Chapter 4 #3
Opting to stay silent, I let my thoughts rest until my body was alerted to the familiarity.
In a truck full of sweaty niggas, gun powder, and Bahati’s snotty tears, I could still smell Solana.
I closed my eyes and inhaled as I tried to come down from the adrenaline rush of trying to keep myself and three others alive.
Bahati and the baby were safe, Solana wasn’t taken by them fuck niggas, so now it was time for me to face the music.
Surviving the bullets had been one thing, but what came next would be a different kind of war for me.
Fatherhood.
Bahati had cried the whole ride up until we got to the hangar.
Everyone except for Solana, Bahati, and me had filed out of the truck quickly, all of them eager to no longer be in the confined space.
Bahati was still sniffing as she clung to my arm, not caring that she’d pissed almost everyone in the truck off.
I turned and faced Solana, finding her eyes were on the little girl as she rubbed her hair and back.
“Aye.”
Solana’s gaze shot up and then trailed to Bahati’s head on my shoulder.
“Take her up.”
Bringing her eyes back to me, she climbed out of the truck, and I watched as she walked up the stairs to the jet.
“Bahati.”
She popped her head up and faced me. Her face was rounder than I remembered, or it could have been swollen from all the crying. Worse, it could’ve been from whatever they’d done to her.
“Did they touch you?” I asked.
Fat tears rolled from her eyes as she shook her head. “No,” she responded, her Kenyan accent was still heavy.
“But when one pushed me, my arm…”
I looked down and noticed that she’d been clutching her right arm this entire time.
That explained why she’d cried the whole way here.
Taking a look at it, I knew it was broken, but we didn’t have time to do anything about it right now.
Hopefully, there was a brace or something on the plane we could put on her arm until we got to Jagoda Bay.
“Aite. We gone get on the jet, and once we touch down, I’ll have a doctor check you out.”
“Shio. I can explain—”
“Bahati. We’ll talk after the flight.”
As if she were just now aware of her surroundings, she sat up fully and looked out of the window. “A private Jet?”
“Come on, Bahati. They ready for takeoff.”
Climbing out of the truck, I held my hand out and helped her get out as well.
I could tell she was more than likely home lounging when they snatched her because she was in brown leggings that almost looked like they matched her skin and a blue graphic T-shirt.
Her T-shirt and leggings were both dirty and dingy, and her house shoes were soiled like my clothing.
My eyes zeroed in on her ass as we approached the stairs.
She’d done good to keep her same shape through pregnancy.
She actually looked like she didn’t even have a child, and I knew then that was her African genetics were showing up.
Don appeared at the jet’s entrance, and I was beginning to think this nigga was using a time machine. Ain’t no way he was conveniently everywhere.
“I guess you were right. You did get more money than my papa,” Bahati murmured.
Don moved from the opening and went into the cockpit to speak with the pilot.
Solana had set up away from the guys, who were at the back of the plane.
The toddler was lying on the extended couch near the window, and she took a seat not far from it.
Nel was standing over the middle-aged stewardess, a different one from when I flew in.
This was a different and much bigger plane than my solo trip.
When she handed him a plate of hot wings, I grunted.
Only that nigga was hungry after a whole damn war.
I took my seat, and instead of Bahati sitting with her child, she sat right next to me.
Her hands were still slightly shaking, and I somewhat felt bad about her experiencing this.
I was going to have to have a long talk with her.
She’d witness my folks and me kill, and with the way she was acting, I wasn’t too confident in her knowing what we were really into.
This was a lot, but it was nothing in comparison to what we’d faced.
These boys and I were built Ford fucking tough.
I closed my eyes, grabbed my chain, and said a silent prayer to God for covering us.
We didn’t deserve His mercy, but I was grateful as fuck for it.
The baby began crying, and everyone looked to me, including Bahati. When I looked at her right the fuck back, Solana stood and went to pick her up.
“Uhh, no. Who the fuck are you, and why do you keep picking up my child?”
“Awl shit!” Nel smacked on a chicken bone, still standing.
Solana ignored her and began to soothe the baby.
“Put my fucking daughter down, bitch!”
“Aye! Your arm fucked up!” I boasted, making Bahati jump. “She’s helping because your shit broke.”
“I… I have to use the restroom.” Bahati stood, and the stewardess guided her to the full bathroom on board.
Once the door shut, all eyes went to me.
“You know how you always saying your house is a place of peace?” Vello stretched his arms and snatched a wing off his brother’s plate. “Yeah, that shit dead. Bahati ’bout to shake all that shit up.”
Vello laughed while chewing the chicken wing as I shook my head. Knowing the jokes were about to start.
“Nigga been a daddy ten minutes and already got baby mama drama!” Matteo mocked.
“But on to you…” Nel pointed a chicken bone at Solana. “We all in Mexico, in shootouts and shit. What the fuck did you do? Nigga called me on ten, dishing out orders.”
“Nel, sit down,” Ezio said, knowing the reason everyone had gotten frantic calls from me this morning.
“Fuck you, Bobby! I know you know. This nigga tells your pretty ass everything.”
Ezio waved him off.
“Now…” He ate another wing. “You fucked another nigga, hunh? One of them Mexicans that’s tatted up, hunh? Is them the same niggas from the club? I can’t understand all that taquito shit, but I know when niggas tight about a bitch, respectfully.”
Solana continued to soothe the toddler, who was probably hungry and wet if she was still in diapers.
I had a whole child, one that I didn’t know anything about.
My child was in the same space as me. I’d procreated and felt like shit for not knowing.
There was so much I wanted to know, and oddly, I didn’t want to get the answers from Bahati.
Fuck. This was all fucked up.
“Felipe was a man I was promised to. That arrangement no longer stands. That was his brother back there. I have sex with no one.” She looked at me. “Ever.”
Matteo’s head snapped up. “Ever… A virgin, nigga?” He threw the question at me.
“So that’s why y’all was locked up in that house playing bootcamp,” Nel said with a chicken wing hanging from his mouth. “You done stumbled upon some untouched coochie. No wonder you walked in that bitch ready to die.”
“How the fuck this nigga be the last man standing to get married and get the virgin?” Vello said, almost sounding as if he was really mad about it.
Ezio snickered. “’Cause my nigga is God’s favorite… Get off his nuts.”
Leaving them to bicker, I stood, feeling Solana’s eyes on me. She hadn’t folded in battle, but my sentiments remained. These niggas could glorify her pureness all they fucking wanted. Her being a virgin didn’t hold any merit when she was strung the fuck out.
Opening the door, Bahati was resting against the sink with a tissue pressed against her nose. I closed the door behind us, shutting us in.
“Shio. What is going on?”
“Let me see your arm.”
She shook her head, keeping it pressed against her chest. She wouldn’t be able to sit through the flight for four hours with a broken arm. If there were no strong enough pain meds on board, she would have to load up on liquor to at least put her to sleep.
She reached up and grabbed my diamond chain. “Who are you now?”
“Bahati.”
“No. I was snatched from my bed. My daughter and I! Then, I was in a shootout! Now I’m on a jet, being whisked off to God knows where, and you have a bitch touching my daughter as if she is hers!
She’s been touched enough by strangers during this whole ordeal!
You won’t even look at her. You won’t even touch her! ”
“Bahati…” I rubbed my hand down my face.
“I just killed over two dozen men. I just walked in a situation that I didn’t know if I was going to make it out of just to get y’all.
I literally have blood on my fuckin’ hands.
” I held my hands out, dried blood coating my fingers.
“I’m trying to process this shit and plan accordingly.
You didn’t want to get her, so she did.”
“Don’t do that! Don’t make it seem like I’m a bad mother. I’ve been the one raising her.”
“I’m not making it seem like nothing, Bahati. But did you come find me? You knew I would have taken care of mine.”
“Did you forget that you tried to kill me the last time I was in your presence?!”
“If I wanted you dead, Bahati, you wouldn’t be standing here.”
“I wasn’t about to come after someone who looked me in the eyes while his dick was still inside of me and squeezed the life out of me.
My vocal cords were damaged for a month!
When I found out I was pregnant, I attempted to abort four times but could never do it.
I cried my entire pregnancy! I was perfectly fine with raising her and never seeing you again.
I looked at you as a monster. And with us being kidnapped, it seems my assumptions were right! ”
“Solana—”
“Bahati! My fucking name is Bahati!” She pushed against my chest with her good shoulder. “As a matter of fact, let me get my baby from that bitch!”
I blocked her path. “Aye. What the fuck I say? When we touch down, you’ll get looked over, and then we will figure this shit out. But all that rah rah shit? Nah. You can dead it. I ain’t the Shio you once knew.”
She tried to step around me again, but I blocked her advancement, raising my brows.
“Shio, I’m not going to bother your girlfriend,” she finally said after a brief stare-off. “I’m about to see if the stewardess has something me and my bebe can change into. We are both wet and dirty.”
The way Bahati said “baby” sounded like baybay; that much hadn’t changed. Waiting a beat, I moved out of the way and opened the door. Don appeared again, standing in a doorway of what appeared to be a conference room.
“Shio. Come talk to me.”
Not in the mood for his bullshit, I entered the room.
He shut the door and sat at the table. “Beautiful daughter.”
“Don, what is it?”
“Straight to business? Aite, cool.” He pulled on his suit jacket, grinning.
We were all wet and dirty, and had neared death, and he was looking as if he stepped out of a GQ magazine shoot.
“Good job today.”
“Don…”
“Aite, G.I Joe. Damn… So, look… I know you processing a lot, but time is ticking. I only allow one person to be brought into my organization, especially now with the police sniffing, even if it’s because of another cartel.”
Don sighed as if what he was about to say frustrated him. “Your brother, your Mexicansita, your long-lost baby mama… You got too many newcomers, Cuppacio. And I’m throwing a flag on the play. You, my boy, are at yo’ newbie limit.”
“Solana ain’t on me. That shit is on you. Fuck I gotta do with the shit you and her sperm donor cooked up?”
“Did I ask you to fall for her? Fuck no. You was supposed to house her until I got my fucking money. You did more than give the girl a roof. You fell in love, so now that counts as one of yo’ newbies.
“Despite what you niggas think, I ain’t interested in playing cupid. I tricked my own wife. The fuck I look like going out my way to secure one for y’all?”
“I didn’t fall in love, Don.”
“Well, nigga… You fell in like. Either way, you over your limit.”
“Okay, so what you saying?”
“I’m saying, Sid the Science Kid, that you gotta marry one of them.” He jutted his chin at the door.
“Hell nah! Did you not just hear what I said about Solana? She’s a fucking cocaine addict.”
“How you know? She might’ve just wanted to take the edge off at the time. She said she was about to give herself to you. Maybe she was scared. And if you don’t want to marry her, cool, you got Tems in there. Put a ring on it.”
“Man, I haven’t seen Bahati in years.”
“Shio. You have thirty days. I’ve been gracious.
I’ve been patient. I allowed your brother to come in, and even though he missed his deadline, he did his part.
He did in a few weeks what you Cuppacio niggas couldn’t do in months.
Then, to play in my face even further, you let him steal your own potential wife from under your nose.
I don’t have no more free women. I’m not willing to bring any more muthafuckas from the outside in.
Not until this trafficking shit is halted and the police not tryna get close to my shit.
By then, you’ll be a doting husband. So… ” Don stood and grinned.
“You either gonna clean the crackhead up, like you did my sister’s husband… Or you gone rock with the blast from the past. Either way, don’t make me no difference. Thirty days. You decide, or I’ll decide for you.”
Don opened the door, and Bahati stood there with her good hand raised in a knocking motion. He excused himself and walked around her.
“Wassup, Bahati?”
“I didn’t mean to interrupt. I just remembered I didn’t tell you her name.”
“Okay…”
“It’s Shya.”
God first
Make sure the family good
Eye them Cuppacio boys, the little and the big ones
Build a relationship with my brother
Get my brother rich
Health and wellness
Stay on top of my mob shit
Keep Hobo alive (ON PAUSE)
Get through the meeting with Ines Ledesma
House a random
Find the true reason Solana is here
Figure out if Solana is supposed to be my wife, again
Find a wife that isn’t Solana
Kill every breathing Rodríguez Cartel member (URGENT)
Fuck Bahati up (TBD)
Get my fucking daughter
Get Bahati’s arm fixed
Get to know my daughter
Figure out what the fuck I’m going to do with Solana
Leave the mob entirely or marry Bahati or Solana
This shit couldn’t get any more hectic.