27. Rakim #2
Once clean, I stepped out, grabbing a towel from the warmer within her bathroom and went up behind her.
By now, she’d dried off and spread that body butter on that smelled of cinnamon and cream—my favorite scent of hers—then put on her short ass pajama set, the shorts hugging her shapely bottom half enticingly.
“What?” She peered at me through the elongated mirror as she brushed her teeth.
“You mad?” I kissed her sweet-smelling neck. I prayed she dropped the attitude shortly because I wanted seconds in a couple hours like always.
She shook her head and finished up, tossing mouthwash in since she’d flossed prior to brushing.
I went to fetch a pair of fresh boxers and then went into my bathroom on the opposite side of the bedroom to brush my own teeth.
“This may be the answer to your findings.” She set the positive pregnancy test on the sink before me as I swished mouthwash around.
Immediately, I spat that shit out and scooped it up. The word pregnant was bold as fuck, and there was no denying it.
“Oh shit,” I mumbled, studying the test as if the shit would go away any time soon.
“Is this a good or bad thing?”
“Great fucking thing, baby.” I picked her up after setting it down, making her smile as she hugged my neck.
After pecking a few times, she said, “Maybe say that next time.”
“My bad. This ain’t ever happened to a nigga before. I was legit fucking speechless,” I admitted, and she broke into a wide grin.
“You’ve never had a pregnancy scare?”
“Nah. Too careful.” I forced her legs around me so I could carry her down to the kitchen since I heard the oven sounding off.
“Me neither.”
“So why you acting like I’m the only one new to this shit?” I smiled, basking in the way she giggled. “You are beautiful, baby. Even more so now.” I spoke against her lips before kissing them back to back. “I love you.”
“I love you too, Rah.”
* * *
“This pie is amazing, Mrs. Wade,” I told the older woman before me as I sat in her kitchen, cleaning the plate that held my second piece of apple crumble.
“Thank you!” She beamed. “Now whose son did you say you were?” she queried just as the front door opened and closed.
“Your husband was good friends with my uncle,” I lied, having no uncles on either side.
I only had an aunt, which was Talid’s mother. Nate was an only child, and I assumed my grandparents knew not to make the mistake of procreating twice. Thank God.
“Oh, right!” She brightened. “Here Chris is now!” she told me, waving her husband into the kitchen who stopped in his tracks at the sight of me, confused as to who the fuck I was and why I was in his spot.
Christopher Wade was the medical examiner not only for my mother but Zaire as well. It didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out he’d probably known about and did a lot of shit that was unsavory and had conspired with my father.
“Do I know you?” he asked, his wife hanging off of him. It was nice to see them still in love after being married for thirty-five years. That was why I was gonna do something nice and send them home together.
“Let’s talk,” I replied.
“He says you know his uncle,” Mrs. Wade chimed in, but her husband was still puzzled, and rightfully so.
“Nate Godfrey,” I said and watched the immediate shift in his body language.
“Uh, yeah, let’s uh . . . go talk.” He left the kitchen.
“Should I heat up your dinner?” his wife called to our backs.
“Uh, give me a minute, Christy!” he called back, leading me to what appeared to be a man cave.
“Aww, Chris and Christy. Match made in heaven,” I said, taking in his luxe ass den that he probably paid for by doing favors for Nate.
“He sent you?” Chris inquired.
“Nah. He don’t know I’m here, and I’m gon’ warn you now, nigga, I’m impatient, so when I ask you a question, answer the shit and immediately.
Once you get to stuttering and stammering and thinking too fucking long, that’s gon’ tell me you lying, and then I’m gon’ get upset.
And I don’t think I need to tell you why that ain’t a good thing. ”
Chris’s lids lowered as he took me in before he scoffed. “You’re his son, or his nephew that looks just like him and carries his evil streak, but I never knew Nate to have any siblings.”
“What you know about my mama’s death?” I inquired, ignoring his spot-on hypothesis because I didn’t give a fuck, and true enough, that shit wasn’t a compliment.
“Helen Godfrey. She died from a heart attack. I remember that.” He put his hands along his waistline, taking in a deep breath.
Taking my gun off my hip, I removed the safety, pressing it to the middle of Chris’s forehead.
“You better tell me what I wanna know, or I’m gon’ blow ya fucking brains out, then go do the same to ya missus.” I nodded upward, having heard her ascend their staircase moments ago.
“Alright. Alright.” He threw his hands up in surrender.
“She had a fractured skull. It had been completely cracked, and I could tell she had a terrible fall or had been hit over the head with something.” He sang like a fucking canary, and though I knew I was on the money with Nate having done some shit to my mama, hearing it and it being confirmed felt like a boulder to my stomach.
“And you agreed to lie about that shit!” I barked, nudging his forehead with my heat.
“You have to understand, your father is a scary person!” he shouted.
“Even in high school, he was intimidating, forcing me to give him answers on tests and to type his papers. I was relieved when he went on to become a famous boxer because I didn’t have to deal with his ass.
It wasn’t until he located me, panicking about having killed your mother.
He claimed they’d gotten into an argument, saying she’d charged at him with a knife, so he had to hit her with a hammer.
H-he told me she was mentally ill.” His hands were still up but shaking as sweat started to form on his upper lip.
“When she was brought in for examination, I could tell from the blow she’d been hit from behind, and therefore his story was a lie, but what was I supposed to do? ”
“Have some muthafuckin’ dignity! Some balls, you bitch ass nigga!” I roared. “You let another warm-blooded muthafucka convince you to lie, and for what? ’Cause you can’t take a punch?”
“He would’ve killed me, and you know it. He did pay me, but it was pennies in comparison to what I did for him. I just wanted to be sure me and my wife were out of harm’s way.”
“Who did the autopsy we paid for?” I shot off a question I ain’t want the answer to.
He hesitated but eventually Chris replied, “Nobody. She never got one. We just falsified the results.”
“Fuck.” I dropped my head, unable to explain the pain searing through my fucking chest. Had I been the nigga I was now, Nate nor Chris would’ve been able to falsify shit. Nevertheless, I was simply a boxer on the come up with minimal connections at that time.
Only an evil muthafucka like Nate Godfrey would have a medical examiner in his back pocket like he was a fucking serial killer. I had plenty of people on payroll, but having a Christopher Wade never even crossed my fucking mind.
“Look, I’m sorr—”
“What about Zaire?” I cut off his weak ass apology.
“Yeah . . .” He nibbled on his lip in thought. “He came to me saying his son had died from an overdose. This time, though, it was true, so I didn’t think anything of it when I procured his body for examination. Are you saying that’s a lie?”
“Fuck you think, nigga? Why else would he want a specific ME to examine Zaire’s body if nothing was amiss?”
“Oh shit. Well, I’m sorry, son. I didn’t—”
The bullet I sent into his head abruptly interrupted that bullshit he was about to spew. He didn’t give a fuck about what he did, lying for Nate knowing what the fuck he’d done to our mother. I had never hated anyone like I did my own father.
Leaving the den, I made my way up the stairs and followed the sound of Chris’s wife humming. I found her in her bedroom, tidying it up.
“Oh, . . . where is Chris—”
Just like her husband before her, I sent a bullet into her head, then another to be sure she was dead. I felt just as bad as Chris did when he helped my pops get away with murder, which wasn’t even a little bit. Bitch ass nigga.