Chapter 16
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Blak stood at the alter with clenched jaw muscles.
The ceremony had already been pushed back thirty minutes because James wasn’t there.
Blak had no idea where he was, but if he wasn’t going to show up, he could let them all leave and stop wasting their time.
He didn’t want to marry Naomi’s ass anyway.
Life had been a shit show since Averi got shot.
The more he thought about it, the angrier Blak became.
If James felt like he was violating, he should have shot him and left Averi out of it.
He made a pussy ass move, and Blak would never respect it.
He would never forget it either. In his opinion, James was a fool to keep Blak so close to him.
Most of his days were spent plotting on how to get the man back and wondering how Averi was doing.
Blak missed her. Alcohol and weed were the ways he coped with his anger and misery.
He hadn’t spoken ten words to Naomi, and she was at the point that she didn’t want to marry him either.
After the fifth time she asked him what went down, he told her, and she felt some kind of way.
She really couldn’t even put her feelings into words.
The relationship wasn’t real. Being jealous that Blak was in love with another woman was absurd.
However, she wasn’t even sure why he agreed to marry her if someone else had his heart.
Knowing that he was basically being forced to marry her pissed Naomi off because she wasn’t a charity case.
Men tried to get at her every day. Why should she be subjected to Blak ogling her like she was shit on the bottom of his shoe when she could have a man that cherished the ground she walked on?
And she could have for damn sure gotten a man that was already rich and not just on his way to being rich.
Blak and Block made eye contact. Block could tell that his cousin was agitated.
The wedding was being held outside in the back of a luxurious hotel.
The building sat on two acres of land. There were a lot of trees and a small lake behind the hotel.
A violinist was playing music for the two hundred plus guests that were beginning to grow antsy.
Everyone was in place except Naomi and her father.
Blak was beginning to wonder if Naomi had changed her mind, and he prayed to God that she had.
That prayer went out the window fast when he saw Naomi with her arm looped through her father’s.
She was a beautiful woman, but all Blak saw when he looked at her was the source for his misery.
His gaze shifted over to James, and the sight before him almost made Blak smile.
He had no clue what had gone on, but James looked like shit.
His eyes were red and had bags underneath them.
If there was a picture in the dictionary beside the word weary, he would have been it.
He looked out of place at the lavish wedding.
Bridesmaids stood in skintight nude dresses.
The groomsmen were lined up in their nude tuxes, and the train of Naomi’s $6,000 gown trailed behind her for what seemed like miles.
Blak knew when all eyes weren’t on Naomi, they were on him, so he had to be mindful to keep the glower off his face.
His hatred for James ran deep, but none of the guests needed to know that.
Movement from his peripheral vision caught Blak’s eye.
When he spotted three men all dressed in white server uniforms aiming semi-automatic weapons, he turned toward his cousins. “It’s a fucking hit.”
None of them were strapped, so all they could do was hit the ground.
Blak noticed the flower girl walking towards the front of the alter, and he scrambled over to her and yanked her down on the ground.
She screamed as bullets began to fly, and Blak covered her body with his.
His heart pounded irately in his chest as a rapid succession of gunfire created a melody of gangsta music.
The shots seemed endless. Finally, they stopped.
Blak still wouldn’t move. Not until he heard movement around him.
He lifted up and surveyed the scene. There were at least ten bodies sprawled out not moving.
Block was racing down the aisle looking for his mother, and his brothers were right behind him.
Most of the guests that didn’t get hit had already taken off running.
Blak’s eyes roamed over the bodies, and seeing James crying over Naomi made his heart lurch forward.
She’d been hit. Her white dress was saturated with her blood as James cried and rocked back and forth.
Blak recognized one of the other bodies on the ground as James’ wife.
Damn. He lost his daughter and wife in the same day.
Blak wanted to not give a fuck, but he felt sorry for Naomi and her mother.
Whoever had done the shooting should have taken James’ ass out. That would have made his day.
Though he didn’t have anything on him, Blak knew the police were on their way, and he refused to be a sitting duck.
Making sure none of the bodies on the ground belonged to his people, Blak made his way through each row of chairs before getting the hell out of dodge.
He had no clue what had gone on back at that hotel.
The gunmen that he saw had their faces uncovered, and they appeared to be of Cuban descent.
He damn sure didn’t have beef with any Cubans.
The only other reason they would have shot up the wedding would be if they had beef with James.
Blak felt he was in over his head dealing with James.
He simply wanted to come up not be hit with numerous trials and tribulations.
Blak went straight to his house and removed the tux he was wearing.
Images of Naomi’s body infiltrated his mind as he poured a shot of cognac.
There was nothing he wanted more than to scrub the image from his brain.
Blak’s phone rang, and he saw the number of the prison his uncle was housed in on the screen.
Blak accepted the call and waited for Tech to speak. “I’m about to lose my damn mind. Why isn’t Block answering the phone?”
Blak wasn’t even surprised that his uncle knew what was up. Niggas in prison and the county jail knew things that happened on the street before some people that were free found out. “Block, Brazil, and Lethal are all good. I saw them before I left the venue. How do you know what happened?”
“I knew before it happened. We were on lock down, and I couldn’t use the phone.
I heard through the grapevine, that there was a sting operation that went down about two this morning.
It was an operation set up to catch adults that were planning to meet up with underage kids and have sex with them.
James was one of the people arrested. He was under the impression for three months that was texting a fifteen-year-old girl.
He sent her nudes, asked her if she ever had sex before, all kinds of crazy shit.
When the police ran down on him, they had thirteen pages of evidence printed out. ”
Blak felt like he was about to throw up the alcohol that he’d just swallowed. That nigga was sick as fuck, and he was speechless. “That’s why he showed up almost an hour late and looked like shit when he did finally get there.”
“Yeah. He had to beg, plead, and throw money around to even get them to allow him to post bail. His connect is a Cuban guy, and he doesn’t play that shit. As soon as he got wind of James’ arrest, he sent hittas to shut that wedding down.”
“Got damn, I want to meet that nigga and hug him.” Blak shook his head. “Don’t get me wrong. Whoever that was doing the shooting fucked up. They hit mad innocent people including Naomi and her moms, but James is still alive. They saved me from having to marry ole girl though.”
“James might still be alive, but I wouldn’t bank on him being alive for long. Between the plug and the police, somebody is going to get his ass. This shit got my nerves bad. I’m going to try Block again.”
“Okay Unc. Thanks for the info.”
Blak ended the call in disbelief. James was a fucking pedophile.
The man spent countless years in the game selling drugs, committing murders and the whole nine, and he got busted for being a pervert?
He really lasted years in the drug game only to be arrested for some embarrassing shit like texting a damn kid to have sex.
Blak hoped he burned in hell for more than one reason.
Thinking back to Naomi, Blak’s heart once again felt heavy.
He didn’t want to marry her, but this wasn’t the way he wanted to get out of it.
She was a good person. Dying because her father was a piece of shit was nasty work.
But, Blak had lost a seed also, so it was what it was.
He poured more alcohol in his glass and sat on the couch.
Blak assumed that he was in the clear to deal with Averi, but he was sure that was out the window.
She more than likely blamed him for her getting shot and losing the baby.
Blak was willing to bet money that she didn’t want anything to do with him, and he couldn’t blame her.
He was no longer getting married, but he was going to let Averi go.
Fuck it. He didn’t need love. All he needed was money.