Embracing them, I grilled Kitana above their heads, but her self-assurance didn’t let up. She thought she’d won.
“You can leave now. I have a plane waiting for me.”
“You can go to the ends of the fucking earth. My reach is pretty fucking far, so make sure you find a hole so deep that nobody can find you because I guarantee that I will.”
“Is that a threat?” she questioned, brows dipping in a perplexed frown.
“I don’t make threats. I make shit happen,” I warned her.
The light chuckle of a madwoman came from her. She had lost her fucking mind. Her ass was more than a few grapes short of a fruit basket. First thing was first; I had to get my seedsto safety. There was still time to deal with this unstable ass creature. Shoving my kids behind me, I backed out of the room and led them down the stairs as quickly as my and their legs would allow. Laiyah was so little I carried her while Landyn kept up with me. Emerging into the night, I spotted Chevy sprinting toward me from the car with her gun in hand.
“My babies!” She gasped, rushing to grab Laiyah from my arms while Landyn threw his around her.
“Mama! We missed you!” he declared.
“Take them to the car.” I nodded to where we parked, and she did as she was told, grabbing our son’s hand and dragging him along.
I scoped the building, figuring that she wasn’t dumb enough to come out the front door when I was still here. She had an alternate exit, and I needed to find it. Taking on the perimeter, I noticed something in the foundation, it appeared to be a trap door. It was so dark out that it was barely visible unless you were looking for it. Bringing my gun up, I hung back and waited.
She had to be coming out any minute now, and I would catch her slipping. A few seconds later, I saw the door shift, and out came Kitana. She let the door close behind her and released a deep sigh. She must have felt me behind her. As soon as the door came together, she did a slight spin to face me. Before she get a word out, I took the shot to her chest. A wounded gasp slipped from her lips, and her torso jerked before her chin slowly dropped. She watched the coin-sized hole fill her shirt, and her eyes found mine again.
“Ledge—” she managed to let out before her body hit the ground.
She landed on top of the bag of money and choked on her own blood before it suffocated her. Her body twitched until going limp, and but her eyes remained open. By the time I got to the car, Chevy had the kids tucked, and she was in the driver’sseat. I didn’t argue. Tossing the bag of money into the front seat on the floor, I hopped in shotgun and nodded for her to push the pedal so that we could get the fuck out of here. She backed the car up to pull off between the brush from where we came. A couple of hours later, we pulled up to the safe house that Free and I had tucked away. I didn’t want her going home yet until we figured out what we were going to do about the cops.
Having them involved changed everything. If they found that bitch Kitana, they would more than likely link her back to me, so I had to send a few niggas to do some cleanup for me, for a price of course. No body, no evidence, no case. For all they knew, my kids were dropped at a fucking bus station.
After getting the kids settled in bed, Chevy met up with me in the kitchen. I sent one of my men out for some food because a nigga realized he was starving and hadn’t ate all fucking day. When she came in, practically salivating, I was pretty sure she felt my pain.
“Oh my God. Is that Fred’s?” she questioned, mustering some energy on the other side of the island.
“They out?” I asked, sliding one of the containers her way so that she had her own shit.
“Surprisingly, yes,” she said, taking a seat on a chair and lifting the lid to her food. “When can we go home?” she queried.
“I think we need to wait it out, have you lay low a few days. I think it’s time to get out of that house. I’m sure you can find something else. I need some shit like what Free got, a fucking fortress,” I concluded. “This can’t happen again.”
“I love my house, Ledge, and I am not moving.” She was firm when she spoke. “You went back to the office tonight for me?” she bit into her sandwich and asked.
“Why?”
“Because I didn’t like how shit ended with us in the car. Everything in me told me to just come back and talk to you.But when I got there and saw everything going down… I don’t know… a nigga just reacted.” I shrugged, making nothing of it as I chewed on a French fry and the chain of events danced around my head some more. Her ginger-colored eyes softened on me.
“I saw Ivy and Harbor… she’s fucking pregnant. I know what it’s like to be powerless like that,” I acknowledged, lost in my own memories.
“I know,” Chevy replied softly.
She did know. She was the only person other than Frequency that I had ever opened up to about my childhood. Free and I lived in that same kind of darkness for a long time. The difference was, he still had people around him to bring him into the light. For me, it was dog eat dog for a long time. The shadows was where a nigga lived. My mama was killed during a home invasion. I would have died too, right along with her and my brother and sister, but I was hidden in a closet and witnessed it all instead. Imagine being seven years old and going through that.
“Harbor did what anybody who loves their child is supposed to do in that moment. Ivy ain’t even hers, but she put her life on the line to make sure she was safe. I knew right then that you were right, and so was Free. And maybe a nigga still carry some guilt about what we did to her, and that’s why I held in all that anger toward her when I saw her. She didn’t deserve that.”
“You analyzing yourself now? Whew.” Chevy chuckled as she continued to nibble on her food.
“I’m gonna go check on the kids and do a perimeter check and call Free. Make sure you eat, take a shower, and try to get some rest. We can talk more in the morning.” I wasn’t sure where we stood, and a nigga was too mentally drained to even think about it right now. On my way outside to the terrace, I dialed Free on my cell.
“Knowledge, the fuck. Where you at? What’s going on?” he asked with urgency.
“We’re good. Everything is handled, and I got my kids and Chevy in a safe place,” I informed him.
