Page 16 of Forced Matrimony With An Unhinged Menace 4

Not knowing who they were or what kind of life they lived. Or if they had any regrets from the shit.

Whole time, the real villain in my whole story was some nigga named Ben who ran off decades ago. He left her to carry the weight of that secret by herself, left her to hand me over to strangers and go build a whole empire with the man he’d betrayed. I couldn’t just put all my hate towards Zuri. She said she was scared, and the nigga who had the power to stand beside her, he was the same nigga who told her to get rid of me.

Hell yeah, she was still wrong and still to blame.

But she wasn’t alone in the shit either. My beef was with both of them. After hearing that story, and knowing what Zuri did behind her husband’s back, she was one cold ass bitch.

Now, sitting here, working through all of it, my rage didn’t get smaller. If anything, it got bigger and it was growing for them Carter boys even harder now than before.

Them niggas had to think they were better than me cause their bitch ass momma kept them and got rid of me. She told them in the warehouse who I was, and she never changed her story. Before they died, I know that those brothers were hurt, and in their feelings to find out who I really was to them.

Zuri saying Kadeem didn’t know, maybe that was even a lie too.

Maybe that nigga knew the whole time but pretended not to, and that’s the reason why he cut business with me without giving up no explanation. Maybe the whole family had been playing me from the jump, and they wanted to bury Zuri secret this whole time. I didn’t know what to believe anymore, but it was hard for me to believe that a husband didn’t know his wife had cheated and made an outside child. I know all of my women bodies, and any changes that I see in them. I couldn’t sit here and believe that Kadeem didn’t know Zuri that well.

I picked up my phone and called my men, the three I’d left behind at that warehouse to finish off them Carter brothers.

No answer.

I called again. Then again. Straight to voicemail every single time, three separate numbers that nobody was picking up, and that told me everything I needed to know without it having to be said out loud. Something had gone wrong. Kaseem’s words kept replaying in my head now.

My men were dead. They had to be. All three of them. Which meant them Carter niggas had walked out that warehouse alive, exactly like Kaseem and Zuri swore they would.

I drove without no real destination in mind, my head still spinning, still trying to process everything that had just been dumped on me in the span of one car ride. Part of me wanted to go straight to Nisha’s crib, wanted to hold my woman and feel something normal for just a minute after a day like today. But I couldn’t risk it. Not with them niggas possibly already on my trail. I didn’t want to lead them to my place of peace, not with Nisha carrying my first daughter. She was seven months along now, and she was the one person that I hid and protected from the world. Not even Brit knew about her. And the last thing in this world I could afford, was to put her in danger. I’d been with Nisha for the past two years. She started out as just the girl I had on the side when Brit would piss me off, but over the past year, she’d became my woman. Her and Brit literally switched roles and Brit had no idea.

I called Brit instead.

I figured that Sonny was still with his godmother since earlier, so I needed Brit to sit tight at that Airbnb until I figured out my next move. I needed one piece of stability tonight since my day had already been completely fucked up. I needed to stay with her for tonight and figure my next move out in the morning.

I called her ass. No answer. I knew she was mad from how I’d talked to her earlier, but since we broke up, she had no respect for my time when we had to exchange our son.

I drove another hour back into the city, my mind running through every possible scenario, every next step, and once I got closer to her place, I tried her again.

This time, somebody picked up.

But it wasn’t Brit’s voice that came through that phone.

“Where’s my momma, bitch ass nigga?” a voice I recognized instantly said, cold and hard. “While you keep calling yo baby momma phone, you know you fucked up, right?” Kaseem’s voice came through clear as hell on Brit’s phone.

I pulled that phone away from my ear for a second, staring at the screen, making sure I’d actually dialed the right number, making sure this wasn’t some kind of mistake. But there it was, Brit’s contact, Brit’s number, and Kaseem Carter’s voice on that other end.

How the fuck was these niggas still alive and now sitting on my baby momma’s phone?

That only meant one thing. They’d killed my men themselves, took control of the whole situation, and now they had Brit, or even worse.

I hung my head for a second, shaking it slow, feeling something cold settle into my chest that ain’t have nothing to do with fear.

“Man, say,” I said into that phone, keeping my voice level calm though everything in me was screaming. “I spared yo momma. Or should I say our momma. She showed me all the proof, but let me tell you something right now. We may share the same blood, but we ain’t never gonna be cut from the same cloth. You touch my baby momma, I swear on everything I love, y’all niggas gone regret the shit before her body gets cold, for real.”

“Nigga, please,” Kaseem said, and I could hear the smirk in his voice even through that phone. “You ain’t in the position to make threats right now. We already touched Brit. She is already out the way. Now we sitting outside the pregnant bitch crib. Check yo phone.”

I pulled that phone away from my ear, looked down, and there it was.

A pin drop. His location. Sitting right outside Nisha’s house, then he sent a picture of her front door. Clear as day.

My heart dropped straight down to my stomach.

They’d already got to Brit, and now they were standing outside where my unborn daughter’s mother laid her head every single night. These niggas ain’t even know what they’d just started. This whole city was about to turn into a bloodbath behind this.