“Aye bruh. Get the fuck out of here talking crazy. Her husband? Since when and I’ve been with her every other day for the past five to six months. Nigga, you trippin and the last thing ima do is leave that one alone. Maybe I can give you another one of my hoes, since you that pressed and that hard up for some pussy that you’d show up at my fuckin establishment.”
I smiled without responding, and the nigga looked at me like I was crazy. He ain’t even know the half. I looked back at Mars and smiled, I had to see if he’d heard this nigga. Mars chuckled and shook his head. Without notice, I grabbed him by the back of his neck, taking his ass to the ground. I beat his ass across the floor til we worked our way near the equipment. He was trying to fight back, but his big ass was too slow for the punches that I kept throwing. He did all that damn training and working out for nothing.
I slammed his face into the nearest weight rack. The sound echoed through the whole gym. Metal on bone. His nose leaked on impact.
"What the—" he tried to say but I didn't let him finish.
I dove on his ass again, and went back to work. Not wild. Structured. Every punch had a purpose. I broke his nose. Felt the bone crunch under my fist while at the same time, I split his lip. Knocked out two teeth on the bottom row. Left them on the gym floor. I don’t know what had gotten into me, but from themoment I saw all them text messages. I knew that I was gone fuck him up today.
The whole gym watched. Nobody moved to help him. Nobody called security cause they was too damn scared that they’d be next. They just watched a man get dismantled for disrespecting the wrong nigga, about the wrong woman.
I grabbed his jaw and made him look at me while blood poured down his face.
"How you gonna smile in bitches' faces now?" I asked.
He tried to swing back but Mars caught his arm and twisted it until he dropped.
I landed two more clean shots. One to his ribs. One to his jaw.
Then I stepped back and smooth my shirt back down. The sight of this fuck nigga disgusted me.
He was on his knees, bleeding, broken, barely able to breathe.
"She told you she was done," I said, my voice calm like I hadn't just destroyed him. "She told you not to reach out again. And you didn't listen." I paused. "Now listen to this — if I see one more text from you. If I hear you even said her name to another nigga. If you so much as drive past her house or anywhere you know she used to be, I'm gonna end you. And it won't be quick."
I looked around the gym at all the people watching. I kneeled down to where he was on the ground and slightly lifted my shirt so that he could see my gun on my waist.
“Now, go clean yourself up, erase the camera, and forget today happened. Forget Tattiana happened, and forget about whatever you may be thinking in that dumb ass head. But don’t forgetthat if you make one wrong move, your mother that lives at 1263 Hillcrest Drive, in Frisco, she’ll be a memory for you to reminisce on. Move on, and enjoy your multiple hoes that you say you have.” I spoke low enough for only him to hear before patting his shoulder and standing to leave. Mars was directly behind me and muthafuckas cleared a path for me to walk through.
He scrambled to his feet, holding his face, trying not to fall back down. Stumbled toward the back like a wounded animal.
I watched
"Damn. It’s that deep with that girl?”
"That deep behind anything that’s mine," I said.
We walked out the gym the same way we walked in. Like we owned it. Like nothing had just happened.
But everything had.
By the time we hit the parking lot, my phone was already blowing up. People who were there. Word traveling through Dallas like wildfire. Now, I had to pay to make this shit go away. I didn’t give a damn though. My message was delivered.
Kaseem Carter just beat a nigga to pieces at Greyson Fitness over a woman.
And long as they knew and understood that woman was his wife.
In all my life, I’d never witness a man play wit my pops behind my mother and I knew that was because from the jump, he laid law and niggas had to respect it, if not fear it.
That was the message. That was the statement.
And I would destroy anything that threatened that. Nothing was getting in the way of what was mine. That included my inheritance and the woman I had to marry to get to it.
I got in the truck and pulled out, my knuckles still bleeding, my jaw tight, my mind already on what came next.
But underneath all that cold calculation was something else.
Underneath was the realization that I'd just claimed her in front of the whole city.
