When Loyalty Dies, So Does Love

by Dorothy Brown-Newton

  I climbed in my car and headed home. I was about three blocks from my house when I was pulled over. “Isn’t this about a bitch?” I cursed under my breath.

  “License and registration,” the officer said when he approached my window.

  I handed the officer my license and reached over to get my registration out of the glove compartment.

  “Ma’am, I’m going to need you to step out of the vehicle,” he said.

  “What’s the problem, Officer?” I asked. I was irritated and was shitting bricks at the same time.

  “Ma’am, step out of the car,” he said with more bass in his voice.

  I watched as his partner made it to the other side of my car. I stepped out of the car and was immediately ushered to the backseat of the police car. As I sat in the back of that police car, I wished I had never met this Tim character.

  Tasha

  I had received a call from the detective handling my parents’ case. He had said that they had a suspect in custody, so Rellz, Kane, and I were now on our way to the 113th precinct. Once at the precinct, I let the officer at the front desk know that I was there to see Detective Niles. Another officer led us back to Detective Niles’s office.

  “Thanks for coming,” the detective said as he sat at his desk. “Please come in and have a seat.”

  I sat in between Rellz and Kane in one of the three chairs on the opposite side of Detective Niles’s desk. I had a hard time getting my leg to stop shaking as I waited for the detective to speak. He was shuffling papers, and my nerves were on edge, as I was waiting to see the faggot who had killed my parents.

  “Okay, so my officers responded to an anonymous tip about a stolen car, and when my officers pulled the car over and the driver reached inside her purse to retrieve her identification, one of the officers noticed that she had a gun in her possession and asked her to step out of the vehicle,” the detective informed us.

  I was stuck on the fact that Detective Niles had kept saying “she,” and right away my mind went to my dad having an affair and the crazy bitch killing them because she wanted to be with my dad.

  “So are you saying a female killed our parents?” Kane asked, bringing me back to the present.

  “What I’m saying is the car wasn’t stolen. In fact, it belonged to the driver, but we brought her in to question her about the gun, which she has no license to carry,” the detective explained. “Ballistics and forensics testing came back on the weapon, and it has been established that this gun matches the gun used in your parents’ murders.” He shuffled through his papers again until he located a photo. “I’m going to show you a picture of the suspect that we have in custody.”

  When he showed us the mug shot of the person whom they had in custody, I was at a loss for words because there was no way that she had taken Rellz leaving her this far and had killed my parents. I started hyperventilating; I couldn’t breathe as the anger built up in me. I saw red, and my fingers started twitching. The detective rushed from behind the desk to render aid. He rubbed my back and tried to get me to calm down and drink some water. Rellz and Kane just had this look on their faces. Once I calmed down, I looked at Rellz, and he was shaking his head. Then he asked the detective if this was some kind of a joke.

  “I assure you that Lecia Diese’s prints were the only prints on the gun, so no, this isn’t a joke, by any means. I take it you know the suspect?” he said to Rellz.

  “That’s my ex-girlfriend, who I broke up with recently, but I can’t see her doing this,” Rellz responded.

  I looked at him in disbelief. Didn’t he just hear the detective say that the bitch’s prints were on the gun?

  “Tash, Lecia’s a lot of things, but a murderer, she’s not,” Rellz said.

  “Well, she had a motive. That can’t be denied. And how the hell did her prints end up on the gun that killed my parents?” I retorted.

  “I don’t know, Tash. I really don’t know,” he said, shaking his head and not wanting to believe the obvious.

  A few minutes later, we wrapped up our meeting with Detective Niles. After we left the precinct, Rellz dropped Kane off first, and then he dropped me off and said he would be back later. I wanted to talk to him about how we were going to dead this bitch. Maybe he could bail her out, make shit seem sweet, and that was when I could get at her ass. I couldn’t concentrate on the kids, because my mind was thinking of ways to take this bitch’s life.

  Rellz

  I knew Tasha would kill me if she knew what I was about to do. Yes, I was going to get more information from the precinct about what was going on with Lecia. Like I’d said, she was a lot of things, but a murderer, she was not. Something wasn’t right about this shit. I found out that she had already been arraigned and was being held on $150,000 bail or bond. She had been charged with two counts of murder in the first degree, a Class A felony, and possession of a firearm, a Class B felony. “Damn,” was all I could say. She was fucked right now. They told me that she had visiting hours tomorrow, so tomorrow I was going to go to Rikers Island, where she was now being held, to see what was really good.

  I hadn’t even got a chance to sit Tasha down yet and tell her about my mom, and I wanted to let her know that I had heard from a reliable source that Turk had taken his case to trial and shit was looking good. I wanted to make amends with him, but I was not so sure if he was going to be willing to now. Our motto had always been “Brothers over bitches,” but I needed him to understand my position. He had set me up to be robbed over a bitch. Had he just fucked my shorty, minus the other shit, I would never have left him hanging. From the start, I had known his case was bullshit, and he could have beaten that shit already with the right representation, but I hadn’t been able find it in my heart at the beginning to bail him out. At the end of the day, he had still betrayed me for some pussy, so we both had our faults.

  Tasha was lying across the couch, watching television, when I got back to the house. I stood outside for a few seconds and just watched her through the window. I wanted to make things right so bad with her and get my family back, but there were some things that were still holding me back—some things that I needed to confess before making shit right. I knew I should just let it be, but it would be wrong for me not to confide in her. I wouldn’t want us to do this again and then have her find out what I had been holding back. It would be the same shit we had just gone through, and the only difference would be that I was the one on the lying end. It wouldn’t be fair to expect something from her and not give her the same. I tapped lightly on the window to get her attention since ringing the doorbell was a no-no. It didn’t matter how deep of a sleep Madi was in. She always woke up to the ringing of the bell because she knew it was her daddy. I should have kept the spare key.

  Tasha opened the door, and by her facial expression, I could tell she was still pissed about Lecia being the person who had killed her parents. I needed to rephrase that. I meant Lecia being the person who had been accused of killing her parents.

  “Tash, how you feeling?” I asked.

  “Rellz, how the fuck do you think I’m feeling? That bitch kills my parents, and you’re vouching for the bitch.”

  “Come on, Tash. All I said was she’s no murderer. There has to be more to the story. I just don’t see her doing no shit like this over no dick.”

  “Well, Lecia better hope they leave her ass in that jail cell to tell her story, because if she gets released, she’s getting dealt with,” she said, getting upset all over again.

  “Tash, calm down. I didn’t mean to upset you,” I said, pulling her into my arms.

  She cried in my arms, and my heart broke for her. I let her know that if Lecia or whoever was responsible for her parents’ death, she didn’t have to worry about them breathing much longer. I highly doubted that Lecia had pulled the trigger, but if she had, she would definitely stop breathing, because if you hurt Tasha, you hurt me. Her pain was my pain. That was why I knew it was going to kill me when I had to share with Tasha what I’d
done.

  * * *

  I was on my way to meet with my lawyer, Perkins. I had had him go to the Rikers Island Correction Facility on my behalf to speak with Lecia. I had planned to go myself, but at the last minute, I had decided that I simply could not go back to that hellhole, not even for a visit. When I arrived at Perkins’s office, I stood at the receptionist’s desk for, like, ten minutes, listening to her try to make small talk, something she did every time I came here. When would she get that I was not interested? I was glad to see Perkins come around that corner, saving me from the princess and the frog—minus the princess. He ushered me into his office.

  “Hey, Rellz. How have you been?” he asked, taking a seat behind his desk.

  “I can’t complain, but you see the situation I’m in,” I sighed as I took a seat in the chair on the other side of his desk.

  “Well, I spoke to Ms. Diese. She says she’s innocent. She does admit to wanting to get at you and Tasha for the breakup, but she states she never killed anyone.”

  When Perkins finished retelling the story Lecia had spun for him, it really sounded far-fetched, but two things stood out to me and proved that she was telling the truth. The first was that she had said that the dude, who had claimed his name was Tim, had told her that he was Tasha’s brother. And the second was that she had said he had a tattoo of a black heart on his ring finger. It was a good thing she paid attention to minor details, because had she not in this case, I would be gunning for her. That was one good thing I could honestly say about her. She was always observant of her surroundings, and she always paid attention to the little things—unlike his ass, because he had just signed his own death certificate. I didn’t feel the need to share what I had gleaned with Perkins just yet; I had to go and have a talk with Tasha first.

  I thanked Perkins with an envelope and left his office. I then called Tasha to ask her if she and the kids would like to come spend the night at my house. She wanted to know why, thinking I was up to something, so I had to convince her that I just wanted to spend some time with her and the kids at my place. The truth was I had hired a caretaker for my place, to take care of RJ when I needed to run out for business. I needed the kids to be occupied while Tasha and I spoke so that we would have absolutely no interruptions.

  I arrived at Tasha’s house, and since we had all the kids, we loaded them into Tasha’s van. We headed out, with me behind the wheel. Once we arrived at home sweet home, we got the kids out of the van, and I introduced Tasha to Ms. Marcia. I had made sure to hire an older woman, because Tasha wasn’t going to go for no younger woman running around here. Ms. Marcia was of Spanish descent, and she was the grandmother of a good friend of Perkins. I still had had him do a background check on her, and once it came back clean, I hired her as a temporary live-in, someone I could rely on until I could get Tasha to come back home and try this family thing again. I knew I was the one who had ended things, but once my skeletons were exposed, I didn’t know if she was going to be willing to come back.

  Tasha

  The kids and I were spending a few days over at Rellz’s place. I was pleased that after that bitch he had been living with left the house, he had been thoughtful enough to change the decor. He’d done it out of respect for me, and I really appreciated the gesture. I was being nosy, so I peeked into his bedroom and saw that he had changed the furniture in there also. I used to love the old bedroom, but I couldn’t lie. The new one was magnificent.

  “The new bedroom was made for a king, and hopefully, his queen, who goes by the name of Tasha,” I joked as I lay sprawled out across his brand-new bed.

  “You should have told me you wanted to get it popping,” Rellz joked as he stood at the door.

  Embarrassment had to be written all over my face as I jumped up off the bed. “I was just trying to see if your bed was better than mine,” I lied, unable to come up with anything better.

  “Okay, if you say so. Guess we’re not getting it popping,” he said, smiling and pulling me toward the stairs.

  We went into the movie room to talk about whatever was on his mind. He had even changed the movie room. Damn. I had loved the old room. I went and took a seat on the lounge chair that he had added to the room, and he came and sat with me.

  “Tash, before I start, all I ask is for you to let me finish. Okay?”

  “Okay,” I said. I was lying, because if I needed to speak, I was going to speak.

  “Tash, I had Perkins go to the jail and speak to Lecia to see what she had to say about what she was being charged with. He said that Lecia told him that she was sitting outside of your house, watching us interact with the kids in the backyard. She said she couldn’t stand to watch any longer, so she left and went to a bar. At the bar she was on her second drink when some man approached her and asked her why she had been watching his sister’s house. She told him that I had broken up with her and had got back with you, and she was there to think up a plan to get revenge, so he agreed to help her, because he wanted revenge as well.

  “He gave her a phone number and the name Tim. She said she didn’t call the number until about a week later, and they met up. She said the dude, Tim, wanted her to take the gun and meet up with him when he called, but she told him she didn’t want to hurt anyone. She just wanted to slash tires, nothing like murder. He got mad at her and told her if she refused to cooperate, he would kill her parents like he had killed his own parents. He knew her address and her parents’ address, so she had no choice but to take the gun. When she got pulled over, she knew he had set her up to take the fall. Only reason I believe her is that she said Tim has a black heart tattooed on his ring finger.”

  “Jason?” I said before passing out.

  I woke up to Ms. Marcia holding a cloth to my forehead and Rellz looking nervous. I swore that this whole situation was going to be the death of me. I couldn’t take too much more of this. And why hadn’t Rellz invite Kane over to discuss this? I needed Kane right about now.

  “Are you okay, Tash?” Rellz asked, holding my hand.

  I just cried. I still didn’t believe completely what Rellz had just told me, but how many dudes out there had a black heart on their ring finger? I remembered the day when Jason had called home, upset that his then girlfriend, Trish, whom he was going to marry, had left him to do his bid on his own. He had been so upset and hurt behind her actions that he had got that tattoo and had sworn he would never give another bitch his heart.

  “But why?” I cried out. “What reason did he have to do something like this to our parents?”

  Rellz and Ms. Marcia now stood off to the side, looking at me with sympathy in their eyes, but it was sympathy that I didn’t want, because my mind was now on murder. Only this time I would be the one pulling the trigger.

  I said thank you to Ms. Marcia and told her that she was excused to do whatever it was that she had been doing before Rellz called for her. I didn’t mean to come off rude, but right now I truly could give zero fucks about it. If she felt some kind of way about it, oh fucking well. Rellz gave her an apologetic look, but I didn’t need him apologizing for me. After she headed upstairs, I walked up the basement stairs, seeking to escape to the bathroom to wash my face and gather my thoughts. I needed to talk to Rellz about what our next move was going to be.

  When I got to the top of the basement steps, I heard Ms. Marcia talking to someone in the kitchen. I stood there, listening, even though she was speaking in a hushed tone. I hoped this old bitch wasn’t up in here dry snitching, because her ass could get it too. I walked into the kitchen, and she gave herself away. Her face turned strawberry red. I guessed she had figured I was so wrapped up in myself that I wouldn’t notice that she had a stranger in the kitchen.

  “Senora Tasha, are y-you okay?” she stuttered.

  “I’m fine, Ms. Marcia,” I said as I looked at the man who was standing there.

  “Senora Tasha, this is my hijo, Thomas,” she said, introducing us.

  “Hola, Senora Tasha,” he said.

/>   I excused myself without a word before I said something along the lines of “Do I look like I speak Spanish, bitches?” I knew I had been rude to her son by not speaking, but I truly hadn’t expected to find another stranger in Rellz’s house. He was definitely slipping. I remembered when he didn’t allow anyone to know where he laid his head. I didn’t trust her or her fucking son.

  Rellz

  Tash wasted no time getting down to business when she came back downstairs. She wanted me to bond Lecia out of jail and get Lecia to help set up Tasha’s brother by getting him to come to her. She also said that she wasn’t sleeping at my home with her children, because she didn’t trust Ms. Marcia or her son, Thomas. She said she had heard them speaking in hushed tones, and she was sure that Ms. Marcia had been telling her son what she heard. I tried to assure her that Perkins had done a background check on her and her family members, but Tasha wasn’t trying to hear it. I didn’t tell Ms. Marcia that her services were no longer needed. I just helped Tasha get the kids packed, and then we all piled back in the van for the drive way across town, back to Tasha’s house. I guessed I would let Ms. Marcia know about her status whenever I got back to the house.

  I had always loved that Tasha was a no-nonsense chick, but it seemed that her parents’ deaths, and her finding out about Jason being responsible for their deaths, had triggered something in her. She was not herself. It seemed that her mental state had shifted a little, and I was really worried that she would go on a solo mission and would do something that would land her in jail or dead. I needed her to confide in me about any moves she wanted to make, so that we could make them together. As I was driving, my phone alerted me that I had a text message. I glanced down to see who the text was from and let out an aggravated sigh, forgetting that I was still in the car with Tasha.

  “Who is that?” she asked.

  “Nobody but Rena’s ass,” I lied.