Niya met Rose’s stare. She smiled, and leaned into the barrel.
“Now what?” Rose asked, breaking the silence.
“Well that’s gonna be up to you, Monica. I told you before, I came here because I need you to help me find somebody. We didn’t come here for nothing else. Pulling that trigger is going to give all us something we don’t want. Believe me, Gwen don’t have a problem popping your ass. We been through a lot, and today is just as good as any day to die. But I don’t think anyone is going to die in here today. I know you gone choose the right family, and do what you know is right.” Niya said.
“Why da fuck should I help you?” Rose snapped
Niya motioned for Gwen to lower the gun. Rose kept her gun on Niya.
“I’m a give you one good reason and if you don’t feel like this reason is good enough, you could either pull the trigger or take me to jail,” Niya said.
“What’s that?” Rose asked, keeping her finger on the trigger.
Niya turned her wrist over. Rose saw the MHB tattoo and she looked at her own tattoo. She was a damn cop, and yet the oath she took with this gang of women had her doubting the oath she had taken for the department. She looked at the letters and lowered the gun. She looked at Gwen, who walked around the couch and sat beside Niya.
A couple months ago, she swore her allegiance to CMPD, and now MHB’s oath meant a little more to her. She looked at Niya and then Gwen. Niya smiled and placed her hand on her knee. She knew that MHB wasn’t only tattooed on Rose’s body, but it was on her heart too.
__________
Special agent Mark Atking was heading the MHB indictment. They had cloned the MHB’s cell phones, and tracked their vehicles. They had been on MHB for months now, and it had paid off. Now it was time for their work to pay all the way off, and get these women off the streets before a war ensued.
Chapter 16
Rose sat at her cubicle, looking for the paper she had written the address to the safe house on. She could have sworn she had written it down in her notebook, but the page was nowhere to be found.
“Surprised to see you here,” Butler said, walking past Rose and taking a seat at his cubicle. “I didn’t think you worked here anymore.
“Right,” Rose responded, peeking her head into his cubicle. “I got some good news for you…”
“Well, I got some bad news for you,” Butler said.
Rose had been so caught up with the streets that she didn’t even realize what was going on in the police department. She had no idea that the feds were in the building.
“You’re off the MHB case,” Butler informed her. “The feds officially took over the investigation. Come to find out, they’d been investigating them for some time now. If you were around or answered ya phone, you would know that,” Butler said, taking a sip of his coffee.
“I can’t be off the case. I’m this close to making a major deal and finally learning where Niya is getting her drugs from,” Rose said as she opened her desk drawer.
Rose couldn’t afford to be off the MHB case right now. If she was officially off the case, she couldn’t give the girls what they needed. She would be out of the loop, especially if the Feds had taken over.
“Do the feds know that I was undercover in this case?” Rose asked, now having her own bit of an attitude.
“Of course they do. But you have been assigned to another case now. MHB is their problem now. There are other crimes going on,” Butler said as he clicked his mouse through emails.
Rose found the paper with the address. She sighed, and grabbed her keys. Butler was saying something, but she ignored him and walked towards the elevator. Butler caught up to her as the doors opened.
“Leave MHB alone,” Butler warned Rose.
She stepped onto the elevator.
Butler watched her as the door closed. His gut was telling him that she was up to something, he just hoped it wasn’t something stupid that could ruin her life and career.
__________
Niya parked in the driveway of the house she and Chad had once shared. He had called and said he had to take care of some things, and needed her to pick the twins up. He would get them back after he finished his business. Niya needed to spend some time with her babies before shit in the street exploded. Niya had made the decision to introduce Eagle to the twins, he had won her heart, and she felt today was a good day for him to meet them.
Chad may have been rusty in the streets, but not so much that he didn’t notice a dude in the passenger seat of Niya’s car. He looked at Niya and then back to the car. Although the windows were tinted, he could still see an outline of someone.
“Who da fuck is dat?” Chad asked as he stepped out.
“Really Chad? Really? Boy don’t start today.” Niya said as she picked up Jasmine and covered her little face with kisses. Jahill babbled and she picked him up to give him the same affection. Both of them squealed and giggled as she played with them. “Mommy missed you two.”
“So you just gonna ignore me? I know I asked a damn question.”
Niya tried to keep her temper under control. Chad had lost all his rights to question anything in her life, except the babies. Although Eagle had touched her heart, it still was wounded by Chad. Chad had enough heartache of his own right now, but Niya forgot that when she opened her mouth.
“That,” she said as she placed the twins down, “is my man.”
Chad closed the door and walked over to her. “Ya man?”
“Yes nigga, my man. My boyfriend. My dude, my boo, my significant other,” Niya said as she poked his chest with her finger.
As Niya said those words, Chad clenched his fist, then relaxed his hands. He walked over to the steps, and stared at the car. He figured after everything calmed down he would get his family back. He had no idea that Niya had moved on, it had only been a couple of months
“So it’s like dat?” Chad asked, looking Niya in her eyes.
“Look, Chad, you really hurt me. I loved you from the depths of all I am, but I just don’t see us ever getting back to that. I do and always will love you, you’re the father of my children. You and me? Too much has happened for that to exist anymore.” Niya said. She opened the glass door and placed the twins inside. She closed the door and looked at Chad.
“Do you love him?” Chad asked, looking at the ground before raising his eyes to hers.
Niya thought about it for a second, and she smiled. She hadn’t even told Eagle that she loved him, but she realized at that moment, that she did.
“Yes. Yes I do love him, Chad,” Niya said as she smiled at the car.
Chad’s jaw tightened, his teeth clenched, and he balled his fists. He felt like Niya had just reached in his chest, grabbed his heart, and stomped on it. Niya stepped back against the door. Chad stepped towards her. His heart was aching, he wanted to knock her head around until she came to her senses.
“I wouldn’t do that if I was you,” she warned, putting her head down to break the eye contact.
Niya knew that if Chad raised his hand, Eagle would not hesitate to raise his gun and blow him away.
“It’s no need for all that, Chad. Let’s just be parents to our beautiful kids,” Niya said, going inside to grab the babies’ bags. Chad watched her, and realized that he no longer had Niya. He had fucked up any chances of getting his life with her back. Someone had already stepped into his place.
__________
“You want something to drink?” Diamond asked Dollaz as she stepped out on the porch.
Diamond did not find sitting inside a trap house all day to be romantic, but it was required if she wanted to spend some time with Dollaz. She was determined to make this relationship work. She had history with him, and they both had matured. She poured the lemonade and smiled to herself, replaying their love making from earlier. Her dreamtime was interrupted by the sound of glass breaking and bullets hitting the house. Glass and bullets were flying everywhere.
&nb
sp; Diamond dropped to the floor and crawled behind the couch, grabbing the 12-gauge pump they kept under it for protection.
Boom! Boom! Boom! Pop! Pop! Pop! Boom! Pop!
As quickly as it had started, the gunfire stopped. Diamond slowly rose from behind the couch with the shotgun drawn. She stood by the wall and looked out the window. She could see Dollaz at the bottom of the steps.
“Arrrghhhhhhhhhh!” Dollaz moaned.
A couple of workers, who were out on the block, started coming out from behind the parked cars. A few came out of the house across the street with guns in their hands. Whoever the gunmen were, they were nowhere in sight. Diamond ran down the stairs. She took off her shirt and applied it to the two holes that she could see.
“Hold on, baby,” Diamond said, pressing down.
She could see the bullet hole in his stomach, and one in his shoulder. Blood was beginning to pool under him also.
“Call the fuckin’ ambulance,” she yelled out. “Hurry da fuck up,” she told one of the workers.
She kept the shirt pressed against the bullet wound in his stomach. She heard someone shriek. She looked in the direction of the blood curdling scream. All she could see were white Nike’s on the ground behind car.
“Come on, Dollaz. Hold on, baby,” Diamond yelled out trying to keep him awake. “Just hold on, boo. The ambulance is coming,” she pleaded with him as she tried to stop the bleeding.
__________
Tiffany pulled up to East Falls to see cops everywhere. Yellow tape blocked off her crack house and the coroner was bringing out a body.
“What da fuck is goin on?” she mumbled to herself, watching the cops bring bags of evidence out of the house.
The cops had Go, her main worker sitting in the back of the squad car with the door open, asking him question after question. Go sat there quietly, as they continued trying to question him. They finally gave up and he walked towards Tiffany. He knew the rules and respected the game too much to be talking to the cops. Where he was from, he was taught to have court on the streets only.
“Shit, Go, what is going on? What the fuck happened?” Tiffany asked as she looked at the house.
“I don’t know. Some niggas just ran up in the house and started shooting. By the time I got downstairs, da niggas was gone,” Go explained.
“Who dat?” Tiffany asked, nodding towards the coroner van.
“That’s Ms Daisy. She took a bullet to the chest. They said she was killed instantly.” Go said, looking down.
Tiffany couldn’t believe this shit. She patted Go on the shoulder and walked off. She heard Niya’s words in her head about things getting ugly. Shit, they were down three already, and she hoped whatever Niya’s plan was, she kicked it in gear before they had someone else in a black bag.
__________
Eagle watched Niya play with the twins. For now, he was a stranger to them, and they showed no interest in him being there. Seeing this side of Niya made him love her and want to protect her even more. He knew she considered herself a boss, but at the end of the day, she was in a nigga’s game.
“Do you smell that?” Niya asked Eagle, sniffing the air.
Eagle didn’t smell it at first, and then the nanny, Ms. Emma, came running down the stairs. “Ya car, ya car,” the nanny yelled, pointing to the window.
Niya jumped up from the floor and ran to the window. Eagle was behind her. Niya’s white Bentley was engulfed in flames. She looked at Ms. Emma, who grabbed the twins and ran upstairs. As she reached the top step, bullets cut through the walls and the windows. Eagle snatched her back and jumped on top of her.
“Get down,” Eagle yelled, pulling out his Desert Eagle.
Bullets knocked chunks of wood out of the banisters going up to the stairs. They hit mirrors and knocked pictures off the mantle, along with putting holes in the 60-inch flat screen on the wall. Eagle laid on top of Niya, shielding her. The shooting stopped, but a thick, black cloud of smoke began coming through the window. Niya panicked. She needed to get to her babies. Eagle snatched her up and pushed her towards the stairs.
The smoke that was pouring through the house was coming from the BMW and the Bentley. Both cars were orange with flames. Tires screeched from in front of the house as the shooters left. Niya sprinted up the stairs, Emma and the twins were in a back room, unharmed.
Eagle stayed downstairs by the door. He looked up and down the street, making sure the gunmen were not returning. He could hear the sirens approaching. Niya stood at the top of the stairs
“You ain’t got nothing up in here do you?”
“No, you know I am not stupid. I would never bring that shit around my kids or where I lay my head.”
“Aight, you know what this means, right?” Eagle asked Niya as he stood.
She nodded her head, still a little shook up by everything. She knew exactly what time it was and it wasn’t no turning back now. There would be no retreat, she needed to get her troops ready for battle, and she did not intend to lose.
Chapter 17
“Now look, this is no longer a high profile case, so he’s not gonna have round the clock security,” Rose explained to Gwen as they drove down the highway.
“What about his family? Are they gonna be there?” Gwen asked, reaching into her bag.
“From what I know, he really didn’t have much family. I think it’s just him,” Rose answered.
The ride to the safe house took about an hour and a half. They pulled up and parked a couple of streets away. Gwen slapped a clip into her .40 caliber, cocked a bullet into the chamber and then tossed her bag into the backseat. She had that same funny feeling in her stomach when she killed Mr. Walker, the first witness. It was different this time. The first time she was killing an innocent, trying to save her son. This time, she was taking an innocent life to get the chance to take out the fool that took him from her. Even still, she had guilt, but her desire to make Mayo pay, outweighed her guilt
“Thank you,” Gwen looked over and told Rose. “It really means a lot,” she said, before getting out of the car.
Gwen tucked her gun in her front right pocket and then threw her hoodie over her hair. The street was quiet and in a rural area. The houses had acres of land between them, and large trees to shield her from anyone. As long as a woman or child didn’t answer the door, she planned to plant a bullet in the head of the person who did. She took a deep breath and walked up to the door. Before ringing the doorbell, she tried the doorknob. It turned. She stopped for a moment, then stepped inside. She looked around; she didn’t see or hear anyone.
“Mr. Johnson?” Gwen called out, hoping he would answer.
Gwen approached the living room; however the voice that answered her caused her to freeze.
“Drop the gun and put ya hands in the air,” a voice yelled out from the dining room.
Gwen could see someone standing by the China cabinet with a gun pointed at her. She didn’t have hers raised, it was still by her side, and she didn’t know how quick the other person was, but she doubted she could get a shot off before them.
“Put the gun down and let me see ya hands,” Butler yelled out again.
Gwen hesitated for a moment. She slowly placed the gun on the table in the hall. Butler walked over to her and kicked her in the back of her knees, making her fall to the floor. He pulled her arm back and placed the handcuffs on her wrist. Butler had to give it to Mayo, he had proven to be useful. He thought for sure he was lying, but here she was, trying to murder a witness.
“You goin’ to jail for a long time, Gwen,” Butler said, holstering his gun and doing a quick pat search of Gwen to make sure that she didn’t have any more weapons on her.
“I can’t let you do that,” a voice said.
Butler looked up to see Detective Rose standing behind him with a gun pointed at his back. He didn’t pay her any attention and continued to put the handcuffs on Gwen. The sound of Rose cocking back the hammer to the revolver
in her hand quickly caught Butler’s attention.
“Are you serious?” Butler asked, with a curious look on his face. “Do you know what you’re doin’? Are you really willing to spend the rest of your life in prison for these crazy bitches,” Butler snapped, standing up to face her.
“Where’s the witness?” Rose asked, looking around the house.
“Listen to me, kid. Just put the gun down and let’s get MHB off the street,” Butler yelled, pointing down at Gwen, who was still layin on the floor.
“Where’s the fucking witness?” she snapped back.
“I can’t tell you that. But what I will tell you is that if you don’t put that gun down and assist me with this arrest, you’ll be going to jail right along with her,” Butler said, wiping the sweat from his forehead.
Rose could hear her heartbeat in her ears. She looked at Butler being honorable and loyal to his oath to serve and protect. She looked down at Gwen and the MHB tattoo on her ankle.
“Sorry I couldn’t be what you wanted me to be,” Rose said, before squeezing the trigger.
__________
Niya pulled into the Chad’s drive way. She almost forgot to put the car in park as she jumped out and ran to the front door.
Chad opened the door and the smell of smoke hit him. Eagle was unloading the kids from the car. Seeing another dude touching his kids caused his temper to flare. Seeing the look on Niya’s face caused him to cool it quickly. He could tell that Niya was on edge as Eagle handed her the kids.
“What’s going on?” Chad asked as he took Jahill. Both the babies reeked of smoke.
“I know I just got them back, but I need you to watch the kids for me. I can’t tell you when I will be back for them, but it shouldn’t be but a couple of days,” Niya explained, walking into the house with the bags and Jasmine.
Seeing her on edge made Chad want to close the door and not let her leave until she told him what the hell had happened. He looked at Eagle leaning against the car, and decided it was no longer his place to question her.
Country Girls Trilogy (Parts 1-2-3 Boxed Set): MHB Love Page 28
