wanted. I called G, and he told me he could come by in an hour and a half. He needed to get some equipment from his office. He charged a pretty penny for house calls, but I wasn’t broke. The fact that my child was no longer around to eventually receive the money that I’d been saving for her since she was born was like a knife to my gut.
I changed my life and tried to do everything right for that little girl. I wanted her to be a privileged, spoiled daddy’s girl that could call me for anything no matter if she was five or fifty. I’d been robbed of watching her grow up. I needed to smoke. Anger was seeping into my pores and changing my entire mood. It wasn’t like I woke up in the best mood, but it could for damn sure get worse. I sat on the porch and smoked then went back inside and ate some cereal. I handled some business via telephone calls and emails until G rang my doorbell.
I gave him a brief rundown on the situation. “I know I don’t have to tell you that what you see here stays here.”
“Of course,” he waved my comment off. “I’ve seen it all, and I ask no questions.”
I didn’t want to tell on myself just in case, he hadn’t seen the news. “There’s a shorty here that can’t go to the hospital right now. As I said on the phone, she’s pregnant and due in like three weeks. Her child was diagnosed with a rare chromosomal disorder, and she hasn’t felt him move. She thinks he’s gone.”
G gave a curt nod. “Of course, I had no way to transport an ultrasound machine here, but I do have a doppler machine, so I can check for a heartbeat. I also have a transducer that can be used to monitor the baby.”
I didn’t know what the hell a transducer was, but it really wasn’t important. As long as he knew what he was doing that was all that mattered. I lead G to my man cave where Lisa was uncuffed. “This is Doctor G,” I stated gruffly.
Lisa gave him a skeptical once over. G placed his bag on the bed and asked Lisa a few questions. I almost stepped out of the room to give them some privacy until it dawned on me that this was a hostage situation. I was holding Lisa against her will. I doubted G would do anything about it if she told him, but I still didn’t need him in my business like that. He’d seen a lot of shit and had always kept his mouth shut but that damn sure didn’t mean that I trusted him. I stepped back and let him do his thing.
Lisa was a stranger that didn’t mean shit to me but when G tried for a good ten minutes to locate her son’s heartbeat, I found myself holding my breath until I couldn’t hold it any longer. When he gave her a solemn head shake, the gut-wrenching sob that pushed from her throat made my insides twist. My eyes briefly closed as she wailed. I felt her pain. I felt it too fuckin’ much. G allowed her time to cry, and then he made her aware that he could induce her labor. Stepping forward, I decided to speak.
“G, can you give us a minute?”
“Sure.”
He stepped out of the room, and I sat on the bed. “I’ll take you to the hospital. You don’t have to give birth to your son here. I’m sorry.” The words flowed out of my mouth with damn near no effort from me. I didn’t want to console her or be compassionate, but it came as naturally to me as breathing.
Lisa buried her face in my chest and sobbed until tears of my own surfaced. She clenched my shirt in her hands and while she cried for her child, I cried for mine. I wrapped my arms around her and hugged her tight. I wasn’t sure how much time passed, but I didn’t let her go until her body stopped quaking. She sighed and wiped her tears.
“Thank you.” Her voice was hoarse. “I’d like to call my parents and siblings and give birth to my child with my family present. I won’t say anything about where I was. I promise.”
I stared into her puffy face. The agony in her eyes matched mine. Every time I looked at my reflection in the mirror, my eyes were what stood out to me the most. I’d always heard that the eyes were windows to the soul. My orbs told me that my soul was gone and from the looks of it, so was Lisa’s.
I left the room to pay G. “I’m going to take her to the hospital. Thank you for coming.”
“Anytime.”
Back in the room, Lisa was still on the bed. More than likely, she didn’t possess the strength to stand. I scooped her off the bed into my arms and carried her out to my car. Inside the car, she turned her body towards the door and rested her head on the seat. I drove to the hospital in silence not even caring if she went to the police or not. I had no fuckin’ idea what my life had become. I was losing it. My mind wandered to Sintonio in the bar in another woman’s face while his pregnant fiancée was missing. If Lisa did go to the police, my only regret would be that I didn’t get to kill Sintonio first. As long as he was dead, I could go to prison with a smile on my face. Fuck it.
When I arrived at the hospital, I pulled up near the entrance and put the gear in park. I exited the vehicle and rounded the car, so I could open the door for her. “You want me to get a wheelchair, or can you walk?”
“I can walk. Can I use your phone to call my father? He’s had the same number for more than ten years. It’s one of the few numbers that I know by heart,” she mumbled.
I pulled my phone from my pocket and unlocked it. I didn’t want to leave her alone, but I didn’t really have a choice. I watched her as she blocked my number before calling her father. Her voice cracked as she spoke to him. “Hey, daddy. I know everyone has been worried about me. I’m at the hospital. I um, I was kidnapped, and I managed to get away. A kind stranger brought me to the ER. I think something is wrong with the baby.”
I listened to her lie and cover for me. I knew the hospital had cameras and that bringing her could have gotten me in a world of trouble, but I didn’t really care. I knew I should have wanted to be better for myself but without Caprice, I didn’t care about shit. Being free or being in prison. There wasn’t too much of a difference to me. When she ended the call, Lisa gave me a small smile and handed me the phone.
“Thank you.”
I stared at her as she got out of the car. I didn’t know what to say. Our stories weren’t the same, but they were way too similar for my comfort. Caprice was older than her son, but we were both parents that experienced a loss. After watching Lisa walk into the hospital, I got in my car and pulled off.