Chapter 25 #3
Grip fixed his eyes to look at her, and he said the words, “Lil mama’s feisty.” That same anger I felt the night Lauren and I first met began to make my hands hot. “I’m sure Silas don’t mind that I put her in her place a little.”
I made a mental note to make sure that one would die painfully and slow. When I looked back at Lauren, I expected tears. Instead, she was surprisingly together, her chin resting on a raised hand…almost boredly.
Strange.
Although I certainly wasn’t disappointed that Lauren seemed to be handling things with visible ease, it just wasn’t the comportment I was expecting.
Lauren—I’d come to accept—was a crier. She cried when she was sad, when she was scared, when she was happy, for just about everything.
My girl cried enough for the both of us.
However, not now.
“So the money,” Jerome reminded, dragging his sneakers along the white carpet; a move that would’ve irritated me if I hadn’t already decided I was about to create a bigger mess.
My eyes briefly fell to the dent protruding out from Jerome’s waist, where he’d patted for his gun not too long ago, when he felt threatened.
Cowards are always trying to let people know they’re armed. Because guns are supposed to scare people. Guns protect because they’re supposed to make potential attackers think twice about trying you. Don’t touch that man, he’ll shoot you, I’m supposed to think.
Not exactly.
“Yeah, the money,” I nodded, stepping forward. Except, I wasn’t trying to get closer to Jerome. I was trying to get closer to his gun. “One question, though.”
“What is it?” he asked as I took another step.
“Are you left-handed or right?”
“Uh…” His eyebrows came together questioningly at the seemingly random question. What does this have to do with my money, he seemed to be thinking. “I’m right-handed.”
“Thanks.”
Before it could register, I went for his right-side arm, twisting it behind him tightly. Left with his non-dominant hand, Jerome simply wasn’t fast enough for his weapon. It was already in my possession.
When I was thirteen, my father taught me to never reach for my weapon until I was ready to shoot somebody.
The quickest way to make sure you get killed with your own gun is to let someone desperate know you have one before you’re ready to use it.
If it’s life or death—people take risks, and soon your gun starts to look like a way out.
With Jerome’s gun in my hand, I now understood exactly what Silas was talking about.
“Yo, what the fuck.” Jerome struggled to shake himself loose.
Ignoring him, my eyes darted to his partner, Grip, who stood more confused than surprised. Neither of them had fully caught on yet.
“You got a gun on you?” Before he could lie to me, I amended, “Lift up your shirt and turn around.”
Grip started to ask, “What is—”
I fired a shot into the back of Jerome’s knee. He buckled, swearing loudly as I let go of his arm.
“That wasn’t a request,” I clarified, watching the red spread onto the clean carpet.
As his partner writhed in excruciating pain, Grip’s eyes grew larger than I thought possible. For a moment of confusion, Grip went into a brief state of shock, before he quickly gathered his wits and started to beg.
“I left my gun in the car! I left my gun in the car!” he shouted twice, his words sounding like a plea as he lifted his shirt to prove it. “See?”
I tossed a look back to a cursing Jerome, who was holding the leaking wound at his knee.
He was making an awful lot of noise. When I raised the barrel to his forehead, he’d barely gotten a word out before I blasted us all into absolute silence.
My hand came up to wipe the residual splatter off my face.
It wasn’t quiet for long.
As the sudden death of his partner fully hit, Grip started yelling.
“Yo! Yooooo! I don’t want it! I don’t need the money, man. What the fuck! WHAT THE FUCK!”
Pushing out a breath, I swallowed down the rising gag in my throat. Fuck, I hate the smell of blood.
“Could you just…” I raised my free hand to pinch the skin between my eyes as I closed them. Gunshots make my ears ring. Grip’s screaming was making it worse. “…be quiet for a second.”
And he shut right up.
I might’ve found that funny if I wasn’t so aware of Lauren’s presence in this room, a spectator to all of this—seeing the parts of me I tried to hide from her for so long.
Needing to keep my momentum, I didn’t dare look at her.
Instead, I drew in steady breaths, waiting for the incessant ringing in my ears to pass.
As my hearing normalized, I started to take apart the gun, pulling out the magazine and letting all of the remaining bullets fall onto the carpet beside Jerome’s lifeless body. When I cut my eyes back to Grip, his shoulders had slumped, relaxing, mistaking my actions as a promise of mercy.
Nah.
I had something special for his ass.
And all I needed for it were my God-given hands.
Raising two fingers, I beckoned Grip to come closer. He hesitated at first, but ultimately decided it would be better he come to me than make me come to him.
In truth, it made no difference at all.
“So she was feisty, huh?” I reiterated with a tilt of my head. It was only now that he seemed to realize this wasn’t about money at all. His hands came up in premature surrender.
“Look, I didn’t—” He lost some of his nerve as I stepped closer, getting in his face. “I didn’t touch her.”
Lie.
The bruise on my girl’s cheek said different.
My knuckles slammed into the side of his face, giving off an audible crunching sound. First lick in, I let out a relaxing sigh and cracked my neck to loosen up. After a week of bullshit, kicking this nigga’s ass was about to be damn near therapeutic.
“Man, I swear!” he shouted, tossing up his fists to block any more oncoming blows. His eyes cut to Lauren’s direction behind me. “Tell him!”
Grabbing at the back of his head, I smashed my knee into his nose before I calmly expressed, “Don’t talk to her.”
“I tried!” he confessed holding onto his bleeding nostrils. “I t-tried and sh-she threatened me. I backed off.”
That doesn’t even sound like Lauren.
“Okay,” was all I said to that. I was done talking. I punched him again, and again, and again.
Until I lost count.
Until my fingers felt numb.
Until my hands were wet and colored red.
Until he stopped making sounds.
Until, with the last blow, a deafening snap echoed, and his neck twisted unnaturally.
And he stopped breathing.
When I finally rose to my feet, ready to face the reactions of the other two people in the room, I was not surprised to find that Lauren was covering her ears, eyes shut so tight that her skin crinkled at her nose bridge. Vance, however, stood there, eyes open and nearly speechless.
My uncle looked at my bloodied hands for a stretched second before dragging his gaze back up to my eyes. When he finally did speak, he said the most insulting thing he could think of in that moment.
“You really are your father’s son.”