3. Deuce
DEUCE
Ihated feeling cornered. That was probably the one thing about me that never changed no matter how much money I made, no matter how much power I built, no matter how untouchable people thought I was. I needed control. I needed to know every angle and every move, and every outcome.
Lately shit had been slipping through my fingers faster than I could grab it.
I walked out of the fertility clinic with my jaw tight, keys spinning around my finger while Shante stormed ahead of me toward her car mad as hell.
Can’t even say I blamed her either. I leaned against my truck for a second, watching her snatch her door open with an attitude.
The truth was I did put her in a real fucked up situation. And unlike everybody else in my life, Shante ain’t deserve it. That was my baby sister. The only person that stayed solid with me before the money, before the trucks, before the jewelry, before all this shit got complicated.
Back when we were sharing noodles and sleeping in apartments with lights that barely worked, I looked out for her my whole life. I had to because wasn’t nobody else doing it. So now, seeing her stressed, crying, carrying all this weight because of me had me feeling some type of way.
But what choice did I really have? Kim wasn’t backing down and wanted a baby even though she couldn’t carry one.
That was the only thing I could come up with.
I didn’t trust anybody else to do it. You read about them famous muthafuckas paying somebody to carry a baby for them why can’t I. It ain’t like I didn’t have the money.
Prison was never an option for me, and that’s exactly where I would end up if this shit didn’t work.
I unlocked my truck and climbed inside, gripping the steering wheel for a second before starting it up.
The second the engine roared to life, my phone lit up through the Bluetooth.
It was Alisha… I stared at the screen for a moment before answering. “What’s up?” I said.
“You busy?” she asked immediately.
Lately every conversation with her felt like an interrogation question after question. “I’m working,” I replied, pulling out of the parking lot.
“You always working.”
I sighed quietly, here we go. “What’s wrong now, Alisha?”
“Nothing,” she said quickly.
Then silence, I knew what that meant. She was thinking and analyzing trying to put pieces together. One thing about my wife is that she paid attention, too much attention sometimes.
“You still acting weird,” she finally said.
I rubbed my jaw; eyes focused on the road. “I told you already, I got a lot going on.”
“You keep saying that, but you won’t tell me what it is.”
I couldn’t tell her what was going on, how the hell was I supposed to explain any of this? “Oh yeah, baby, my side bitch is threatening to send me to prison unless I give her a child, so now my sister carrying our baby.” Yeah fucking right. “It’s business,” I repeated.
“That ain’t an answer.”
“It’s the only one you're getting.”
I already knew she ain’t like that response, but honestly, I was getting tired of the questions too.
Not because she was wrong but because I was already juggling too much.
The FBI pressure, Kim losing her damn mind and Shante feeling guilty.
Now Alisha was sniffing around, and everybody was pulling at me at once.
“You know what?” Alisha said finally. “Forget it.” Then the line went dead.
I stared at the screen for a second before tossing the phone onto the passenger seat.
Damn, I pressed harder on the gas. As much as I hated admitting it, shit was starting to spiral out of my control.
All this shit started over one drunk night that should’ve never happened.
I met Kim at a lounge downtown, it was supposed to be a business meeting, that was all it was supposed to be.
She walked in wearing this tight black dress with legs for days and confidence dripping off her like perfume.
She was brown skinned with a nice body and long hair with the most beautiful brown eyes.
She was the type of woman that knew exactly what effect she had on men, and she used that shit to her advantage.
I remember her sitting across from me smiling slowly while she talked, looking at me like she already knew what I was capable of, after a few drinks, boundaries got blurry.
One night turned into another and then another.
And before I knew it, I was hooked. Straight up addicted to her.
It wasn’t even just about the sex either although Kim was different in that department always down for whatever.
She knew how to make a man feel wanted and needed.
After a while, I stopped pretending it was just physical, because somewhere along the way I caught feelings too. That was the part I never planned for. Alisha gave me peace and so did Kim in her own little way. Having both of them for a while worked, or at least, I thought it did.
I really believed I could separate those worlds. Keep Kim over here and keep my wife over there. Handle both situations without them ever touching. But feelings complicate everything, especially a woman’s feelings.
The miscarriages changed Kim. At first, she was just emotional, crying and clingy and needing reassurance. Then she started getting possessive and asking questions about Alisha and wanting more time and attention.
“You go home to her every night,” she snapped one night after her second miscarriage. “You give HER everything.”
I remember standing there trying to calm her down while she paced around my penthouse in one of my shirts. “You knew what this was,” I told her. “No,” she said, tears running down her face. “I thought eventually you’d love me enough to choose me.”
That was the problem, I did love her just not enough to leave my wife.
Alisha was my foundation, the mother of my child.
I meant every vow I made to her till death do us part.
I never planned on walking away from that.
Kim couldn’t accept it after losing those babies, not after seeing the life Alisha had.
She had the ring, the house and stability.
When she realized I wasn’t giving it to her. That’s when the threats started.
“You owe me,” she told me during one of our arguments. “After everything I lost for you.”
I tried to reason with her by buying her whatever she wanted, trips, jewelry and clothes. But none of that mattered anymore. Kim ain’t want gifts, she wanted permanence. The shit nobody could take away from her.
And now here I was, risking everything trying to keep all my worlds from colliding. I pulled up to a red light, gripping the wheel tighter as I exhaled slowly. No matter how much I tried controlling this situation it kept getting even more toxic.
And the one person I couldn’t afford to lose was already starting to notice the cracks; my wife wasn’t stupid, not even close.
If she ever found out the truth everything I built would come crashing down not just my marriage but everything.
For the first time in a long time, I honestly didn’t know if I could stop it.
The light turned green, but I barely noticed. My mind was somewhere else completely. Too much shit moving at once, too many people were attached to one mistake. None of this would’ve happened if I had listened to my instincts the first time I met Kim.
From the jump something about her felt too off. She was too interested in what I had going on. Hell, she really didn’t know shit about guns. I didn’t think much about it as long as the money was right, I didn’t give a damn what she did with the shit afterwards.
All money ain’t good money and now the Feds was breathing down my neck because of it.
My trucking company looked legit on paper.
Hell, it was legit for the most part. I had drivers with routes across state lines.
I had import contracts and warehouse distribution.
Everything was legit enough to pass inspections. That’s what made it the perfect cover.
While everybody else saw eighteen wheelers moving freight, I saw opportunity.
Illegal guns moving quietly through shipments without raising suspicion.
Nobody questioned trucks when paperwork looked right, and mine always looked right.
That’s why business boomed, everybody ate, and for years nobody touched me.
Until the Feds started circling. At first, it was small things like random inspections and delayed shipments.
Questions from people who usually minded their business.
Then I started noticing unfamiliar cars sitting too long outside the warehouse.
Routes were getting watched. That’s when I knew somebody was building a case.
Then Kim happened or maybe she was already happening before I realized it. That part still pissed me off. Because I prided myself on reading people and somehow, I ain’t read her fast enough.
When I first met her, she played her role perfectly.
Soft voice, pretty smile and good energy.
It was like she just happened to cross paths with me.
Now I know better that shit was strategic and calculated.
I didn’t find out who her father was until months later.
And when I did, I damn near lost my mind.
“Agent Brown?” I repeated, staring at her across my penthouse.
She stood there nervous as hell, twisting her fingers together. “I was going to tell you,” she said quietly.
“Tell me what?” I snapped. “That your daddy the fucking FBI?”
She flinched when I raised my voice. But I didn’t give a fuck everything started making sense. The questions and the timing. The way she inserted herself into my life so easily. “You set me up?” I asked her.
And I still remember how fast tears filled her eyes. “No!” she cried. “It wasn’t supposed to happen like this.”
That’s when I should’ve known I was fucked.
She admitted her father used her. Not officially, no wiretap movie type shit, but Agent Brown knew exactly what he was doing letting his daughter get close to certain men.
Especially men with money and power with street ties.
He knew men talked too much around beautiful women, and Kim knew how to listen.
At first, she claimed to have fed him little information enough to help him connect the dots, but then she said she started falling for me. Claimed she stopped telling him things and that she was protecting me and stupidly enough I believed her. Maybe because by then I was already attached.
“You gotta trust me,” she told me that night, grabbing my face while tears ran down hers. “I love you.”
I believed that too and still do, in her own twisted way.
That’s what made this whole situation fucked up.
Love makes people irrational and possessive, and desperate.
Kim had become all three. I needed gas so I pulled into a gas station and killed the engine, rubbing both hands down my face slowly.
If I was keeping it real with myself, the moment she told me who she really was I should’ve cut her off completely.
A smarter man probably would’ve killed her. That’s how serious this shit was. A woman connected to the FBI knowing details about my operation that alone could’ve buried me. But I couldn’t hurt her no matter how mad I got.
Every time I looked at her, I saw more than a problem. I saw the woman I fell for and Kim knew it too. She knew exactly how deep she was in my head.
“I would never betray you,” she whispered to me one night after we argued about her father. We were laying in bed, her head on my chest while she traced circles on my stomach. “My dad don’t control me,” she said softly. “I choose you.”
I remember kissing her forehead, wanting to believe every word. Now she was singing a completely different tune.
“If you leave me with nothing again, I swear I’ll tell him everything,” she told me during our last argument.
And I knew she meant that it wasn’t an emotional threat anymore it was survival. Kim was tired of feeling second place. Tired of miscarrying babies while my wife got the family she wanted. Tired of waiting on promises I never intended to fulfill.
I couldn’t even fully blame her because I created this situation. Fed it and watered it let it grow bigger than it should’ve ever gotten. Now Agent Brown was watching every move I made. Every shipment, every transaction. Every truck crossing state lines and if Kim opened her mouth, it was over.
Not just for me either, everybody tied to my operation would go down.
Drivers, warehouse workers, there were people counting on me.
People fed their families because of me, that’s what made this shit bigger than cheating.
Bigger than secrets, bigger than relationships.
I leaned my head back against the seat and closed my eyes briefly.
Because somewhere between loving my wife and falling for my side bitch and trying to outrun the Feds I lost control of everything.
I hopped out of the truck and went into the gas station so that I could pay for my gas. My mind was all over the place a nigga was stressed the hell out. One thing about me I don’t deal with stress well, I’m liable to go postal on muthafuckas.