On Me 2: Crew’s Story (On Everything #5)

Chapter 1

Crew

“What are you talking about, Debbie?”

Gio asked, his brows knitted together, eyes narrowing like he was trying to replay a conversation in his head that never actually happened.

My mama said they talked about everything, so why the fuck did they not talk about sharing a kid together?

You would think that conversation would’ve come up first.

“Mama, I know you don’t think that will work. This snitch ass nigga is not my father.”

“He is Crewshon. I promise both of you that Gio is your dad.”

“And how do you know that, Mama?”

“Baby, everything about Gio reminds me of you. Plus, the time that Gio and I were together adds up to the time of your birth. You are hot headed like he was back in the day. The height, the smooth skin. A deep dimple in your left cheek that I feel every time I rub both of your faces. It’s true, Crew. ”

“Mama, you think I give a fuck about smooth skin, a dimple, and some long ass legs and shit? Go back in your room so I can handle this nigga the way I planned to!”

Gio snickered, looking me dead in my eyes as I kept him pinned to the wall. The part that was making me so mad was that he really didn’t show much fear. Like he knew he was safe just because my mama was standing on his side.

“I’m not going to tell you again nigga. There ain’t shit funny!” I pressed him up against the wall even harder.

“You know, maybe you are really my son because I used to not give a fuck about what my mama said either.”

“Crewshon, please just leave, go calm down, and then come back and talk to me about everything in a civilized manner. This is not worth it. I love you too much to lose you.”

She pleaded, but I ignored every word coming out of her mouth right now.

Reasoning isn't something I am on, and I want to see blood seeping from this nigga eyes and ears right now.

According to how I usually handle shit, we have already been talking too long.

I usually shoot niggas in the head after asking one last question, Any last words?

“Don’t be upset, Debbie. Crew is the type of man who has to learn things the hard way.”

“And what the fuck is the hard way? There ain’t shit hard for me nigga. My life is easy because I make it easy without needing help from the cops like you. Yeah, I heard about you, rat.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah, keep talking your shit, lil nigga. I promise one day you will learn. One day you may need to rat yourself to get out of some shit.”

I cocked my gun after hearing him refer to me as a little nigga, and my mama really started hollering like she was on the set of a fuckin scary movie.

“Crew baby, please don’t do this! Don’t do this. He is your father. Your parent. He helped create you.”

I stared him in the eyes, feeling this overwhelming sense of hate cover me.

Her saying he was my father didn’t move me.

It actually made me think the opposite. Shit, I’d wanted to look my deadbeat father in the eyes for years.

Slap that nigga and kill him afterwards because that's always what I felt he deserved.

“If he is my father, then that means he wasn’t there for his child, and he deserves to die even more.”

I pulled the trigger once and sent a bullet into his chest, and then another and another. When he slid down the wall onto the ground, my mama started screaming even louder, and I’m sure this was one time she was happy that she couldn’t see.

“I’m sorry, Mama. I’ll get you a new house from prison if you call the cops. Now, if you don’t want me to go to prison, then you will leave and let me send my niggas over here to get rid of this nigga.”

“Leave Crewshon! Go! Get out of here! Get out!”

She screamed as her fingers trembled up to her lips.

I was about to tell her that I was sorry again, but I know nothing I say to her right now will matter.

I stepped over his body and walked out the door, only having remorse for what my mama just witnessed and the consequences that will be brought to me if she turns me in.

I jumped in my car and headed home in complete silence, which is unusual for how I ride.

Usually, I like whatever song I’m hooked on at the moment blasting through my speakers, even after murdering folks, but it was something about today that had my mind fucked up.

It wasn’t killing Gio; it wasn’t even the fear of going to prison at this point.

It was the revelation that my mama made.

Gio was my fuckin father? You mean Hov and I are actually cousins? Real family?

I hated to admit it, but this shit did kind of make sense.

Me and Hov both had that same kill and survive instinct so maybe that was why.

I for sure have to tell that nigga about this shit asap.

I’ll call him as soon as I set foot in my spot and call Scotty for a clean up, but right now, I need silence.

I need to think and prepare myself for the worst. Going to prison for murdering my supposed father.

When I pulled up in front of my condo, I killed the engine and sat there for a few more seconds because I couldn’t move.

I looked out of my window at the snow piled up on the front steps, dirty and packed down from people in my building walking through it all day.

I glanced up towards my bedroom window and thought about how I would potentially break the news to P about me going to prison.

I know she wouldn’t like hearing that shit.

Her ass would probably only hold me down for a good week before she had another nigga taking care of my daughter. Shit was stressful to even think about.

When that stress hit my chest, I knew I needed to smoke, so I reached into the glove compartment and pulled out a blunt, cracking the window just enough to let the smoke escape.

I took a couple of slow pulls of the weed and blew the smoke out, watching it mix with the cold air outside before it disappeared.

Those couple of hits took away the noise, but I know the real peace will come once I’m able to sit in my meditation room to really take the worry away.

I have to get inside asap in case the cops are on there way over here.

But nah, my mama wouldn't turn me in. At least I don't think so, but who knows how much this nigga has corrupted her mind.

“I guess it’s time to face the fucking music.”

I talked to myself out loud as I twisted the blunt into the ashtray.

I hadn’t heard from Pernelle all night. There were no calls, no texts, or anything, and that told me everything I needed to know.

Silence like that meant she was waiting, pacing around, running her mouth in her head, getting her thoughts together.

I already knew once I walked through that door, she was going to have a lot to say.

As Bria said, a clear mind makes better arguments, so when a bitch goes quiet, that’s worse than her snapping right away.

Yelling is easy. Silence means planning.

When Bria crossed my mind, I picked up my phone to send her a text since I know I have much bigger fish to fry than hearing my baby mama’s mouth.

Me: I’m going to have to see you soon. I fucked up and will need your help.

As soon as I sent the message out, knocks started at my window.

I looked out, and there was Ms. Diya, with her jacket closed tightly in front of her.

“Hey, Crew, I just left my apartment to go down to the bodega, and I saw your front door was open. I tried to shut it for you, but the hinges are broken, so I think someone may have broken in. Wasn’t sure if you wanted me to call the cops or not.”

“Nah, let me go check this shit out first.” I hopped out of the car, put my phone in my pocket, and took my heat out with my other hand.

I ran up the steps into my building and up the wooden steps, making so much noise I’m sure everyone in the building heard me coming up.

Once I got to the door, it was in fact off the hinges, and I burst in looking for the most prized possession in here.

Fuck the money, jewelry, and clothes. Where the fuck is my baby mama?

“P! Pernelle!” My heart was beating so fuckin fast you would think there was a gun to my head right now. Every corner I turned in my spot, I was scared to see my baby mama lying out on the floor bleeding, but she was nowhere to be found.

“Did she leave? Where the fuck is she?” I asked myself, turning in fuckin circles, placing the gun up to my own head on impulse while trying to figure this shit out.

That’s when it dawned on me. I have cameras in this bitch.

Not many, but just one by the front door and in the kitchen because I didn’t believe in having them everywhere.

I’ve had too many security systems hacked to believe in that kind of surveillance.

I walked back into my bedroom cautiously to grab the laptop I kept under the nightstand by my bed.

I saw nothing in my room had been disturbed, and then I came back into the kitchen and set the laptop on the bar, hurrying my password in as I used my phone to dial P’s number.

The phone started ringing just as I entered the password for the camera system, and my focus on the call was interrupted by a view of three masked men entering my apartment on the screen.

“Fuck no! Please tell me these niggas didn’t!” I cut my own words off when I saw one of them punch P in her stomach, which made me feel pain in mine.

My temperature went from a hundred to a thousand and watching them hit her was like having a polar bear clawing out my eyeballs inch by inch. I could legit feel the fuckin burn.

“FUCK! FUCK! FUCK!”

I screamed to the top of my lungs, getting up from the stool and throwing it across the room.

I paced back and forth for a few seconds, scratching at my own face, before my phone started to ring, and it was actually a call from Pernelle’s phone. Maybe they took her and let her go. I hope that’s the fuckin case.

“P!” I’m sure I started talking before the phone connected.

“P, you good?”

A chuckle came through the phone, low and dragging, and it crawled under my skin like one from a villain in a scary movie.

His laugh sounded calculated, almost accomplished in a way.

Like whoever it was already knew how everything was going to end, and that he already won whatever battle he started by coming into my spot and harming Pernelle.

“Hell nah, she's not good! Fuck you thought?”

He continued laughing.

“Nigga, if Pernelle has a scratch, splinter, or even a fuckin carpet burn on her fuckin body, I’m going to behead your whole fucking family. From the little bitches and niggas in Pre-K to the bitches raising them, you understand!”

“Damn, your ass don't sound like a man who wants his daughter and his bitch to survive. P, as you call her, just told us that she is pregnant with your little girl. A bitch ass nigga with a little bitch on the way. Fitting.” I squeezed the phone so hard I heard the glass crack on the screen.

“Why couldn’t you leave my fuckin family out of this and deal with me on whatever issues you have?”

“You don’t think that’s what we want nigga. We want you to show up at the drop we are about to give you with no guns, no cops, no homies, and turn in your life for theirs. You niggas killed my big brother Salah, and you all have to die for that shit!”

He took the phone away from his mouth and said,

“Slap that hoe.”

WATT!

Pernelle’s scream was loud enough that it cut straight through me like a sharp-ass knife.

My chest tightened instantly, like somebody wrapped a fist around my lungs and squeezed them.

I closed my eyes because it was almost as if I could picture her face clear as day after that slap.

The way her eyes probably went wide, and her trying to protect her stomach without even thinking twice about her own pain.

Pernelle was there alone, protecting something that belonged to me.

My baby girl. My child. The person I’m supposed to be protecting.

Those thoughts hit me hard. Too hard, and my heart dropped into my gut.

My little mama is in there, helpless, and surrounded by chaos and violence.

She hasn’t even had a chance to breathe on her own, and life is already trying to show her how fucked up it can be.

That shit broke me in a way I honestly wasn’t ready for.

“Where do you want me to come. You can do whatever you want to do to me. Just tell me where, but you have to let her go first.”

“I tell you what. I’ll send you the drop location, and we will have family posted up on every corner of every block just in case you try to bring company. Once we get you, we will let this bitch go. Look for a text coming to your phone in about an hour.”

The line disconnected, and my hand slammed into the counter so hard the sound cracked through the kitchen.

Sharp pain shot up my arm instantly, like my bones shifted the wrong way.

I flexed my fingers, but they didn’t move right, and swelling started instantly.

I knew something was fucked up in there.

Probably fractured, but that pain didn’t compare to what I was feeling in my chest.

When I walked out of my mama’s house earlier, I already felt like my life was over, but now it’s worse. Now it’s ending in a whole different way.

I leaned back against the counter, breathing through my nose, trying not to let the pain in my hand distract me.

Blood was rushing in my ears, and my heartbeat was loud as hell.

My mind kept racing, but not in that scheming way it usually does.

There was no plan forming, no thoughts of “maybe if I just did something different” coming up.

I’m not calling Hov, and I’m not reaching out to anybody to try and twist this into something else. There will be no shortcuts, no rewrites of this story, and I’m walking straight into this, at least hoping I can save my daughter. This shit is all On Me and no one else should suffer.

Especially not baby girl and my baby mama.