17. Sister Sister
I was sick of the fuckin’ Price family. Because of my mother’s whorish ways, her secret family was wreaking havoc on my siblings’ and my life.
Jared was lying in a coma, fighting for his life, and I sat in the private waiting room staring at the wall, wondering how many lives one selfish woman could destroy.
Camilla had finally fallen asleep. Not because she wanted to, but because she was sedated.
An OB forced her into bed and gave her medicine to force her to sleep.
Camilla only agreed to lie down in fear of hurting her and Jared’s baby.
The hospital went against policy and wheeled a bed into Jared’s room so that she could lie by his side.
She fell asleep with her hand draped over her bed, clutching Jared’s hand like a lifeline, while YaYa sat nearby watching over her.
Genesis and the twins had gone home with my dad.
Our girls had witnessed the type of pain and trauma that should be illegal for kids to experience.
JoJo refused to leave Jared’s side. Jazzy refused to leave the hospital.
The nurses were gracious enough to give us a room adjacent to Jared’s room to share.
My dad called us every twenty minutes to check on him and had the congregation do a prayer call, but I couldn’t participate in any of it.
I was angry, angrier than I had ever been in my entire life, and my life was filled with unfair moments.
Kenya found me sitting alone near the hospital chapel around four in the morning.
Neither one of us looked good. Kenya had mascara stains around her eyes.
Her clothes were disheveled, and her eyes were swollen.
Grief was a tricky bastard. I was holding onto hope, but I also had an eerie feeling in the back of my throat that nothing would ever be the same.
My sister sat beside me quietly. For a long time, neither of us could say anything.
We just listened to the quiet gospel music that played in the background.
YaYa tapped her shoulder and signaled for me to lay my head on her shoulder.
Once I laid my head down, I finally broke down. “I’m sick of playing with these people.”
“Me too.”
“No, seriously.” My voice cracked. “Our brother is in a coma because our mama couldn’t keep her damn legs closed. All this shit wouldn’t be happening if she hadn’t sent him away. I hate her.”
The words echoed through the empty chapel. I knew my words were ugly and cruel, but I couldn’t erase the honesty in my feelings. Kenya didn’t correct me; I could see all over her face that she was angry, too.
“I keep thinking about Genesis,” I whispered. “She asked Xavier if Uncle Jared was dead.” Tears immediately burned behind my eyes.
Kenya stared straight ahead. “Amara asked me if bullets hurt.”
I covered my face; none of our children should have had those questions. “All this chaos because Cameron didn’t have her mama tucking her in at night.” The bitterness surprised even me.
Kenya snorted, then laughed. “Newsflash,” she muttered. “Sharon was a cunt of a mother.”
That shocked a laugh out of me, too.
“Kenya!”
“What?” She shrugged. “I’m serious.” Her voice hardened. “We spent years wondering why we weren’t enough.”
I looked over at her. She looked heartbroken. My sister, whom I have always seen as strong and larger than life, was hurt by our mom. This look on her face wasn’t anger; Kenya was heartbroken.
“Although she stayed with us, she picked Cameron and Alan.”
Sharon didn’t accidentally neglect us. She chose them, over and over again.
Kenya’s phone suddenly vibrated. We both looked down at the loud vibration in the quiet chapel.
Then her entire expression shifted to a focused one.
She read the text message and began walking out of the chapel.
“YaYa wait. What happened?”
“I hired a private investigator to track Alan.”
My pulse immediately spiked. “Where is he?”
“He’s hiding in Hellertown, your college town.”
Kenya looked at the message again. “He’s teaching.”
I blinked. “What? I thought after Cherry, he stopped being a professor?”
“I guess he’s not the only one in the Price family good at playing charades.”
The rage that hit me was immediate. My brother lay upstairs in a coma, and Alan Price was teaching students somewhere. He was breathing and thought he could live a perfectly good life while my family suffered.
“YaYa, it’s time to end him.”
Kenya smiled, and it looked exactly like Zayden when he was about to do something illegal.
We waited until the next day, when Xavier and Zayden volunteered to take a shift with Jared and Camilla at the hospital.
Five and a half hours later, Kenya and I sat inside one of Crown Logistics’ unmarked SUVs, watching a quiet suburban street from behind heavily tinted windows. Neither one of us had slept.
The ride to Hellertown was one I would never forget.
This place had memories that I swear would haunt me forever.
While everyone else viewed this town as charming and quaint, it was my version of Gotham City.
As we sat outside the address Kenya’s contact gave her, I stared at the printed file spread across my lap, trying to make sense of the life Alan Price built after disappearing from Cherry University.
Kenya had explained his fall from academia.
But looking up Dr. Price, there was no record of his fall from grace.
Nothing about his gambling issue, his mistress, or the fact that one of his children was from an affair.
The internet regarded him as a respected Black male professor and researcher.
One article praised him as a mentor, and the more I read, the angrier I became.
The bastard had reinvented himself, just like predators always did.
“He teaches ethics.” I looked up from the file.
I tossed the folder into the center console.
For the first time since Jared’s shooting, Kenya laughed, a real laugh.
“That is hilarious.”
“Ain’t it though?”
According to the university website, Alan Price spent years teaching leadership, ethics, public policy, and criminal justice. The irony made me physically ill.
“You know what’s crazy?” I muttered. “I used to think Charles was the worst part of my life, and now I realize it was having a selfish woman like Sharon as a mother.”
Kenya’s expression hardened immediately. “I’m sorry there was so much betrayal, Baby Bear.”
I never took a second to outwardly share with my sister how much Charles’s betrayal hurt.
I went from needing to take that bitch, Natalie, out to tearing the city apart trying to get my sister back, but if I could be honest, knowing that Charles conspired with Natalie, Miles, and our half-sister, Cameron, gutted me.
Natalie and Cameron were strangers. Miles was a low betrayal, because he was like family but Charles wasn’t some stranger.
Charles was somebody I was fond of. I may not have truly loved him the way I loved Xavier, but I trusted him, and I married him.
Despite Xavier murdering him, the memory of him using me in this sick twisted game made my stomach twist. Every new truth made the whole thing feel dirtier.
“Do you ever think about how long they planned this?” I asked quietly.
Kenya didn’t answer immediately. Because she already knew what I meant.
Charles.
Cameron.
Alan.
A family operating in shadows, while ours kept paying the price.
“I think they’ve been studying us longer than we realized.”
Kenya looked at me with sympathy in her eyes. “Baby Bear, there’s only one way to get justice now. I don’t blame you if you want to sit in the car while I handle this.”
I shook my head vehemently. “This is personal, YaYa. You’re not leaving me out of this.”
The house itself sat on a large piece of property about thirty minutes outside the university. I had to give it to Alan; it was nothing flashy or suspicious. It looked like any other middle-class suburban home.
Kenya’s private investigator, Alex, told us that Alan had a souped-up security system, but after about 10 minutes of waiting, she was able to disarm it so we could go inside.
The second we stepped through the front door, I noticed that this home felt too cozy, as if Alan lived here for a decade.
But how could that be? Hellertown was so small.
Surely I would have known about a Black professor at Ashwood University.
Kenya noticed it, too. “Something ain’t right.”
I nodded. Because every room contained photographs, dozens of them.
There were photos of family vacations, birthdays, graduations, and Christmas mornings.
Most of whom were Alan and young children, I assumed were his grandchildren or at the very least nieces and nephews.
Sharon was even in some of the later ones with Alan.
This bitch was living a whole double-ass life.
My chest felt heavy. It was like we never existed.
“Look at this.”
Kenya’s voice came from the hallway. I followed immediately and froze at the family portraits covering the wall.
The photo was taken at a beach and was inscribed at the bottom ‘The Price Family 2023’.
Pictured in the photo was Alan and a medium-toned brown-skinned woman I didn’t recognize, next to her stood Charles, and to his right stood a girl I recognized.
My stomach dropped. Why the fuck was Charles in this photo?
Natalie mentioned he was her cousin, but according to this picture, he was a Price.
Who the fuck was the mother-in-law and father-in-law that made my life a living hell while living in Hellertwon?
Why was his last name Hughes? But more importantly, why was Janessa my college roommate in this photo?
I stepped closer. My heart was pounding, and my hands were shaking. And suddenly, twenty years of memories started colliding inside my head. I recalled spending time in the college dorm with Janessa.
“Oh, my God.”
Kenya looked toward me.
“What?”