I moved so fast in his direction that I didn’t even notice I had really moved. “Jaheem, shut the fuck up. She ain’t killing my seed.”
“Why can’t she? That’sherchoice, ain’t it? Just like it wasyourchoice to take her birth control and then keep nutting in her. That’s not love, Xy, that’s fuckin’ control. You’re so gahdamn scared you’re gon’ lose her that you do stupid shit, not realizing that the shit you do to keep her is the same shit that pushes her away!” He licked the corner of his mouth with his chest heaving up and down. “You love Drek so much that it makes you act reckless, bro. Calm down when it comes to her,and I guarantee she’ll stop running away so fuckin’ much. Be the man she fell in love with, not the one she gotta run from.”
With a final glare, he stepped around me, shoulder checking me in the process. I almost pulled my gun on that nigga, but his quick ass was out the door in the blink of an eye. Blow looked like he didn’t know whether to add his own thoughts or keep his mouth shut. His best bet was to shut the fuck up and make sure the cleanup crew did what they were supposed to do.
Following suit behind Jah, I stepped out into the freezing January air. The sun was high in the sky, but that didn’t mean shit because it still felt like Jack Frost was blowing icicles all over the seven cities. Sliding into the back of Dean’s Suburban, I immediately leaned my head against the headrest and blew out an aggravated sigh.
Ashaun briefly turned and looked at me before handing me a rag. “Nigga, you can’t be riding around with blood all over your face.”
“Stop dropping bodies,” Dean warned, pulling away from the curb.
“Why? You have a better idea?” I dragged the dark colored rag along my face and then tossed it next to me.
He glanced at me through the rearview. “Yeah, nigga. Therapy. Shit, a witch doctor. Yo ass needsomethingto keep you from flying off the handles every time she walks away.”
“She ain’t gon’ walk away no more once I find her,” I muttered, repeating the promise I’d been telling myself for the last few days.
I knew wherever Drek was, she was probably scared, but so was I. Actually, I stopped being scared about two days ago. Now, I was just pissed at the fact she was tryna leave me when I was only doing the right thing for our relationship. A house, a marriage, a baby, all that was shit she asked for. Y’all remember she said she wanted her bassinet and Bentayga? I was just trynagive her that, and she had the nerve to up and walk out. Like she ain’t been mine since before I even knew what love was. I needed her to understand that there was no world that existed where she and I weren’t together. And if that’s how she wanted it to be, then I had to blow up the Earth…sorry, not fuckin’ sorry.
Chapter Twenty
Dreka
Tapping the positive pregnancy test against my hand, I cleared my throat as tears formed in my eyes. There was no way in hell I could have this man’s baby. My mind was made up but sitting outside of Planned Parenthood had me getting choked up. There was a very teenie tiny piece of me that wanted to say fuck it and keep the baby. Then I thought back to all of the nut ass shit the baby’s daddy did, and that was all the motivation I needed.
I hopped out of my black-on-black Lexus RX and rushed into the building to get out of the cold, tossing the test in the trash can outside. This was my second time inside of the building; the first being when I came in for them to confirm what the at-home pregnancy test told me. I knew atthatappointment that I was going to need another one to get rid of it.
After I signed in, I took a seat and patiently waited, barely looking at any of the other faces in the waiting area. I’m sure we all felt the same guilt for what we were about to do. Or hell, maybe some of them were there for other reasons than the obvious. It wasn’t my business.
“Rahdreka Lombardo?”
Hearing my name ten minutes later kicked my nervous system into overdrive, but I stood up anyway. The nurse had a sympathetic smile on her face while she held the door open. Taking deep breaths, I half-way listened as she explained how things were going to go. All I could think about was how if my baby daddy found out I did this, he was gon’ break my neck. Under no circumstances would he be supportive of me getting an abortion, but it was my choice, not his.
Once I got this appointment over with, I planned to take a three-month long vacation out of the country. I needed a damn reset. The nurse had me sign some consent forms before instructing me to change into the gown and get on the bed. Powering my phone off, I did exactly as she asked, staring at the white ceiling while waiting for her and the doc to return.
“Good morning, Miss Lombardo. You feeling okay?” Dr. Tucker stepped inside the room with the same sympathetic smile his nurse had.
Ithadto be part of their contract to give every patient that goofy ass smile. The same way Chik-Fil-A workers were required to say, “my pleasure.”
“Yes, thank you.”
“And you understand everything that’s happening today?”
My nostrils twitched in annoyance. “Yeah. I just wanna get this over with.”
He and the nurse shared glances, nodded at each other, and got started. When I was hooked up to an IV and saw Dr. Tucker pushing meds, I immediately became confused.
“Wait, what’s the drugs for?”
“You opted to do a deep sedation procedure,” he announced, pushing his hands in his pockets.
I tried to think back on when the fuck I consented to that, but I started to feel extremely drowsy fairly quickly. Before I could ask any more questions, it was lights out.
What felt like hours later, I groggily woke up, trying to search my surroundings but all I saw was darkness. Did I go blind during the procedure? When I tried to stretch my body, I realized I was in a confined space, and my hands were bound. The last thing I remembered was sitting in my car, so I was puzzled as to how I wound up wherever the fuck I was at. The more alert I became, my ears picked up on a noise that sounded like I was riding over rocks or something. That’s when it hit me that I had to be inside of a trunk, but how and why?
“Hey!” I started kicking whatever I could. “Hey! Let me out! Hey!”
My body jerked as the car smashed on its brakes. Hearing the slam of a car door increased my heartbeat so fast, I thought I was going to throw up. This couldn’t be happening to me. I was the princess of the Lombardo family, not to be touched or harmed, and yet I felt like someone was about to do exactly that. When the trunk opened, and I came face to face with two masked men, I just knew my lil’ life was over.
