Chapter 1
Seeing the look on my girl’s face when I surprised her with her dream car was worth every dime I spent on it.
Harmoni deserved that and more. She had made me a father, and that was something I never imagined being.
I couldn’t lie like I wasn’t nervous before our son was born, but as I strapped him into the backseat of Harmoni’s Jeep, I couldn’t help but smile as I looked into his little eyes.
Cadence looked just like my father and me.
He had silky milk chocolate skin and a head full of jet-black, curly hair.
He had every feature of my face, just in a smaller form.
Once he was secure in the Jeep, I let Journei do a safety check.
I signed another paper, then got into the driver’s seat to take my family home.
“You like your new Jeep, baby?” I asked Harmoni as I leaned over to her side and kissed her lips.
“I love it! Thank you so much, baby! You are too good to me. I appreciate everything you do, and I’m so thankful to have you,” Moni expressed.
I used my free hand to hold Harmoni’s hand as I pulled out of the hospital parking lot.
As I looked over at Harmoni, I couldn’t help smiling.
She was the happiest that I had ever seen her.
Her glow was different. Knowing how much losing her first child had broken her, I was so thankful that she had gotten a second chance to be a mother.
I was even more thankful that I was Cadence’s father and that my family was complete.
I couldn’t wait for her to see what I had done to our son’s room.
That was my first task as a father, and I did a damn good job.
Words couldn’t express how much I loved my lil’ family, but I was still in shock that this was my life for real.
Now that I had my shop up and running, I knew it was time to go legit.
I had a few more moves that I needed to make, but I was definitely going to let the streets go.
Just as I was about to make a right turn onto the highway, I was hit head-on by a black SUV. Before I knew what was happening, my airbags deployed, and everything went black.
Not sure how long I was out, but when I woke up, I heard sirens, and all I could see was smoke inside and outside of the Jeep. I reached over, and I didn’t feel Moni beside me.
“Moni! Moni, baby, are you okay?” I said as I struggled to get out of my seatbelt.
I frantically searched all over the Jeep for my son and my fiancée.
The car was completely empty, and I could only pray that the paramedics had already taken them and were checking on them.
A few moments later, I was taken out of the car and put into the back of the ambulance.
Everything on my body was sore, and I could barely turn my head.
I was really fucked up. I asked where they had taken my baby and my girl, but everyone looked at me like I was crazy.
“The fuck y’all mean it was nobody else in the car with me? My girl and my baby just got released from the hospital. Find them right fucking now! My son is only three days old!” I yelled.
“Calm down, sir. You may have a concussion, and we need to check you out to make sure you’re alright. You have a pretty ugly knot on your forehead, so it’s important that you let us do our job,” the paramedic stated as he checked my eyes, then the knot on my head.
I heard the EMTs whispering amongst themselves about me having a brain injury or some shit. These people thought I was crazy, and the more I sat there without my baby and his mother, I was really about to get crazy.
“I need you slow ass muthafuckas to find my fiancée and my son! They just got released from the hospital today! Check the cameras and ask the hospital. I don’t have no fuckin concussion.
I know exactly what I’m talking about. The only thing I’m confused about is how they got out of that Jeep and where they are right now.
It was a two-car accident. Where is the SUV that hit me?
Did they leave the scene? If y’all don’t have them, somebody does! ” I barked.
Deciding not to wait for a response, I jumped out of the ambulance and walked to the other three ambulance trucks, and looked inside for Harmoni and Cadence, but they were all empty.
I took off and headed back down the street toward the hospital to see if, by chance, someone had taken them there.
As I ran back toward the hospital, I could hear the EMTs calling for me to come back.
They acted as if I was trippin. It was like they weren’t comprehending that my newborn baby and fiancée had disappeared into thin air.
I pulled my cell phone out of my pocket and called Trell. Quickly, I ran down what happened and asked him to grab my pops and then pull up. I ended the call once I made it to the hospital front desk.
“I was picking my son and his mother up today because they were being discharged from the delivery unit. We got into a car accident when we were leaving. Were they brought in? I don’t know where they are.
The accident knocked me out, and when I woke up, they were gone,” I told the receptionist, out of breath.
“What are their names, and do you need medical attention yourself, sir? You look a little bruised up.”
“Harmoni Cole and Cadence Thomas. He was just discharged today. He is only three days old. Do you all have cameras near the highway on the back side of the hospital? I need to know what happened after we were hit and who hit us. They left the scene, and now my family is missing.”
The receptionist made a phone call, then told me to take a seat, and the doctor would be with me.
I called Harmoni’s cell, and it went straight to voicemail.
I tried three more times and got the same results.
After waiting damn near twenty minutes for the doctor, Trell walked into the hospital with my pops directly behind him.
“What’s going on, son? Where are Moni and my grandson?” my dad asked in a shaky tone.
There was nothing this man loved more than Cadence.
He hadn’t stopped talking about him since he was born.
My pops was visibly shaking, and I couldn’t tell him that I had no idea where they had disappeared to.
As he stared into my eyes with a sad look on his face, Trell ran the story down that I had told him over the phone, and my pops instantly started pacing.
“Ain’t no way they just disappeared from the car.
That shit is impossible, son! We passed the Jeep when we pulled into the hospital, and it’s clear that was no accident!
You were ambushed, and they took my fuckin’ grandson!
I know you hit yo’ head pretty hard but be smart about what’s going on around you! ” my pops spat.
Trell and I looked at each other without speaking.
I just knew what my pops said couldn’t be true.
I had faith that when the doctor came out, he would tell me that they had been checked into the hospital and they were alright.
Just as that thought crossed my mind, Harmoni’s number popped up on my phone. I quickly answered.
“Moni, where are you, baby? Are you and Cadence okay?” I answered.
“You couldn’t have thought you could kidnap me and my son, and I wasn’t going to touch yours. I told you that Jakari was a bitch, but I wasn’t going to let that shit slide. I meant that!” a female replied before hanging up in my face.
I sat there frozen and unable to speak as I let that conversation replay in my head.
I needed to be doing something, anything other than what I was doing, but my mind couldn’t grasp what I had just been told.
As I allowed my nervousness to turn into anger, the doctor walked into the waiting room.
Not wanting to believe what I had just heard.
I asked the doctor if Hamoni and Cadence had been in the ER.
He advised me that I needed to call the police and alert them of what happened because they had not been seen.
He begged me to let him check out my injuries, but I didn’t have time for that.
I was about to make bitches’ mommas cry behind mine.
Fuck having a knot on my head. That was the least of my concerns.
I told my pops and Trell to follow me outside, so I could tell them about the phone conversation I had just had.
“Diamond just called my phone telling me that she touched my girl and my son because I snatched her and her son. She said Jakari was a bitch, but she told us that she wasn’t about to let the shit we did slide. This bitch ain’t dead, and she got my son and my muthafuckin’ fiancée!” I spat.
“What? I watched this bitch get slumped. You sure it was her? Did she say what she wanted in exchange? If that hoe ain’t dead, she’s about to be. Hell nah!” Trell said as he rubbed his head.
“I don’t know this Diamond bitch, but she just started some shit that she couldn’t be prepared for!
My grandson? I don’t care what type of shit y’all had going on or street beef.
Cadence should have been left out of it.
Now I’m about to paint this muthafuckin’ city ’til I get him the fuck back!
” my dad barked as he headed toward the car.
I knew this shit was about to get ugly as hell.
Anybody from Jackson, Mississippi, knew not to fuck with Grimy.
His name said it all! He would go to extreme lengths to get what he wanted handled, and now Texas was about to feel his wrath.
I heard so many wild stories, and now I was glad that I would get to see him in action.
If I was going to war about mine, I couldn’t ask for a better team than my pops and Trell.