by Jahquel J.
She flicked the butt of the cigarette and then lit another one. “First Justice, now this. How much more can we take?” she sighed as she took a pull of the cigarette.
“I wish I could rewind time.”
“So do I. You never told me why you were out here,” she looked over at me and blew smoke in the opposite direction. “Don’t lie to me either, girl.”
I giggled. “I’m not a girl anymore, Mama.”
“Well, woman!” she smirked. “Why you out here and not up there by Gyson’s side?” she continued to stare at me until I gave her an answer.
“He’s angry about the twins and he’s lashing out. I don’t think it’s best for me to be here right now.”
“Hmph, I knew he would.. My question is, why didn’t you just tell him? Why did you allow him to find out on his own? Gyson is many things, but he’s not forgiving,” she shook her head. “Well, except to his little whore,” she rolled her eyes.
“I had plans on telling him.” It was true, I did. I had all the plans in the world to tell him about the twins. It seemed like each time I wanted to, things ended up getting in the way of that.
“Tonight isn’t the time or place. Go home and be with the kids. Come back tomorrow with some coffee and breakfast. Check your feelings at the door and be with him. You both can worry about the situation with the twins after this is handled.”
“Okay,” I agreed and ordered me another Uber. Mama Rae sat outside with me until my Uber arrived, then kissed me and sent me on my way.
When I walked into my mother’s home, I headed straight to the guest bedroom where the twins were probably asleep. Somali was laying in the bed while Samaj was playing his PlayStation. When I walked into the room, they could tell I had a rough day.
“Babies, I just need a hug from the both of you right now.” Samaj was the first to abandon the controller and come over to me.
“Ma are you okay?” he hugged me.
“I am. Just had a long day,” I sighed. Somali tossed the covers off of her body and came over and hugged me too. “Thank you, babies. Not tonight, but we have a lot to talk about,” I warned them of the difficult conversation that I was going to be forced to have with them. Gyson found out before I was able to tell him and that hurt me. I couldn’t take the chance of having my kids find out before I was able to tell them.
“Ma come lay down with me and let me play with your hair,” Somali suggested. It was one of my favorite things to do.
“I’ll put on a movie. Grandma called and said she was going to come home tomorrow,” Samaj informed me. “We said our prayers for Auntie Jus already.”
“What did I do to deserve the both of you?” I sighed as I pulled my boots off and climbed into bed with them. A shower or food was the furthest thing from my mind. All I needed was my babies, this bed and some sleep to wash away the pain from today. Just for tonight, I wanted to pretend like it was just me and the twins all over again. Just for tonight.
2
Shakira
“Ugh, I really don’t want to leave you tomorrow,” I sighed as I laid across the bed and watched him work on his computer.
This was supposed to be time for just the two of us and he couldn’t stop working on his computer. I understood all about having to sacrifice time with the man you love, but it was crazy that I had to do it with both of the men I loved. Things weren’t supposed to end up like this between me and Zeek. I wasn’t supposed to fall in love with this man. Especially since I was in love with Ghost. My heart had always been with Ghost. Then, Zeek came into my life when I felt like I was slowly losing myself. Ghost never noticed either. He was too busy making money moves to care about how I felt. After I had Rain, I felt like I was losing myself slowly. All she did was cry and all Ghost did was pay attention to her. It was like I didn’t matter. All I was good enough for was to feed her and change her diaper.
I remember going over to my mother’s house when Rain was a couple months old. There was this need to just get away from my baby. Ghost was gone and I needed time away from being a mother. All I wanted to do was go sit and be in my own mother’s arms, so that’s what I did. I walked into my parents’ mansion twelve pounds heavier from having Rain and just needed a hug. I needed to be with my parents and pretend like I was a child again. When I walked into my parents’ house, my father was holding a meeting with Zeek and Zoe. Word around Staten Island was that they were new hustlers on the island. I wish I could say that I remained faithful to Ghost. He made it so easy to cheat on him. Ignoring me, putting all his time into Rain and working all the time. Those were all things he did and that’s what made it so easy to cheat with Zeek. He made me feel like a woman. Even with the extra baby weight, he made me feel how I was supposed to feel.
When I got pregnant with Summer, I stopped messing with Zeek during my entire pregnancy. I was determined to make things work with Ghost. After all, I was now carrying his baby. A part of me wanted to make it work between the both of us. We invested so many years and we owed it to our daughters to make it work. The second time around, Ghost was so much more caring and catered to me like he should have with Rain. I never thought that Summer was Zeek’s baby, until he showed me a picture of his baby sister. Summer resembled her and I couldn’t deny it. Instead of telling Ghost everything, I continued to hide it. Summer looked like Zeek’s side of the family, but she also looked like me too. She had light brown skin and had my doe shaped eyes. Ghost never questioned the paternity of Summer and I never pushed it any further. If it was up to me, I would act like none of this happened. Zeek wasn’t going to allow me to do that, so I made up mommy dates with Summer and that’s when we spent time with Zeek.
It would crush Ghost if he knew that Summer wasn’t his. Summer was his baby girl, his angel and everything. It was something I felt so bad keeping from him, but I had no other choice. If G knew about me and Zeek, he would probably kill me. I never meant for things to go as far as it did with Zeek. I never anticipated falling in love with him either. This was supposed to be something I did to secretly rebel against Ghost. Every night, I laid beside him knowing that I was in love with another man and had him believing that our daughter was his.
“Damn, ma. You don’t hear me talking to you?” Zeek laughed as he abandoned the table and walked over to the bed with a drink in his hand.
While everyone thought I was in Thailand with my girls, I was staying at a hotel in the city. When Zeek told me he wanted to get away from Staten Island for a few days, I was all down. I left first and had been at the hotel getting all the spa services they had to offer until he came a few days after. All I wanted was to spend time with him without being interrupted by anything. For these couple of days, I just wanted to be with Zeek and that’s all. I didn’t want to be Ghost’s fiancée or the girls’ mother. Ghost never wanted to do things like this. He took me to Belize because it had to do with work. He never came to me and planned dates for the both of us. All he did was work, and when he wasn’t working he was tending to the girls. For the life of me I never understood why we paid Marisol so much money when she hardly had the girls.
“Sorry. I was distracted. What did you say?” I stood up and rubbed his chest while looking into his eyes.
“Me and your pops been getting money for a while now and shit. I’m ready to start moving bigger with him. I feel like he holding out because of whatever business he and your fiancé got going on.”
“Probably. He and Ghost have business, but they haven’t been on the same page. The money with my father hasn’t been all that good lately. The dealerships are struggling and the way he was keeping them afloat was because he was doing business with Ghost. However, Ghost hasn’t been doing too much business with him because he has his trucking company,” I sighed and went out on the balcony.
Zeek followed behind me and wrapped his big and strong arms around my waist. “Where is his trucking company at?”
I shrugged. The truth of the matter was that I really didn’t know. Ghost didn’t let m
e know any of his business. I only knew about his business because of my father. Ghost kept his business and money separate and it bothered me. We were engaged and I was going to be his wife. I should have known things about his business. Why was I kept in the dark with everyone else?
“I don’t know, baby. He doesn’t talk business with me.”
He turned me around and looked me in the eyes. “If you were my wife, you’d know everything about my business and have access to my money too.”
“Seriously?”
“Hell yeah. A nigga never know when he’ll be jammed up and need his woman to step into his place. You know I trust you more than anything, right?”
I screwed my face up. “Not more than your brother?”
“Especially more than that nigga. You know Zoe too reckless and is going to be the fall of our empire. A woman like you…” he allowed his voice to trail off. “Can help a nigga like me go places. You were brought up around money and you’re among Staten Island’s elite,” he continued to stare into my eyes.
Ghost never made me feel this way. He always made me feel like I was a burden more than anything else. He acted like I was some dumb woman who couldn’t help him run his empire. All I wanted was to be wanted and appreciated. Instead, he thought by tossing money my way that it would make everything better. Everything I bought, I could buy before him and after him. My family came from money and I would never be broke if I ever left Ghost. Still, why would I want to live off my family’s money for the rest of my life? Especially when I had Ghost to be there for me? When he broke up with his ex-girlfriend all those years ago, he came right into my arms. I was the one who stroked his ego, made him feel like a man and sucked him until I couldn’t anymore. The woman he thought was his everything ended up leaving him for another man. Well, I didn’t know the whole story, but I imagined that she probably did.
Ghost had money before, but not nearly as much as he had now. I accepted him when he had humble beginnings and never asked for anything in return. All I wanted was to be his woman and I made sure to do anything he wanted me to do. Instead, he barely paid me any attention. It was nice to be known in the streets as Ghost’s fiancée, but that was as far as it went between us. I couldn’t name the last time we had spent time together. Lately, his mind had seemed like it was in another planet and we weren’t on the same page. This trip with me and Zeek was needed. For once I just wanted to feel needed and Zeek was doing an amazing job with doing that.
“You know I can’t just leave Ghost alone. We’re engaged,” I turned around and stared out at the skyscrapers.
This wasn’t the first time that Zeek had told me he wanted a relationship with me. He had been telling me since he found out about Summer being his daughter. I couldn’t give up everything that I had built with Ghost to be with him. Even before Zeek moved to Staten Island, his sister lived here. He also had family here, so he visited here a lot. When we started messing around, I was shocked that I could do something like that to Ghost. Then again, I was being selfish and wasn’t worried about Ghost’s feelings. He never seemed to be worried about mine, so why worry about his?
“Shakira, I told you how I feel about you. I’m tired of sitting back and allowing that nigga to treat you the way he does.”
“He doesn’t treat me bad, baby. He’s absent in our relationship, but Ghost has always been like that. I’m used to it,” I tried to convince myself.
Ghost had never been the type to show much affection and over the years I had accepted that. I’ve accepted that he wasn’t the type to show up with roses or pick me up and spin me around while telling me how much he loved me. The most I got from him was a kiss on the hand or forehead. It had been my life for ten years and I had gotten used to it.
“Why you fucking me behind his back?” he bluntly asked.
I knew why I was fucking Zeek behind Ghost’s back, still I couldn’t tell him why. He made me feel like a woman again. The way he waited on me and made me feel beautiful was something I wanted, no I needed it. I loved when a man could make me feel like the most beautiful woman in the world. Ghost made me feel beautiful to an extent. Now, Zeek. He did everything and then some. Although he was limited to the affection he could show me in public, he made it up to me in private. I sighed and continued to look out at the view in front of us.
“I love you, Zeek. I really do,” I told him as I turned to face him. “You know I want us to be together, but I do still love Ghost too. How do you expect me to throw ten years away?”
“The same way that nigga allowed his ex-girlfriend to step into your crib,” he retorted, and I stared at him confused.
Swinging my hair over my shoulder, I asked, “What are you talking about?” I walked back into our suite. He followed behind me with his phone now in his hands.
“Freedom? You know her?”
“I do. She’s my interior decorator… Well, she’s about to be fired because I haven’t heard from her in a good week,” I rolled my eyes.
Free was good with her job, but as of lately I couldn’t even get in contact with her. She was supposed to send me her revised plans to see if I approved of them and I hadn’t gotten a thing from her. I knew I had to make a plan to go and speak to Ghost about stopping the check he had given her as an deposit.
“Oh, so you didn’t know that she’s Ghost’s ex-girlfriend?” he asked me.
“Nonsense. Her and Ghost didn’t even know each other when I introduced them,” I waved him off.
“Damn, babe. You can’t be that damn blind. I’m not even from Staten Island and I know that Free and Ghost fucked around for some years.”
“And how do you know that?” I placed my hands on my hips and sized him up. If he was going to make an accusation like that, he needed to have proof on what he was saying.
“The streets. You don’t think I did my research? My plan is to run Staten Island. Who the fuck knew it was so much money to get on this little ass island?”
“First of all, Staten Island isn’t all that small. Why are you trying to run Staten Island, babe? Brooklyn is your territory. You moved here to be closer to me and Summer, not to work.”
I could tell he wasn’t listening to anything that I had said. In his mind, he wanted Ghost’s position in Staten Island. What he didn’t realize is that Ghost built what he had brick by brick. People fucked with him so heavy because he was in the trap with them coming up. He was feared, but before feared he was respected. Staten Island wasn’t going to be receptive to someone coming in and trying to claim Staten Island as their own. Not to mention, Staten and Priest would lay everybody down that is associated to Zeek before they allowed that to happen.
“I already told you what I know. Ask shorty yourself,” he egged me on.
“What do I look like asking her if she’s my fiancé’s ex-girlfriend?”
He looked at me once before he walked back onto the balcony. I was about to ask him what was wrong, but my phone interrupted that, so I grabbed my phone from my purse. It was Ghost’s name coming across the screen. I looked at Zeek on the balcony before sneaking away into the bathroom.
“Hey baby, what’s up?”
The line was silent before he spoke. “Kira don’t flip the fuck out. I’m charting a jet in Thailand to fly you home right away,” he spoke. Something in his voice didn’t sit right with my stomach.
“What’s wrong, babe?”
“Summer was sho—” He didn’t get to finish the rest of his sentence before I let out a blood curdling scream. Zeek came running to the bathroom, but paused when he saw me holding the phone in my hand.
“What do you mean my baby has been shot, GYSON?” I screamed as my hands shook while holding the phone.
“Staten had the girls taking them to dance and someone caught them when he was leaving,” he explained. He was hurt. I could hear it all in his voice. Ghost sounded like he was on the verge of tears. He had never sounded that way and it had me ten times more scared.
“Why was Staten with my baby? W�
��why would someone want to shoot my baby? She’s innocent,” I sobbed and slid down the marble walls onto the floor.
Tears blurred my vision, but the look on Zeek’s face was one I had never seen in my entire life. He looked angry, hurt and confused all in one emotion. “Baby, I don’t fucking know and I’m working hard as fuck to find the fuck out who is behind this. I need to charter this flight.”
“I…I’m not in Thailand anymore. I decided to check into a hotel instead of going,” I told him half the truth.
“That ain’t even important right now. How fast can you get here? Don’t drive either, I know how you get.”
“I won’t. Text me the hospital, I’ll be there.”
“Staten Island hospital,” he replied.
“S..Staten Island hospital, I got it,” I sobbed before ending the call and bawling like a baby.
Zeek rushed over to me and pulled me into his arms. “Rain got shot?” he assumed, and I pulled away and looked at him.
“Why would you assume Rain got shot? I do have two daughters,” I snapped as I sniffled and tried to pull myself together. “Summer was shot,” I cried and pulled myself off the floor.
“I need to go be with my family,” I told him and went back into the room to grab my purse. All the clothes and shit could wait. Right now, my focus was on getting to the hospital where my daughter was.
“You fucking serious?” he barked with spit flying from his mouth. As much as he had the right to be this angry, I wasn’t in the mood to put up with it.
I ordered a car service and slipped my feet into a pair of heels. It was the only foot ware that I had at the hotel. “I’ll update you as soon as I know something,” I tossed my purse over my shoulder and headed to the door.
“The fuck you mean you gonna update me?” he mocked me. “I’m fucking coming. You tell me that our daughter was shot and think I’m gonna sit back and chill? Nah, I’m going.”
“Zeek, the last fucking thing I need is a scene at the hospital. It’s not about you right now and you need to realize that. Where were you all the times she was sick?” he was quiet. “That’s what I thought.”
