2. Head Shots #2
“I checked on them.” Brenda nodded. “Toni and I brought them back here. She’s upstairs now in your old room with them.
I don’t know how much this means to you, Bezai, or if it can redeem anything between us, but I didn’t know.
” Her voice cracked before she took a breath and lifted her chin.
“I swear I didn’t know. I’ve been weak. A poor excuse for a mother…
but… I would never… ever sit back and allow anyone to rob you or your brother of your life.
I made excuses a long time for a man I thought I knew. It had to be me.”
Bull ran his hand over his locs and sighed before looking over his shoulder at Eazy.
Giving a half shrug, he was clearly leaving this in his hands as he went to inspect Braxton’s body.
Bull wasn’t sure what to do with any of this.
Pinching the bridge of his nose and swiping his hand down his face, he stepped closer to his mother.
The last thing she expected was for him to pull her into a hug.
So, when he offered the gesture, she went timid before crumbling in his arms. The silent weeping knotted Bull’s entire stomach.
This was the first time he’d ever witnessed this kind of vulnerability from his mother, and nothing about it was fake or rehearsed.
Once she let it all out, she pushed away from Bull and swiped the tears from her eyes.
“Go. Go check on Toni and the kids,” she encouraged. “They are… beautiful, by the way. I get it now. What you did for Bronx. I see him all in that little Breeze’s face. You were always your brother’s keeper. Right or wrong.”
Bull turned to Eazy.
“Call Acid. Take care of this,” he instructed.
“No problem. Brenda, go get cleaned up and bring me your clothes.”
Bull started up the large staircase to his room.
He listened to the light humming as he neared the door and gently pressed it open.
Toni lay in his old king sized bed, a child on each side of her, humming ‘this little light of mine’ and stroking both of their heads.
Bull took a moment to appreciate the fact that they were even alive.
Sensing his presence, her warm doe eyes darted to his, and Toni practically leaped from the bed.
“Oh, my God, Bull!” The minute she was within a foot of him, her arms fell around him.
“You okay?” he asked, pulling her into him with his hands on her hips.
Nudging back, he examined her face. Other than looking weary, she seemed fine, but he peeped her red and swollen hand.
“Yeah.” Tony winced when he touched her knuckles then peered into her eyes.
“What happened?”
“My fist met Chai’s face,” Toni declared.
“Chai?”
“Yeah. Don’t ask me what that was about.
I was just as shocked as you are right now?
I didn’t think we were going to make it out of there.
Then the door opened and… there was Brenda.
I was skeptical at first, but… I don’t know.
Something in her eyes was different. Sincere.
I just wanted to get me and the kids out of that room. ”
“How are they?” Bull stepped past her to examine Jou Jou and Breeze.
“A little groggy, but I think they’re fine. Your mom called a friend of hers who used to be a nurse. She said it sounded like they just had a mild sedative. They’re breathing normally. If they don’t wake in a couple of hours, she wants us to have them checked out.”
“This is fucking crazy. How the hell this happen?”
“I don’t know. I guess Chai was watching us. She had to be working with your father. Brenda said he wouldn’t be a problem anymore.”
Bull leaned over to kiss his babies on top of their heads before approaching his wife again.
Low, red eyes, it was clear she was exhausted and still very much traumatized from today.
He reached up to cup her cheek and swept his thumb across her lips before stealing a kiss.
Stunned, Toni clung to him, kissing him back lazily until he pulled away and scanned her face for memory.
“I love you.”
“I love you too.”
“Get some rest. I’ll be downstairs taking care of some shit if you need me—”
“Bezai—”
“T, soon as I’m done, I’m right next to you, aight. You’re good here. Take a shower. There should be something for you to change into in one of those drawers.” He ran his fingers through her hair before pecking her lips one last time.
Moments later he stopped in the doorway downstairs of his father’s office. Nothing looked disturbed. Satisfied with his inspection, Bull traipsed thorugh the hall until he reached the kitchen.
“Thanks, Acid.” He slid his associate five stacks of ten thousand bands across the island in his parent’s home.
Right out of Braxton’s person safe. The irony that he was paying for his own body to disappear hadn’t escaped Bull. Eazy stood across the counter, a bottle of tequila in front of him as he rolled a blunt and watched the exchange.
“No problem.” His disfigured hands reached for the cash and stacked them on top of one another before sliding them into a black laptop bag he slung over his shoulder.
Acid was burned severely in a bad car accident when he was only twelve years old.
Part of him was slightly burned across multiple layers of his body.
He’d been obsessed with anything flammable ever since.
His physical scars didn’t keep him from anything.
though, and once you got to know him, you saw past all that.
Most of his face was fine; he just had a few flesh burns under his chin and across one of his cheeks.
The nigga still dressed in nothing but custom threads, rocked jewelry that cost a motherfucker’s entire life, and fucked hella bad bitches regularly.
A bitch couldn’t even call him ugly, he was simply disfigured.
“You know the number.” He chucked his chin at Bull and Easy on his way out.
Eazy slid the bottle across the counter. He looked like he needed it as he leaned on his arms across the counter and let his head droop.
“You believe this shit?” Bull queried, dragging his hands through his locs and standing.
“Yo, Brenda a savage.” Eazy licked his blunt closed. “Who knew she had that shit in her?”
“I did.” Bull picked up the bottle and popped the cork. “It was only a matter of time. She’s held in too much for too long.” He swallowed the liquor, took a breath, and gulped another shot. “Knowing what he did, she snapped.”
“So, what’s the story?”
“As far as anybody knows, Braxton disappeared. We ain’t going through no funeral bullshit.
He’s got people after him, so it’s believable.
We know he won’t be in touch, so Brenda should be in the clear.
” Bull frowned as something came to him.
“Back to that shit you told me at the office. You said Oracle’s walking? And he was with Niva?”
“Pssh. Shit is crazy.” Shaking his head, Eazy used his lighter to dry his blunt. “Swear to God I thought I was losing my shit.”
“Oracle been moving different since Bronx got hit. How we know he was really even fucking paralyzed since he never came around?”
“I don’t know.” Eazy brought the blunt to his lips. “He wants to link, though. You down?”
“Call Jewel. He needs to be there too.”
“You call him.” Eazy sparked his blunt and took a pull. “I ain’t fucking with him right now.”
“The fuck you do now?” Bull sighed.
“I told him I was checking on Lotus earlier. Nigga got all tight and shit. I ain’t got time to be explaining shit.”
“Nigga, that’s his sister. The fuck?” Bull’s face shifted into a grimace.
“She grown as a muhfucka, bro. And…” Eazy took a minute and exhaled a cloud of smoke, “she’s pregnant.”
Bull choked on his next shot, and some of the liquor spewed from his mouth. He coughed and beat on his chest a few times as he caught his breath.
“You serious?”
“Yeah, man. Just found out today. She keeping it too. We ’bout to give this shit a go. I don’t know how it’s gon’ work—”
“Jewel gon’ kick yo’ ass.” Bull tittered, straightening up when his mother quietly strut into the room.
He pushed himself off the counter, and Brenda paused at his side. With her hands resting on the granite top, she studied the engagement ring Braxton upgraded for her about five years ago. Over twenty-five years together was now gone.