“I know this shit looks bad.” Lomar pleaded his case as her hand clenched tighter around her gun. “It’s not what you think, though.”
“It’s not what I think? I think you just broke into my house to rob me!”
“I wasn’t robbing you. I was robbing that weak ass nigga you’re fucking!”
Her head jerked back, appalled, before she spotted the rage in his furrowed brows and hatred swarming his dark eyes. Lomar despised a man he barely knew, but it didn’t come as a surprise to her. Niggas hated what they weren’t and couldn’t become. Relic was a boss, and Lomar was a lame who didn’t deserve the little time that she’d so graciously spared his ass.
“Why? I knew I wasn’t tripping whenever I heard the slickness in your tone when you brought him up, but what did he do to you?”
“He killed my best friend. My fucking brother behind a bitch who ain’t shit but a druggie with vocals.”
His words gut punched Kennedy, knocking the wind out of her as she connected the dots she should’ve caught from the jump. She was off her game. Her mind drifted to Sojourney mentioning at the bar her ex-boyfriend’s friend who disliked her.
“Slim,” she deduced.
“Yea, and I let it slide when that fuck nigga, P, pistol whipped him for the bitch. I’d told Slim to drop that hoe a long time ago. He was hurt behind pussy, but after doing my homework on the label, all I saw was dollar signs. He wanted beef, but I wanted money. When I found out that you were connected to them niggas, I figured I’d kill two birds with one stone. Get the bitch and the bread.”
“So, real estate appraiser was code for robbing niggas, and you put a tracker in my car the day you got it fixed? I heard what that bitch said.”
Lomar leaned against the wall, gripping his bleeding leg as he nodded while wondering if she’d caught wind of the woman’s voice. His freehand moved to the small of his back, landing on his gun while he steadied his eye contact with Kennedy.
“It was nothing personal, mama. I needed a payday and figured you’d lead me there. After the shit with Slim, I fell back because it went from a lick to personal. I waited damn near a month for you to link up with him again, so I could murk his ass for my brother. I was going to take that nigga out tonight when y’all were leaving the dock, but I saw him give you that duffel, and you know how it goes. Money before emotions.”
Lomar whipped out his gun so fast; Kennedy didn’t realize it until the weapon was aimed at her face. His head tilted before he smirked.
“Give me the bag, and I’ll leave. This doesn’t have to end badly, Kennedy.”
“Go to hell. I’m not giving you shit.”
“You really gon’ risk your life for a nigga who ruined yours but sat in your fucking face every day like he didn’t know what happened. You should’ve talked to Mya about the fire that day in the mall.”
Her face scrunched in immediate confusion. Running into Mya had slipped her mind since the bitch was of little important to her. Kennedy hadn’t gotten the chance to tell her friends either because their night had ended after the incident with Slim.
“What the hell does Mya have to do with anything?” she retorted.
“She doesn’t, but that nigga you’re protecting does. Mya used to fuck with his brother, and when she got into it with his girl, he sent his peoples to jump her.”
“I remember her getting her ass beat. And?”
“And then her shop burned down, Kennedy. Think.” He tapped his gun against his temple. “She ain’t have no beef with anyone but those niggas.Yonigga. He’s who set the shop on fire, and she skipped town after the nigga she was fucking with warned her to.”
Spit pooled at the back of Kennedy’s mouth when the urge to vomit struck her like an eighteen-wheeler with cut brakes.
Every intimate detail she knew about the man she’d given access to concealed parts of her life transformed into a disillusioned haze. Their personal conversations jumbled in her brain as she scoured through them, recalling a talk on his boat where he’d admitted to knowing what Savvy’s friend had done to her. Kennedy realized Relic’s beef with Savvy’s ex-best friend, and Savvy’s beef with Mya were interconnected.
Her stomach contracted, coaxing vomit further up her esophagus once it dawned on her that the girl she fucked with most knew about what Relic had done. Kennedy was seventy percent certain of that fact.
Lies and deceit muddied every interaction she’d had with their family until she struggled to wade through the murkiness of what was genuine love or pure fuckery. Her blurry stare locked with Lomar’s greedy one, and the faint smirk growing on his face exposed, he assumed he’d won a game that he was a measly ass pawn in.
“Fuck him, Kennedy. Give me the money and tell him I got away. We’ll split it and come up with a plan to really empty his pockets before getting our payback. I know you want it.”
“If I did want payback, what makes you think I need you to do it? I work better alone.”
She knocked the smile off Lomar’s face with that, and in the same instance, hurried footsteps sounded outside of her apartment. Lomar aimed his gun in that direction, and sheer panic that Relic was on the opposite side of it jolted Kennedy’s heart before her finger squeezed the trigger for the third time.
She staggered back, wincing from the pressure in her eardrums while Lomar fell against the wall, sliding down it with a hand on his chest and wide eyes like the act she’d just committed was an ultimate betrayal. Kennedy glanced at the gunstill curled in his hand, ensuring it stayed there so when the police arrived, she’d have an iron clad excuse for shooting him more than once.
Her eyes glued to his chest, watching the thick fluid saturate his shirt while his mouth parted like he wanted to plead for help but couldn’t produce words. Blood leaked onto her shiny floor, making her wonder if enough bleach remained in the bottle beneath her kitchen cabinet to clean up the mess. Kennedy tried recalling how much she used the first time she’d shot someone.
