Page 81 of Weddings on the West: Vol. I Brick & Destiny

“Wait...” Stasha turned to me. “What do you mean she wanted him dead so she tried to get you to call off the wedding?”

“Oh, the man you’re in love with didn’t tell you?” I asked, voice laced with sarcasm. “This nigga was stealing money from Brick’s mom, so to save his own ass, this honorable man of God sold me to them. I was just lucky that it worked out.”

Stasha’s face fell as a horrified expression took over.

“Wait… Stealing money?” Stasha looked between us. “How much?” I mugged her. She didn’t give a fuck about anything I said other than that.

“A few million,” I spat, glaring at Coop.

“A few million, and all you were giving me was a thousand a month? Nigga, you told me you would pay for me to go back to school! And you told me I had to get rid of our fuckin’ baby because you couldn’t afford another kid while you over here sitting on millions of dollars?” she hollered as she hauled off and hit him.

Brick and I looked at each other, mouths open as we watched them like they were an episode of the messy reality TV shows we snuck and watched on weeknights. He would never admit it, but he was clearly just as tuned in for the mess as I was.

“You think we should give these two lovebirds a minute?” I asked.

“Fuck nah,” he shot back. “I’m about to go make some popcorn.”

“Brick!” I snorted through my laughter making them look at me like I was wrong. “Go ahead,” I urged. That made Stasha mad enough to stomp back to the bedroom, coming back with her purse before she grabbed her shoes by the door.

“I’m done, Isaac!” she said, turning to scream in his face.

“Done? What do you mean? Where the fuck you think you goin’?” he asked, stepping forward.

“I’m done with this! I could have been happily getting my back blown out by a nigga who don’t have to take pills to get it up to fuck me! You don’t even make me cum, Isaac!” she yelled.

“O-kay… I think I had enough,” I said, turning to Brick with disgust all over my face. “Let’s go. And for the record, both of y’all can go straight to hell.”

Twenty-One

The Bloodiest Night

BRICK

“What’s good, P?” I had just washed the day away and was about to lay up for the rest of the night when an incoming call from my brother quickly let me know that shit wasn’t happening.

“We figured out who’s behind all the bullshit. Some girl Kilo used to fuck with saw some niggas on the South flashin’ money and braggin’ about slidin’ on a bunch of Westside businesses.”

“Shit,” I grumbled as I sucked my teeth. All the money I paid that fuck ass investigator, and all I needed was a nosey woman on the case. “Where you at?”

“Headed to the garage,” he answered.

“Fuck,” I mumbled. “I’m on my way. Give me like thirty.”

“Bet,” he said before hanging up. I immediately picked up the phone and dialed my contact from the Southside.

“What’s good?” Kar’s raspy voice answered, I could tell he probably had a blunt in each hand and a chick on his lap. He was cool, but we weren’t friends. I could never fuck with none of them niggas just off GP, but it was still important to have that rapport.

“My nigga, you got something to tell me?” I snapped.

“Nah, nigga, holdup. I just got the same call you did. These ain’t my people. Some lil’ nigga named Nido came to me talkin’ bout he wanted to get on. I told his ass no, so I guess he and his merry band of lil’ niggas decided to be on their Robin Hood shit. They started with you because it would be less obvious, then moved down our way. They knew better than to try the East side.”

I scoffed. Zion and his people ran their shit like something between the military and the mafia. I decided right then that I needed to step it up. No more of this gracious shit. If a nigga tried one of us, he was goin’ on a fuckin’ t-shirt before the sun went down. Kar shared the information for every nigga that was plotting against us. He offered to send us some backup, but I declined. They came at us first, so we needed to make the example.

I put down the phone just as Destiny came padding out from the bathroom still wrapped up in her towel.

“What a fuckin’ day!” The way she exhaled told me that she was exhausted, and I felt like shit, knowing I was about to make that shit even longer.

“I gotta go, babe.” Just as I suspected, her lil’ peaceful grin slipped right off her face as her eyes met mine.