Prologue
UZI REAVES
It was a little after two in the morning, and I couldn’t sleep to save my life. I’ve always been a night owl though, staying up until the wee hours of the morning, and on some instances, I wouldn’t go to sleep at all. Once I started having children though, they burned me out, and over time I couldn’t stay up till the wee hours like I used to.
My cycle came on late last night, so part of the reason why I was up right now and couldn’t sleep had to do with the fact that I was cramping. My husband was upstairs, knocked out in our bedroom, and to be considerate to him, I came downstairs. Granted, Loco would never trip if I turned the TV on in the bedroom, so that I could have something to entertain me, but I knew on the flip side that if it was me that was sleep, and his ass turned on the TV, that I would have been ready to crash out.
I’ve been down here for about thirty minutes so far. I fixed a cup of tea that I already finished, and now, I was lying on the couch, with a heat pad resting on my stomach, as I had a throw blanket wrapped around me, hoping that the cramps would let up a little bit.
Aside from the TV being on, the house was quiet. All my children were asleep. I ran a strict program over here whenit came to bedtime. You would never catch my kids up after 10:00 P.M., especially not on a school night. Even 10:00 P.M. is pushing it on a school night, but my children are involved in so many things, so it’s not possible for them to be in bed earlier than that.
My oldest son lil Loco was playing football, and that took up so much of his time. We were deep into the season right now, with him having practices Monday- Friday, and then he would have his games on Saturdays. Zuri, who’s lil Loco’s twin sister, and Oakley, which were my girls were in modeling, and gymnastics, so God that took up a lot of time as well. My baby boy, Mauricio, who is four years old now, picked up a liking for baseball, so his father and I put him in tee ball a couple of months ago, and that little boy loves every second of it.
My kids kept me busy. They were active kids, that always wanted to be a part of something, and I was the kind of mother that truly believed that I had more than 24 hours in my day, so I would give in to whatever it was that my children wanted to do. I was thankful for my husband because that man continues to stand in the paint with me. He didn’t allow me to go through parenthood on my own, to the point that it felt like I was constantly burned out. Hell, the reason why I’m always giving in to things for my kids is simply because I knew that I was married to a man that was going to take on whatever loads with me during parenthood that I needed him to.
I was lying down in the family room area, with the news on, so that was playing in the background. The older I got, the more that I was slowly transitioning into my father. Wesson was the kind of man that would always have the news playing throughout the house. Mind you, there was once a time in my father’s life where his ass played his part in the high crime rate, and drug problems that were going on in Miami, yet his ass had the nerve to be up to date with the news, watching it, as if he wasa great law-abiding citizen. Back then, I used to think that he was weird for constantly watching the news, always wanting to be up to date with everything, but the older I get, I would do the same thing.
As I was lying here, a banner appeared on the screen, interrupting the regular overnight programming that was playing, and it caught my attention, since it was breaking news. I reached for the remote that was on the arm rest of the couch, so that I could turn the TV up a little bit.
“We begin tonight with breaking news out of Miami beach, where a popular business owner has been shot and killed in what police are calling an apparent robbery,”the studio anchor started.
The anchor’s name was Shawntae. I loved Shawntae down! Her fashion, the passion that she had in her job, and I loved the rants that she would go on when she would speak on politics. Watching her, I would think about my dad because I knew that he would have tuned in faithfully to watch a beautiful woman like Shawntae deliver the news.
“Thirty-four-year-old Yolanda Evins, founder of the luxury swimwear brand Yolo Luxe Swim, was found just after 12:30 a.m. in the parking lot behind her boutique on Collins Avenue,”Shawntae went on, and hearing the name, the brand, and seeing the woman appear on the screen, I instantly shot up from the couch, throwing the throw blanket off my body.
I stood with my hands over my mouth, not being able to believe this shit.
“No. No. What the fuck. No!” I shot, removing my hands from my mouth, looking at the picture of Yolanda on the screen in pure disbelief.
I knew her. I’ve been supporting her brand for the past five years or so. There weren’t any other swim boutiques in Miami that were fuckin with Yolanda. Nobody knew who her vendorwas because the items that she would sell in her store, you couldn’t find anything like that anywhere else. She made good quality shit too. Whenever I had a trip out of the country, where I knew that I was going to be somewhere, laid up on a beautiful island, I would always hit up Yolanda’s boutique, so that I could look good on vacation.
We had a good relationship. She knew that whenever I went into her store, that I was going to spend a bag. I put my sisters, and my best friend on to her boutique. My sister, Benelli, who owned a boutique of her own, her and Yolanda did a collab a couple of years ago. The two of them were closer to each other than I was with Yolanda, so I knew that this shit was going to break Benelli.
“According to Miami- Dade Police, Evins closed her store around midnight when investigators say she was approached by multiple suspects. Authorities believe that the suspects attempted to rob Evins before any shots were fired. Evins was pronounced dead at the scene,”Shawntae finished, and my heart literally broke upon hearing that shit.
I just saw Yolanda like two weeks ago. I was doing some shopping at Aventura Mall, and we spotted each other in Louis Vuitton. She was in there with her fiancé. She’d just got engaged a little over a month ago. We talked in the store for over fifteen minutes, and she was telling me all these big plans that she had for her wedding, and that after the wedding, she had plans to finally have a baby.
To know Yolanda is to know that she was the sweetest woman ever. A beautiful Latina woman, and she had a heart of gold. Such a humble person too. I knew that her store was bringing in millions because her brand was very popular, but she didn’t have a cockiness about her that most would probably have if they were in her position.
When it came to death, that was always triggering for me because I was a woman that lost both parents. I was triggered by death. It was the one thing that could make me very emotional. So, to know that a good soul was shot and killed like that, and that the plans that she once had would never take place, instantly turned my stomach, saddening me.
I took a seat down on the couch, pulling my knees up to my chest, feeling my body go numb. In this moment, I started thinking about a common trend that’s been happening here in Miami. Because I watch the news faithfully, I know that in the span of three weeks, this has been the 4thmurder that’s been done on a woman. Just last week, a mother of two was coming home from work, and she was robbed at gunpoint, just like Yolanda, and even after the robbers stole her possessions, they still shot her down in the middle of her fuckin driveway like her life didn’t mean shit to them. I hated this. I truly hated this shit.
I closed my eyes, and I thought about a speech that my father had given to me when I was just thirteen years old. I knew how to shoot a gun since I was a little girl. Wesson made sure that he taught me, and my sisters that.
I remember one afternoon, he’d taken my sisters and I out into the woods to shoot, and I did so well that afternoon, that he pulled me to the side, and he laid something on me that I’ll never forget. He told me…
“You special, Uzi. You so motha fuckin cold with that gun. When people think of guns, they see it as a use of violence. Don’t get me wrong, it is a form of violence, but it’s more to me than that. It’s discipline. It’s a means of protection, and awareness. I want my daughters to always know how to protect themselves, and to be aware of what’s around them, even when I’m not there. Most people get a gun in their hands, and they freeze up. They panic. You never did that shit. One day, you’re going to be put in a position to teach this shit. Everything that I evertaught you, you’re going to teach it. This your gift. This shit a little bigger than you. Don’t sit on the knowledge that you know. Feed it to somebody else, so that they can have a means of protection, and awareness too,”.
I remember that entire conversation verbatim. When my dad had that conversation with me as a teenager, I always thought that he was telling me to feed that information to my little sisters, and my future children. That’s what I’d done over the years. Wesson taught me, Benelli, and Nyne how to shoot, but it was me that helped my sisters get a little better at it. Beretta came into my life when she was just seven years old. I remember that little girl asked me if I could teach her how to shoot a gun.
Beretta’s mom was much different than our mom, so a lot of shit Laila didn’t agree with. She eventually let me give Beretta lessons, and I turned her into a beast at just seven years old. I used to take her out to the gun range, and to the woods, just like my dad would do with us, and I gave her plenty of lessons. My kids knew how to shoot. Lil Loco, Zuri, and Oakley all had a trigger finger like mine, and all three of them knew that if somebody were to come into this house in the middle of the night, that they were to find a gun that was hidden in the special hiding spots, and to blow a motha fuckas head off, and to ask questions later.
That’s just the kind of world that we lived in. Everyone might not agree with me, and my husband’s parenting style, feeling like we were teaching our children things that were too mature for them, but it was either a nigga run up in this house, and kill my kids because my kids didn’t know how to shoot, or a nigga run up in this house, and they get their heads blown off by a family of six. I tell you what, I’m not picking out a casket for any of my children. I wasn’t sitting front row at a funeral, dropping to my knees at a gravesite, watching any one of my kids get buried six feet under into the ground. I did that with my parents. My bodydropped when both my parents died, so I’ll be damned if I had to do that shit with one of my children.
“I gotta do something about this shit,” I mumbled to myself, thinking about Yolanda, and the rest of the women in Miami that innocently lost their lives this past month.
Wesson told me that I had to feed my knowledge to other people, and for the first time, I think I’m understanding what he was trying to tell me. A light bulb went off in my head, and all kinds of thoughts started pouring in.
