Chapter 1
Unbelievable
Gio hung up the phone on Love and stared at me with a smirk on his face. He had me in some hotel with his niggas around and had me tied to a chair.
“What the fuck do you think you are going to gain from this, Gio?” I asked.
“You,” he said, like that didn’t sound crazy at all. “I wanted you back, and now I have you.”
“But I don’t want you,” I shot back. “We are over, Gio; we have been over. Why can’t you understand that?”
“Because I never said we were over!” he yelled at me, making the energy in the room feel tighter, his niggas standing around the room staring at us back and forth.
Gio looked at me, and I swear I saw a man I had never seen before. His eyes were dark, his hair all over the place, no lineup in sight.
I wanted to try to reason with him, to get out of that damn room and back home, but the way he gripped that gun, I didn’t know if that was the best idea.
“Gio,” I said softly, trying to see if the old him was still inside. “Can you please let me go? I will talk to Love and tell him to leave you alone.”
He laughed at me as he rolled up.
“Talk to Love,” he repeated low. “Talk to that nigga about what? You want somebody to listen, somebody to let go? Tell that nigga to let go. I put in years with you, I’m damn sure not giving what we had up.”
I tilted my head at him. What he said pinched a nerve.
“What we had?” I repeated. “Gio, what we had was built on lies and on another bitch’s back.” Gio shook his head.
“You can shake your head all you want, but it is true!”
“No, the fuck it is not, Islah!” he yelled back, cutting me off.
I tried so hard to get out of the chair to stand up to him, but I couldn’t.
“Yes, the fuck it is, Gio! You lied to me, you cheated on me for three fuckin’ years. I held you down for years, hit the block for you, was home cooking your dinner when you told me you were catchin plays with a nigga named T, whole time it’s a bitch named Trina. You hurt me, Gio, when you never had to, but when I walk away, I’m the problem.”
“Yeah, you are,” he fired back. “Because I was trying to fix it, I have been trying to fix it, and you won’t let me.”
I shook my head, trying to stop the tears from flowing down my face from feeling like I was laying it all on the table again.
“Gio, please believe me when I say with my whole heart. I don’t love you anymore. I don’t want to be with you anymore.”
Gio moved from the chair he was sitting in and rushed over to me. One of his niggas blocked him from reaching me with their arm.
“Islah, all you need is some time, and you will see that we are meant to be back together. If I didn’t love you, I wouldn’t be doing any of this.”
I let out a deep breath as I looked around the room.
“I need to go to the bathroom,” I said low.
He nodded. “Carlos, untie her.”
Carlos untied my arms and legs, and Gio pointed me in the direction of the bathroom. I walked over there slowly while looking behind me at the same time. Once I got into the bathroom and closed the door behind me, I cuffed my mouth with my hand and cried.
There was no window in there for me to see where I was, and I had no phone and didn’t know how I was going to reach Love again.
I leaned against the sink and cried for a lil’ bit while trying to come up with a plan to get out. When I heard a knock on the door, it opened.
“Nigga, you need to give me some space,” I said, trying to push the door back closed.
