The three men headed upstairs, with Breon looking at the room even more. “Y’all don’t think Charles was in on this, do you?” he asked as they walked down the hallway.
Wayne stopped and looked at Breon. “Nigga, what?” he asked. “What the fuck you talkin’ bout? I done known this nigga Charles, man, for almost as long as I can remember and shit. He was a good nigga. Ain’t no fuckin’ way he would be coo or anything for that matter what a slimy ass, bitch-ass nigga like Dante.”
“Nigga, I’m just sayin’,” Breon said. “You know things ain’t always as they appear.”
“So, what you try’na say, nigga?” Wayne asked, clearly in his defensive mode.
“Nigga, I ain’t try’na say nothin’,” Breon said. “I’m just thinking, is all. I mean, what if she was here all the time when we was upstairs? I know you don’t wanna think about it and stuff, but what if? Just try to imagine it for a fuckin’ moment, okay? The floor directly above us is where we was and she coulda been down here for all that time. Shit, nigga, for all we know, Charles coulda came into some money problems and found that he needed to take some deal or some shit like that. This nigga Dante’s money is obviously long and shit, so he coulda offered Charles some shit that he wasn’t in no position to turn down.”
Wayne shook his head. “Naw,” he said. “I don’t believe that shit. Naw. It’s somethin’ else. They came here and killed the nigga and then used his place. Now, what happened after that with the basement and all this blood and shit, I can’t decide for sure. But I’m tellin’ you, nigga. Charles ain’t into no shit like that.”
Breon, deciding that he simply needed to drop the topic, continued on toward the basement steps. The three men climbed the steps and returned to the hallway at the rear of the grocery store. Just as they came to the top of the steps, deciding that they would head over to the house where Dante was on file as staying and see what they saw over there, Wayne tapped both Jayron’s and Breon’s elbow. He pointed toward the front of the store. There was a police car riding by. It has slowed down significantly while passing the front of the store.
“Shit,” Breon said.
Jayron immediately tensed up, knowing that if he were to get caught in any sort of trouble only days after being released, he’d be shipped right on back to the prison. There was nowhere he wanted to be less than in this store, at night, once it appeared closed. What made matters even worse, particularly for him, was that there was a dead man sprawled out across the floor behind the counter.
“What y’all wanna do?” Wayne asked.
“Shit, I don’t know,” Breon said. “Maybe he just ridin’ by.”
“And slowin’ down, nigga?” Wayne said sarcastically. “Since when do them racist ass white cops just slow down for fun in a black neighborhood? Nigga, you trippin’ and shit. Bein’ out there with them white neighbors done made you get a little colorblind and shit. Nigga, I’m tellin’ you, I think he saw somethin’.”
“Okay, okay,” Breon said. He then looked at Jayron, regretting his presence. He didn’t want to see his friend go back to prison, especially if this really didn’t have anything to do with him.
“Let’s just see what he do,” Jayron said. “Let’s just see what he do and shit. Maybe he’ll just keep on goin’.”
The three men stood at the rear of the store as the police car slowly came to a stop. The distant sound of a lone car sitting just outside of the glass was enough to make all of their blood pressure rise at the very same moment.
“Shit,” Breon said. “What the fuck is he gon’ do?”
Just then, the three of them watched as the police officer’s laptop inside of the patrol car lit up. From where they stood, they could see that the officer had simply stopped in front of the store to get on his computer. For the next several minutes, Breon, Wayne, and Jayron stood in the dark hallway. Fear paralyzed them and kept them from moving. When the officer finally pulled off, the three of them relaxed and began to walk forward.
“Shit,” Wayne said, wanting to grab his chest. “I thought that cop was gon’ get some bright idea to come up in here.”
No sooner than these words had slipped out of Wayne’s mouth, the police car backed up. The passenger side window rolled down. Breon, Wayne, and Jayron dipped down, now completely hidden by the shadows of the store’s shelves. The officer shined his light on the hour card in the door then looked at his laptop, letting them know he was looking at the time. Soon enough, however, the officer pulled off. No doubt, considering this was the south side of Chicago, there were more important cases of crime that could use a little police attention.
Breon, Wayne, and Jayron stayed on the floor for several minutes. They each were so convinced that the cop would pull back around, but he never did. They eventually stood up, now looking at one another as Breon let them to the other side of the store. Just as they were heading toward the counter, Breon felt his phone vibrating from his coat pocket.
Breon pulled his phone out of his pocket, a little alarmed at who it might be. He quickly saw that it was Trina calling. “Oh, it’s Trina,” he said. “Man, I hate that I gotta do all this lyin’ and shit to keep all this from comin’ home and affectin’ her. I had to tell her some of the real deal and send her to her sister’s house or somethin’, cause that sister Monique used to talk to Dante and he been hittin’ her up.”
“Fuck,” Wayne said quietly as Breon answered his phone.
“Hey, Baby, what’s…” Breon answered. His words trailed off as he could ear Trina crying.
“Breon?” Trina asked, her voice sounding very distraught. “Breon?”
“Yeah, Baby, I’m here,” Breon said. “I’m here. What’s wrong? Trina, you not sad over all this are you?” Breon could feel himself getting extremely nervous. If there was one thing he’d learned in life, it was that a man needed to be worried when a woman called him crying. Either she was very sad, or so far past mad that she was about to come up on wrath.
“Breon,” Trina said, taking a deep, sniffled breath. “Breon, he got me.”
“He got you?” Breon asked, struggling to keep his voice low. Immediately, and in a very concerned way, Wayne and Jayron stepped even closer. Breon held the phone out and put it on speaker phone, signaling to Wayne and Jayron that they should be quiet. “What you talkin’ about, Trina?” Breon asked, his eyes wide. “What you mean he got you? Where you at?”
“I don’t know,” Trina said. “I don’t know where I’m at, Breon. They banged my head against the door or whatever and knocked me out on the way. Next thing I know, I wake up in this dirty ass room in some house.”
“Don’t disrespect my nigga’s shit,” a man said in the background. The boom of his voice caused Trina’s voice to tremble.
“Sorry,” Trina said. “Breon, where are you?”
“Trina, where are you?” Breon asked, now angry. “Where are you? Is you with that Dante nigga? I swear to God, I’mma kill that nigga.”
“Breon, he…” Trina said. Her words trailed off as the phone was pulled from her grip. Breon said her name several times. Next thing he knew, he was talking to a man – a man whose voice he knew very well.
“Dante!” Breon said. “Nigga, if you hurt her, I swear to God. I will cut your damn dick and balls off myself.”
Dante laughed, purposely laughing out loud as to make a point and draw a quick comparison to an evil nemeses in a movie. “Nigga, shut your bitch ass up,” he said. “As far as I can see, it look like I’m the nigga that got you by your balls. And,” he chuckled, “your bitch.”
“Swear to God, nigga,” Breon said. “If you fuckin’ hurt her, I’mma—”
“Nigga, shut up before I put a bullet in her head,” Dante said.
Just then, Breon, Wayne, and Jayron could hear the sound of a gun cocking. It was followed by Trina’s crying getting louder. Breon’s heart hurt to hear his woman in such a state of desperation. She truly sounded as if she feared for her life, and it only made Breon feel even guiltier.
Breon pressed his lips together, picking up on every ounce of irony in Dante’s statement. “Okay, nigga,” he said, angrily.
“Okay, well I guess I just thought that I should tell you that your chick here might just know about your little side chick,” Dante said.
Breon felt his heart and soul drop even further. He loved Trina so much – so much that he now wished he’d never hooked up with Nikki again. He could only imagine how Trina must have been feeling, wherever she was, to find out that he’d been lying to her face, looking dead into her eyes as he did it.
“You there?” Dante asked, snickering.
“Yeah, I’m here,” Breon said. “When you wanna meet? I’m sick of this shit, nigga. You wanna come for me, then come for me. Come for me, nigga, okay? But don’t come for my fuckin’ family then my chick. Nigga, you know you’re really goin’ too far with this shit. I swear to you, nigga, I ain’t even know you was about to get caught up with that shit back when. I promise I ain’t know.”
“Yeah, well,” Dante said. “That’s all right. Look here.” He paused to allow Breon to hear Trina squeal from having her hair yanked as if she were a Barbie Doll. “Look, nigga, I ain’t got time for this talkin’ and shit. You want your chick back, then I need to see you.”
“Okay, when nigga?” Breon asked. “When, mothafucka? I swear to God, if you hurt Trina, I will kill you, nigga.”
“Call me when you at the corner of Sacramento and Lake,” Dante instructed. “There’s a gas station there. Call this phone as a matter of fact, when you get there, and we can go from there.” He paused. “And, by the way nigga, try any funny shit or whatever, and the only thing you will see when yo bitch ass get here is yo chick laid out in the snow, dying it red. Be there at midnight, all right? Fuck up and see what happen.”
Before Breon could respond, the line had disconnected. His heart thumped so hard, Jayron and Wayne could practically hear it. Standing there speechless, the two of them waited to see what Breon would say. “Tonight,” Breon said. “I’mma be there and shit and we gon’ make sure that we get this nigga.”
Wayne and Jayron looked at one another. Wayne nodded, almost wanting to get Dante just as much as Breon. He still had the video of him getting whooped by a belt at stake. And he was not going to let that get out to the world. He shook his head as he looked toward the front of the store. “Coo,” Wayne said. “Let’s get the fuck outta here before the cops come pullin’ back up or some shit.”
“Right on,” Breon said. The three of them headed toward the front of the store, with Wayne’s house as the destination. As he walked, the anger and guilt built inside of him. When he let Wayne and Jayron into his SUV, he looked over at Wayne, who was sitting in the front passenger seat, and said, “When we get to your place, we gotta call Ray. We gon’ need as many niggas as we can to help with this shit.”
Wayne nodded, knowing that tonight would only go the way they needed with good strategy. Unbeknownst to them, the side chick would be catching up. And she would be causing more havoc than they could ever imagine.
CHAPTER 10
On the way over to Ray’s place, Nikki felt like a real gangster chick in many ways. There was something about riding down the street, secretly having a gun on her person, that made her think of the movies. She was angry enough that she could kill someone, but she knew she had no real intentions of doing such. However, seeing the two men that had caused all of her misery suffer would be pleasure enough. And she was willing to risk it all to see such a thing happen.
Gracelyn pulled into Ray’s apartment complex and made her way back to his apartment building specifically. Nikki looked out of the window at the quiet complex. Snow continued to fall, adding a light dusting over the parking lot. Gracelyn slowly slid into a parking spot and put her car into PARK. She pointed at the building ahead of them then up at a lit window. “He stay up there,” she said. “I think that’s his bedroom. Or maybe the window to the left, but that’s his apartment.”
Nikki nodded. “Okay,” she said. “You know how these niggas be gettin’ weak and shit when they get a call from a chick about wantin’ to do somethin’. They’ll open the door right up.”
“So, what you sayin’, Nikki?” Gracelyn asked. “You want me to call the nigga and tell him I’m outside.”
“Naw,” Nikki said, looking around. “You know what his car look like, though?”
Gracelyn looked around. “Yeah, I do,” she said. “Let me see.” She took a few moments to scan the parking lot. It didn’t take her long to notice Ray’s car parked several spots down, with a busted back window. She was surprised to see such a thing considering his car was always so maintained. “He here,” she said, nodding her head. “I mean, I see his car.”
“Coo,” Nikki said. “Let’s just see if he here and shit. Like we said when we left your cousin Steph’s place, you go up to the door and see if he answer. We don’t need him to think nothin’ is up with you callin’ him or nothin’ like that since he don’t know that I’m your roommate, right.”
“Girl, I don’t talk about you to him,” Gracelyn said. “You see all this BBW I got. I don’t need to talk about nothin’ else.”
“Girl, not right now,” Nikki said. “You stay doin’ the most. Just go up there and see if he answer the door. If he do, you go in and I’mma come in, in some minutes and surprise his ass. Just make sure you the one to close the door and shit so you know it ain’t locked.”
Gracelyn agreed, jumped out of the car, and headed up into the building. Nikki watched, hoping that Ray was here. Since Ray was Breon’s best friend – his boy for life –, there wouldn’t be much of a hassle for him to get in touch with him. All Nikki needed was for Breon to show his face one good time and it would be on sight. If this didn’t work, she had already decided that she was going to go even further by going up to Chinatown and paying a little visit to Johnson & Pearl. She liked to think that she had more class than being that stereotypical black chick that comes up to a public place and causes a scene. However, if that what she had to do, then that is what she would in fact do.
Gracelyn walked up to Ray’s apartment door and knocked. There was no answer. She pressed her ear to the surface of the door and listened. A few seconds passed and she could hear talking, but wasn’t sure if it was a person or a television going. She knocked again, now looking into the peephole. At this point, she was sure that she was being ignored. Just as she’d opened her mouth nice and wide to yell Ray’s name, she stopped herself. Instead, she rushed back out to the car.
“Girl, he there but he not answerin’,” Gracelyn told Nikki. “I know that nigga is in there. For all we know, he got some otha chick over there or some shit.”
“Oh really?” Nikki asked, nodding. “Interesting.”
“Girl, what you wanna do?” Gracelyn asked.
Nikki pushed her car door open and looked back at Gracelyn with a dumb look on her face. “What you mean what I wanna do?” she asked. “Girl, I’mma get up in there.” She patted her pocket with the gun. “If niggas can do this shit, then why can’t bad bitches like me and you. You can sit out in this car lookin’ silly all you want, but I’m takin’ my black ass up in there and I’mma get into that apartment. If the nigga there, I wanna talk to him and shit, fuck that. Come on, girl.”
Gracelyn jumped out and followed Nikki through the snowy walkway and up into the apartment. She pointed at Ray’s apartment then the two of them climbed the stairs. As they approached the door, Nikki banged as hard as she could. “Ray, open this damn door,” Nik
ki said.
This time, Ray came to the door and asked, “Who is it?”
Nikki used this opportunity to move to the side. She bumped Gracelyn’s elbow, motioning for her to respond. “It’s me, Gracelyn,” Gracelyn said. “Can you please open the door, Ray? It’s important. I don’t care if you got another chick in there. Just open the door.”
Nikki felt herself getting a little furious about having to wait outside of the door. “If this nigga don’t open this door, I swear I’mma cause a scene so all these fuckin’ neighbors know that somethin’ is up,” she said, shaking her head. “I want a nigga to try me, I swear to God I do.” Nikki began to slide the gun partially out of the pocket, in preparation for possibly needing to shoot the door in if she had to. Luckily, they then heard the sound of locks as the door was being unlocked.
Ray opened the door and looked at Gracelyn, then Nikki. Instantly, he looked confused. “What the fuck?”
Gracelyn pushed her way in with Nikki following close behind her.
“Hold up, Gracelyn,” Ray said. “Who the fuck is this bitch?”
“Nikki,” Nikki said, before Grace could say anything. “I’m Nikki, nigga. Where the fuck is that nigga, Breon?”
Ray stopped Nikki from walking further back into the apartment. “Hold up,” he said. “I don’t know you like that for you to just be comin’ up in here and actin’ like you the damn police or some shit, try’na search a nigga and shit. I don’t fuckin’ know you.”
“Nigga, you ain’t gotta know me,” Nikki said, flailing her arms about. “I don’t give a fuck about you, nigga. Like I asked you, where the fuck is that nigga Breon? Don’t act like you don’t know who the fuck I am and what the fuck done been happenin’ to me and shit. I know he talk to you and shit, so don’t try to act brand new.”
Ray looked at Gracelyn as if he was looking for some sort of explanation. “You know this chick that Breon was messin’ with?” he asked.
“Yeah,” Gracelyn answered, nodding her head. “We stay together. This my roommate.”
Wrath of a Side Chick 4 (Side Chick's Wrath) Page 12
