Chapter 31
No Games
“Dad, Dad!”
I jumped up outta my sleep to see Amir staring at me
“Yeah, son?” I said, still wiping the sleep outta my eyes.
“It’s nothing for breakfast,” he said low.
I opened my eyes quick and looked beside me to see that Islah wasn’t home. The last message I got from her was that she was on the way.
I called her phone, and it went straight to voicemail. I looked at it for a second, confused as fuck.
“You okay?” Amir asked.
I nodded, getting outta bed, not wanting to worry him. “Yeah Amir, I’m good, I’ma order you some food real quick.”
While I was getting him straight, I kept calling Islah’s phone. Then I was calling her girl’s phone, still not getting a response. That’s when I called Keith; that nigga picked up on the second ring.
“Wussup, fool?”
“I need you to get over here. I think something is wrong with Islah and her girls.”
He paused for a second. “I’ma hit Sammy and we on the way.”
I hung up with him and went back to calling her phone. She still wasn’t picking up. I then called Deja, then Renee, then Kenya, and was getting the same response again.
I shook my head, trying not to think the worst.
I sent Islah a message, and before I could sit my phone on the table, it bounced back, sayin’ it couldn’t be delivered.
“WHAT THE FUCK!” I yelled out.
Amir came outta the kitchen looking at me.
“Dad, what is going on?” he asked.
I shook my head as I rubbed my forehead. “Nothing, son, let me figure this shit out.”
He nodded and walked away.
It felt like hours passed before my niggas pulled up. I walked outside to meet them before they hopped out the car.
“Wussup?” Sammy asked. “You good?”
I shook my head.
“Islah didn’t come home last night.”
They looked at each other, then back at me.
“It’s cool, bro—”
“How the fuck is that cool?” I asked Keith, cutting him off. “She didn’t come home. Her girls not answering the phone, her text messages are not delivering, that shit is not fuckin’ cool.”
“Maybe she stayed with them,” Sammy added.
“That’s cool, then why the fuck is she not answering my call?!”
Them niggas didn’t have a response to that.
We walked inside, and they tried to call Islah from their phones. She still didn’t pick up.
I sent my cousin a message to get her to the house to watch Amir for me and paced around the kitchen smoking, waiting for her to get there.
“Maybe she got cold feet,” Sammy expressed. Keith put his head down.
“What the fuck do you mean she got cold feet? The same woman I talked all the shit out with, the same woman who agreed to marry me in a week? She don’t have no fuckin’ cold feet.”
Sammy threw his hands up in the air. “Aye, nigga, I am just trying to help you out. That’s the only thing that makes sense.”
I didn’t say anything else to them niggas, I just kept calling her phone over and over, and sending messages that kept bouncing back, making me want to throw the fucking phone.
Once Katie got to the house, I assured Amir that I was good, then I walked outta the house with Sammy and Keith and got in my truck, driving straight to Kenya’s house, but the whole ride over there I wasn’t even really hearing them talking.
My mind kept running through every message I sent Islah and every call I made that went straight to voicemail, like she had just disappeared off the face of the earth.
At first, I kept telling myself it was nothing. Maybe she decided to stay with them instead and just forgot to tell me. Maybe her phone died. I tried to hold on to all those small maybes because the other thoughts were starting to creep in, and I didn’t like where that shit was going.
By the time we pulled up, I was already out of the truck before it fully stopped, which wasn’t right.
I walked straight to the door and started banging like the police.
Kenya opened the door, confused, hair all over her head, lookin’ half asleep, and we barged in to see Deja and Renee still laid up on the couch.
“Where is she?” I asked, looking around her crib.
All three of them looked at me, confused.
“Where is who? Islah?” Kenya asked.
I nodded.
“She left the club early last night, said she was tired,” Renee chimed in.
“Yeah, I told her the driver was on the way. She walked out and said she was gonna hit us when she got home,” Kenya added.
“Well, did she hit any one of y’all?” They all checked their phones, then looked back up at me.
“No, no, she didn’t,” Deja expressed.
I nodded. “She didn’t come home! Where the fuck is the driver?” I yelled.
“Hold on, I’ma go and call him right now.”
Kenya walked off to the kitchen while Deja and Renee looked at each other, confused, and I paced the floor.
Deja and Renee talked back and forth, sayin’ her phone probably died, but that has nothing to do with her not coming home.
After a few minutes, Kenya came outta the kitchen. She had a look on her face that I didn’t like.
“The driver said he never saw her. He said he didn’t say anything because he just thought one of us changed our mind.”
I looked at my niggas, and I could feel myself losing my fuckin’ mind.
“Come on,” I said, walking toward the door. “And I mean everybody, let’s go.”
Nobody asked questions. They just followed out to the truck and hopped in.
I moved through traffic like I had nothing to lose, hoping that the police would stop me if they wanted to, so I could catch a charge. After what felt like an hour of moving through roadblocks, wrecks, and people who didn’t know how to drive, we finally made it to the club.
Of course, it was dead during the day, no cars outside, and the doors to get in were locked. I stood out there for a second, then we started looking around for her, for her phone, her bag, something, but didn’t find anything.
We met back at the car. All of them started to realize it was much more serious than they thought.
“This is scary,” Deja said.
“Islah is not going to ignore all of us,” Renee added. “Especially not Love.”
They all agreed, and I agreed with them.
Kenya talked about retracing their steps, while I checked her location. That shit was turned off, and for the first time, I didn’t know how to move.
“I think I’ma have to go to the police,” I said low, making all of them cut their side conversation before I continued. “I don’t know what to do. I don’t know where to start. And on top of that…” I paused for a second, knowing damn well she wouldn’t want me to tell it yet. “Islah is pregnant.”
Her girls tried to hide their smiles. My niggas saw the worry on my face.
“Maybe she just needed some time alone,” Keith expressed. “Y’all have been making a lot of big changes.”
I listened, but I knew that wasn’t it—I felt that wasn’t it. I just didn’t know what was.
We started to get back in the truck when my phone rang. I turned on the car, and it connected to it, flashing an unknown number on the screen.
I answered it, and before I could speak, I heard Islah screaming in the back. We all sat up.
“ISLAH!” I yelled.
And then I heard laughing and knew who the fuck it was.
Gio.
“Nigga, you ain’t fuckin’ dead?” I asked, feeling the blood inside me boiling.
“No, nigga, you tried to kill me, but my job is not done.”
“What the fuck are you doing with my girl?”
“She’s not your girl! She don’t belong to you!” Gio yelled into the phone.
“Gio, if you hurt her—”
“If I do, nigga, then what?” he asked. “What are you going to do? Kill me?” He paused, and I could hear Islah screaming and crying for me before he continued.
“It’s this song, I know you know it, but I changed the words up. It goes. I got your girl, and you can’t do anything about it!”
“Nigga, stop playin’ on my phone. Let me get Islah, and me and you can shoot this shit out. I don’t give a fuck,” I responded.
“I know you don’t give a fuck,” Gio said. “I don’t either. She’s home where she needs to be, but I’ll let you talk to her one last time.”
The line went silent, and then I heard her.
“Love!” she yelled into the phone.
“Baby, where are you at and what do you see?” I asked quickly. Listening to her cry was eating me up.
“I don’t know, baby, I don’t know. Come help me! Come get—”
“Don’t listen to shit she’s sayin’,” he said, half laughing. “You ain’t getting yo’ bitch back!”
Then the line went dead.
TO BE CONTINUED…