Page 26 of Forced Matrimony With An Unhinged Menace 4

I signaled for my brothers to stay low and real quiet behind me. I tried the patio door, and the muthafucka was unlocked. I couldn’t for the life of me understand how people who knew they lived wrong could be so careless. The door should have been secured. I slid it open slow, no sound.

We stepped inside and heard Mallory’s voice coming from somewhere in the back of her house, she was talking soft, fake and sweet in a way I ain’t never heard from her before.

“He should be back soon,” she was saying, “then we’re going on a little trip. Once he gets you clothes and everything else you need.”

“He said he was taking me to Tatti,” a child’s voice said. “When am I going with her?”

My whole chest tightened up hearing that.

That was Demon’s car we’d just watched pull off. And that was Tatti’s daughter’s voice coming from that back room. It was clear now that the nigga came here to hide out, and he’d just left for a few minutes.

Today was about to be my lucky muthafuckin day. Yesterday his other baby momma wasn’t home when we tried to get to her. Today we’d walked straight into his accomplice, and my wife daughter, both in the same house.

We heard a door close somewhere back there, then footsteps coming our way. Soon as Mallory rounded that corner into the kitchen, she was face to face with my gun and my two brothers standing quiet behind me.

Fear flooded her whole face instantly. I watched her think about running for a half second before her body caught up to how bad of an idea that really was.

“Be smart,” I whispered, “or be dead. You already knew I was coming for you eventually. Move slow to that kitchen table. Sit down. We need to talk.” I glanced back and spoke to my baby brother. “Namier, stand in that hall, guard it. Don’t let that little girl come out that room.”

Namier nodded. Walked past me and posted up.

Zaire stood off to the side, quiet, watching, while I pulled a chair out and sat down across from Mallory at that table. She was shaking so bad she looked about two seconds from pissing herself.

“Where was you going?” I asked. “Who are you waiting on to come back here? And do you know whose child you got kidnapped in this house right now? I expected better from you, for real. You repay me by trying to snake me?”

“Please, Kaseem.” Tears started streaming down her face fast. “Don’t do this. I’m carrying your baby.”

“Bitch! Don’t insult my fuckin intelligence. Especially while I’m sitting here with my gun pointed at yo fuckin face,” I said, my voice flat, cold. “Yo own sister already told me everything. From you working with Demon, to you faking that whole pregnancy. My question for you is simple. How did you manage that when I personally watched you piss on the stick?”

“My sister wouldn’t have told you that,” she said, shaking her head fast.

“How the fuck would I know this if she didn’t tell me?” I said. “Keep playing with me and I’m about to send yo ass to heaven early. I know it all, from you working with the enemy to you lying to me about being pregnant. So, be careful of what comes out of your mouth next.”

“Okay, okay.” She held her hands up, breathing fast. “I ordered fake test off Amazon. They read positive no matter what, every single time you pee on it. And as far as Demon go, I ain’t never had no real intentions of helping him at first. Me and you had been messing around for years, and I always used to mention your name around him and my sister, just talking, and I ain’t think nothing of it. About seven months back, he started asking more and more questions about you, getting real obsessed with it. Then about a month or two ago, he threatened me. Said help him take everything from you and your family, or he’d kill me himself. I know that nigga, Kaseem. I knew he meant it. So I let him pay me to set you up. But I swear to you, I was looking for a way out the whole time. I was never gonna go through with the shit.”

I sat there looking at her, nodding slow, jaw tight, not saying a word for a long moment. How was she more scared of him than she should have been of me. I was processing all this shit. This nigga been out to get me, and just recently decided to make a move on it.

“He brought that little girl here last night,” she said, voice shaking harder now. “Told me she was someone we needed. He ain’t tell me much more than that, just that he needed me to come with them, watch out for her, said we’d probably be on the run for a while after. He also told me…” She stopped, swallowing hard. “He told me you killed my sister. Is that true?”

“Nah,” I said, dry, flat. “Not yet.”

“It was that easy for you to cross me?” I asked her. “You was more scared of that nigga than you was of me?”

“Kaseem, you treated me like I wasn’t shit,” she said, her voice cracking open now. Her tone was desperate and honest breaking through all that fear. “You fucked me, then you’d always dispose of me every single chance you got. Then you let that fat ass bitch jump on me, twice, and did nothing about it. After all that, I wanted you to suffer the same way I had to suffer. I loved you. And you gave me your ass to kiss while you handed that weak ass bitch a ring instead. So yeah. For once in my life, I looked out for myself.”

I sat with that for a second.

“That’s the realest shit you’ve ever said to me,” I said, leaning down close to her.

I kissed her forehead, soft, and she flinched under it, confused for a second by the gesture.

“But what did I tell you,” I said, pulling back, looking straight into her eyes now, “What did I tell you about disrespecting my wife?”

I reached into my pocket, pulled out that silencer, attached it smooth and quick while she started crying harder, begging me not to do it, words tumbling out fast and desperate. I ain’t hear a single one of her words clearly.

I didn’t waste another second.

All that sounded through that kitchen was one muffled pop, and Mallory slumped over in that chair. Instantly, she was gone.