“Girl, is this where you was at?” Gracelyn asked, looking at the street. “I don’t come over here much.”
“Girl, I don’t know,” Nikki responded. “I mean, it coulda been. But like I told you, them niggas had me in the backseat of that van you see and shit, so I really didn’t see that much. I was so scared and shit that I thought they was gon’ take me somewhere and kill me. I told you how I had only seen Sacramento , so I guess this is where we was. You know it’s so dark over up in here. This snow only make it harder to see.”
Staying the equivalent of a city block back from Breon, Nikki watched as he pulled into a spot out in front of the house. The van continued going, as if it were going around to the alley. Nikki cautiously rolled by Breon, deciding that she’d go around the block. As soon as she found somewhere to park, she’d wait to see Breon head into the house. This was when she’d be the uninvited guest that Breon and Dante would never expect.
***
Trina waited as she listened from the bedroom upstairs. Something had been done to the bedroom door so that she couldn’t open it. She’d thought that her escape would be when Dante had gone downstairs and left to go to the gas station. However, she quickly found that this wasn’t the case, and that she would be trapped in the room until he returned. Much like Nikki, Trina also gave some thought to jumping out of the window. However, upon looking further, she saw that this too wasn’t going to work. The distance to the ground below was simply too far, and the window couldn’t be opened anyway.
Dante walked back into the house, through the backdoor. Quickly, remembering the instructions he’d given Breon, he checked out front. Indeed, Breon was sitting out front, with his car running. Dante chuckled under his breath. Even from the house, he could see that Breon was anxious. Dante then turned around and looked up the staircase. He’d left the upstairs hallway light on.
Smiling, Dante headed for the stairs. As he climbed them, the house completely silent except for Trell downstairs sitting in the kitchen, Dante called Trina’s name. “Trina!” he said. “Trina! You ready to see your man?” His words were full of sarcasm.
Dante let himself into the bedroom and looked at Trina as she sat on the bed. The look in her face told him right then and there that she was literally scared for her life. Dante derived some sort of pleasure at that realization. However, at the end of the night, he knew that he had no true intentions of doing anything bad to the chick. The only reason he snagged her was because the side chick had bailed, and this one was obviously closer to Breon’s heart. Dante thought of himself as being one smart fella as he stepped into the bedroom. He’d learned enough from life about what to do to get a man’s attention.
Dante lifted his gun up and pointed it at Trina. “Let’s make this easy, okay,” he said. “I swear to God, if you try any funny stuff, like the side chick your nigga had, I will blow your fuckin’ brains out right there in front of everybody. The side chick just don’t know what she got comin’ to her once I catch up with her ass, but you got warning now. It ain’t you I’m after, it’s that bitch ass nigga.”
Trina swallowed. “Okay,” she said. While part of her couldn't believe that Breon had told such a bald-face lie to her face, the other part of her secretly wallowed in the miserable idea that tonight could very well be the last time she’d ever see Breon. There was no doubt in Trina’s mind, especially from looking into Dante’s eyes, that he had the capacity to really kill him. The five years he’d spent in prison were a long time – a long time in which he had plenty of time to think and dwell.
Reluctantly, Trina stood up. She kept her eyes on the gun, hoping this nut head didn’t pull the trigger at any moment.
“Come on over here,” Dante said, motioning for Trina to come closer with the gun. “I ain’t gon’ shoot you. He waitin’ outside and shit,” he looked deeply into her eyes. “So let’s just make this quick and shit so,” he smiled, “we all can get outta here.”
Trina brushed past Dante, hating that she was forced to walk in front of him. There was something about having him stand behind her, at no matter what distance, that just did not sit well with Trina. In Dante’s presence, she could feel an eerie fascination. His stares were several seconds too long and too deep. It was almost as if, from her perspective, the man wasn’t dealing with a full deck of cards and was just as happy knowing he was missing a few.
“Get down these fuckin’ steps,” Dante said.
“Okay, okay,” Trina said. “It’s kinda dark down here, so I’m trying.”
“Bitch, shut the fuck up!” Dante snapped. “I ain’t up for all the whining and shit. That’s why your ass got knocked out in the van the first time. You don’t know how to keep your mouth shut and shit, so I had to show you that when I say do somethin’, you do it. Keep cool and stuff, Sexy, and I promise you’ll survive tonight.”
When Dante and Trina got to the first landing, where the stairs split to the right to go to the living room and to the left to go to the kitchen. Dante pushed Trina to the side gently and looked into the kitchen. There, he looked at Trell and nodded. Trell, dressed in black pants and a black hoodie, sat in the dark of the kitchen. The table had been pulled over to the side, toward the sink, as to be out of the way of the back door and the view of the kitchen from the front door. Calm and collected, Trell sat with his gun in his lap. His uncle had been put into the hospital because of this mess. He was going to make sure that somebody was watching Dante’s back.
Dante told Trina to sit on the loveseat, which was to the left of the front door, and wait. He then turned the lights off and opened the front door. His eyes scanned the block, seeing if there was anything out of the ordinary. Here, he missed having Edric’s help because Edric would have been able to point a car out that didn’t belong. Even though this house belonged to Trell’s father, Trell didn’t spend enough time over in this hood to really know who would be where and in what kind of car. He flickered the porch light, which was the signal to Breon that it was time for him to get out of the car and walk up to the porch.
Dante stepped back, now in the total darkness of one side of the living room. Thanks to streetlights out in front of the house, there was some blueish light shining into the dining room. Trina watched as Breon’s familiar shadow got closer and closer. Within several seconds, he was pulling the screen door open and stepping inside. Trina’s heart beat so fast. There was so much tension from wondering what was about to happen. She’d never seen anyone get killed in front of her, and she surely didn’t want to now.
Breon, with cautious eyes, stepped into the house. If two leaves clashed together in the tree above the front yard, he’d have noticed them and could have clocked exactly where they came from. Never in his life would he walk into this sort of setup, but getting Trina back was all he could think about. He was practically sick to his stomach when he thought about how Trina might look at him when their eyes met again.
“Close the door,” Dante ordered when Breon stepped over the threshold.
Breon did just that, pushing the front door closed. Just when the lock clicked, Dante flipped the light on. Immediately, Breon looked dead into the barrel of a gun – a gun held steady in Dante’s firm hand. He then glanced at Trina and looked into her eyes. Never had he seen so much fear and disappointment. It was obvious that Trina no longer looked at him in the same way.
“Wassup, nigga?” Dante asked, smiling. “Wassup?”
Breon nodded, sternly as he looked into the dark doorways of the house. This was definitely not the kind of place he’d be unless he was trying to save Trina. “Wassup?” he asked, his lips tight.
Dante looked at Trina. “You see,” he said. “I kept my word and shit. I ain’t do you wrong or no shit like that when I know that I coulda did some shit like that. I told you that I wasn’t gon’ hurt your chick and shit, and I didn’t. There she is, nigga.”
Breon reached down to hug Trina, but was soon stopped by Dante. “Hold up, nigga,” Dante said. “I ain’t tell you that you co
uld bend down and hug her or no shit like that. Wait the fuck up. I’m the one in charge of this shit.” He paused, looking Breon up and down. “You do like I said, right?”
“Man, ain’t nobody with me,” Breon said, holding his arms out. “You said not to bring nobody, so I ain’t bring nobody with me. It was just me out in that truck.”
“Okay,” Dante said, nodding his head. “And what the fuck about some heat?”
Breon held his arms even higher up in the air, signaling that Dante could search him if he wanted to. Dante quickly stepped forward and checked over Breon, feeling somewhat relieved that he indeed wasn’t carrying. “A’ight then, nigga,” Dante said.
“So, what?” Breon asked. “When you gon’ let my chick go? You said you ain’t want nothin’ with her, right? That’s what you said? What the fuck you waitin’ on? You got me right where you want me and shit, so why don’t you just go ahead and let her go and shit since I’m standin’ right here, face to face, man to man and shit to you?”
Dante, holding his gun and ready to pull the trigger at any point, nodded. He glanced at Trina, seeing that Breon was indeed right. He smiled. “Okay,” he said. “She can get the fuck up and get outta here.”
“Go on, Baby,” Breon said. “Why don’t you go on and get outta here?”
Trina stood up, feeling stiff and scared. “Where I’mma go?” she asked.
“Bitch, do this look like a fuckin’ travel agency?” Dante asked. “I don’t plan shit like that in here. If you stay, you goin’ to a morgue then to a cemetery. If you leave, at least you got a chance. You a pretty chick and shit. Some nigga will pick you up.”
Breon groaned ever so softly. He reached out to hug Trina as she passed him, but she was so very cold toward him. He knew, more than he’d ever known anything in his life, that if he made it out of this house alive tonight, he’d probably have lost Trina for the rest of his life. It hurt, to say the least, because he knew how much he loved her. And now, he wished he could do anything in the world to prove it.
“Don’t call me baby,” Trina said, in a very snappy and quiet way. “Bye, Breon.”
“Trina…” Breon said, wishing he could keep her attention as she walked out into the snowy front yard.
“Look here, nigga,” Dante said. “This ain’t no damn Lifetime movie set or no shit like that. Okay, I said your bitch could go.
“Okay, and I’m here,” Breon responded. “What now, nigga?”
“Don’t come up in here actin’ like you bad and shit when I know you really not, nigga,” Dante said. “Let’s not forget that I’m the one with the gun and shit, okay?”
Breon looked down, hating the power dynamic at the moment. However, he was well aware that all of this was about to change. The only difference was he didn’t know exactly how it would change, as he didn’t know that Nikki was only feet away.
***
Nikki marched with Gracelyn following up right on up the block until the two of them were just about to turn into the yard of the very same house where Nikki had been kept captive just last night. From the front, the house looked so strange, especially since she’d only seen it from the back.
“This is where he had me,” Nikki said, her words so chilled. “He had me up in that back bedroom that you can barely see around on the side.”
“Damn, this shit don’t even look like nobody live in it,” Gracelyn said.
“Don’t nobody live there,” Nikki said. “I don’t know who house it is, but as soon as you get inside you can see that don’t nobody live in it. It’s all dusty and shit and look like don’t nobody sweep or mop none of the floors. The shit is really fucked up.”
Just as Nikki was reaching for the gate, a woman came running down the walkway. Within moments, she was only feet from Nikki and Gracelyn. She looked at them with so much confusion in her eyes, letting Nikki know that she was looking into the eyes of Breon’s chick, Trina. Being dissed just to not upset this chick certainly didn’t feel good, but Nikki wasn’t the kind of chick who liked to think of herself as someone who would try to bring another black girl down like so many others would. It didn’t take her long to notice the way Trina had run out of the house. Her entire disposition screamed that she was moving out of desperation and survival, so similar to Nikki when she’d escaped from the store basement over by the Dante’s house.
“Trina?” Nikki said.
Trina stopped just as she was coming to the fence. She realized who she was looking at. Rather, she realized that the smaller, shapely chick was more than likely the side chick that Dante was talking about. “What?” Trina asked. “What do you want with me? You must be Nikki.”
Nikki felt as if she could very well catch an attitude. However, she was really here to get Breon and Dante, not to fight Breon’s chick. In light of this, she decided to take the high road and not give in to her temptation to set someone – anyone – straight. “No, I’m not his side chick,” she said. “But I’mma keep it real with you and tell you that we did mess around a little bit, since I guess you already know.”
Trina nodded, looking Nikki up and down. She could certainly see what Breon liked in Nikki. Her body, to say the least, was easily her best, and most eye-catching, attribute. “Okay,” she said. “I see.”
“Right,” Nikki said. “And that crazy nigga in there, Dante, thought that I was you and that’s why he kidnapped me first, girl. That’s why he kidnapped me first.”
“Where would he even get you from?” Trina asked. “I mean, how would he even know that you knew him…that you knew Breon?”
“Because,” Nikki asked, deciding that she was going to keep it real and not hold back, “Breon had asked me to keep some guns over at my place so that you wouldn’t see them and shit. I said cool. Well, the night he and his boy, whoever ‘cause I ain’t meet the nigga for real except from afar, came over and got the guns, I came outside to bring them to him. And I guess that Dante nigga was watchin’. Next thing I know, like five minutes after I walk inside the house and shit and start to get real comfortable, they bustin’ in my door and shit, draggin’ me out into this van.”
“Green van?” Trina asked, stepping into the light so Nikki could see the bruise on her forehead from having her head bashed into the door panel.
Just then, the three women turned their backs to one direction. A strong wind rushed by, sharp and chilling. It caused the sides of their faces to sting.
“Yeah, I know,” Trina said. “I saw your…Your blood?”
“Not mine,” Nikki said. “The other nigga that he was workin’ with. Who all in there?”
“Breon, Dante, and some other dude that is sittin’ in the kitchen, in the dark,” Trina responded. “I’m so done with Breon.” She shook her head. “I swear to God, I am. He was supposed to be takin’ me to the Smokey Mountains for our anniversary and I heard he was even buyin’ an engagement ring.”
“Sound like he really love you,” Nikki said, some resentment in her voice. “Sorry this had to happen to you. The nigga was try’na not pull you into this, but I guess me makin’ a run for it fucked that up.”
Trina nodded, feeling scorned and betrayed. She then noticed a heavy bulge in Nikki’s coat pocket. “They know you comin’?” she asked.
Nikki shook her head. “Naw,” she answered. “And that’s just the way I want it. They probably think I’m somewhere cryin’ like a little bitch.”
“I gotta go,” Trina said. “I don’t know what’s about to happen, and where I can go, but I gotta go.” She looked up and down the snowy street. Visibility had dropped to less than two blocks from the wind being so high, as well as the snow being so thick.
“You can sit in my car if you want,” Nikki offered. “I mean, you ain’t got to if you don’t want, but you can. I ain’t got no problem with you. The two niggas I really got a problem with are in that house and I ain’t gon’ go nowhere until they at least hear what the fuck I got to say. That nigga you with, or used to be with probably at this point, really fucked
me over and basically set me up to get caught up in this shit. I know you don’t want to hear that, probably, but it is what it is. Okay? Then that nigga Dante kept me captive, had me knocked out, I was locked up in that room upstairs, then I was pushed down some steps at a store and kept in some room with some big ugly nigga I had to stab to fuckin’ get the hell outta there.”
Trina looked at Nikki as she contemplated the offer. Strangely enough, she respected the chick for at least keeping it one hundred with her. This was especially so considering that many chicks would have probably tried to start some mess, even out on the street in a snowy, early winter.
Trina agreed to take Nikki up on her offer, seeing that her other options were probably rather limited. Nikki looked at Gracelyn and said, “Okay, girl. Thanks for walkin’ me up here. I’mma go in here and talk to these niggas for a second. Remember what I told you. No matter what you hear, don’t come runnin’ up here.” On that note, Nikki marched into the yard and headed up to the porch as Gracelyn and Trina rushed down the street to the car. Nikki stepped up on the porch, opened the screen door, and knocked with her fist. Nikki began to count to three, meaning that after three she would start firing into the window and let the bullets land where they may. “One… Two…” she said. Just as she’d gotten to three, everything changed.
***
“Nigga, I told you that I ain’t have shit to do with how the fuck you got caught up and wound up goin’ to prison,” Breon said. “I ain’t have shit to do with that.”
“Nigga, we was supposed to be coo,” Dante said, still waving his gun.
“How?” he asked. “How was we supposed to be coo and shit, nigga, Dante? Nigga, I ain’t even like your ass like that, and now you see why. There was always somethin’ up with you and that’s why I ain’t fuck with you, nigga. But, on the real, I wasn’t your friend or daddy or no shit like that. I heard what I needed to hear to know that it was fuckin’ time for me to get the fuck up outta that area. I don’t know what the fuck you was doin’, maybe fuckin’ too many bitches or somethin’. But I kept my eyes open like you should have and shit and picked up on the fact that all them niggas was gettin’ wiped up off of the street.”
Wrath of a Side Chick 4 (Side Chick's Wrath) Page 14
