Chapter 18
She’s going to die, isn’t she?”
Demi looked at DJ. He was growing every day, trying to be hard, pretending to be a man.
Day by day, his innocence was leaving him.
He was going from a baby to a young boy, tapping on adolescence, but as Demi stared into his son’s eyes, he saw him shrink.
He was a baby clinging to his mother, terrified that he would lose her.
“Your mom is the strongest woman in the world, baby boy. She’s going to be okay.
She’s just resting for a minute, that’s all,” he said.
He sounded more certain than he was. She was hooked up to so many machines.
Two bullets had ripped through her and as Demi listened to the machine breathe for her, he knew that he was going to murder niggas.
Demi was going to murder everybody. The streets hadn’t been that bad in a long time.
A little uprising had occurred not too long ago when a nigga named Isa from Flint had torn up the Northside of the city.
Word was it was over his girl, but that was nothing.
That was a flash in the pan compared to the tyranny Demi was about to bring.
He had been holding himself together by legitimacy, being responsible, getting money on the low and investing in his record label so that his family had security.
The streets had still touched him. Had it been a bullet to his back he would have been okay with that.
He would have accepted that as fate because he had chosen that life, but Lauren didn’t deserve it.
His son was above it. If she died, he was taking mothers and sons.
Right now, only the men responsible would pay.
The men who attacked her. The man who put down the order and the fucking pussy-ass nigga who had caused it all.
As long as Lauren breathed, he would keep it street, but if she died.
..if his son was forced to watch his mother take her last breath, Demi was going to keep it gutter and wipe out entire bloodlines.
“What if she doesn’t wake up?” DJ asked.
“She will,” Demi said. His jaw ached he was gritting his teeth so hard.
“But what if she doesn’t?” DJ pushed.
Demi bent over and closed his eyes, rubbing the back of his neck.
“She will,” Demi repeated.
“But what if...”
“She will!” Demi barked.
His son’s clipped silence told Demi he was scaring him.
“She will,” he said in a softer tone. Demi was inflated with despair. Life was attacking him from left and right. With Lauren on his mind and Charlie on his heart, he felt like he was losing it a little bit.
“I’m going to send your mee maw in here, a’ight?” Demi stood and hugged his son. “Be strong for her, man. When she’s weak, that’s our job, to be strong.”
DJ nodded and Demi released him before walking out of the room.
Lauren’s mother sat in the waiting room. Lillian was a woman of a particular age, but she was beautiful. Black didn’t crack and Lillian looked more like Lauren’s older sister than her mother. Her swollen eyes were red with worry as Demi approached.
“Can you stay with them? I need to step out,” Demi said. “Call me if anything changes.”
“This is disrespectful, Demitrius. I know you’re not this stupid.”
Lillian’s words caught him off guard. She didn’t talk to him like this. No one talked to him like this. They knew better but the challenge he saw in her eyes was real.
“My daughter is on her death bed behind something involving you and you’re running to the next woman?
Who was the girl who showed up here today?
” Lillian questioned. “I come from the day when men would keep their affairs in order. Her showing up here while my daughter is fighting for her life is out of line.”
Demi put her under his tense stare as he chose his words carefully.
“Focus on Lo. That’s where I need your head, cuz I got to go handle the niggas that’s responsible for this. I can’t be there and here. Nothing else is your concern,” he said.
Charlie laid in her bed, in their bed, the one they had made love in for hours just the night before.
She didn’t know why she kept checking her phone every few minutes.
He hadn’t called, and even if he did, she wouldn’t answer.
She wanted to see his name on her screen just so she would know he was thinking about her, but he wasn’t.
She had never felt so distant from him. He wasn’t thinking about her because he was with his family.
Tears rolled out of the corners of her eyes, soaking her pillow.
Wrapping her mind around Demi’s betrayal was tearing her up inside.
It was hard to believe that he hadn’t been in her life a month ago.
It felt like she was letting go of someone she had loved for years.
She was weak. Her legs didn’t work the same and her stomach was non-existent.
She could still smell him in the sheets.
Bails whimpered from the doorway because even he could feel that Charlie was heartbroken. Her distress filled the entire condo.
The knock at the door felt invasive, like it was interrupting her mourning. She forced herself from the bed and looked through the peephole to find a man she didn’t recognize on the other side.
“I’ll call the police!” she shouted through the door. Stassi had said she wasn’t safe. She had said that Demi had sent her to get her because there was a street war.
“Demi sent me,” the voice called back. “I just wanted to let you know I’m out here. Looking out for you. Demi’s orders.”
Charlie pulled open the door.
“Tell Demi I don’t need protecting,” she said.
The man held up a car key for her.
“What’s this?” she asked.
“He said your old car was beyond fixing. That’s the key to the new one. It’s on the first level to the parking garage. Spot 6A,” the man said.
Charlie snatched the key from his hand and stormed out of the apartment.
“Show me where the car is,” she demanded, as she headed toward the elevator.
When they made it to the garage, a beautiful brand new Audi SUV sat in her parking space. Charlie climbed inside and started it. Putting the car in reverse she hit the gas, ramming into the pole behind her.
“Yo! What the fuck you doing? That’s a seventy-thousand-dollar car!”
Charlie put the car in drive and rammed the front fender into the barricade wall ahead. She hit the wall with so much speed that it ruined the entire front of the car.
“Tell Demi I don’t want this shit and to bring my old car back,” she said before storming back upstairs. “And stay off my doorstep before I call the police.”
Her phone was ringing by the time she made it back to her apartment and Demi’s name on the screen made her silence it instantly. Seconds later, the text came through.
DEMI
Answer the MF phone, Bird.
There was nothing to say, however. No conversation to be had. He was married. There was nothing he could do to take that fact away.
Charlie powered off her phone and then climbed back into bed.
She just wanted everything and everyone to go away.
She was exhausted. She hadn’t slept the night before and now she just wanted to close her eyes.
In her dreams, it couldn’t hurt this bad.
She wasn’t sure how long she had been out before he began infiltrating her unconscious thoughts.
The scent of his cologne interrupted her peace and when she heard Bails barking, she knew he was there.
Her eyes fluttered open and he sat there, beside the bed, leaned over onto his elbows, staring at her in the dark.
“I got the nigga blood all over me,” Demi whispered. “I took three showers and it’s still all over me.”
Charlie didn’t even sit up. She didn’t have the strength. She just laid there, with her head flat on the mattress, looking at him. He evoked instant emotion from her.
“Say something, baby,” he said.
Charlie turned over in the bed and faced the wall so that she could let her tears fall without him seeing them. She felt Demi’s weight in the bed as he spooned her.
“I’m sorry, Bird,” he whispered in her ear as he wrapped one arm around her body.
“I don’t want the car. I do not want anything from you. I need my car back,” she said, sniffing, holding back as best as she could. She didn’t move, though. She laid there, in his arms, staring at the wall. She could hear her heartbeat in her ears.
“The car was scrapped, Bird. Wasn’t no point in fixing that old shit. I junked it and bought you a new one.”
Charlie sat up and turned to him. “You did what?”
“The shit was 25 years old, Bird,” he reasoned. “You needed a new...”
“I needed a man who wouldn’t lie to me! Someone who was available to me and only me! That’s what I needed!” she shouted. She jabbed his ass with every word.
“Say, man, you pushing it with the fucking hands, Bird,” he said.
“You pushing it with the fucking wife!” she shouted. Her resentment was so loud that Bails began barking.
Demi couldn’t say shit. She was right. The shit had hit the fan, so he had to let her get her shit off.
“How long have you been married?” she asked.
“Does it matter?” he asked. “Married is married.”
Charlie’s nostrils flared as she stared at him in contempt. “Just like a nigga, man.” She shook her head in disgust.
“Stop asking for details to make this worse,” Demi said.
“How long?” She was vehement about it. She wouldn’t let up. They both knew it. Demi blew out a sharp breath.
“15 years, Bird,” he admitted. There was so much solemn in one room.
She almost choked on the notion. She didn’t even have a response to that. She scoffed. There wasn’t even room for her in his life. There wasn’t room for her to compete if she wanted to. His wife had paid for that dick in full. Charlie was just test-driving it.
“Just give me my car and go on your way,” she said. The defeat in her voice was crippling. It haunted him.
“Can we talk about...”