“Ledge!” I could hear her screaming at him clearly through the phone. “That crazy bitch took our kids!”
“What are you talking about?” Ledge’s face went into a scowl.
“Kitana. She came in here, knocked Granny out, and took the fucking kids. She says she wants two million dollars. Where the fuck are you!”
“I’ll be there in a minute. Harbor is at the hospital; some shit went down?—”
“What! Well, don’t come here. The cops are everywhere. I will meet you once I get Granny taken care of and they clear out. Call that bitch and make this shit happen,” she ordered before hanging up.
Moments later, we had hospital staff rushing out to assist us inside. It took about three people to help Deviance onto a gurney, and I was helped into a wheelchair.
“Miss Lawson, talk to me. Is this your first pregnancy?” the doctor on call questioned me.
“Yes. My primary doctor is Dr. Iris Lane of the Lane OBGYN Clinic. Please call her,” I begged, rubbing my stomach while they wheeled me through the trauma hallway.
“So tell us what you are feeling.” The nurse prodded, keeping a clipboard in hand to jot down her notes.
“Lots of pain, like cramping. I think I’m bleeding too. But it’s too soon. I’m not even thirty-two weeks yet.”
“We are going to take care of you and your baby. Is there someone else that we can call for you?” The nurse asked gently.
“No. I’ve tried reaching the father, but he had work tonight. I’m waiting for him to call back. Ivy, come with me. Don’t leave my side.” I held my hand behind me, and she grabbed it in hers.
Ledge had his phone to his ear as he strolled behind us. They admitted me and did an exam, and my doctor arrived about half an hour later. There was still no sign of Frequency, and that was causing my blood pressure to spike severely. My doctor prescribed for me to getsome kind of medicine to slow down the labor and contractions, and I lay there in that hospital bed trying to keep it together. Ivy was at my side in a chair looking nervous as hell. Feeling a bit better, I couldn’t keep my mind off of Frequency and what he was doing.
“Has he called you back?” I asked her for what seemed like the thousandth time.
She shook her head as the door was pushed open, and Ledge ambled inside. I sat up in the small hospital bed, alert.
“Anything?” I queried, hopeful.
“Nah. He’s not answering. I know he had an important meeting tonight.”
“How important that he can’t answer the fucking phone!” I yelped, losing any cool I had left.
My blood pressure immediately jumped, and the numbers rose on the machine at my side. Ivy eased herself forward on the edge of her chair. She reached for my hand and looked me in the eye.
“Hey, you can’t keep doing that. That machine is going to go crazy. You have to stay calm like the doctor said,” she instructed gently.
“Listen to the kid.” Ledge nodded toward Ivy as the hospital door opened, and in walked Chevy.
Eyes red and swollen, she seemed relieved when Ledge faced her.
“Chevy—”
“Did you reach her?” she immediately asked, grabbing on to him.
“Not yet,” he answered, and his phone rang.
A tight grimace of dismay spread across his face. Knowledge glanced up at Chevy. Grabbing her arm, he tugged her out of the room, leaving Ivy and me alone. Her eyes lit up suddenly as her phone rang in the palm of her hand.Dear God, please let it be him, I prayed.
Frequency
There were a couple of times in my life where I felt powerless. It wasn’t the kind of feeling a nigga could get used to. My father was military. He dealt with covert operations and destroyed entire villages during the time he served. When he came home, I was seven years old. I remember it like it was yesterday. My family had come a long fucking way. To understand where we were, you had to know where we came from. Fighting that war drove my pops crazy. When he first got home, shit was good. My moms had money from her family, so we weren’t hurting for shit. Eventually, Pops took control of the resources, and he spent most of it on alcohol and whores. Waking me from my sleep at night was one of his little sick games that he liked to play. Three a.m. was the hour. It was always the hour that he disturbed me. Drunk, reeking of alcohol, eyes bloodshot, and scaring the shit out of me.
To this day, as an adult, three a.m. is still a rough hour for me. I wake up in cold sweats, fighting someone in my dreams.I was a little boy still, no power, and my father would laugh evilly while waving his forty caliber around in my face. Russian roulette was his favorite game, and there were times I pissed myself thinking that gun was going to go off when he aimed that shit at me. Those were the times where he punished me the worst, locking me in closets or water boarding me like they did him when he was drafted. He always said he was going to make a man out of me, and until I could handle his games like one, I would pay the consequence. The kind of fear he instilled in me hardened and desensitized a nigga. Becoming a hired killer didn’t fuck with my conscience the way that it would your average man. When I was ten, my father began a new career, and he was secretive about what it was.
At the time, I had no idea what he actually did, but I knew he took frequent trips and made a lot of money. When he bought the house I currently live in, my siblings and I were in fucking awe. We were sent to the best schools and took some of the best vacations a family could ask for. I spent a few summers in the UK before they decided to make that home. It was around the time I was about to go off to college that I did my best to separate myself from the family name. My father was the kind of man that was persistent, and he wanted nothing more than for me to join the ranks with him.
