Chapter 17
Thought you’d like to know. It’s a boy.
I watched the three dots appear and disappear on my screen as he typed out responses that would never be delivered. I shut the phone off.
When I turned it back on, I saw that he’d called seventeen times that first night, and by morning, there were another twenty-three.
I cut it off again and kept it dark for three days, letting Rich marinate. Letting him feel what I’d felt waking up in that hospital bed with my memory carved out. Let him sit with the uncertainty. Let him wonder if the sonogram was real, if I was bluffing, or if he’d ever see his son.
When I finally called him back on day four, he was desperate. I leaned back against the couch and crossed one leg over the other while Booda sat beside me, listening.
“Where the fuck is my wife?” he asked, and I could hear the tremor underneath all that bravado.
“It depends,” I answered calmly.
“What the fuck that ‘spose to mean?”
“It means your family’s future depends entirely on you.”
His breathing roughened as he spat, “I want proof of life.”
“You in no position to be making demands right now.”
“At least tell me if my son’s still alive.”
A small smile pulled at the corner of my mouth.
“You’re not worried about your wife or your daughter, only the baby boy?”
“Don’t play with me, Koko.”
“I’m not. I just think it’s interesting.”
His voice deepened immediately afterward. “Where the fuck they at?”
“Safe for now.”
“For now?”
I laughed softly. “You should hear yourself right now. You sound nervous.”
“I sound like a father.”
“Nah,” I corrected. “You sound scared.”
The line went quiet, but I could hear him breathing as he tried to regain control of his emotions.
“What do you want?” he asked eventually.
“Now you asking the right questions.”
“You already got my money and drugs. What the fuck else do you want from me?”
“I want you to come get your family.”
His breathing stopped for half a second.
“You think I’m stupid?”
“I think you want your son, and it’s only one way to get him.”
“Where do you wanna meet?”
“Not yet.”
“Koko—”
“You gone get the address when I’m ready to send it,” I cut him off. “And when you get there, I want a million in cash.”
“You out your fucking mind.”
“You can keep the money if you want,” I replied calmly. “I’m sure another baby can always be made.”
“Bitch.”
I smiled at the ceiling. “I was waiting for that.”
“You touch my son, and I swear to God—”
“You ain’t gon’ do shit,” I said before ending the call.
I wanted him angry.
But more than that, I wanted him scared.
I set my phone down on the coffee table and leaned back against the couch.
“You did good,” Booda said with a satisfied smirk as he reached over and squeezed my knee.
“Thanks, babe.” I grinned and leaned toward him for a kiss.
Rich was probably tearing the city apart looking for me right now, and that thought alone had heat spreading between my legs.
Not too long ago, I was the one unraveling, but the tables had turned. Now he was the one pacing floors and blowing up my phone.
Maybe it shouldn’t have turned me on knowing he was somewhere losing his fucking mind, but after everything I’d been through, there was something satisfying about finally being the reason somebody else couldn’t sleep.
I liked that shit.
Booda’s hand slid higher up my thigh beneath my dress, and my legs opened for him automatically. I sucked in a breath when his fingers brushed against my panties.
“Being in control turn you on, or was it me?”
“Both,” I admitted.
He laughed before kissing the side of my neck again. The sound alone sent heat straight through me.
“Crazy ass.”
“You love it.”
“That’s my problem.”
His hand pressed harder between my legs, rubbing my clit through my panties while his mouth stayed on me, kissing and biting.
“Watching you handle these niggas makes my dick hard as fuck,” he whispered against my neck.
Dropping to his knees in front of me, he pushed my knees apart and stared between my legs. My panties were soaked, and instead of feeling embarrassed, I felt powerful, desired. Dangerous again.
“All this from a phone call?”
“Maybe I like making niggas suffer.”
“I know you do.”
His fingers dragged over my clit slowly through the thin fabric, making my hips jerk.
“Booda,” I warned, and he chuckled. “Stop fucking playing with me.”
“Aight, baby. Tell me what you need,” he said.
I looked down at him and swallowed hard. “I need you to make me cum.”
“Aight,” He leaned forward, covering my mouth with his as his fingers teased and rubbed, until finally, he slid one finger inside me.
I moaned, bucking my hips wildly.
One hand cradling the back of my head, Booda deepened the kiss and added another finger, while using his thumb to apply pressure to my clit.
“Fuck,” I breathed, my head falling back against the couch.
The pressure building inside me became almost unbearable.
“Let that shit go, baby,” he demanded, and I instantly came around his fingers.
Pleasure rolled through me so hard that I grabbed onto him to steady myself.
Booda looked entirely too satisfied with himself afterward, and honestly, that turned me on more.
“I owe you one,” I said, trying to catch my breath.
His mouth curved slowly. “I know.”
I laughed and adjusted my dress while he moved back onto the couch beside me. The smug look on his face made me want to fight and fuck him at the same time.
Booda pulled me into his lap anyway, unconcerned, and I rested my head on his chest while he rubbed slow circles over my thigh, and for the first time in a long time, my mind felt quiet.
Rich called six more times that night. Each call made me smile harder than the last when I ignored them.
Two more days passed before I sent him the address. When I finally typed out the coordinates, I sent only that, nothing else.
Rich pulled up less than thirty minutes later in a black Escalade with two of his men.
I watched them on the video feed on my phone as all three climbed out and cautiously looked around. Rich walked to the back of the vehicle, popped the trunk, and pulled out a black duffel bag.
The building was on the far end of a dead shopping strip nobody used anymore.
Out of all the places in the city, I had Rich meeting me at an abandoned abortion clinic to get his unborn son back.
The irony almost made me laugh.
Faded pink lettering near the roof read “Women’s Health Center,” though half the letters were now missing. Rich stared up at the building with confusion written all over his face before looking back down at the coordinates on his phone like he thought maybe I’d sent the wrong address.
Nope.
Right place.
One of the men said something to him, but Rich ignored him and headed for the entrance. The second he stepped inside, his expression changed again.
Blue decorations covered the lobby.
IT’S A BOY balloons hung crookedly from the walls. Blue streamers stretched across the reception desk. Sonogram pictures were taped everywhere. Tiny baby shoes sat beside old magazines in the waiting area, and wrapped gift boxes covered the floor beneath a banner that read WELCOME BABY KING.
Rich stopped walking completely, and the bag slid off his shoulder.
Good. I wanted him to be uncomfortable and confused.
One of his men looked around. “What the fuck?” he asked.
I could hear them now that they were inside. Earlier that morning, my team had gone through the entire building, setting up everything exactly as I wanted.
Rich’s eyes kept moving from wall to wall, taking everything in. His jaw flexed hard when he spotted one of the sonogram pictures taped near the hallway entrance.
I had printed dozens of them.
“Spread out,” Rich ordered, and his men moved deeper into the building while he stayed near the lobby for another few seconds, staring at the decorations.
Screams echoed somewhere deeper inside the building, and Rich froze when he recognized his wife’s voice.
“Please stop!” she screamed, and even through the grainy video feed, I could see the panic hit him so fast it almost looked painful.
Rich took off immediately.
The sound of his footsteps thundered through the clinic. He checked rooms as he moved, shoving open doors hard enough to slam them against walls while the screaming continued from up ahead.
“Rich!”
His pace got even faster.
“Please!”
He looked genuinely afraid now, and honestly, that shit made me laugh.
He finally reached the end of the hallway and burst through the last door with his gun raised. Nobody was there. Just an old projector sitting in the middle of the room playing a video against the wall.
Rich’s wife filled the screen.
She was strapped to a hospital bed, crying hysterically, wrists restrained while her legs shook violently in stirrups. I stood between them, wearing gloves and a disposable medical gown.
The suction machine droned beneath her screams. Blood stained one of my gloves while I moved between her legs, and the camera dipped in time to catch blood sliding slowly through the clear tubing connected to the machine.
Rich stumbled closer to the wall projection.
Onscreen, his wife cried harder. “Please stop!”
“No,” he whispered.
His face looked completely different now.
I watched his hands shake as he raised his gun toward the projection, then lowered it uselessly. The gun hung at his side like it weighed a thousand pounds.
On screen, I tilted my head and looked directly into the camera lens with a smile. “Find us,” I said softly.
Rich’s breathing had become ragged, almost hyperventilating. He stumbled backward out of the room, and I knew it wouldn’t be long before he found me.
He’d search the building, desperate to find his wife. I watched him move through the hallways like a man possessed, checking every room, calling her name.
Rich burst through the door to the back room, and I watched his entire body go rigid when he saw a body curled up on the floor in the corner, still wearing the hospital gown.
“Hannah,” he whispered, and I felt a small thrill knowing he was falling apart.