Chapter 4
Chapter
Four
SETH
Stormi’s voice cut through the war in my head like a blade.
I was at the window, watching the city breathe same city I was ready to burn to the fucking ground.
They thought they could touch what’s mine.
They thought they could come close, but they failed.
My wife was alive, my son was here, and as long as they were still breathing, I still had something to lose which meant the world had something to fear.
I turned around fast. “I’m right here, baby,” I said and I was by her side in two steps.
She looked at me, eyes groggy but sharp. “I have to pee.”
I grabbed the pink bedpan off the tray without hesitation. “You want to try the pan?”
“No,” she snapped. “I want to get out this damn bed and actually use the bathroom.”
That fire in her voice didn’t offend me. It reassured me. Stormi was still Stormi: independent, headstrong, stubborn as hell. And I loved that shit. I loved her.
“Alright, alright,” I said, setting the pan aside. “We’ll do it your way.”
She threw me that don’t question me look, and I almost smiled. Even weak, even stitched up and drugged up, she still had more fight than half the city.
I moved slow, easing her legs off the bed. “On three,” I said, like we practiced. “One... two... three.”
She rose with a soft groan, her arm locking around my neck, my hand firm on her waist. Her body trembled against mine. She hated being weak. Hated needing help. But that’s where I came in. I wasn’t just her husband I was her fortress.
“Take your time, mama,” I whispered in her ear, pacing our steps. I never let her fall. Not now and not ever.
We reached the bathroom. I helped her turn, guiding her gently down. Soon as her ass hit the seat, she started laughing. A deep, almost hysterical laugh.
I knelt in front of her, eyes narrowing. “Stormi...?”
The laugh cracked in half. And then came the tears. Big, ugly, chest-wracking sobs that broke me faster than bullets ever could.
“We didn’t plan for this,” she choked out.
I couldn’t speak. Couldn’t breathe. She was right, I had plans. I knew what we were doing for our anniversary, for her next birthday. I had picked out the damn preschool for Shiloh and knew which college S3 would play ball at.
But I didn’t see this coming. The pain, the blood, the near-death experience. I didn’t plan for almost losing her. I grabbed her face, wiped her tears, and made her look at me. My voice came out rougher than I meant. “Tell me you with me till the end.”
Her eyes… damn, her eyes. They held all the pain in the world. “For better or worse,” she whispered.
I almost lost it. I pressed my lips to hers. She was fragile but fierce. Worn but undefeated. Still mine.
“I need to take a shower,” she said against my mouth, and I nodded.
“I got you.”
I stood, cut the water on hot, just how she liked it. Burning hot. I stepped out, grabbed her pajamas, her pads, her witch hazel, her bonnet, her whole recovery kit. I came back and helped her into the water, slow and careful. And she let me, even though she wanted to do it herself.
“Thank you,” she whispered as I dried her off, towel warm from the heater vent.
“I got you for life.” I kissed her lips and let my hands slide down to her ass.
“Really, Seth?” she said, laughing a little, blushing through her fatigue.
I grinned. “I don’t give a fuck about those granny panties. You still the baddest I’ve ever laid eyes on and them pads lucky they closer to your pussy than I am.”
She shook her head, chuckling. “You so damn inappropriate.”
“Nah,” I said, pulling her into me, “I’m just in love with my wife.”
I helped her back into bed, adjusted her pillows and covered her up. She glanced at Shiloh asleep in the bassinet.
“You made a hit,” I said, staring at our son.
She reached for my hand. “We made a hit.”
She was out before she finished the sentence. The meds kicking in. I sat beside her, watching the two people I loved most in this world and all I could think was this world ain’t ready for the war I’m about to bring to its doorstep. They touched my family. They don’t get to walk away from that.
I sat in that plastic hospital chair and watched Stormi sleep like the whole world had finally agreed to shut up and let us be.
My hands were fists half the time. Other times they shook like I’d been hit by the cold.
I wanted to put a bullet through every motherfucker who’d had anything to do with her getting shot.
I couldn’t believe Noah, her own brother, could be that lost, that disconnected from what was happening around him.
Even when you grew up with gunfire as background noise, you check.
You go see. You don’t keep walking like nothing happened.
“I’m supposed to be giving my wife the world, not watching her fight for her life,” I said, loud enough for the machines to hum around me.
Rich came in like thunder, eyes already on Shiloh sleeping in the bassinet. “Niggas gonna pay for this,” he said, hands stuffed in his jacket.
Rich was my brother in blood and business.
We’d had more downs than ups, but we rode the same wave.
When Stormi stepped into our chaos, she fit like she’d always belonged.
I’d never planned for family my plans were stacks, properties, the next move.
Then she came and everything I once cared about changed.
Now she was bleeding and those plans felt like they’d been torn to pieces.
“I’m disappointed in myself,” I said. “My wife and my son? Of all things to touch, Dre touched them.”
I stood too fast and the air felt thin. Hospital walls close in when you don’t want them to. I needed fresh air. I needed the night, the street, some place where I could let the animal out for a minute.
“Watch my family until I get back,” I told Rich and walked out before he could argue.
I dapped up southside and a nod to the boys posted outside. The hospital had eyes now. Word about the shooting hadn’t gotten out and I didn’t want any fucks thinking they could finish the job. I slid into the Denali; windshield fogged from the night air as I drove west.
By the time I hit the warehouse, the crew had the kind of calm that comes right before a storm. I killed the engine like it was an ordinary night and walked in like I owned the place which I did. The loading stopped, hands fell from straps, conversations died. Eyes came to me.
“Ten niggas,” I said.
Faces were blank. I kept walking until I stood in the middle of them and everything closed in on me; the smell of money, drugs and hungry niggas filled the air.
“I stand here surrounded by ten niggas who I don’t know if they want me dead or alive,” I said. “So, I’m gonna ask some simple questions.”
“Marco, what were you doing a week ago around six, seven?” I asked the door guard, making my voice neutral, casual like I was talking about the weather.
“Dinner time, man. Probably gettin’ a plate at my girl’s,” he said.
“Nix?” I turned to the other side. He smirked, joking, “A nigga like me was probably out jumpin’ some pussy,” like this was a joke and not his final minutes.
“How many of y’all cool with Dre?” I asked, slow. I watched faces like they were pages I could read.
Marco dropped his eyes. That movement spoke for him. I didn’t hesitate. One shot straight to the head. He went down with a dull, heavy thud that left an uneasy silence behind it. I felt something ease inside me for a second, like ripping off a bandage.
“A week ago, I was rushin’ my pregnant wife to the hospital after she was shot by Dre,” I said, voice flat. The warehouse swallowed the sound.
“Stormi,” some young kid piped up.
“How you know my wife?” I asked, pointing my gun like punctuation.
“Everybody knows,” he stuttered, hands up.
“You not five years old,” I said. “I don’t wanna see you act like you got nothin’ to lose. If anybody lying, now we do it bullet for bullet.”
“Naw, Seth, it’s not like that,” the kid said.
“Where the fuck is Dre?” My patience snapped.
“I don’t know where he at, but I do know he was fucking with your BM and they left town for a while,” Jax said, trying to keep his voice steady.
My BM? Imani? It hit me like a punch to my chest. She wasn’t dumb enough to plot on my wife, was she? But Imani had always had her crooked ways. Maybe she hated me. Maybe she loved every mean thing a woman could do to a man who gave up on loving them. My mind raced a thousand bad ways.
Nix tried to change the subject. I walked up and snapped his neck so clean he didn’t even get a chance to curse. His body hit the concrete like a used rag.
“Playboy Seth, what’s the play?” Rich asked, stepping in.
He looked at Nix like it was somebody else’s mess. That was my brother; steady and cold, the only one who stayed when the rest bounced.
“You supposed to be watching my family” I barked.
“I got the best eyes on them, you know that. But if you not good, they ain’t good,” is all he said.
He stood next to me and scanned the room taking in the two bodies I had just dropped in less than ten minutes.
“Jax gave me something,” I said. “He said Dre was with Imani. She been scooping him up.”
“Imani as in S3’s mama?” Rich asked as if we knew more than one Imani.
I knew why he made sure to clear up exactly who I was talking about because this wasn’t some random girl playing with the enemy. This was my son’s mother, the woman I had created life with, and even though I hated her existence at times, my son loved and adored his mother.
Jax babbled excuses about extra paper and dumb decisions. My head wanted to explode. My gut said that Imani had always loved how my world could buy her things. But if she had a hand in this, if she gave them a path to my family, it was it for her.
“Where Southside at?” I barked. “Tell him to burn everything down, make sure nobody eats till I get Dre’s exact location.”
I left out of the warehouse just as quick as I came. Mike, my tech, was already on the line before I could hop in the whip.
“Just make sure the call goes over thirty seconds,” he said.
He knew how to get any call traced any location found, and that’s exactly what I needed right now. I dialed Imani like I was summoning a storm.
“Sethie-bear,” she purred when she answered.
My skin crawled. “Don’t call me shit my wife calls me.”
“She wasn’t the first,” she said, laughing like this was a game. “Plus, I heard she might not be able to call you anything anymore since she was shot.”
“Who told you Stormi was shot?” I asked, calm enough to scare.
“You know how the hood talk,” she said.
I could picture her chewing gum and twirling something with her fingers.
“Who told you?” I repeated it louder.
“You know I’m here for you, daddy,” she cooed. The words made bile rise. She was playing while she had her feet in the dirt.
“How long you gone be outta town?”
“Why you need me there? You want me to take care of you and S3?” she asked, fake sympathy heavy in her voice.
“You couldn’t take care of us if I gave you instructions straight from Stormi.” I didn’t bother to hide it. “Stay where you are. I’ll keep S3 with me.”
“What about me being protected from all of this?” she asked. She always created in her mind that I cared more about her than being S3’s mother.
Text from Mike lit my phone:
Got location.
Every lie she told cracked open with that little notification. She’d been on the phone too long. She’d said the wrong thing.
“Fuck you and your safety. I’m talking about my son,” I said, dead calm. “You can rot in the hood for all I care.” I hung up and stepped back into the night, Denali waiting, headlights lighting up the empty lot.
Stormi had almost died. That changed everything. Location in hand, rage in my veins, I headed back to the hospital. I didn’t know if I was bringing justice or worse, but I did know one thing:
Nobody gets to touch my family and keep breathing easily.