2. Clover
2
Clover
“ C lo!”
My eyes fluttered open at the sound of my name being called. After blinking a few times, I saw my mom and Charm standing there. What day was it? Had I slept through Armageddon? When did I even go to sleep? The last thing I remembered was crying so hard that I threw up.
“Girl, you’re literally laying in your own vomit,” Charm wrinkled her nose and slowly rolled me away from my pillow.
“What?” I wiped the side of my face and realized it was indeed vomit I was laying in. “Oh my God. That’s gross.”
“Yeah, sweetie, c’mon. It’s two in the afternoon. Let’s get you up and showered and dressed,” my mom encouraged with a genuine smile.
Peering up at her, I was so grateful my mom survived her gunshot wounds. She had taken one to the arm and one to her shoulder. The one to her shoulder was a little trickier because it got lodged near a major nerve. Luckily, she had some amazing doctors with the steadiest hands who were able to get the bullet out without causing any damage. She could’ve been laid up in a hospital bed just like Ri and Vin but thank God she wasn’t.
My father was beyond pissed that my mom got caught up in a shooting that had nothing to do with her. He was ready to call his dogs in from Mexico and do some damage, but my mom talked him off that cliff. With us having no definite answers on who did it in the first place, it would’ve been pointless for him to do all of that. It was bad enough Lake was killing everything moving.
“It’s two?” I groaned, sluggishly sitting up. “I can’t believe I slept this long.”
“Baby, you’re running yourself ragged going to that hospital every day.”
“Mom, can I help her get to the shower while you clean up the throw-up?” Charm’s face remained frowned up. “I just…can’t do the vomit. That’s nasty.”
“I’ll clean it up, don’t worry about it,” I told her, throwing the blanket off me and sitting up.
While they went back and forth about who was going to do what for me, I got up on my feet and carried myself into the bathroom. My head was throbbing, and I knew that was due to my lack of keeping any food down and crying for hours last night. I looked fuckin’ horrible , and I had to do something about that. I couldn’t look a mess whenever Vinny woke up.
“Clover, we’ll be downstairs waiting for you,” my mom called through the bathroom door.
“Okay.”
I didn’t have the energy nor the mental capacity to figure out why they were there or what they wanted. I was mad that I had slept that late because typically, I was at the hospital from nine in the morning until seven at night. By me sleeping so late, I’d just wasted so many precious visiting hours.
Quickly taking care of my hygiene, I threw on a gray Nike tech suit along with my gray Jordan 4’s. Ripping all of the bedding from my bed, I tossed everything down the stairs and then placed the soiled pillow in a trash bag. Taking my phone off the charger, I saw why Charm and my mother were there. They both had been calling me since ten. Slipping my phone in my pocket, I made my way downstairs and drug the bedding to the laundry room. Once I got that started in the washer, I found my parents and Charm in my dining room.
“Y’all, I really have to get going to the hospital,” I grabbed my keys from the counter while looking at them. “Are y’all riding with me?”
“Clover,” my father stood in front of me. “Baby girl, maybe you need to take a day off from the hospital. You’ve been there every day for the last three weeks, and—”
“So?” I looked at him like he was crazy. “That’s my husband . I refuse to leave him there any day without hearing my voice. He needs to know I’m there for him.”
“And he does, Clo, but you’ve been neglecting yourself in the process. Let us take you out to eat, get your nails done, or something,” my mom offered with a sympathetic expression.
“I’ll do all of that when he’s out of the hospital,” I picked up my black Armani coat and slipped it on. “Can y’all make sure y’all lock up the house?”
The look in their eyes told me they were worried, but they had nothing to worry about. I was doing my best to take care of myself, but some days, I did feel like I was losing my mind. Walking out my front door, I hurried to the truck that was parked on the street and got in the back.
“Hey, y’all,” I spoke to Monty and Jason.
“Good afternoon, Mrs. Pierre,” they spoke in unison. “To the hospital?” Monty looked in the rearview mirror at me.
I strapped myself in with the seatbelt. “Can we stop at Chick-fil-a first? Ima try to eat some nuggets and hope this baby lets me keep it down.”
“You got it,” he pulled away from the curb.
Feeling my phone vibrate, I pulled it out of my pocket to see DaVinci’s lawyer calling me. We hadn’t spoken since the day after DaVinci and I got married, so I was surprised that he was calling me now. The only reason we spoke then was because that was the day DaVinci granted me power of attorney and updated his will. He really had no reason to be calling me.
“Mm, hello?” I answered in a curious tone.
“Hey, Mrs. Pierre, this is Jon Epps.”
“Yeah, I have your number saved. What can I do for you?”
He cleared his throat a few times. “I’m giving you a courtesy call because I work for everyone in the Pierre family. Tonya is trying to get your POA overturned as well as Lake’s. She wants to assume POA over both DaVinci and River.”
“I’m not surprised. She mentioned it yesterday that she would get you involved.”
“Right. I want you to understand that the POA is a legally binding document that I will not alter. I respect DaVinci too much to do that.”
“Okayyyy…” I exaggerated, sensing there was more he wanted to say.
“ I respect DaVinci too much but that doesn’t mean everyone will. A judge, for the right fee, can revoke your POA, Mrs. Pierre.”
“What?” I set straight up as I became filled with panic. “S-she can’t do that…right?”
“She can if she finds a judge who favors her more than DaVinci or River. You know like I do that the Pierres can get things done whether it’s legal or not. As much as I hate to admit it, she very well could have that POA revoked by the end of today.”
“She’s trying to kill him. I-I can’t let that happen. She wants to pull him off life support,” I started to tear up at just the thought. “How can I fight this?”
“If a judge revokes it, there may not be a whole lot you can do right away. You’d have to appeal to a higher court to get it turned over again. And that can take a while.”
“Oh my God,” I hung up because I didn’t want to hear shit else. “Monty, go straight to the hospital. Fuck!” I called Lake next, but he didn’t pick up.
“Is everything okay?” J turned slightly to look at me.
I wiped my tears and shook my head. “I’ll know once I get to the hospital. I may have to kill my own damn mother-in-law,” glancing down, I saw that Lake was calling me back. “Where are you?”
“Handling some business. You straight? You sound upset.”
“Your mom is trying to get the POA for Vin and Ri revoked, Lake. She wants to make herself POA so that she can take them off life support,” I sobbed, feeling like the walls were closing in. “She’s…trying…to fuckin’…kill them! W-w-why is she doing thisssss?!”
“Ah shit. Hold on, let me call her and Ima call you right back,” he hastily ended the call.
Sitting in the back of the car, I felt sick to my stomach at the thought of Vin or River being pulled off life support. The more I thought about it, the more it seemed like Tonya probably did have something to do with the shooting. There was no way she was going this hard to try and end their lives if she wasn’t responsible for trying to end it in the first place. It was as if she was finishing what she started. I had no hard proof of that, but my gut was rarely ever wrong.
When we pulled up to the hospital twenty minutes later, I barely allowed Monty to put the bitch in park before I got out. Jason was right behind me as I skirted inside and over to the elevator. It was cold as fuck, but I was sweating bullets while waiting for the elevator to come down.
“C’mon, c’mon!” I frantically paced, considering taking the stairs.
The elevator dinged, and we rushed inside of it. Mashing the button to his floor, I started chewing on my lip. My nerves were getting the best of me. If I didn’t find my husband still connected to all of the machines he needed, there was gonna be hell to pay. The second the doors open, I sprinted off and straight to DaVinci’s room.
Gasping loudly, I covered my mouth when I saw he wasn’t hooked up to shit but oxygen.
“Mrs. Pierre,” his doctor, Dr. Ofei, smiled at me.
“What the fuck is wrong with you?! Why did you take him off of life support?!”
“His mother came in this morning with POA forms and asked that we take him off.”
Releasing a guttural scream, I started swinging on the doctor. “How dare you! How fuckin’ dare you!”
Jason snatched me up but that didn’t stop me from swinging. I was angry, I was hurt, and I was broken . I never knew it was possible for me to hate a person as much as I hated Tonya in this very moment. I wanted to strangle her until her eyes popped out of her head.
“I tried calling you earlier with an update,” Dr. Ofei adjusted his white coat, clearly perplexed by my sudden outburst. “She requested that he be removed from life support, but he started breathing on his own.”
My body immediately went rigid, and I froze in Jason’s arms. “W-w-what?”
“His oxygen level isn’t exactly where I want it to be, hence the oxygen mask, but other than that, Mr. Pierre is fully breathing on his own. We just have to wait for him to come around and open his eyes.”
“I thought he died,” I cried, blowing out a deep sigh of relief. “Oh my God, I’m so sorry, Dr. Ofei, for hitting you. Wait! What about River?”
“Same case. She is breathing on her own. Her oxygen levels are a little better than his, but they both have miraculously pulled through.”
“Thank you God, thank you God, thank you God!” I bawled my eyes out.
My body ran through so many emotions in such a short amount of time that I wanted to throw up. The only thing that was keeping me from doing so was the happiness I felt knowing that they were both breathing on their own. God never said the weapons wouldn’t form, but he definitely said they wouldn’t prosper…and Tonya wasn’t prospering whatsoever. Her plan had failed miserably, but she was gon’ have to answer to me for this shit.
“Where is she? Their mother?” I asked, stepping out of Jason’s grasp once I calmed down.
“I’m…not sure actually. Once I took them off life support, she left. Said it was too much for her to handle, but she didn’t make it clear where she was going.”
“Mm,” I nodded slowly and sniffled. “Interesting. Again, Dr. O, I am so sorry for hitting you. Their mother went behind my back and did some sneaky shit. I thought my husband was dead, and—”
“I understand. You’re a loving wife, a blind man can see that. Luckily, you didn’t hit me too hard,” he winked and gestured towards Vinny. “Sit and talk with him. Maybe you can get him to wake up.”
Rocking my head up and down, I moved to DaVinci’s bedside as Dr. O and Jason stepped out of the room. The sight of him without everything hooked up around his head made me break down crying all over again. This had been an emotional battle, and it was almost over. All I needed now was for him to wake up so that he could know why I had to beat his momma’s ass.