“It’s a setup to get to my father, Ace don’t do nothing without a reason. He couldn’t get you to get to me, so he got Kayla.”
“Exactly.”
Diamond slipped on her shoes and grabbed her jacket.
“I’m finna go find her and beat her ass!”
“I didn’t tell you this to go start something, I told you to stop it. The last thing you want her to do is to run to him.”
“Fuck that! I’m about to fuck her up!”
Duke got up and stood in front of her.
“Not like this.”
“Duke, move. That’s my sister,” Diamond snapped, not trying to hear anything he had to say.
“I don’t give a fuck. You run out of here heated, you playing right into Ace’s hands.”
Her chest heaved; she was so fuckin’ mad she could bite Kayla’s face off. She knew it wasfamily firstno matter what! And to put her father at risk? Kayla was close to being an enemy and that was the last thing anyone wanted to be to Diamond. Her mind was growing sharper every day, a killer instinct that taunted her daily was surfacing slowly. She wanted Ace’s head.
“Listen to me, you can’t save her by crashing out, you gotta be smarter than him.”
Diamond looked up at Duke with blazing eyes, “I’m gon’ kill him.”
“You ain’t no killer, Diamond”
“Yet.”
Diamond tried;she really did. She kept Duke’s words tucked in her mind, she tried to look at Kayla like her little sister and not a snake, but she was slithering. The energy in the house was offwhenever Kayla walked through the door with an attitude. That cockiness that she carried in every step. Diamond felt something in her stomach every time she laid eyes on her, disgust was what she felt.
Diamond laid back on the couch and listened to the TV with her eyes closed. Mia was already in bed because school was getting ready to start back and she had to get out of summer mode.
“Where you going? It’s time to get back in the swing of school routines,” Rich said to Kayla as she stopped walking.
“I know how to wake up for school, you don’t have to talk to me like a child.”
Rich looked up slowly, “You are a child.Mychild and I said don’t leave out that door.”
Diamond’s head lifted because she could feel the tension building up in the room.
“Y’all just hate to see me moving without y’all.”
Rich stood and walked around the table as Sherry came out of the room with tired eyes.
“I hate that you’re walking around here dressed like a streetwalker! I didn’t raise no hoes.”
“Wait a minute! Rich, don’t talk to her like that, and you better bring it down a notch, that’s your father!”
Kayla laughed sharp, “It’s cool, Ma, we all know Diamond is his favorite.”
Kayla wasn’t done, the bitch had completely lost her mind.
“You love Diamond more, always have. She can do no wrong, she sell drugs alongside you and she gets praised. I get some money and dress nice, suddenly, I’m a streetwalker,” she giggled. “This family is a fuckin’ joke.”
Diamond stood up then, Kayla had her parents fucked up.
“Kayla, chill,” she warned, causing Kayla’s head to snap in her direction like she had been waiting on Diamond.
