“So, you are really firing me over the phone? Like, is this shit real?”
“Bria, as you know, I am still out on recovery, and I will not be back in the office for the next two months. We will schedule a time for you to meet with my other junior partner, Jackson Hews, to discuss your termination and severance package. Kera will send you an email about that.”
“Wow. Okay, bye.”
I hung up the phone in his face before he could say another word. After screaming to the top of my lungs to let out myfrustration, I took off, driving like I was crazy until I got to the liquor store in Brooklyn. I didn’t care that I parked illegally in front of the store, and when I got out, I quickly had to tell a homeless man on the curb to fuck off. The doorbell chimed as soon as I entered the building, and the back cooler was calling my name.
“Can I help you find something pretty, lady?” The cashier called from the counter, but I threw my hands up because I already knew what I was coming in here for. This particular store had small bundles with mixers to make your own cocktail from the comfort of your car. I may not have had one of these little packs since the beginning of law school but now was a perfect time to have one.
I grabbed the one with the name Grape Extreme on it, which included flavored juice, a grape vodka, and a sour apple rum. With that, I got two extra shooters of vodka from the counter, and surprisingly, I hadn’t even spent a full twenty dollars on my drink. When I got back in my car, I poured the drink right up in the car, and sat out front, drinking it all, until I realized one drink wasn’t doing shit. I then went back inside and grabbed another one from the cooler, but a different flavor. As I downed it, I reminisced about how I’d fussed at my sister all these years about drinking and driving, yet I was about to do the same shit. Shit, I thought about all those times I was fussing at her period instead of just listening and understanding her. That’s when the tears started to stream down my face so fast that everything around me was blurry. I couldn’t see anything, yet I felt every little emotion flowing through my body.
I knew I couldn’t drive like this, so I killed the ignition and just sat there in front of the liquor store with my hands on the steering wheel, hoping to calm down. But sitting there didn’t help, and it only made me think harder about everything thathad gone wrong in just a few weeks. My sister, my job. I even got the ick for the man I felt was supposed to be my soul mate. All that thinking led me to go back inside the liquor store three more times until I was way past the legal driving limit. But I didn't care. I pulled off from the liquor store without a care in the world.
The streets blurred together, my thoughts bounced off the bottle sitting in between my legs, and the song Burning Blue by Mariah the Scientist made me reminisce about my sister even more.
I remember we were in my condo, and she was invading my closet as I got dressed for my first meeting with Hov. I was nervous, and she was ecstatic that I was about to be working with street Royalty.
I wonder if Hov will wear a suit to court. I wonder if Crew will be there. Ouu, I bet they both get their hair cut by Diego Cuts for court. I know Hov is going to look so good. You’re so lucky, Bria. I knew you would be a fire ass lawyer.
She was so excited, hyper, and upbeat about my job and that's how I wanted to remember her. Smiling, wild, and outgoing.
My mind stayed on her until the glow of the words RAW Night Club flashed across my window. My mind stuttered in that moment because somehow, I’d driven myself straight to the place where I’d lost my baby sister.
When I looked out the window, I noticed that fat, sloppy man Jinx who I felt killed my sister outside laughing with security guards.
His laugh was too full, too easy to be a man who would murder an innocent girl and take her away from her young daughter. I slowed down to a crawl and then parked on theside of the street. He then dismissed himself from the group of people and walked around the corner, so I pulled off and followed him in my car, watching his every move. I pulled into a parking spot across the street from the sidewalk he was on, and I watched as he lifted his phone to his ear, strolling along like he didn’t have a care in the world.
I couldn’t stand to watch it anymore. My hand went for my purse, heavy from the steel inside and I stepped out and crossed the street, nearly getting rammed by a car whose horn blared at me, but I didn’t flinch.
Jinx slid into his car and started it up, music leaking faintly through the car doors and windows.
I was now determined to say what I needed to feel even a little bit of peace, so I yanked the door open and jumped inside, slamming it before he could react.
“Bitch, what the fuck are you doing in my car!” His reaction was too late because I was already inside.
“Get the fuck out before I smoke your ass.”
I pulled my gun from my purse, my hands trembling but steady enough to aim.
“You're not going to smoke me. I’m not an innocent unarmed girl,” I snapped.
“What the fuck are you talking about?”
“Nigga, you killed my sister, and I want to know why. Why do you think you can just get away with murdering her?”
He looked at me and then smirked before it turned into a full-out laugh that made his belly bounce. He had that smug, cocky kind of laugh that made my stomach twist like I was a joke.
“Do not laugh at me, you bad-built bitch!”
He leaned back, eyes cold.
“And what are you going to do if I don’t, Ashley Banks? You think I’m scared of a bitch in a suit? You better get the fuck out of my car before I send you where your hoe ass sister is. I bet she wishes she hadn’t stolen my fuckin money out of my desk after I fucked her on top of it.”
Pow. Pow. Pow. Pow.
The gun went off before I could think. My whole body jerked from the recoil. The smell of gunpowder and hot metal hit me in the face, burning my throat. His body slumped forward, blood darkening his shirt as the smoke flowed between us. For a moment, everything went quiet except the ringing in my ears.
Then it hit me what I’d just done. I just killed a man.
