Chapter 18
Raven pulled up in her driveway and rolled her eyes when she saw Xander’s car.
The day after he got shot, his mother had come and got the car.
His shit was still in the house and after she got jumped, Raven started to burn it, but she didn’t.
She got out of the car with an attitude.
She had the locks changed, so he was sitting in his car waiting on her.
Raven had finally healed enough to go to the recovery house and check on her business.
Xander slowly got out of his car, and he looked terrible.
He had lost a good ten pounds, and he needed to shave. He moved slow as hell, and his skin looked dull. Raven almost felt sorry for him. “I came to get my clothes,” he stated, and she kept walking.
“It’s fucked up that I paid all the bills, and I can’t even stay here until I figure something out. I can’t hustle. I’m fucked up. Now isn’t the time for me to be trying to get a new place.”
“Am I supposed to give a fuck?” she asked him with a deep scowl on her face. “Go stay with your baby mama.” Raven pushed the door open, and he followed her inside. “And I hope that bitch ass Jenise knows that next time I see her, I’m on her ass. Bitch.”
“You were really out with Diric though? That nigga shot me.” Xander had the nerve to look hurt, but she wasn’t moved.
“How was I supposed to know that? That didn’t have shit to do with me. You cheated, and I moved on. Who I moved on with doesn’t matter.”
“It doesn’t matter?” he spat. “You out your mind. I fucked up and did some foul shit, but that nigga tried to kill me. Barely a week later and you out with him? That shit is mad suspect.”
“Listen, I don’t give a fuck about none of what you talking about! We dead homie, and what I do is my business. Who I do it with is my business. Go be with your baby mama and your kid and leave me alone.”
“I bet I’ll be wrong if I come take all my furniture out this bitch.”
Raven shrugged passively. “Do you. I’m not broke. That shit will be replaced the same day.”
Diric just stared at her. He was mad as hell.
For years, he took care of the house, and she could do what she pleased with her money.
Now, he was fucked up, and she was trying to stunt on him.
He wanted to spit in her face, but he didn’t know how hard she fucked with Diric.
Xander didn’t want no more smoke with that looney ass nigga.
His body was still far from the same. It would take him a long time to get back to normal.
Six bullets were a lot to take, and Xander was fucked up.
He even breathed different. His balance seemed off.
Sometimes, he couldn’t think of a word that he wanted to say for shit.
He got stiff if he stayed in one position for too long.
He moved slow. He got tired easy. He was just fucked up.
That was the simplest way to put it. The little money that he crossed Canyon for wasn’t worth it at all.
Now, he was dead broke and fucked up, and Raven was shitting on him.
He should have known that she wouldn’t be that ride or die to stick with him through an outside baby.
His baby mama couldn’t do shit for him. She was out of work and depending on him for money, and he didn’t have anything to give.
The $4,000 that he had on him when he got shot was all that he had, and he had to stretch that for as long as he could.
He could barely drive, so hustling was dead.
Raven had her own business, the crib, the furniture.
She hadn’t lost anything, and she was the ideal person to be with while he got back on his feet, but she wanted nothing to do with him.
Full of defeat, Xander eyed all the garbage bags full of his belongings lined up against the wall.
“Can you at least help me carry a few of these out to the car?”
“Boy fuck you. You should have brought Jenise with you,” she smirked. “That hoe goes so hard for you that she jumped me. She should have come and helped you get your stuff.”
“Her arm is broke, and I know you had something to do with it.”
“If I had something to do with it that slut’s face would be broke.”
Xander grabbed one of the garbage bags and hoped that it had some good shit in it because he didn’t have the strength to collect all of the bags. One bag would have to do for now. “I’ll get the rest of my shit later,” he mumbled.
“You’re not going to be popping up over here anytime you want. I’ll take two bags to the car for your cheating crippled ass. These other three bags, you have two days to get them or they’re going in the dumpster.”
Xander could only shake his head. He had done Raven dirty and now, he had to accept the treatment that she was giving him.
“That shit was big cap. That nigga’s name wasn’t Vic. I caught a kid playing in the yard yesterday, and he said he didn’t know a Vic. He said the only person he knows with light skin and freckles is his neighbor’s son that lives in Durham. And his name is Tony,” Diric reported to Canyon.
Canyon, Amar, and Diric were waiting outside of the address that they had been given for Junior.
They had been waiting for almost two hours, and Canyon was getting antsy.
He was about to just get someone to snatch Junior up and have him brought to him when a brown car pulled up in the driveway.
When Canyon saw that a man was driving the car, he placed his hand on the door handle.
They were parked on the street in between Junior’s house the neighbor’s house.
The men emerged from the car and walked up in the yard just as Junior was placing his key in the door.
He didn’t know that anyone was coming until they were right up on him.
He turned around and almost shit on himself when he noticed the three men. He knew who all three of them were because they were the niggas in the city that most of the women wanted to fuck and most of the men wanted to be. What he couldn’t figure out is why they were at his house.
“What’s your name?” Canyon asked him as he stepped closer.
“Junior. W-what’s up?”
“Who is the nigga that you sent Yohana to? The one who you said was named Vic that robbed her of two pounds?”
Junior looked like a deer caught in headlights. “He’s just somebody that I know through people. We not all that close. He said he needed the work, and I pointed him in the right direction.”
“You don’t know him that well, but you told Yohana that he was your people. Your people robbed her, and you haven’t been answering the phone for her since then. You set her up.”
Junior wasn’t so sure why Canyon cared so much about Yohana being robbed.
To his knowledge, Yohana paid for the work; he didn’t front her.
Canyon’s pockets didn’t take a hit, but here he was with his goons looking like he was ready to murder something.
“No, I didn’t. I didn’t know the nigga was gon’ rob her. ”
“Call him.”
“Huh?”
“Nigga, you heard me! I don’t like repeating myself. Get in the fuckin’ house, and do what I said.”
Junior opened the door to his house hoping that Jeff wouldn’t answer the phone.
Junior’s pockets took a major hit when Morris got knocked.
He had to start copping bullshit heroin that was stepped on, and his customers were complaining.
Yohana had come back in the game with this good ass dope, and she wouldn’t front him shit.
Her fronting him would have been what he needed to get back on his feet, but she was on some funny shit.
Him and Jeff came up with the idea to rob Yohana, and they would get one pound each.
She wouldn’t get hurt, and the extra money in his pockets would help him.
Inside his house, Junior pulled his phone from his pocket and called Jeff. “Put it on speaker,” Canyon glared at him.
Junior’s heart felt as if it was trying to jump out of his chest. Not only was Canyon looking like he wanted to murder him but if Morris found out that he helped a man to rob Yohana, that would be his ass for sure. The phone rang three times, and Jeff answered sounding hype as hell.
“What’s good, nigga?”
Junior’s eyes darted over to Canyon. “Tell him to meet you here,” he stated in a low tone.
“Aye, I need you to come through right now. I have a business proposition for you.”
“Shit, I’m on the way. Especially if it’s better than the proposition you had to hit that bitch for that work. We should have gotten more than two pounds nigga. Shoulda hit that bitch for at least six.”
Junior peeped Canyon’s jaw muscles flexing, and he knew the man was pissed.
Damn, was Yohana fucking him? “Yeah, this is better than that,” Junior replied in a faint voice.
He almost felt like he wanted to faint. He just had to admit in front of Canyon that he was the one that came up with the idea to rob Yohana.
He ended the call, and Canyon jerked his head in Junior’s direction.
In two seconds, Amar had hit him in the face so hard that Junior’s phone fell from his hand.
That was followed up with a two-piece from Diric that knocked Junior on his ass.
Canyon watched as they beat the man for about a minute.
He was disgusted that someone that was practically family would rob Yohana for that petty ass amount of drugs.
He wanted to put a bullet in Junior’s face, but he refrained.
By the time Amar and Diric grew tired of beating Junior, he had been worked over pretty good.
He sat up and saw one of his teeth on the floor in a small puddle of blood.
Junior wasn’t sure if they would be satisfied with beating him or if they would kill him too, but he prayed they let him live.
If Yohana told Morris on him though, he’d have another set of problems to worry about.
Junior stood to his feet and leaned against the wall.
Canyon looked around the house in disgust. Junior’s house wasn’t the cleanest and the décor looked like it had been picked up off the side of the road.
The room was silent. Everyone remained standing.
Diric pulled a blunt from behind his ear and lit it.
He was tired of waiting and so were Amar and Canyon.
This nigga needed to hurry up. As if the Universe granted their wish, there was a knock at the door.
All three men pulled their straps out, and Canyon made his way over to the door to open it.
He stepped back, and Jeff didn’t see the men in the house or the state that Junior was in until he was already inside.
Canyon placed the barrel of his gun to Jeff’s temple.
“You thought it was cool to rob my friend of her work?”
Jeff’s eyes widened. “I-I n-no. I mean, Junior said that no one would get hurt and it was only ―” he wasn’t finished talking before Canyon put a bullet in his head and silenced him forever.
Junior was so scared that his knees buckled. He wanted to throw up at the sight of blood and brain matter splattered on his walls. Junior’s eyes got teary. Canyon walked over to him and shot him in the knee. Only because he was related to someone in Yohana’s family did he let the bastard live.