“Yeah, I know. I told her ass that it’s time out with both of us going in and out of jail so much. I’m trying to be legit and open a few businesses and shit. She gotta be on her grown woman shit if we’re gonna be together,” AJ replied, pulling her away from her thoughts.
“Okay, so that’s the plan? Y’all plan on being together when she gets out?” Amore asked.
“Hell yeah. You know that’s always been my baby. I already got us an apartment and shit. I just gotta get rid of the bitch who lives there with me now and we’re all good,” AJ replied, making her laugh.
“Y’all niggas ain’t shit,” Amore said while shaking her head.
“What’s up with you and dude? Y’all don’t fuck around no more or something?” AJ asked while discreetly nodding towards Viper.
“I just told you that niggas ain’t shit. Me and that nigga sleep up in the same bed every night. Nigga went from sucking on my pussy lips this morning to kissing on another bitch a few hours later. But you know me, fam. No fucks given this way.” Amore shrugged.
“With your nonchalant ass,” AJ laughed as Ciara discreetly rolled her eyes. He walked Amore and Ciara to their car and gave her a hug before walking away to his own. When Amore went to get into Ciara’s car after AJ left, she shrieked when her hair was forcefully pulled from behind.
“Let her go Viper! You wrong for that shit!” Ciara yelled as she ran over and tried to get in the middle of them.
“Mind your fucking business!” he barked while pushing Ciara away.
“Get the fuck off me, nigga!” Amore yelled as she started swinging on him.
“Disrespectful ass bitch!” he fumed while trying to pull Amore to his car.
“Disrespectful? Nigga, fuck you! I just rolled up on you out here kissing on another bitch, but I’m disrespectful. I let you do you because I don’t give a fuck. Don’t come over here trying to manhandle me because I was talking to my friend,” Amore replied as she pulled away from him.
“Bitch, I’m your muthafucking friend! You don’t have no other friends,” Viper yelled.
“Let’s just go Amore,” Ciara requested.
“She ain’t going nowhere. Come get your stupid ass in the car Amore,” Viper ordered.
“I wish the fuck I would. Go back to your bitch and leave me the fuck alone,” Amore snapped.
“Your crackhead mama is a bitch,” the other woman smirked.
Amore had never even paid attention to her until now, but she obviously wanted some attention. The woman was pretty with caramel colored skin and slanted, exotic looking eyes. Her hair was highlighted and fell just past her shoulders. She was slender but her shape had nothing on Amore’s.
“My feelings don’t hurt easily boo. Everybody around here knows that my mama is a crackhead. You trying to beef with the wrong bitch. Call that nigga back over there so y’all can continue your date,” Amore said.
“I’m not on no fucking date. Let’s go!” Viper yelled as he pulled her by her arm and led her to his car.
“I thought y’all broke up though, Viper. You out here begging me for some pussy when you got a whole bitch at home,” the woman said.
“Bitch, I didn’t beg you for nothing. Get the fuck away from my car!” Viper barked.
“Don’t try to lie in front of this hoe. I got the text messages to prove it,” the woman swore.
“Bruh,” Amore drawled dramatically, “he can fuck you right here and now and you won’t get no static from me. You bitches be doing the absolute most for no reason. If you want beef, go to Burger King where you can have it your way. I don’t do all that arguing. I slide hoes.”
“Fuck her, Amore. You don’t owe that bitch no explanation!” Ciara yelled.
Ciara knew that she couldn’t fight for shit and Amore often had to run to her rescue. She felt bold for some reason, but Amore wasn’t in the mood for the dumb shit. All she had to do was keep her mouth closed but that was obviously too hard to do. Ciara and the other woman started arguing, as Viper continued to focus on Amore. He was trying to leave her friend out there but Amore wasn’t about to let that happen. She was happy that she stayed because the other woman obviously got tired of talking. She charged at Ciara and had her on the ground in no time. Ciara was kicking and swinging but she was getting the life beat out of her. Viper didn’t care, but Amore broke away from him to go help her girl. She pulled the other woman off Ciara and started wailing on her. Amore had been fighting since she was a child and it all came natural to her. Ciara picked herself up from the ground and fixed her clothes. Viper frowned at her as they watched Amore beat the dog shit out of his side chick. When Amore saw that she wasn’t fighting back, she let the other woman go and walked away.
“You can burn the fuck out Ciara. Amore ain’t going nowhere with you,” Viper noted as he looked at the other woman.
“Are you okay girl?” Amore asked as she walked over to her.
“Yeah, I’m good,” Ciara answered, right as the other woman jumped up from the ground.
“Bitch!” she yelled while charging towards Amore with a blade. No one knew where it came from because the other woman didn’t even have a purse. Amore jumped back as she swung the blade at her, but Viper snatched her by her hair before she could swing again.
“Bitch, I dare you!” he gritted as he pulled out a gun and pressed it to her forehead.
“Oh shit!” Ciara screeched as she rushed to her car and got inside. She knew how crazy Viper could be and she didn’t want to be a witness to murder. She sped out of the parking lot and turned at the first corner that she got to.
“Get in the muthafucking car Amore!” Viper shouted angrily.
“Please don’t shoot me. I’m sorry,” the woman cried as she begged for her life. The knife that she was holding fell from her trembling hands as tears blurred her vision.
“Bitch, you ever come at her with a blade again and they won’t be able to identify your body when I finish with your ass,” Viper threatened, right before slapping her across the face with the gun.
“Ahh!” the woman cried out as he hit her once again, busting her forehead wide open. A few people were standing out there but none of them made a move to help her. People didn’t like to be witnesses, so they tended to turn the blind eye to violence.
When Viper got back into the car, he sped away and headed to their apartment. He and Amore argued the entire time until he pulled up into their assigned parking space. Ciara’s car was in her spot too, letting Amore know that she had made it home safely. Amore dreaded going inside because she already knew that it was about to be some shit. As soon as she and Viper got in the elevator, he slapped the shit out of her and made her head hit the back of the wall. Amore let him get away with slapping her the last time but she wasn’t giving him another pass.
“Nigga, you got me fucked up!” she yelled as she charged at him and started throwing jabs. Viper couldn’t even lie; Amore had hands like a nigga but she was still a woman. But, since she wanted to act like a man, he was about to beat her down like one.
“Oh, alright bitch. You wanna fight back, huh? I got something for you,” he snarled once the elevator stopped on their floor. He grabbed Amore by her hair and pulled her off. She was swinging and screaming for him to let her go, but his grip was too tight.
“Let me go! You ain’t nothing but a hoe. Nigga always trying to fight a woman like a lil bitch,” Amore fumed as he fumbled with his keys, trying to open the door.
They didn’t see Ciara peeking out of the window but she saw and heard everything. Amore was fearless and Ciara wished she could be more like her. She had three older brothers, so she was pampered and pacified all her life. She never even had a fight before until she got with Logan. He had a girlfriend at the time and she beat Ciara’s ass more times than she could count. Ciara was pulled out of her thoughts when she heard the front door to Amore and Viper’s apartment slam loudly.
Viper threw Amore to the floor and she bounced back up like it was nothing. She had a wil
d, crazy look in her eyes but she didn’t scare him. Most of the four years they’d been together were spent fighting so that was nothing new.
“Come on bitch. You trying to fight? Let’s do this,” Viper said as he took off his shirt.
Amore got into her fighting stance and balled up her fist. When he came at her, she was ready and immediately started fighting back. Viper didn’t have no mercy as he hit the woman he loved like she was a nigga in the streets. Amore’s nose and mouth were bleeding but she didn’t seem to care. She was fighting his ass back and doing a damn good job of keeping up with him. Thanks to fighting Viper all the time, she had a set of hands that were just as lethal as his.
“Lord have mercy! Y’all stop this! Stop this fighting right now!” Ms. Ruby demanded as she slowly made her way into the living room with her cane.
“Move grandma!” Viper barked angrily.
“Stop hitting on her, Vaughn. Leave her alone,” Ms. Ruby said as she hit her great-grandson with her cane. Viper was enraged when she hit him the third time and he forcefully snatched the cane from her hand. When Amore saw Ms. Ruby tumble to the floor, she snapped out of her angry daze and went to the old woman’s rescue.
“Are you okay Ms. Ruby? You stupid muthafucker! Why did you do that?” Amore hissed as she turned around to face Viper. As soon as she did, his fist came crashing down on her face. The entire room started spinning as Amore fell right next to his grandmother. It felt like she wanted to pass out but she held on and tried to shake it off.
“Stupid ass bitch! Smile in another nigga’s face and see if I don’t bury your hoe ass alive,” Viper threatened.
“Fuck you!” Amore shouted from her place on the floor. When he came charging at her again, Ms. Ruby used all the strength she had to put her body on top of Amore’s to shield her. She didn’t want Viper to beat her to death and that’s exactly what would have happened if she didn’t intervene. Viper wanted to deal with Amore some more but his grandmother saved her.
“No bitch, fuck you! Where was all them niggas at when I found your bum ass outside of the grocery store at one in the morning? Where the fuck was they at when your dirty ass only had two outfits and four pairs of underwear? I’m the nigga that put a roof over your head and kept food on the table. It’s because of me that you got a closet full of clothes. I love your stupid ass more than your own crackhead ass mama,” Viper ranted as he stood over her and pointed.
He ranted and raved for all of twenty minutes before he got tired and finally walked away. After a while, Ms. Ruby got up and rushed to her bathroom. She grabbed a bowl and filled it with Epsom salt and hot water before she got the peroxide. When she got back into the living room, Amore was still sitting on the floor. She winced in pain as Ms. Ruby tried her best to clean her up and treat her wounds.
“I’m leaving,” Amore sniffled as she allowed Ms. Ruby to play doctor on her.
“To go where Amore? You don’t have any other options right now,” Ms. Ruby whispered.
“I really don’t care anymore. I’ll go live under a bridge before I stay here and keep going through this shit,” Amore replied.
“What about your people in Mississippi? Maybe you can try to call them,” Ms. Ruby suggested.
“Fuck them people. I tried reaching out to them the last time I left and they told me not to even come their way. My mama messed up but they’re taking it out on me,” Amore cried, breaking Ms. Ruby’s heart. She used to always fuss at her for her use of language, but Amore was angry. She was hurt and sometimes that was the only way that she could express her feelings. She didn’t mean any harm and Ms. Ruby didn’t scold her about it anymore.
Viper walked back in a few minutes later and he looked just as bad. He cleaned up all the blood, but his eye and lip were swollen and his face was scratched up badly. Ms. Ruby thought back to the movie that she and Amore watched about Tina Turner’s life and the fight scene in the back of the limo. Amore and Viper had fucked each other up bad and that’s exactly what they reminded her of.
Once Amore was all cleaned up, she slowly stood to her feet and made her way down the hall. She knew that Viper would give her a hard time if she tried to take anything, so she wasn’t about to pack a bag. She grabbed the letters that her cousins had written her and stuffed them inside of her purse. As far as Amore was concerned, that was the only valuable thing that she owned. She swore on her life that she was never going to be totally dependent upon a man again. Thanks to Viper, she would never trust them either. Besides stripping, Amore was willing to do whatever she had to do in order to get herself straight. She wanted to get her GED and hopefully enroll in college. At only twenty years old, she knew that it wasn’t too late.
“Til death baby. Don’t even do it to yourself,” Viper said when he walked into the room.
“Just let me go Vaughn. You obviously don’t want me and I’m okay with that. Just let me go and we can both move on,” Amore sniffled. She hated showing him how vulnerable she was but she felt defeated. She was tired of fighting and she was ready to be done with it all.
“Why would you think that I don’t want you? Fuck that other bitch. I apologize for that baby but I do want you, Amore. I love the fuck out of you,” Viper said as he walked up on her.
“It’s not about her. I’m tired of all this arguing and fighting every other day. You don’t respect me, Vaughn, and I deserve better than this. Hell, you don’t even respect your own grandmother,” Amore pointed out as she backed away from him.
“I do respect you, baby, and I’m sorry. I just apologized to my grandmother and now I’m apologizing to you,” Viper said, trying his best to sound sincere.
“No, I can’t do this no more. The only time I have peace in my life is when you get locked up for a few days. I don’t care about being homeless and I care even less about all this material shit. The next bitch can have it all, along with the problems that come with it,” Amore replied.
“You must really be dumb if you think I’m about to let you walk out that door like it’s all good. I’ll put a bullet in your head before I allow that to happen. Besides my grandma, nobody would even know that you’re gone,” Viper threatened as he sat his gun on the dresser for her to see. As bold as Amore was, she wasn’t ready to die. She sometimes felt like she was but she was scared. There was no doubt in her mind that Viper would make good on his promise and she just couldn’t take that chance.
“What kind of nigga are you? Why would you want to stay with somebody who no longer wants you?” Amore questioned.
“You still want me. That’s just your anger talking right now. I’m sorry baby. I’m fucked up in the head Amore. Nobody knows that better than you. We grew up the exact same way and that shit fucked me up. I’m sorry for taking my anger out on you. Don’t leave me baby. Please, I’ll do whatever you want me to do,” Viper sobbed as he dropped down to his knees and held on to her legs.
He was doing the ugly cry and his face was wet with tears. Amore was used to it though and she wasn’t moved by his antics. Viper was tripolar as fuck. He went from fighting her to threatening her life to crying and begging for forgiveness, all in less than an hour. Amore had seen it all when it came to him, so nothing that he did surprised her. As Viper cried and acted a fool on the floor, Amore eyed the gun that he’d sat down on the dresser. Her first mind told her to grab it and blow his brains out but the sane part of her talked her down. Still, something had to give. There was no way in hell she could stay there and continue going through the motions with him. She had to come up with a plan and she had to do it fast. Until then, Amore was stuck with her sparring partner who often disguised himself as her man.
“A ww. I miss you too cousin,” Amore said as she smiled and talked on the phone with Chanell.
Dallas had called her earlier and she was happy to have heard from both of them on the same day. Amore was all smiles when Chanell told her that she only had nine more months to go on her sentence. Dallas only had a little over a year left and that was the best news
that Amore had heard in a while. Viper had a scowl plastered on his face as he drove around and listened to Amore talking on the phone. Amore acted like he wasn’t shit whenever her cousins called. Viper didn’t like to feel like he didn’t come first in her life but he remained cool. He still wasn’t all the way out of the doghouse after their last fight and that was over a month ago. He had been the perfect man since then and Amore’s every wish was his command. He took her and his grandmother to the beach for a few days and things had been going better than ever. Amore was still kind of distant but she was slowly coming around.
“Okay cousin. Make sure you call me next weekend. I love you too,” Amore said before she hung up the phone.
“What’s good? She doing alright?” Viper asked her.
“Yeah, they’re both doing okay. They told me to thank you for the money,” Amore replied.
“It’s all love.” Viper nodded.
“I can’t wait for my girls to come home.” Amore smiled excitedly.
“Yeah, that’s when you plan on leaving me, right?” Viper questioned with a menacing glare. His insecurity always baffled Amore because Viper was handsome. He was tall with a muscular build and his smile was beautiful. He reminded Amore of a taller version of Larenz Tate with a hood swagger. He obviously didn’t see himself in the same light because he was self-conscious.
“What are you even talking about Vaughn? Nobody said nothing about leaving you.” Amore rolled her eyes.
“Yeah okay. Play dumb if you want to. You already know what’s up with me. Your cousins can jump in the line of fire if they want to. They can get it too,” Viper threatened.
Amore didn’t even reply but she was pissed. Ciara was the only person who she’d ever told that to, so she already knew where Viper got his info from. More than likely, Ciara told Logan and he passed the information along. Amore hadn’t seen Ciara since they walked down on Viper with another bitch. She barely answered her phone and she rushed Amore off the line whenever she did. Ciara couldn’t fight for shit, so Amore wouldn’t even waste her time trying to lay hands on her. She was definitely going to tell her about herself though. Logan fell back from Viper too and he didn’t come to their apartment as much as he did before.
A Trillion to One Page 4
