Chapter 5 #2
My parents were loving the fact that Kiwi was in the house with them, and they had invited us out to dinner. When I got back to the house, the cleaners were there, and my parents’ chef was preparing lunch.
“Hi, Apricot,” she smiled at me. “You’re just in time. Lunch is ready.”
My eyes darted over the shrimp linguini. “It looks and smells amazing. Thank you.”
Megan fixed me a plate, and I carried it up to my room to eat.
Being back at home with my parents reminded me of how pleasant it was to have luxury at my fingertips.
I was never against living the good life.
I just didn’t want the money that funded the lifestyle to have blood on it.
I hated wrestling with wondering if my feelings were valid or if I was doing too much.
Most people wouldn’t care where the money came from, but I wasn’t most people.
While I ate, I scheduled a wax appointment.
I also made a hair appointment. My hair was long and thick enough for me to get knotless braids using my own hair.
I could do it myself, but I didn’t want to.
It took too long and made my arms extremely tired.
I also made an appointment to get my brows threaded and tinted.
My date to the bookstore and the bedroom was in four days, and I wanted to be prepared for Mr. Uno Sparks.
Just thinking about it made a tingle run down my spine.
The gym and apartment hunting wore me out, so after I demolished the food that Megan cooked, I took a wonderful nap.
My father picked Kiwi up from school, and we all got ready to go out to dinner.
When I went downstairs, I saw Marlo and though I gave him a genuine smile, I was reminded that we couldn’t even go out to eat dinner as a family without security being present.
Kiwi was still a little too young to understand.
She was a smart girl though and would figure it out soon just like I did.
“What care are we taking?” Marlo asked, and I knew my father would say the Escalade because it was bulletproof.
“Can we ride in the Rolls Royce, please?” Kiwi clasped her hands together and gave my father the puppy dog eyes that he could never resist.
He looked over at Marlo. “You heard the boss.”
“Indeed, I did.”
Marlo went to get the car from the garage while Kiwi talked practically nonstop.
I had to smile at how excited she was for the four of us to be in the house together.
I loved the way my parents loved Kiwi and how they never looked down on me or shunned me when I got pregnant in college and refused to tell them who the father was.
I knew they were disappointed, but they stood ten toes down behind me and their grandchild.
I was too nervous and ashamed to be excited about my pregnancy, but my mother ensured that my daughter had everything she needed.
Kiwi had so many clothes when she was born, she wasn’t even able to wear them all before she grew out of them.
Since Marlo was accompanying us, I told my parents that I’d follow them in my car, so we wouldn’t be crowded in the Rolls Royce.
I pulled out behind Marlo, and we drove through the security gate.
There was a long road that led from the security gate to the main road.
Anyone could get onto that path, but the only house at the end of it was my parents’ and without a code or being let in, they couldn’t get past the gate.
We were almost at the main road when a black van turned onto the path and stopped in front of the Rolls Royce.
My eyes widened as the doors of the van flew open, and four men with long locs jumped out with guns in their hands.
Screaming at the top of my lungs, I broke a nail trying to get my door open to get to my child.
I didn’t give a damn if I got shot in the process, but I had to get to her.
Marlo jumped out of the driver’s seat with a gun of his own in hand just as I made it out of my car.
Gunshots erupted around me as I hit the ground and crawled over to my father’s car.
My eyes damn near popped out of my head as Marlo’s massive body dropped.
His eyes were open, but I knew instantly that he was dead.
Blood trickled out of his mouth as his lifeless body blocked my way to the door.
Scrambling around the back of the car, shell casings rained down and hit the ground like rain drops.
When I rounded the car, on the opposite side, I saw my father on the ground with a gun in his hand and blood saturating the white shirt that he wore.
It felt as if my chest caved in as I heard tires screeching.
Jumping up off the ground, I swallowed down bile as I yanked the car door open and found my mother hovering over Kiwi protecting her.
“Ma!” I screamed damn near choking on my tears.
My voice seemed to snap my mother back to the present, and she sat up straight and looked around with horror etched onto her face.
“No, no, no,” she scrambled from the car in an attempt to get to my father.
I knew I needed to call for help, but I couldn’t do shit until I made sure my child was okay.
When she looked at me with tears streaming down her cheeks it broke my heart.
Everything that I ever wanted to protect her from had come to fruition.
She could be dead. Rage replaced the fear as I pulled her from the car.
“Go straight to my car. Get in the car and lay down in the backseat,” I instructed as my mother howled over my father’s body.
I knew she wasn’t in the right state of mind, so I rushed Kiwi to my car and got my phone from the passenger seat to call 9-1-1.
My entire body was trembling. The way so many thoughts ran through my mind in such a short period of time was insane.
I glanced over at Marlo and immediately thought about the fact that he had people that loved him.
He’d literally taken a bullet for my father.
That was his job but still who would have thought that it would even come to that?
Was my father dead and if he wasn’t did I get to tell him I told you so?
I answered each question the dispatcher asked with a shaky voice all while watching my mother on the ground on her knees crying over my father.
The urge to throw up kept getting stronger and stronger.
It was taking too much strength to stand.
All I wanted to do was collapse and cry my heart out, but I had to take control of the situation.
My mother was a mess. The dispatcher assured me that help was on the way and no sooner than the words left her mouth, I heard sirens in the distance.
A slight sense of relief washed over me.
Prayerfully, both my father and Marlo were still alive.
The sirens got closer and closer, but it still seemed to be taking them way too long to arrive.
My anxiety was getting the best of me. I didn’t want to see another dead body especially not that of my father, so I paced back and forth and waited impatiently on help to arrive.
Finally, an ambulance arrived. Before the EMT’s could even get out of the vehicle, a police officer pulled up, followed by another ambulance and another police car.
I knew it was about to be a long evening full of questions and possibly bad news, and I wasn’t sure I was up for the shit.