Chapter 28
Kemi was at home with her sons. They were sound asleep in Lil Sawyer’s room.
She had been in Nashville for the past two years because Shadow flat out refused to allow her to leave with their son.
When Pryce was old enough to talk, he voiced wanting to leave with them.
Promise never disagreed, it was Shadow, and he knew her better than anyone.
Her and Promise had become friends. They were nice-nasty friends but nonetheless, they were friends.
Kemi’s phone rang. She silenced the call for the caller to call back to back.
She walked downstairs to the main floor.
She answered the phone because she knew he wasn’t going to quit calling.
“Open the door, Kay,” the caller demanded.
Kemi pulled up her feed from the front door. Shadow was adamant about not wanting anyone around his sons. However, her lover had pulled up unannounced. She stepped out on the porch, hoping that would be enough for him. The last thing she wanted to do was fight with Shadow.
“So you been lying to me all this time about everything?” He grilled her.
“What are you talking about?” She frowned as if she hadn’t deceived him. He knew nothing about Kemi. He slammed her into the house, causing her to wince in pain. He grabbed a handful of her hair as he got in her face. They were body to body as he grilled her.
“You gon’ keep lying, Kemi?” He called her by her real name, letting her know the jig was up.
“I swear it’s not what you think! I love you, Akio.
I promise, I do, baby. I would never hurt you,” Kemi pleaded.
Akio Wong was the head of The Golden Tiger Syndicate.
Kemi had been hired to kill him but the joke was on her.
She fell for him. She fell so hard, she loved him more than Sawyer Nkosi, which said a lot about her.
Her husband was her world, now she loved someone more than him.
“Now that’s how you feel, bitch, but what about when you made sure we ran into each other at the fight? Bitches like you make it hard for everybody.” His grip on her hair tightened.
“If you know who I really am, now then you know it wasn’t personal. I never went through with it. I love you,” she repeated.
“Or you was just waiting for the right opportunity to present itself.”
She pushed him back but he grabbed her again. Kemi’s secrets were out in the open. Akio was reacting the way she knew he would and rightfully so. She took a job to end his existence.
“If you’re here to kill me, my sons are here. Please don’t do this.” She looked around, weighing her options, which were looking thinner and thinner. There was nowhere for her to run.
“Your sons? You lied about everything… bitch, I can’t believe this shit. My family tried to warn me but I trusted you.”
“So you’re here to kill me?” Kemi asked in disbelief.
“I loved you so much. I wanted you to be my tsuma. Why would you do me like this?” He wrapped his hand around her throat, squeezing.
He spoke in past tense telling her everything she needed to know.
He came to kill her. She couldn’t die in front of Lil Sawyer and Pryce.
Thinking fast, she kicked him in between the legs.
He fell over, giving her a little leeway.
She ran in the house, attempting to lock the door but he quickly wedged his foot inside.
“Akio, please stop! You’re not thinking…
it’s me, please don’t do this. I love…” Kemi’s voice trailed off as he forced his way inside.
She took off running. He followed her, snatching her up once more.
He was hurt. His wife died on him then he met Kim, who was really Kemiya Nkosi.
A hired hit woman with a hit squad behind her.
“Thinking? You know how much I been thinking? I been thinking about every moment I shared with you, bitch, everything I shared with you. You were gon’ kill me?!”
“Akio, I promise I wasn’t! I love you, baby, please listen to me,” she pleaded with tears in her eyes.
If Kemi could rewind the hands of time, she would.
Akio lifted his gun with shaky hands. Kemi had broken him.
He loved her and she spit in his face. He wasn’t thinking straight at all.
The sound of footsteps gained their attention.
Lil Sawyer stepped into the kitchen. He also held a gun that he had aimed at what he believed was an intruder.
“Baby, please go get back in the bed! I’ll be up there in a minute,” Kemi pleaded while he had tunnel vision. He was locked onto Akio, who was focused on Kemi.
“Sawyer?!” Kemi called out but he continued to ignore her. She went to step towards him but Akio grabbed her arm.
Pop, pop, pop
The gun went off so fast, Kemi couldn’t do anything to stop it. Akio collapsed into her arms with blood filling his mouth. Kemi had to spring into action and quickly.
“Give me the gun, baby,” Kemi demanded. Lil Sawyer stared at Akio while allowing his mother to take the smoking gun from his hand.
“Go upstairs to your room. This didn’t happen, son. You can’t tell nobody what happened, do you understand?” Kemi gripped his cheeks. He nodded his head, letting her know he understood what she was saying.
“Go call your dad and wait till he gets here.” Kemi struggled with Akio, who was fading in and out of consciousness.
She got him loaded in the back of her G Wagon.
She locked the kids inside. Then she pulled off, driving like a bat out of hell.
She dialed Shadow while glancing in the back seat at Akio.
She arrived outside of the hospital, blowing her horn nonstop.
She jumped out as hospital staff ran out to assist.
“You’re not going to take my child from me! I moved here I changed my life to accommodate you when I didn’t have to!”
“Kemiya, you’re not going to turn him into you. Lord only knows what you’re teaching both of them,” Shadow said in regard to Lil Sawyer and Pryce.
“Look, we can go round and round about this all day but it’s not going to change anything. I need him to survive. You do, too. If he doesn’t that’s bad news for us, Sawyer.”
“You been sneaky as fuck for as long as I known you, now look at the shit you got us in.”
Kemi didn’t respond, she couldn’t.
“I love him,” she admitted. She hadn’t even told him how she felt until today when he came to kill her.
“What?” Shadow mugged her.
“I do. I can’t help it. He can’t die, Shadow, he just can’t,” Kemi cried.
Shadow couldn’t recall a time where he ever saw her cry.
She loved someone other than him. He was happy for her but he felt a way.
He was her only love for all of her life.
He shared her with his whole family. After he forgave her, he loved their union.
Kemi had added a man to the mix, not a man that was trustworthy but a man that her son felt like he had to protect her from.
He was irritated but he pulled her into his arms, holding her for the longest without any words being spoken.
Promise rushed into the waiting room, seeing them hugged up.
She half-smiled; it had been a long time coming.
Kemi and Shadow had an unspoken beef that they didn’t talk about or try to fix.
Kemi looked up, locking eyes with Promise.
She reached her arms out. Promise walked up behind Shadow, hugging them both.
Shadow looked over his shoulder at Promise.
The doors opened and the doctors walked out.
“I stitched him up one of the bullets nicked an artery. I went to check on him and he was gone,” the doctor revealed, making Kemi’s ears perk up. She pulled away from them as she turned her back to Shadow.
“He’s gone?” Kemi frowned in disbelief. He was just bleeding out in her backseat, how could he be gone? Kemi walked away. She stepped outside and Shadow and Promise followed her out.
“What happened?”
“She was fucking on some nigga she was supposed to kill and he found out. He came to kill her while the kids were there. Sawyer shot him,” Shadow revealed, and Promise covered her mouth with her hands.
“I have to go tell the kids I love them.” Kemi got in her truck, sighing. She looked in the rearview mirror and jumped out of her skin.
“Drive.” Akio tossed his phone in the front seat. She grabbed it, looking at the GPS. She put her truck in drive. She pulled away with her mind running a mile a minute.
“Don’t think about doing no stupid shit.” He groaned as pain radiated throughout his body.
“Baby, they were trying to keep you overnight. Maybe we should go back to make sure you’re okay, please.”
“Drive, Kim, or whatever the fuck your name is!” He angrily spat.
“It’s Kemiya Nkosi. I’m the leader of The Purple Onyx. I have a son, the one who shot you. He just turned eight. My husband has a son that stays with me sometimes. I faked my death almost eight years ago. He got married while he thought I was dead—“
“I don’t give a fuck about none of that shit.” He grilled her as he looked at her through the rearview mirror with pain all over his face.
“I’m pregnant,” she revealed as they approached their destination. They arrived outside of an abandoned warehouse. The door lifted on the warehouse.
“Drive, why you telling me? You, your husband, and his wife looked comfortable to me.” He saw them in the waiting room.
“They were comforting me because I thought you were going to die. You know what, Akio, I get it you’re mad but if I wanted to kill you, I would have killed you when we left the fight that night instead of fucking your brains out.
We have been together for weeks at a time, I don’t want you dead, baby.
Please don’t do this, I need you.” She looked back at him as men surrounded her truck.
Hiroshi Wong walked to the truck. Kemi didn’t fear anyone but she knew firsthand how dangerous the Wongs were.
“He’s the one who hired me,” Kemi admitted.
“Lies.” Akio didn’t believe her.
“If we get out, he’s going to kill us both.” She looked back at Akio, hoping he listened to what she was saying. “Listen to me for once, Akio, damn!”
“Go,” he demanded.
Kemi put the truck in reverse. She slammed her foot on the gas. With the tires screeching, she turned around on two wheels, speeding out the same way she came in. Bullets hit her truck as men pursued them.
“Fuck! I can’t believe this shit!” Akio hit the back of her seat.
Kemi drove and drove until they were at one of her many safe houses.
She parked in the garage. She jumped out, opening the back door for him.
He tossed his arm over her shoulder as she helped him inside.
They headed for the stairs. She led him to her bedroom.
She laid him on the loveseat. She walked into the bathroom, filling the oval sized tub with hot water.
She opened the medicine cabinet. Then she grabbed a Percocet and filled a cup with water.
“Here.” She put the pill in his hand. He looked at it as if he was examining it.
“Take it or don’t, you’re the one hurting not me.” She untied his shoes while he shot daggers at her. She grabbed his belt buckle as he put the pill in his mouth. He turned the cup up till the water was gone.
“Are you okay? Or should I call the doctor here?” She pulled down his pants along with his briefs. She pushed the hospital gown opened. Lil Sawyer had shot him twice. Once in the arm and in the shoulder, where he had stitches to stop the bleeding.
“No, if I die that’s on you and your brat. Why the fuck he know how to shoot a gun in the first place?”
She smacked her lips but it was the truth. Her son had shot him. She pulled him up, leading him to the bathroom.
“He just learned how to shoot. Maybe I shouldn’t have taught him but I did. Did you hear what I said?” She asked as he climbed in the tub. She pulled up a chair, sitting beside him.
“He did what any son what do when their mother is in trouble. I ain’t tripping. What I am tripping about is you lying to me. You know my father hates you and doesn’t want me to have no dealings with you. You know why and still didn’t say anything.”
“Because I had the situation under control or at least I thought I did. He kept asking what was taking so long but the more time I spent with you, I couldn’t go through with it.
I do love you.” She leaned into his face, kissing his lips.
He pulled her into the water, fully dressed in the white tube dress she was wearing.
“I love you, too, but I don’t know if we can get past this. I’ll never be able to trust you again.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t know how to tell you. I should’ve.”