Page 12 of Forced Matrimony With An Unhinged Menace 4

We walked inside the house.

The girl was wiggling hard in that chair, straining against her restraints, trying to scream through the tape covering her mouth, her whole body twisting like she could somehow will herself loose. I walked over to her slow, and just like that young nigga said outside, she really had pissed all over herself sitting in that chair. The smell hit me before I even got close, sharp and sour, filling up that whole room.

I reached down and ripped that tape off her mouth in one motion.

“Pleaseee, y’all let me go,” she screamed immediately, tears and snot running down her face, her whole body shaking. “I have a son who needs me. This shit ain’t right. I know they gotta be out there looking for me right now.”

“Aye,” I said, crouching down so I was eye level with her, keeping my voice cold and flat and completely without mercy. “I ain’t nice like these other niggas you dealing with, and I don’t give a fuck about none of what you got going on. You want to see Sonny again? Better yet, you wanna make sure Sonny never has to watch his own momma get her brains blown out in front of his little face? Then you gonna tell me exactly where Demon could be right now. I don’t wanna hear you don’t know. I don’t wanna hear no excuses. Cause your whole life is hanging on what comes out your mouth next.” I leaned in closer, letting every word land slow and heavy. “That nigga got somebody I love. And I don’t mind at all killing somebody he loves right back. So ask yourself something real quick. Is he really worth dying for right now? Better yet, ask yourself what that nigga would do if it ever came down to choosing between him or you. You already know the answer to that. Don’t make me prove it to you the hard way.”

—

She sat there for a second, chest still heaving, snot and tears drying on her face, and I could see her mind working, weighing whatever was left of her loyalty against whatever was left of her fear.

“I don’t know where he’s at,” she said finally, her voice shaking but steadier than before. “I swear to God I don’t. He told me he moved, but he won’t tell me nothing beyond that. Won’t give me an address, won’t give me nothing. But…” She stopped, swallowing hard.

“But what?” I said, keeping my voice flat, giving her nothing to read off my face.

“He got a girl he keeps tucked away,” she said. “He thinks that I don’t know about her, but I do. She pregnant too. He got her put up somewhere in North Richland Hills.” Her breath was coming fast now, words tumbling out one on top of the other. “Go in my phone. Go to my favorite photos. There’s a picture of her standing outside the house, him hugging on her in it. Y’all can pull the exact address off that picture if you look at the top of it, it’s got the location tagged on it, I remember cause I seen it pop up when I looked at it one time.”

I stood up slow, staring down at her.

“And if he ain’t there,” she added quick, like she was trying to buy herself more credit before I could decide she wasn’t useful no more, “my sister supposed to be meeting up with him soon. Find her, you’ll find him. He’s had her working hard trying to get close to y’all this whole time so I know he still needs her.”

Something cold settled into my chest hearing that.

I’d almost forgotten about Mallory bitch ass. With everything happening today, my mother missing, my father damn near breaking down in that driveway, Brit sitting here pissing herself in fear, I’d let it slip clean out my mind that there was still a whole other bitch out there who’d been playing with me. The bitch tried to force her way on my property and make me believe a whole pregnancy that was never even real to begin with.

You know you got too much on your plate when you forget a bitch still needs to be dead.

I pulled my phone out and called Mars.

He picked up on the fourth ring.

“Aye, what you doing?” I asked, keeping my voice even.

“Just made it home,” he said. “What’s up?”

“Since you like being sneaky,” I said, letting that land a little heavier than the words themselves, “I got a task for you. Come over here to this trap spot. The one you been coming to, keeping watch on this girl we got. She needs a shower bad. Bring your girl with you so she can wash her up. And make sure this bitch don’t try nothing funny while you at it.”

There was a pause on the other end.

“Man, you know I was gonna tell you,” Mars said, his voice quick, defensive. “Today was just a real hectic day, Kaseem, I swear.”

“You good, Mars,” I said, keeping my tone level, giving him nothing to work with either way. “Say less. Just get over here.”

I ended the call and looked back down at Brit, still tied up in that chair, still shaking, still praying that I was done with her.

I wasn’t finished with nobody tonight.

I sat there in that passenger seat with a gun and heavy silence hanging between us, watching my son grip that steering wheel so tight his knuckles had almost gone pale, his jaw locked, his whole body vibrating like he was fighting to stay in control. I knew that now, he believed me. I just needed to figure out how I would make him understand this whole situation and why I made the decision that I did.

“Kadeem ain’t want his own son?” he said again, quieter this time, like the question was eating him alive from the inside out. “But the others was good enough for y’all to keep?”

I closed my eyes for a second.

Twenty seven years I’d carried this. Twenty seven years I’d rehearsed a hundred different versions of this exact conversation in my head. I thought about this moment at times that I was lying awake next to my husband at night, standing in front of my bathroom mirror, and even times when I was sitting alone in my car just trying to find the words.

And now, here it was, and the words didn’t wanna come out. Well, I am being held at gunpoint, in a moving car, with my son shaking out of rage.