27. Schizo
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
SCHIZO
A COUPLE DAYS LATER
I wasn’t supposed to be back in Montgomery for another couple of weeks, but since I got that alarming text from Scar, I brought my ass home, no hesitations. Shit was getting real rocky ’round here. We had yet to handle that situation that happened back in Ocean Reef with Uncle Kane, and now the nigga we left in charge not only stole our shit, but also fucking ended up dead in our shit. Something wasn’t adding up.
I dropped Kaylan off at home. The first stop I made soon as I touched Montgomery soil was the hotel. I had been thinking ’bout Stoney like crazy and owed her an explanation. It may have been one she didn’t quite want to hear, but I owed it to her.
The entire time I was gone, I had been thinking of the words to say. In her eyes, she probably thought I took advantage of her, but that wasn’t the case. I really had a case of cold feet and when I saw her leave the wedding, it took everything inside me not to run after her. Surprisingly, Kaylan hadn’t brought the incident up at all since we were gone.
I pulled up to the hotel and climbed out my car at the front door. I had no intentions of staying there too long. Hopefully, Stoney was in her office and I didn’t have to search for her ass. I stopped by her office and knocked on the door but didn’t get an answer.
“Have you seen Stoney?” I asked Apryl when she went to pass me.
“I think she’s in the cafeteria.”
“’Preciate it.”
Another reason I wanted to see her was to make sure she was OK after finding that body. I know that shit was hard on her. With something like that happening, she should have taken a couple days off to get her mental together, but Stoney wasn’t ’bout to let anything get in her way of working. I loved that ’bout her.
I sauntered to the cafeteria. Soon as I entered, I saw Stoney talking to Tiana, the cook. Her back was facing me, but I definitely could tell it was her. She stood there in this gray dress that conformed to her ass perfectly. There was a small split in the back letting her thighs play peekaboo. Her hair was pulled in a ponytail and bounced with every lil movement she made. I stood there, admiring her ’til she was done with her conversation. The moment she turned ’round and saw me, her face turned white as if she’d seen a ghost.
“Stoney,” was the only thing I could fathom as I gazed at her beautiful face.
“I—I have a lot of work to do,” she said and went to brush past me, but I gently caught her by the wrist and stopped her. She eyeballed my hand, then our eyes met.
“I owe you an apology. I know it may look like I took advantage of you, but that’s not the case.”
“What the hell do you call it then? You fucked me. Led me into believing that you wanted me, then left me stranded on the beach naked and went to get married!”
“Everybody out,” I said, and the cafeteria began to clear. Soon as the last person left out, I continued, “I was wrong for what I did. I should have never had sex with you while being engaged to someone else. I acted out of character and was going off my emotions. I’ve never cheated before, and after we had sex, you’ve been the only thing on my mufuckin’ mind. You deserve far more than what I did, and I apologize.” Moisture filled her eyes, but she held her composure.
“I got feelings for you, Stoney. I always had ’em and tried my best to bury ’em. I’m fucked up in the head ’cause they outweighing the ones I got for Kay.”
“But you still married her.” Her watery eyes searched mine for answers.
“I didn’t think shit through. I just did what I thought was right.”
“Is that all? I really have to get back to work.”
“I hope you can forgive me.”
“Bye, Schizo.”
Stoney yanked away from me and exited the cafeteria. That time, I let her leave. She probably needed time to process all the things I said to her. Hell, I was still processing ’em and I had been thinking long and hard on the shit for the last two weeks.
My mind had been all over the place that I forgot to even ask Stoney if she was all right after seeing that dead body. Not wanting to bother her any further, I pulled my phone out to see if Scar was still at the hotel. He and I hadn’t really had much of a discussion ’bout Pun’s death. It was obvious who killed him and left his ass here. If we didn’t handle this shit with ’em soon, they were gon’ become an even bigger problem.
“You at the hotel?” I asked him soon as he answered the phone.
“Yeah. Come on up.”
Ending the call, I headed for the elevator and took it up to his penthouse. When I stepped off, I found him sitting in the living room with a glass of something brown up to his lips.
“You got any info on Pun?”
“Not really, but we already know who did the shit. I ran the tapes back and he entered that room with some chick. She was the only one to leave out like twenty minutes later but made sure not to let the camera catch her face, as if she knew the bitch was sitting there.”
“So they sent a woman to do their fucking dirty work?”
“Seems like it. Ain’t no way she killed his ass for anything else.”
“You sure? It could be several reasons why a bitch would kill a nigga.”
“Only way we ever gon’ find out is if we find that bitch.” Scar leaned over on the end table and grabbed an envelope. He tossed it on the coffee table and I picked it up. Inside was an expanded photo version of the chick he spoke of. She had a silk black scarf on her head that wrapped ’round and covered her face from the nose down and wore huge black shades.
“I’ll see what I can do with it. In the meantime, what you wanna do ’bout Chad and nem? We can’t let ’em slide after offing Unk.”
Scar placed his glass down on the end table and rubbed his hands together before saying, “Oh, they ain’t sliding shit. I’m already putting a plan in motion for they ass.”