9. Aaron Cooper
I sat there in horror as I watched my son attack and attempt to rape my daughter. It was hard to believe what I watched. It didn’t make sense for him to do that. What was even more alarming was the things that he said to her. The shit that he popped while he attacked her could have only come from one individual.
Out of my three sons, Cory was the non-violent, mama’s boy. He was my computer geek and gamer. A part of me knew that he never wanted to be a part of the King of Kings. For me, that was fine, but his mother was adamant about telling her sons that they were required to be a part of the club. As quiet as it was kept, I didn’t want to be a part of the club myself.
When my wife Harmony died, I was never the same. Yes, I fucked my baby over, but damn, I never thought it would end the way it did. On top of that, I was a fuck nigga who never followed up about my daughter outside of sending her three thousand dollars a month. When her mother was alive and we lived together, I barely interacted with her. There was no excuse as to why, and any excuse that I could come up with was insignificant.
The guilt of everything that I’d done during my marriage with Harmony and how non-existent of a father I was to Dindi weighed heavily on me daily. Jennifer’s skank ass texted me at my wife’s repast to tell me she was pregnant. That disrespectful bitch thought that I would be happy about it. I didn’t speak to her until an appointment was made with a doctor so that I could get a prenatal DNA test. I had all intention of leaving her ass alone before the whole pregnancy shit.
She knew that my ass didn’t believe in having children out of wedlock. When I did my dirt, I made sure I was careful to not get these hoes pregnant. I married her ass for the sake of Aaron Junior. In hindsight, that was the stupidest choice I could have ever made. It was equally as stupid as me not doing right by the true love of my life. Since I wasn’t marrying her for love, I had to make sure that my assets were secure. I knew Jennifer well enough to know that she would sign anything that I put in front of her because she wanted to be the queen so damn bad.
She’d wanted to covet Harmony’s place in my life for as long as she’d been fucking with me, and that was my fault. Although I told her that I didn’t want shit but pussy from her, my actions didn’t always say the same. Things like her having a key to my hideaway apartment and other little shit were mixed signals. The first time that she said something sideways about my wife, I should have left her ass where she was. That wasn’t the kind of side bitches any dude needed.
I found out after my son was born about the holes in the condoms when another bitch I fucked with got pregnant. After Harmony’s death, I pulled back from fucking with bitches because of my grief. The first time that I did, she ended up pregnant when I used protection. I always supplied my own protection.
One day when I was at my hideaway apartment, it dawned on me that the last person I fucked there before ole girl was Jennifer. I used protection with her too. It must have been the creator who told me to run water in the condoms in my apartment. Every condom had holes in them. That bitch trapped the fuck out of my stupid ass. The other girl didn’t want children, so she terminated the pregnancy, thank God.
“Pops, isn’t that the chick you fucking around with?” AJ’s question knocked me out of my thoughts.
That was another thing that I’d never done. I had never told my sons about their sister. In my mind, she was out of sight, out of mind. At the time, I felt that was the best decision. Now, if I had told them, Cory would never have done what he did.
“No, she is not a chick I’m fucking with. Dindi is your older sister, my daughter.”
The moment the confession left my mouth, a weight lifted from my shoulders. Dindi Aria is my daughter. She’d grown to be such a beautiful girl who looked exactly like her mother. When she showed up at the Drag the Streets , I was in shock. It was impossible not to know who she was from the moment I laid my eyes on her.
I heard about the opening of her recording studio from one of the club members. His daughter was an up-and-coming singer. At the time, I didn’t know it was her studio until I saw the media coverage on it. She was gorgeous, walking down the red carpet. Harmony Kadence. That made me smile that she joined her mother and aunt’s names to be her pseudonym. After I saw the coverage, I reached out to her aunt for the first time since she took Dindi to California, only to find out that she passed.
“Wait, I’m confused as hell. You have a daughter?” Jason’s body turned toward me. “How do we not know about her? You just left your daughter out there on her own!”
My jaw tightened. “No, that is not what happened. When my wife died, it was her request?—”
“Hold the hell up! You were married before Mom?” AJ disbelievingly asked.
My head turned to his direction slowly. My sons knew how much I hated being interrupted. “Yes, I was. Before your mother, I was married to the love of my life. I was young and a little ass boy and fucked her over continuously. I always thought that I would have the time to grow up and get it right. That’s why I always tell y’all that if you love your girl, don’t cheat because life is too short. She died unexpectedly in a car accident when Dindi was three. In Harmony’s will, she wanted her sister, Kadence, to take guardianship of our daughter.”
I kept my attention on my sons. I felt the eyes of Kronos and his sons on me. I knew that my daughter and Zeus were together. I didn’t mind it because contrary to him killing my son, Zeus was a solid man.
“Nah, that’s not making sense. Why would your wife want y’all’s child to go to her sister instead of you, her dad? How did you even end up with mom if you didn’t, don’t love her?”
I felt shame knowing what my answer to Jason’s was going to be. “Dindi was born deaf, and I didn’t know how to deal with that, so I disconnected. For the three years that she was in my household, I was a stranger to her. Her aunt Kadence lived in California, but she was more in tune with my daughter than I was. It just made sense to let her go with her aunt. As far as your mother, she told me at my wife’s repast that she was pregnant. She knew how I felt about having children out of wedlock.
“I found out three months after you were born that she poked holes in the condom to ensure she got pregnant. When Kadence took Dindi to California, she claimed that she would send me updates, but she never did. I left it alone.”
There was no need to sugarcoat things. My sons were grown. They knew how their mother was, and they also knew that their mother had them to keep me. She was a little too loud on a phone call with a friend when they were in their teens, and they overheard her express that.
Zeus cleared his throat. “Nah, that’s not right. Kadence sent you updates all the time, but you never responded, so she eventually stopped. It’s the same way that my baby was emailing you prior to her studio’s grand opening weekly, but you never responded. She invited you to the grand opening. It was painful to see her longing for you the entire night.”
My face tightened to match my eyes. “What the hell are you talking about? I’ve never gotten any updates about my daughter. When did she email me?”
“I already told you when, and updates were definitely sent. If I were you, I’d have a little conversation with wifey.” Zeus shifted in his seat before he took a sip of his beer. “Look, to you it may be fucked up that your son died. I feel no way about it because I will always protect my woman and my unborn child. I’m sure by now you’ve heard about his ways from other females, so I did society a fuckin’ favor.”
I felt fucked up because he was right. Since the funeral, it’d been a nightmare. Women had come out with stories of my son sexually assaulting them. Some of those women were Kitties. I didn’t want to believe the shit, but it was hard not to when I found video tapes of said assaults. I didn’t tell my sons or wife about it. I just destroyed the tapes.
Could I really blame this man for protecting his woman, my daughter and apparently grandchild? This shit was messed up. What was more messed up was that when I got home, I knew that I had some digging to do. If I found what I thought I might find, I would nut the hell up.
“Wow! We have a big sister that we didn’t know about. Did Mom know?” AJ asked. After I nodded, he shook his head with a chuckle. “I wish I could say that I’m surprised. I have a sister that my brother tried to rape because my mother made him think that she was your side bitch.”
Hades guffawed. “That’s exactly what happened.” He turned his eyes to me. “Dude, outside of my sister-in-law’s mother, you suck at picking women.”
Yes, I did.
After we left the lounge, I took a minute to gather my mind. I wanted to be alone in my apartment. It’d been almost two weeks, and I’d been stuck the entire time. How did my life come to this shit? Bad, immature decisions, that was how. I couldn’t blame Jennifer because I was my own man.
I didn’t have to marry her, regardless of her pregnancy. I didn’t have to cheat on Harmony and make her feel less than. Most of all, I should have fought for my daughter when her aunt took her to California. I could have visited, called, something! Fuck!
Jennifer had yet to sign the divorce papers. Every day, she popped her silly ass up over here, wanting to talk. The couple of times that I did let her in, it turned into her trying to suck or fuck me. This woman was pregnant with another man’s baby but was trying to fuck me. I told her ass to not speak to me unless it was to tell me that she signed those papers.
Now, it would be me to go to her. Wait, Zeus said that Dindi sent me emails. I went into my office and turned on my computer. Once it was on, I pulled up my emails. I searched for my daughter’s name, but nothing came up. I checked the spam folder, and there was nothing there. I flopped back into my desk chair.
Would she know my personal email address? I didn’t think that I had it out there for public consumption. My business email address! That was an email that was out there for public consumption. That was an email that I never checked because my assistant controlled that email. My assistant was Jennifer.
I pulled up the email account. The first thing I did was change the password so Jennifer would no longer have access to it. Once I got into the inbox, I searched for emails from Dindi. My heart dropped when some came up. They were in the deleted folder. I pulled up the last email that was available. It came a week after her grand opening.
Aaron,
I get it now. You really want nothing to do with me. There was a part of me that wanted to believe that it was all some kind of grief thing. My mother died and I reminded you too much of her. Perhaps it was a, I’m deaf thing. You just didn’t know how to handle taking care of a deaf child. I get that to an extent. It all hurts the same.
At this point you probably think that I’m some crazy, stalker girl. I’ve sent you almost fifty emails with no response. Hint taken and message received. I probably should have taken the hint when your stupid wife assaulted me. You will never hear from me again.
-Dindi
My blood pressure was through the roof, I was sure. That bitch deleted emails from my fucking daughter. I got out of my seat, went to the front of the apartment, grabbed my bike keys, and was out the door. That bitch had to see me.
My apartment was only about fifteen minutes from the house on a bike at normal speed. I cut it down to nine. I used my key to get into the house. “Jennifer! Jennifer!”
Seconds later, she came running down the stairs. “Aaron, what’s wrong? Is something wrong with my boys?”
“You deleted emails from my fucking daughter?”
She stopped at the foot of the stairs. “Wha-what are you talking about?”
“Stop the bullshit. When you delete emails, make sure you empty the deleted folder. What the fuck is wrong with your stupid ass?” I asked in a calm voice. I was beyond tired of her.
Her chest puffed out. She stuck her hip out before she crossed her arms over her breasts. “Yes, I deleted those shits because she shouldn’t have been emailing you. I told the bitch to get lost at Drag the Streets. She should have listened. Wait, silly me. Her ass is deaf!”
I pinched the bridge of my nose with my head down. This bitch was begging for a reunion with our son. “Jennifer, I’m going to ask you once and once only. Have you ever received letters or anything from California about my daughter? I promise if you lie, I will go against myself and light your ass up.”
I’d never put my hands on a woman before. Right now, I questioned if she was a woman because no real woman would do this shit. Jealousy and envy mixed together was a dangerous thing. My best friend, Reap, used to tell me that all the time. He died when we were in our thirties.
With a smirk, she responded, “I did get letters for about three years straight, then when she turned ten, sixteen, when she graduated high school, college, and got her first Grammy. You didn’t need her. You had a family to attend to.”
“Bitch! She is my fucking family. Her, AJ, Jason, and Cory’s rapist ass.”
She slapped me across my face. “Don’t you ever call my son a fucking rapist! He was not a rap?—”
“That fucka was a rapist! I saw the surveillance of his ass trying to rape his fucking sister. You know what else I saw and heard? I heard him say that you sent him there to kill my fucking daughter.” I paused to observe her body language. “You’re such a pathetic bitch that you couldn’t even take my daughter being in my life? You’re the worst kind of bitch there is, a desperate, vindictive, dumb bitch.”
She was pissed and uncomfortable. That was just where I wanted her. When Jennifer was fully engulfed in her emotions, she really got loose lips because she thought there would be no real consequences to her.
“I’m a desperate, vindictive, dumb bitch, huh? Well, this desperate, dumb bitch got you to marry me. Yeah, I made sure to keep that deaf bitch away from you because her ass didn’t need to be around. Spare me the woe is me. If you wanted a relationship with her, you would have tried to have one. Don’t put that shit on me. I wish Cory had killed her ass!”
She was in rare form right now. I took a step back, turned my back, and walked toward the door. If I didn’t, I would kill this bitch. This bitch just said that she wished my son killed my daughter.
“Yeah, walk away because that’s what you do best. Walk the fuck away! Your bitch ass daughter should have died instead of my son. She could have gone to glory just like I sent her bitch ass mama!”
My body froze, and my soul dropped to my feet. What the hell did she just say? It was like an out-of-body experience when I rushed her. My hand went around her neck as I pushed her back against the closest wall. “What the fuck did you just say! Did you say that you sent my wife to glory!”
She scratched at my hand while she gasped for air. Her eyeballs looked like they might pop out of her head at any given time. It was about to be a life for a life.
“Pops! Pops! What the fuck are you doing? Get off of her!” AJ yelled.
I didn’t hear him come into the house. He grabbed me around the top of my body. Jason stepped between me and his mother to pry my hands from around her neck. I wanted this bitch dead. I let her neck go, and she dropped to the ground, coughing. My sons pulled me back into the foyer. I wasn’t focused on them.
“Bitch, what the fuck do you mean you sent my wife to glory? I swear you better tell me what the fuck you’re talking about!” I didn’t think I’d ever yelled as loud as I was right now.
AJ and Jason gawked at me with confusion. A lot had happened since Cory died. They heard the rumors about their brother too. I wasn’t sure if they believed it, initially. After what they saw on that security footage from Dindi’s studio, I was sure they did now.
Jennifer finally picked herself up from the floor. The fear in her eyes did nothing to me. When I pulled my gun, she gasped. “Aaron, what are you doing?” When I put one in the chambers, she lifted her hands. “AJ! Jason! Stop him!”
“Ma, tell him what he wants to know. If you want him to put the gun up, then tell him what he wants to know. What does it mean that you sent his wife to glory?”
Surprise covered me when Jason didn’t defend his mother. The hurt boldly showed in her eyes. The corners of her eyes were tight as she glowered at him. “Now y’all know why Cory was my favorite. He would have never let this happen.”
AJ snickered. “It makes sense that your favorite son would be the rapist. You’re just as morally repugnant as he was. You probably knew he was a rapist.”
“Fuck you! Fuck all of you!” Her not denying AJ’s claim told me everything that I needed to know. She may not have known that he was a rapist, but she knew something.
“I don’t have time for this shit.” I lifted my gun.
Pop
She screamed when the bullet went into the wall right above her head. “Ok! Ok! I knew that you would never leave that bitch?—”
Pop
Another bullet went into the wall above her head. “Disrespect my wife again and this bullet will be between your eyes.”
Tears poured out of her eyes. “Ok! I-I knew that you wouldn’t leave her, so I had to get her out of the way. I paid some niggas to run her off the road and make sure she died. It was the only way that I could have you.” She covered her stomach. “Please don’t hurt me or my baby.”
“Bitch, please. You don’t give a fuck about that baby. Like our sons, they’re just a means to an end for you. I should kill your ass, but I’m going to spare you for the sake of our sons.” I slowly moved toward her. “Did you sign those fucking divorce papers?”
Her body shook. She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. “No, but I will right now. The-they’re on the kitchen counter.” She slowly moved to the side. Her eyes asked me for permission. After I nodded, she rushed over to the kitchen.
I stood there and watched her hurriedly open the envelope, pull the papers out, then grab a pen. She flipped through the paper to sign and initial everywhere that was needed. After she finished, she put the papers back in the envelope.
I walked over to the kitchen island. My gun was still in my hand. When she slid the envelope over to me, I looked down at it. After I holstered my gun, I picked it up, then focused on her. “If I ever see you again, I will lay you down. It will be known that you are no longer associated with K.O.K. Do you understand me?”
She nodded her head with no words. I pulled the papers out of the envelope to make sure she signed everywhere that the lawyer needed her to. Once that was confirmed, I left her ass standing there.
My sons stood in the foyer. Their entire life as they knew it fell apart in front of them. Their brother was killed because he sexually assaulted the sister that they’d just found out that they had. They also found out that their mother sent their brother to attack her and that she had my wife killed. Oh, wait, and that she was pregnant with another man’s baby. Shit was a straight ass storyline from hell.
With softened eyes, I gazed at my sons. They meant the entire world to me the way Dindi should have as well. When I had Aaron, I wanted to right all my wrongs as a parent with him. That would have been more honorable if instead of trying to do that, I would have done it with Dindi. I should have been a father to all my children. I walked over to my boys, then one hand cuffed each of their faces. “I love y’all.”
I had raised strong men. The mark that was missed with Cory, I blamed myself for it. Since he was a little boy, he stayed up under his mother. She craved his love because he gave it so freely. AJ and Jason did, to an extent, until they were in their preteens. From there, it was downhill, then when they overheard her conversation, that was rock bottom.
“We love you too, Pops,” they said in unison.
That was all I needed to leave this situation with semi peace. I didn’t think that I could ever be at peace knowing that my side bitch had my wife killed. Yes, I’d spared her life because I knew enough about the universe to know that her torture would be in living, not dying.
A SHORT TIME LATER…
I felt like I was going crazy. After I left Jennifer’s house, I called my lawyer. I told his ass to give her the deed to the house and none of my money. Yeah, the prenup said what it said, but fuck that shit. If she felt a way about it, then she could sue me. That bitch wasn’t about to get a dime of my fucking money.
She knew that I was serious about not coming around me because her ass didn’t reach out to me. Instead, she tried to get AJ to convince me to give her the money. She could have easily sued me, and I would have had to comply. Jason told me yesterday that the house was now on the market. She would have to figure out a way to make her own money. I was no longer bankrolling her ass.
I’d sat here in front of my computer screen for longer than I wanted to. My screen was open to compose one of the most important emails of my life. I was a grown man who didn’t know what to say. This was crazy. Just send the damn email.
Dindi,
Hi. How are you doing? I wanted to see if you would be interested in meeting with me and your brothers. You have every right to say no, but I would really appreciate it if I could just have one meeting. Let me know either way what works for you.
-Aaron