20. Darius
When I said the past two weeks had been crazy, I wasn’t exaggerating.
After four days on life support, Bree improved enough to be taken off.
She was conscious and breathing on her own, but she was fucked up.
There had been minor swelling on her brain, her left hand was broke, her right foot was broke, two of her ribs were broken, her right lung had collapsed, and she had a grotesque cut that started at her temple and ended at the corner of her mouth.
She could barely speak and even when she was on strong pain medication, if anyone even touched her, she’d scream and cry.
I’d only gone to see her twice. Seeing her like that wasn’t easy, but I did want to at least keep a check on her.
No matter what had transpired between us, she was Dymand’s mother.
I let all the threats and dumb shit go, but my main focus was Dymand, school, and getting money.
Bree’s family and friends were there for her, and I felt like that was who needed to be there.
Vani had stepped up to the plate a lot and was helping me with Bree.
Shit, when a nigga was dead tired or ripping and running, she did my homework a few times for me.
I was stretched real thin. Thin as fuck, but she was holding me down, and I appreciated it.
Dymand was very young, and I didn’t think her seeing her mother looking the way she was looking would traumatize her too badly, but I at least wanted Bree awake and alert before Dymand went to see her.
Bree’s mother was going to pick Dymand up from daycare and keep her for two days since she’d been with me since Bree’s accident.
While Bree was healing, I wanted primary custody of my daughter, but I could definitely use a short break.
She was in daycare, and Vani helped, but I didn’t want the load to be on Vani.
Dymand was mine, and I wanted to be the one doing the most for her.
I was meeting Mya’s dumb ass to get the money she had for me from the insurance money she got from the fire.
Her Maybach had been wrapped, the VIN had been scratched, and I sold that muhfucka to a guy in Virginia for $160,000.
Mario didn’t have anything worth taking, so it was all on Mya.
I arrived at the designated meeting spot which was a Starbucks.
Energy was for sure something I needed, so I ordered an expresso while I waited.
Just as I was growing impatient, Mya parked beside me in a white Camry.
I wasn’t sure if it was her car, but it was a far cry from a Maybach.
Her beloved house was gone. The car she liked to stunt in, gone.
The $10,000 a month I was giving her, gone.
If Mya didn’t feel like the dumbest person walking the streets, then something was wrong.
She emerged from the car with bags underneath her eyes.
Shorty’s shoulders were slumped, and she appeared exhausted.
I gave no fucks. I was about to be out of the game.
All she had to do was be solid for a few more months, and we could have parted ways on good terms. She’d still have her car, house, and dignity.
She let a bum get in her ear, and he caused her to lose everything she had.
Mya was dressed in white sweats, and a wrinkled, baggy, white Nike shirt. Stray hairs from her messy ponytail blew slightly as a breeze eased by. When she approached the car, I rolled the window down.
“Damn shorty. You look like you’re going through it.”
Mya cut her eyes at me and if I didn’t know any better, I’d say she wanted to slap the taste out of my mouth.
That made me laugh. I laughed to the point where her brows furrowed.
Mya was no doubt confused about what I found funny.
If she had the audacity to be mad, then the dumb bitch could put on a cape and be super mad. Fuck was she mad for?
“You looking like you got something to say.” The laughter stopped immediately, and my eyes bore into her face. “Get it off your chest.” I was serious as a heart attack. If at any time she felt like she wanted to try me, I’d put her miserable ass in the dirt.
“Here’s your money,” she extended the envelope she was holding through the open window. “That’s $100,000.”
“How much you get for the house?” I inquired.
“A little over $200,000,” she mumbled in a tone that was barely audible. Her body weight shifted, and I could tell she was nervous that I was going to demand that she give it to me.
“Even if you don’t deserve it. I have a heart. Since I got some bread for the car, you can keep the rest of the money, but on my mama, I should take that shit just because. Get the fuck out my face,” I snarled. Lowkey, I was kind of pissed with myself for extending her any kind of grace.
Mya turned and walked off faster than a crackhead going to find a stem to smoke out of.
After placing the gear in drive, I pulled out of the parking space that I had backed into.
I wasn’t getting any more coke. The money I got from Mya’s house and her car were going in my stash.
Along with what I already had, it would hold me over until I was out of college and working for Kyle.
I ran inside the house and put the money away.
As soon as that was done, I headed back out to the car, so I could run and pick up some money that was owed to me, and I would be officially done with all things related to selling drugs.
There was no doubt in my mind that I would miss the fast money.
There was no money like dope money. It was time to put that shit to rest though.
My eyes drifted toward the sky because even though I wasn’t the most religious person in the world, I could admit that God had spared me many times.
The fact that Vani had been to prison and I hadn’t was mind blowing to me.
A car pulled up in front of my crib, and my eyes narrowed as I took in the black Honda.
I didn’t know anybody with a black Honda, and I damn sure didn’t have any company ever stop by that had a black Honda.
I decided not to react too soon because I lived in a nice quiet neighborhood full of upper-class Black people, White, Indian, Asian, African.
Gunshots and gangsta shit weren’t the norm in my neighborhood.
I was always surprised when I walked outside and smelled weed, but marijuana was Universal.
Everyone from teens to senior citizens smoked weed.
One of my college professors stopped me one day after class and asked me where he could get some of what I had because he could tell one day when he walked by my car that I had the good shit.
I turned him on to my plug, and we’d been cool ever since.
And he was a thirty-three-year-old white man from Ohio.
Maybe whoever was inside the car had the wrong address.
I stood there staring and just when I decided to walk up to the car and see what was good since the tinted windows were keeping me from peering inside, the passenger door opened.
My vision was 20/20 so even from a distance, there was no missing Mario’s gruesome face.
The majority of the skin was badly scarred.
There was one small area on the right side that appeared untouched.
Nigga looked like something out of a horror movie.
I had spent so much time calling Mya dumb, and I had been so preoccupied with all that I had going on, it never dawned on me that she hadn’t learned her lesson.
That fuck nigga followed me. I had to chuckle at my damn self even though there wasn’t one thing funny.
My burner was in the car, so I made a dash for it, but Mario already had his gun drawn and aimed in my direction.
I ducked as a loud pop pierced the air. From a crouched position on the ground, I reached for the handle to try and open the door, and a searing pain ripped through my back.
The pain was so brutal, it dropped me. I couldn’t move.
I couldn’t feel shit. I was on my side, and Mario used his foot to push my body over, so that I was on my back.
He looked down at me with a snarl on his ugly ass face.
“You should have killed me pussy.”
Before he could pull the trigger, another deafening shot sounded off, and his body fell almost instantly. He landed beside me with a thud, and all I could hear before I blacked out was my lady screaming.