9. DaVinci
9
DaVinci
“ S ome things never change,” I laughed when River opened her front door with the music blasting.
With a slight smile, she turned and walked away from the door. Stepping inside, I closed and locked it behind me as she adjusted the volume to a more appropriate setting.
“Wassup, big head?” I pulled her into a tight hug, glad that I could even still hug her.
“Vinny,” she whined, trying to escape my tight grip.
Kissing her forehead a few times, I let her go. “What?”
“Don’t start all that weird lovey dovey shit.”
“Why not?” I followed her lead and took a seat on the couch.
“It’s weird.”
While River was fine physically, the shooting had neurologically changed her. The bullet was still lodged inside of her head since Dr. O didn’t feel that it could safely be removed. With that, she had to avoid any activities that could lead to any head trauma. Not that River did shit like that anyway, but even if she wanted to in the future, she wouldn’t be able to now. She would have to get an MRI done every three months for a year and then twice a year after to ensure the bullet wasn’t doing any silent damage.
Her speech had improved tremendously from when she first woke up from the coma. She still mixed words up sometimes and talked a bit slower than she used to, but it wasn’t overly noticeable. Outside of that, River was her regular ol’ self again, and I was grateful for that.
“It’s not weird. We weren’t supposed to be here, Ri. People don’t survive shit like this, but we did, so it’s not weird at all for me to want to show you my affection. I love you, you know that.”
“I love you, too,” she nodded in agreement. “What brings you by?”
“Do you want to date?” I quizzed after a pregnant pause.
A wary smirk danced across her lips. “Um. Is this a trick question?”
“I’m being dead ass serious.”
Clover had brought up River dating prior to everything going down, but I brushed it off. I didn’t want her dating, and Clo wasn’t gon’ make me change my mind. She had mentioned it again the day before, so I figured it was time I had that conversation with Ri.
“Doesn’t everyone want to date?”
“I don’t know. You could just want to focus on school and the business,” I half shrugged. “We’ve never talked about it before.”
“Because you never gave me an option to. It was just don’t date and that was it,” she sadly expressed.
A twinge of guilt struck me for making that decision on her behalf. “You’re right. I just…never wanted anyone to take advantage of you, River. Niggas can be the bane of a woman’s existence.”
“Are you the bane of Clover’s existence?” Her lips pursed together as her eyebrows raised.
“Shit, probably,” I laughed, sitting back in my seat.
She giggled, shaking her head side to side. “I don’t doubt that whatsoever.”
“You didn’t answer my question. Do you want to date?”
“Yeah, I do, eventually. I do want to focus on finishing up my master’s degree, and I don’t want anything to distract me from that. At the same time, I want to be able to give a nigga my number without worrying about if you or Lake are coming behind me to kill him.”
I snickered, thinking about the one dead nigga she did give her number to. I had made it perfectly clear that River was off-limits, so I don’t know why any nigga was asking for her number. Asking for her number was asking for a death sentence in my eyes.
“My bad,” I smirked and then leaned forward, resting my forearms on my thighs. “Ima step back a lil’ bit and give you room to breathe.”
“Let me text my sister in-love and tell her thank you because I know this is all her doing,” she chuckled, picking her phone up from the glass table next to her. “Because the old DaVinci would nevaaa agree to this shit.”
I laughed and nodded because she was 100% correct. “You’re right.”
“What’s going on with you and Lake?”
That was my second reason for being there. I had to let her in on our mother being the one who hired the hit.
“What do you mean?” I played stupid for a moment.
“I don’t know,” she put her phone down after tapping on the screen momentarily. “He said he not really fuckin’ with you right now.”
“Yeah,” I sighed heavily, dragging my hand down my face and then covering my mouth for a second. “Mm. Tonya ordered the hit on us.”
After glaring at me in complete silence for what felt like forever, she laughed and shrugged. “Why am I not surprised? Why am I not shocked that the very person who gave us life is trying to take it away from us?” Her laughter quickly turned into a cold stare. “I used to think that maybe, just maybe, there was a sliver of good in that bitch but this?” She gestured wildly. “This proves to me what I’ve thought about her since I was a kid. She hates us. She’s hated us since the day you killed Travis,” she grimaced with tears in her eyes.
“How come we never talked about that?” I tried to switch gears while the lane was open.
Her gaze became even colder as her eyes bore into mine. “Talked about what ?”
I knew River had a savage side to her because I trained her that way. But this was way beyond her being a savage. This was all that hurt, confusion, and trauma that she had buried finally coming to the surface. I heard it in her voice and felt it in the air. Kicking down the wall that she had built around her five-year-old self meant that I needed to be prepared for whatever was behind there.
“What happened that day. What had been happening prior to that day,” I kept my voice at a lower octave so that she didn’t feel like I was attacking her.
“I don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about. All I know is that you killed him,” a single tear rolled out.
“Because he was touching you, River. He was making you touch him.”
Her face contorted into a mix of fury and anguish. I could see the little girl who had been forced to grow up way too fast was about to be set free.
“No he wasn’t,” she harshly bit out, jolting up to her feet. “What are you talking about, DaVinci?”
Gazing at her, I couldn’t tell if she was being serious or not. I didn’t know if she had truly pushed it out of her subconscious so that it didn’t exist or if she was faking like nothing happened. Either way, I know what I saw with my own two eyes. Seeing our father molest her wasn’t something that I could easily forget. I thought about it for a year straight after I killed him. It even crept into my dreams sometimes. Both of our innocence had been taken that day, and clearly, we had both dealt with it differently.
Standing as well, I did my best to keep my cool and not show too many emotions. “River, when I came into your room, you were on his lap. His dick was out and in your hand. You were crying, and his hand was between your legs like he was touching you, too.”
Her mouth opened and closed, releasing odd grunting and pained noises each time she opened. She was starting to back away from me as reality set in. I hated that I had to be the one to open that painful box, but Clover was right. It was something that needed to be talked about. Black families tended to sweep child molestation under the rug, and my family had been no different.
“Get out,” she demanded with her voice low and trembling.
“Ri—”
“GET THE FUCK OUT!” She roared with every ounce of strength she had and spit flying from her mouth. “GO!”
I didn’t want to leave her, but at the same time, I didn’t want to make shit worse by staying. The look on her face told me she needed time, so I quietly dismissed myself from her presence. Sending Clo a text as I walked out the door, I asked her to come sit with River just to make sure she was straight. She responded right away and said that she was on the way. See? The benefit of her being a housewife and not a working woman.
Getting inside of my BMW, I started it and headed to The Big House next. On the entire ride, I prayed that my face didn’t convey what I was feeling on the inside towards Tonya. I was popping up on her unexpectedly because I didn’t want her to have time to prepare for my visit. Part of me wanted to confront her head on, and the other half just wanted to kill her and move on with my life. By the time I pulled into her driveway, I still hadn’t decided what I was gonna do. Killing the engine, I stepped out into the warm April air and inhaled deeply.
“God, please don’t let met snap out and kill this bitch,” I sent up a final prayer as I ascended the stairs and rang the doorbell a few times.
“DaVinci,” she opened the door with a shocked expression on her face. “W-what are you doing here?”
“I need a reason to come see my own mother?” I raised an eyebrow, trying to put a lid on the pot that was bubbling over with anger deep within me.
The nervousness she felt was unmistakable as it was clearly etched across her face. “I have company right now.”
“Nah, I’m gone.”
A forced smile appeared on my lips when the voice revealed himself. What did I see but a brown skinned nigga with blonde wicks and a piercing on the side of his left eye. Exactly how Jamarco’s cousin had described Ralph to me. My trigger finger screamed for me to grab my Glock, but I’m a husband and soon to be father now. I can’t move how I once did because I had two people waiting for me to make it home every night. Ralph sized me up on his way out the door. Turning slightly, I kept my eye on him until he got into his car. I immediately texted the plate information to Monty and let him know the lil’ nigga needed to be handled ASAP. I had bigger fish to fry.
“He’s a lil’ young for you, ain’t he?”
She sucked her teeth and rolled her eyes. “I’m not you, DaVinci. I don’t fuck just anyone, and I damn sure wouldn’t be fuckin’ someone as young as that,” she spat, giving me enough space to get inside.
“I don’t know what you’d do,” I replied in a chilling tone, heading for the sitting room.
“What is that supposed to mean?” She followed closely behind me.
“Exactly what I said,” I plopped down on the couch. “You think you know a person, but do you really know them?”
“You should know that I wouldn’t do that,” she stood with her hands on her hips, glowering at me.
“I thought you wouldn’t try to kill your own fuckin’ kids, but you did that, so again, I don’t know what you’d do.”
Her body went rigid and that was a dead giveaway that she was caught. I planned to hold that in longer, but it was impossible for a nigga like me to fake some shit like that. Being in the presence of snakes made it hard for me to keep it together.
“What the hell are you talking about?” She relaxed her facial muscles in an attempt to erase the guilt she had previously shown.
I nodded in the direction of where the front door was. “That wasn’t the nigga that tried to kill me and my sister that just left here? The one you hired?”
“DaVinci,” she scoffed, folding her arms across her chest and shaking her head. “I have no clue where you got your information from, but whoever it was, they lied to you. “
“Cut the shit!” I based, springing to my feet in a rage.
Her nose continuously flared and relaxed while her disposition changed completely. She went from copping a plea to cold and heartless. “Okay, and what about it?”
“Hunh,” I chuckled, not believing the woman that was standing in front of me. “You hate us that bad?”
“I hate the two of you from the bottom of my feet to the top of my head,” she bitterly revealed with an evil glare. “First, my father leaves me that funky ass money and nothing else, and I know you told him to do that! And secondly, you killed the only person that ever mattered to me and then concocted that bullshit ass story about him touching that little bratty bitch . As if my man would be interested in a fuckin’ child, and his own child, nonetheless.”
“When you walked in her bedroom and saw that nigga with his dick out, what the fuck did you think he was in there doing?! Taking a fuckin’ piss?!” I was baffled by her level of stupidity.
“It damn sure wasn’t what you were accusing him of!” She screamed and for the first time ever, I saw some tears in her eyes. “He wouldn’t do that! He had me ! He loved… ME! ”
“He might’ve loved you but clearly the nigga had an interest in his daughter, too,” I purposely insulted her.
What sounded like a war cry erupted from Tonya’s mouth as she charged towards me at full speed. Quickly dodging her, she fell onto the couch but jumped back up just as fast as she had fallen. I saw rage and determination in her eyes, so I knew today was dooms day for her. My prayer was going unanswered, but it wasn’t like I didn’t try.
When she came flying in my direction again, I pushed her away from me with enough force to make her land on her ass. Snatching a pillow from the couch, I climbed on top of her and covered her face. Lake wanted an open casket, so I was at the very least gonna respect that. Tonya wasn’t going down without a fight but eventually, she did go down. I rested on top of her body for a few minutes with her face still covered to ensure she was lifeless. Removing the pillow, I stared at the woman who gave me life before getting up. I knew my DNA would be underneath her nails since she had been clawing at me, so I soaked her fingers in some soapy bleach water before leaving the house. I waited until I was away from the house before texting Lake to let him know he could start planning her funeral.