I didn’t have to break in because I had keys and the alarm code. That wasn’t needed. As usual, she didn’t set the damn alarm.False sense of safety.
After I checked the full first floor, including the basement where I found bricks of cocaine sitting on a table, I proceeded upstairs. Adrian was a stupid broad, always up for what a nigga gave her, never for what she could give herself. The fact that she had some fool’s work in the home I had bought her and my son told me enough. Fuck that. The fact somebody knew exactly where I was that night to shoot me was enough, especially when my baby mama and cousin were the only people with my location. My cousin wouldn’t have given my lo out on his last breath, so that left only one person.Adrian, the grieving baby mama who hooped and fucking hollered the whole time we were at the burial site.
My anger momentarily dispersed when I looked in on my son who was sound asleep in the center of his bed. For him, I would give up everything. I wanted to hug him and assure everything would be alright, but I couldn’t risk waking him. I closed his door and continued toward Adrian’s room. While doing so, I screwed the silencer on my pistol.
When I entered, nothing was out of place. Everything was just like I remembered it, from the ugly ass cow print one seater in the corner to the quiet hum of the CPAP machine plugged into the extension cord near her bed. I watched her for a moment, the slow rise and fall of her chest and the fact that she was laid up here looking like Bane from Batman.
I took a seat on the chair and sat back for a moment, just thinking. Adrian couldn’t walk away from this, but who would my son have?Me.I just needed to get this finished a little faster. I didn’t have all the time in the world.
Over the thinking part, I leaned forward, grabbed the extension cord, and yanked it from the wall. Anything I didhad to be in the dark because this fucking house had too much visibility for a nosy motherfucker.
Her eyes popped open and immediately landed on me. She looked like she had seen a ghost. To get a better look, she snatched the mask from her face, showcasing the panic that now lived in her eyes. She quickly realized this wasn’t a dream.
“Iso, how are you he?—”
“No thanks to you, bae.” A sinister smirk covered my face.
“W-w-w-what do you me—” she started but I interrupted.
I held my index finger up to silence her. “I didn’t come here to answer your questions. I have a few of my own and I got a feeling you know the answers.” I was on my feet with my pistol drawn in seconds.She couldn’t walk away from this.
She nodded.
“You set me up.” It was a statement meant for her to add onto.
“I didn’t know, Iso. I swear I didn’t. He said he just wanted to talk to you.”
“He just wanted to talk to me in the middle of the night.” I laughed. “You think I’m fucking stupid?”
She shook her head quickly. “I fucked up, Iso. You know I love you. I always have. I just made a dumb decision.”
“You're right about that. Who is he?”
She looked embarrassed. “Iso, I swear I didn?—”
“Name, Adrian. You already burned yaself. You might as well burn the nigga who did this to you.”
The look on her face was one of pure agony. “Bo. He goes by Bo.”
I laughed hard as fuck at the name that slid from her tongue. “Bo as in the errand boy?” Anybody in the hood knew Bo was an errand boy for anybody paying. He half ass did everything, him and his brother.
She nodded. “You were never here. He was. You were always out there, a slave to your first love while I was here alone with IJ. What was I supposed to do?”
“Be fucking grateful for the life I afforded you. Grateful for the sacrifices I made to keep you living like this without bringing anything to your doorstep.”
She trembled, tears streaming from her eyes. It was too late to see the error in her ways because there was no time for her to rectify them. Her time here was up and no amount of history would save her.
“You gonna kill me, Iso?”
I shook my head, silence settling in the room because she really believed she deserved an answer.
I just stared at her for a moment. The silence deafening and my own overthinking about the idea of letting her walk away from this. She couldn’t though. She had already betrayed me. “How do you wanna go?” I found myself asking after a quick look around the room.
She looked at me. “Quick. Tell my baby I love him.”
I nodded, then lifted the gun and squeezed the trigger. She fell back against the bed, a center mass hole in her forehead with open eyes. I had never killed a woman, never planned on it. Not until the only woman I’d ever remotely cared about set me up.
I stared at her for a while, then left the room, sure to wipe the doorknob I’d twisted to enter with my sweater.
