Chapter 1
“Iknow we are all still victims to the cause…”
Harbor
The phone slipped from my grasp, and sharp stabbing pains shot through my stomach as I lay there on the ground.
Eyes shut tight, my head felt all fuzzy.
Never ending gunshots echoed in my ears.
Chaos surrounded me. My head throbbed, my insides cringed, and my vagina felt like my baby was trying to burst right out of it.
“Harbor!” Ivy’s unnerved voice pierced my ears, causing me to open my eyes.
Ledge knelt at my side. I hadn’t imagined that part. He really was there, saving my fucking life. The irony of that left me even more disturbed as I came to. He was swift and precise in his actions.
“Ivy, get in the car, lil’ mama. I’ll take care of her,” he insisted, and I could hear painful groans from the sidewalk.
Deviance had been hit. Was he okay? All these jumbled thoughts ran through my head. Sirens rang in the distance, but Ledge ignored me as he used both of his strong arms to scoop me into them.
“Come on, put your arm around me,” he urged, using his strength to lift me.
I did as he said, draping my arms around his neck to keep myself steady in his hold. Ivy had ducked into the back seat like she had been told, and Ledge carried me to the front passenger’s seat, stepping over Deviance.
“We can’t just leave him here.” I whined as Ledge slipped me into the seat.
“I know.” He took a deep breath and bent down near Deviance.
“D, you a big nigga, so I need your help on this. Can you move?” Knowledge had spread each leg over him and stared down into his anguish-filled face.
He nodded, keeping his hand over his wound and applying pressure.
“A’ight.” Ledge rested his hands on his knees and took a moment before he reached out to help him sit up.
Using every ounce of endurance, he helped Deviance ease himself into the back seat beside Ivy. There was so much blood, and she looked so scared. Ledge slammed the back door shut and raced around to the driver’s side. He put the car in drive, and we took off down the road at top speed.
“Agh!” I screamed and grasped my stomach as cramps invaded it.
“Shit, you a’ight?” Ledge asked, and he seemed genuinely concerned as he peered over at me.
I cut my eyes at him, irritated, annoyed, and still a little shaken up. Why was he here? In this moment, I would be okay with anyone being at my side but him.
“I don’t know. Something’s wrong,” I said, taking in deep breaths to push through the pain.
“OK, well, relax. Keep breathing, doing that Lamaze shit. I’ll get you to the hospital as soon as possible.” he stated, relatively calm.
I didn’t know how to take this particular version of Ledge. The nigga had me leery and nervous.
“What were you doing there tonight? Not that I’m not happy that you saved my life and Ivy’s.”
“I was coming to talk to Chevy. I didn’t like how shit ended with us tonight, and I wanted to apologize.”
“You just missed her,” I told him, squeezing my eyes shut and gritting my jaw so tight it hurt.
“Here, take my hand,” he offered, holding an open palm out to me.
I stared at it, then up into his face, skeptical as fuck.
This was Ledge we were talking about here.
Over a year ago, he had me trapped inside a van and was drugging me, so forgive me if I was a little skeptical about his genuineness.
The nigga was a professional killer, and I was pretty sure a master manipulator because I didn’t know what the hell Chevy saw in his crude ass.
“Come on. Imagine being able to inflict pain on a nigga,” he kidded, a boyish simper on his face.
He had a point. I grasped his hand in mine and held it tightly within my own while trying to bite down on the pain. It wasn’t about him during this time, but I wasn’t so sure I could push through without him there beside me. An odd sense of comfort filled me.
“I tried calling Frequency? Can you reach out again?” I asked, sucking air in through my mouth and exhaling through my nose.
“I’ll do it,” Ivy piped up from the back seat.
“It hurts. God it hurts so fucking bad,” I whined.
“So… talk to me.” Ledge prodded.
“I don’t want to,” I whined. “Ivy, are you okay? Is she really okay?” I couldn’t trust a thing right now, and the fear of what was happening to my baby was enough to drive me insane.
“She’s fine, Harbor.” His words were sharp, forcing me to check his expression.
Ledge was the kind of nigga you had to look in the eye when he spoke.
He could tell you anything with a straight face, but the way his dark, whiskey-brown eyes worked, they revealed much more.
I felt him narrowing them at me questioningly.
His brows drew together like he was having an inner struggle.
“You really care about them, don’t you?” he asked, and the question left me unguarded.
Our eyes locked across the front seat.
“More than anything else in this world,” I answered.
His inquiry was vague, but I knew exactly what he was talking about.
Knowledge nodded, like he was finally accepting something.
He, like Frequency, seemed to be a pretty simple man when it came to taking some shit at face value.
They didn’t dwell on it or apologize for it; it just was.
If they felt how they felt and their point of view changed, that was it.
“So... do you know what you’re having yet?” Ledge questioned after a moment of silence.
It was obvious that he was trying to distract me. Grimacing, I tried shifting in the seat because I was growing uncomfortable.
“No. We decided not to know. We’ve only had a couple of ultrasounds. Ivy wants to do a gender reveal,” I explained.
“That shit don’t make no sense to me. Just another excuse for a woman to have a damn party.” He sucked his teeth and shook his head. “Then you either super mad it’s not what you want or emotional as fuck if you get what you want. A bunch of female shit. I ain’t coming.”
“You weren’t invited,” I grumbled.
If it was possible, he was irritating me even more.
“Aye, I just saved your fucking life. A nigga better be on the list.” He turned his nose up and bent both brows at me defensively.
For the first time, his dark, slanted eyes weren’t filled with contempt when he took me in. He was actually being sarcastic.
“You just said—”
“I know what I said. I say all kinds of shit all the fucking time, and I only mean half of it! I’m not some foul ass nigga though. I got my own shit too. Shit I don’t talk about or can’t come back from.” His voice trailed off, but there was this softness to it that I’d never heard before.
It was vulnerability, and it threw me off. I wasn’t used to whoever the fuck this was.
“What is wrong with you?” I sneered at him. “Are you high?”
“I’m just saying—”
“Get a fucking grip, Ledge. Now ain’t the time for...
whatever this is.” I waved a hand at him and tried to give my attention to anything other than the fucking episode he was having.
He stared across the seat at me with the craziest look as if he couldn’t believe I had spoken to him this way.
He probably hadn’t had very many people address him that way in his life.
“Daddy’s not answering the phone. Something is wrong,” Ivy concluded from her seat.
My anxiety was climbing to ten. Where the fuck was he? This wasn’t like him, and it had me worried that something had actually happened to him.
“Let’s just get you to the hospital. I’ll track down Free and have Chevy come up here and sit with you.” Ledge listed off as he kept switching lanes through traffic.
Sounded reasonable to me, but it didn’t stop the concern from nagging me all the way to Mercy Hospital. When we arrived, Ledge’s phone rang, and he dug around to find it in his pocket.
“Shit,” he muttered, studying the display.
I watched him put the phone to his ear as security walked toward us since we were in a lane that was for drop-offs only.
“Chev—”
“Ledge!” I could hear her screaming at him clearly through the phone. “That crazy bitch took our kids!”
“What are you talking about?” Ledge’s face went into a scowl.
“Kitana. She came in here, knocked Granny out, and took the fucking kids. She says she wants two million dollars. Where the fuck are you!”
“I’ll be there in a minute. Harbor is at the hospital; some shit went down—”
“What! Well, don’t come here. The cops are everywhere. I will meet you once I get Granny taken care of and they clear out. Call that bitch and make this shit happen,” she ordered before hanging up.
Moments later, we had hospital staff rushing out to assist us inside. It took about three people to help Deviance onto a gurney, and I was helped into a wheelchair.
“Miss Lawson, talk to me. Is this your first pregnancy?” the doctor on call questioned me.
“Yes. My primary doctor is Dr. Iris Lane of the Lane OBGYN Clinic. Please call her,” I begged, rubbing my stomach while they wheeled me through the trauma hallway.
“So tell us what you are feeling.” The nurse prodded, keeping a clipboard in hand to jot down her notes.
“Lots of pain, like cramping. I think I’m bleeding too. But it’s too soon. I’m not even thirty-two weeks yet.”
“We are going to take care of you and your baby. Is there someone else that we can call for you?” The nurse asked gently.
“No. I’ve tried reaching the father, but he had work tonight. I’m waiting for him to call back. Ivy, come with me. Don’t leave my side.” I held my hand behind me, and she grabbed it in hers.
Ledge had his phone to his ear as he strolled behind us.
They admitted me and did an exam, and my doctor arrived about half an hour later.
There was still no sign of Frequency, and that was causing my blood pressure to spike severely.
My doctor prescribed for me to get some kind of medicine to slow down the labor and contractions, and I lay there in that hospital bed trying to keep it together.
Ivy was at my side in a chair looking nervous as hell.
Feeling a bit better, I couldn’t keep my mind off of Frequency and what he was doing.