“Ari,” she said, and I sucked my teeth.
“As you sit right across from a mom that you have that you could have used to learn about a fuckin IUD, yet you chose to go through your cousin. When I’m dead and gone, you’ll regret not coming to me for half the shit that you go through other people for,” I fussed, moving away from her, so that I could grab my clothes.
To some, what Riot did was small, but to me, it annoyed me when she did shit like that. She was the only child that I had left. Literally, the only daughter that I had, so when she wants to experiment, or even if she had questions about life, I wouldlike to be the person in her life that she could go to. This girl got her damn period when she was twelve years old, and instead of telling me, she told Ari. She only ended up telling me because the cramps were kicking her ass, so that’s when she came clean about it.
Riot was secretive as hell. I bet there was shit about my daughter that I probably didn’t even know. Look at the stuff that came out about what she was enduring while she was locked up. If those videos never leaked, she would have never shared that information with me.
“Oh, my Goodddd ma. Why do you do dramatic shit like that? I only went to Ari about the IUD because I remember she was telling me that she had one inserted,” she said, as she hopped down from the island.
“But even if she didn’t tell you, you wouldn’t have reached out to me for it Riot, and you know that,” I yelled at her.
She knew that mess hurt my feelings, which is why she came over to me to wrap her arms around me, placing kisses on my cheek, trying to deescalate the situation.
“My bad, ma. I didn’t know. Its awkward as hell for me to talk about sex, so you know I wasn’t going to find comfort in talking about it with you. Then, you do this thing where you tell all my business. Let me would have told you that I lost my virginity, and that I wanted to get on birth control. You would have told that shit to all your sisters, and you know that. Just like you did when I got my period. You tell my aunties all my business,” she said, getting a smile out of me because she was telling the truth.
After kissing me on my cheek one last time, she eventually let me go, and I left out of the closet, as she followed behind me.
“You talking to me about birth control, when I should be talking to you about the same thing. You on a pill or anything? That shit would be embarrassing as hell if you got pregnant,” shesaid to me, as we were back inside the room, and she took her spot back on the window nook.
“Embarrassing to whom, Riot?” I wanted to know, removing the robe, so that I could step into my jeans.
“To me. To you. You have a twenty-one-year-old child. In what world is that okay for you to have another kid?” she asked me.
“I am on birth control Riot, but if I wasn’t, and I got pregnant, that wouldn’t be embarrassing. Girl, I’m grown. My days of having children are over though. You and your brother stressed me the fuck out and scarred me. Now, it’s up to you to give me a grandbaby, and hopefully that baby is the opposite of how you behaved when you were a child,” I said the last part in a joking kind of way, but Lord knows that I was dead serious.
“Keep dreaming. I promise you won’t get a grandbaby out of me,” is always what she had to say whenever conversation was brought up about her having children.
As much as I was acting like she was getting on my nerves, I was happy to have Riot over here with me. This would be our first time going to get our nails done together, and I honestly couldn’t wait for that.
I was glad that she was in good spirits. When she dropped that bomb on me about seeing the cop that murdered her father, I thought that it would put her in a shitty mood. I knew my daughter though. With her being calm right now, I knew it wasn’t a good thing. She was using getting out of the house to go get her nails done as a distraction. If she wasn’t distracted, make no doubt about it, she would be on her way to West Palm, so that she could handle her business.
If Riot killed that cop, I can say that it wouldn’t make, or break me. You gotta understand that I became numb to loosing Grim. I convinced myself to forget about the cop that murdered him, so I wasn’t in a predicament right now to feel his presence.If Riot wanted to get her revenge for taking out the man that took her father away from her at just two years old, then who the fuck am I to stand in the way of that?
Chapter 3
Riot St. James
It was ten at night, and I was at the warehouse, finishing up in the restroom. I was rushing because I needed to get inside the room where Dolo was holding a meeting. We’ve known since yesterday that he wanted to conduct a meeting tonight. He didn’t really say what the meeting was about. All I knew was that he wanted to make some changes within the organization. With Dolo, you just never really know. He was the kind of leader that would play chess, and just when you thought that you had him all figured out, you really didn’t. For instance, I never in a million years thought that his ass would take dem 9 boyz men off the corner, and move them over here, and have them working with us.
Going to dem 9 boyz drop, and killing their men, along with the suppliers was something that I expected from Dolo, but selling the product to another organization was wild too. That’s why I said that he was the kind of person that you would never really have figured out, and that’s one of the many things that I love about him. For Dolo to be so young, he really knew how to run his organization. You could tell that he had a lot of his father’s ways running through his blood.
I finished up in the restroom, and I opened the stall door. I quickly went over to the sink, so that I could wash my hands. While doing that, I stared at myself in the mirror. I was simple tonight, just like I always was whenever I was coming in to work. Just a plain white tank top, with light blue denim jeans is what I had on. My hair was in its curly state, and because I had been moving around, working since five this evening, I had it pulled up with a bun sitting on top of my head. I was content with what was looking back at me in the mirror, so once I finished washing my hands, I dried them off with some paper towel, and I left out of the restroom.
It was quiet out in the hallway, mainly because everyone had already made it inside the meeting room. The large double doors were open, and the room was filled with Dolo, and all his workers. He stood to the front with Diego, Kendrick, and Bray.
I’m telling you, this man could smell me from miles away because the second I walked inside the room, he immediately paused from his conversation with Bray, and his eyes landed on me. He motioned with his finger for me to come to him, but I shook my head no at him. It was too many eyes in here, plus when it came to Dolo and his business, I never wanted to take the shine from him. Yes, I was his girl, but I really considered myself to be a worker just like anyone else.
I knew he was going to keep pushing, so he motioned again for me to come, but I chose to take my spot in the first row, sitting at the end. It’s like everyone knew that this was my seat, so whenever Dolo hosted meetings, no one would sit there. It was this level of respect that everyone in the organization gave me, now that they knew that I was his girlfriend.
Dolo ended up walking over to me, and he stood right in front of the table. I could feel the eyes on us. He put his hands on the table, dropped his eyes, so that he could focus on me, and he smiled. That smile always led him to getting whatever the hell hewanted out of me. I could be annoyed as hell with him, but when he would flash that smile, followed by him planting kisses on me, I would always melt.
“Where you was at?” he asked me.
“In the restroom. I had to pee. Go ahead, Dominique. You know how I am about the attention. I hate it. You know that,” I said, looking up at him, wanting him to go to the front of the room, so that everybody could stop staring at us.
Even though it was mostly men that worked for Dolo, there was still a great amount of women that worked for him as well, and you know how messy bitches could be.
Instead of him responding back to me, he just leaned in, and he kissed me on my neck. There were a couple of women sitting behind me, and you could hear when they cooed, saying “aww”.
