Page 20 of Forced Matrimony With An Unhinged Menace 4

The line went dead silent for a second.

“Demontae.” Her voice broke apart speaking my name, panic flooding into it instantly. “Don’t hurt my daughter. Please. You left me, and you know that. You set shit up to where I could have gone down for your actions. I had no way of knowing where to even start looking for you. And I didn’t give her away willingly, I swear to you, I didn’t. Ask my aunt why she took her from me in the first place. It’s really because of you! Please. Whatever you want, I’ll give it to you, just please, leave my child alone and out of all this.”

“Damn,” I said, letting a short, humorless laugh out. “You out here begging for our baby’s life, but you ain’t beg once for your other family here. They really crossed you, huh? They must’ve really fucked you over bad. See, to know me is to know I don’t play about my kids. Never have, never will. I’m about to take my daughter with me right now. I wouldn’t harm a hair on her head! She’s mine. But I can’t say that about your husband. I gotta finish him. And when you ready to trade your bitch ass husband’s life for our child, then we can talk business. Keep this call between me and you. Don’t tell nobody else what’s happening right now, and everything will stay cool. I’ll give you instructions on what I need from you later. If you tell that nigga and try to set me up instead, shit ain’t gone end good, baby momma. Show me where your loyalty really lies, Tatti. I’ll call you tomorrow. Be by your phone, and remember, this is just between me and you.” I hung up before she could get another word out. I plugged Tatti number into my own phone.

“What’d you say my daughter name was?” I asked, turning back to Shantel. “Nariyah?” I yelled towards the back of the house.

“You not taking her nowhere,” Ron barked, pushing himself up out that recliner, his whole body shaking with a mix of fear and forced aggression.

“Let’s bet,” I said simply, standing up myself, gun still loose in my hand.

“Nariyah,” I called out toward the back of the house louder this time. “Come here, baby girl.”

She came walking back into the front room from her bedroom, looking between me and her aunt and uncle, confusion written all over her little face, not understanding the tension was thick enough to choke on in that living room. I placed my hand behind my back, hiding my gun from out of her sight.

I told her we were about to go for a ride and to put on her shoes. She looked confused and didn’t immediately move. She knew better than to trust strangers, and I appreciated that.

Shantel started begging right then, tears already streaming, telling me please, please don’t do this, while Ron kept running his mouth with threats that ain’t have no real weight behind them, at all. I leaned down some, getting closer to her level, and asked Nariyah straight out if she trusted me.

She studied my face for a long second, the way kids do when they’re deciding something real for the first time in their life.

“I want to trust you, but I don’t know yet,” she said finally.

“I’m a friend of Tattiana’s. She knows that you’re coming with me.” I told her, watching her whole face light up instantly at that name.

She turned and ran off toward her room, coming back seconds later with her shoes half on and an iPad tucked under her arm with headphones attached. I unlocked my car from where I stood and told her to head outside, get in and buckle up.

Shantel and Ron both rushed toward me at the same time, both of them screaming at her not to leave, Shantel dropping to her knees halfway across that living room floor, and Nariyah looked back at me one more time before walking outside toward my car like I’d asked her to. She looked scared and kind of confused, but tired of these people at the same time.

Once she was outside, Ron kept coming at me. I told him to back the fuck up. He didn’t listen.

When I turned to face him full on, he swung at me, a wild, desperate punch that I stepped back from easy, and I raised that gun and put one shot straight into his shoulder, dropping him hard to that living room floor, blood already spreading fast across his shirt.

I wasn’t about to be out here tussling with no big ass nigga over something that was already decided. Wasn’t nobody standing between me and what was mine tonight.

Shantel screamed, dropping down beside him on that floor, hands pressing hard against the wound, blood already soaking through her fingers, but he was breathing, still cursing under his breath even through the pain that clearly was heavy.

I turned and walked out that door fast, climbing into my car, and Nariyah was already sitting in the backseat with her headphones on, completely oblivious to everything that had just happened inside that house. She hadn’t heard a single thing.

I flicked the interior light on and reached back, motioning for her to hand me that iPad. She passed it up without question, and I found the location settings fast, turned that shit off completely, and handed it back to her. I had enough sense to know that those iPads could be tracked easily. I wasn’t going to keep her entertainment from her, but I had to be cautious.

“If you’re Tatti’s friend,” she said, smiling wide, innocent, “then yeah, I trust you. She’s my favorite cousin in the whole world. I can’t wait for you to take me to her.”

I just smiled back at her in that mirror before I pulled off down that street, leaving her aunt screaming behind us in that house, trying to save her bitch ass nigga life. Once I was down the road, I turned on the overhead lights, then I got baby girl attention again. She pulled her headphones off and listened.

“You don’t have to be afraid. You can tell me anything. Okay?” I said, scared of what her answer may be.

“Did those people back there hurt you, ever? In any kind of way?” I asked her straight out, bracing for the truth. I got bad ass vibes when I entered that house. I didn’t trust that uncle, and I damn sure didn’t trust the aunt either. If I needed to go back and put a bullet in their head, I needed to know that right now before I got too far down the road.

“My parents?” She asked, confused. She was really brainwashed into thinking those were her parents.

“Yeah.”

“No. They do get mad at my cousin a lot and will take away things she buys for me, and won’t let me see her sometimes. My dad doesn’t hug me or say he loves me, but my mom always does. But no. They don’t hurt me.” She innocently said. I let out a long breath. I didn’t want to go back and kill both them bitches for hurting what was mine.

I drove but couldn’t stop looking in the mirror at her. I had a daughter. A big kid who was intelligent and very self sufficient. Damn, I’d left Tattiana to carry the weight of all this shit, and I didn’t even know she was pregnant when I left. Knowing that, it maybe would have changed my entire life and all the decisions I made since then. This shit really hurt. As a man, I never would have knowingly abandoned my seed. I know how that shit feels man.

These people had really fucked my child up bad, had her out here believing her whole entire life was something it never actually was. All I could do was shake my head slow, driving through them dark streets, this little girl humming along to whatever was playing through her headphones in my backseat like she didn’t have a single care in this world.