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“Down the road from our house.”

Within minutes, three SUVs pulled up as I sat with my head resting on my husband’s shoulder. My father-in-law walked right up to Rah and fell to his knees. I leaned my head back and rested on the truck as Pops leaned in and placed his forehead on Rah’s. A few minutes later, Shameek, Rah’s brother, pulled up with his mama and sister. Shameek stood there frozen. It was like he was trying to take it all in. His sister instantly broke down, which only made me start back crying.

“Call Doc,” Shameek said. “Lock the muthafuckin’ road down and nobody touch shit else.”

My mother-in-law and Jaharee grabbed me.

“No! I’m not leaving,” I told them. “I’m staying with my husband.”

She pulled me in close.

“Baby…you got to let him go.”

That shit broke me. I didn’t want to ever hear that. I collapsed in her arms. Rah and I had been together for years. His family was like my family. My daddy loved him. Hell, his sister Jaharee and I became best friends. Because I had married Rah, I was disliked by a lot of women. Shameek, who was the middle child, was also very protective of me. I don’t even want to mention Pops, who the city knew as Rod. He was once one of the biggest drug lords in the city. He had since passed it down to Shameek. My mother-in-law, Ms. Lorraine, had seen it all while being with Rod. Nothing was new to her under the sun.

I sat on the floor in my master bathroom just looking at my husband’s blood on my hands. We had just texted and he said he was on his way. If I hadn’t rushed him home, maybe he would still be alive. Then I thought about his security. Why the fuck weren’t they with him? I hid my hands inside of his big hoodie and leaned my head back against the wall. It had been hours now and I didn’t have it in me to clean myself up. I needed this last moment to come back to reality. His mama had come in and ran me a bath and I still hadn’t gotten in. The water was probably freezing by now.

“Kyenna, you got to get cleaned up. It’s been hours, and I need you to be presentable. I know how hard this is because I just lost my fuckin’ son. I’m hurting too, but I’m here for you right now because I know the love y’all had for each other. Can you please just take a shower and you can slip on whatever you want? The longer you sit with this blood on you, the longer it’s going to take you to grieve.”

I looked up at her and back down at the dried blood under my nails. She was standing here talking about grieving and that’s exactly what the fuck I was doing. She walked by me and let the water out of the tub and then walked to the shower and turned it on. She then came and kneeled in front of me.

“Kyenna, for me, please.” She stood up and held her hands out to help me up.

I let her help me up and get me out of his hoodie. When she walked out, I stripped out of the pajamas I had on with the hoodie and got in the shower. For a minute, I just stood there. My thoughts weren’t anywhere in particular, just staring. Knowing that my husband would never make love to me again in this shower, or being able to be there for his kids, hit me hard. After I took a bath, his mama had a glass of water and a sleeping pill waiting for me.

“Have y’all heard anything?” I asked.

“Not yet. I promise you will be the first to know anything. You know I would never keep anything from you. What I need you to do is try to get at least an hour of sleep. Can you do that for me?”

“I’ll try, but if you hear anything while I’m asleep, please wake me up.”

“I will, Kyenna. I promise,” she said, and helped me get in bed after I swallowed the pill.

She closed the door behind her. I laid there hoping the pill would help me rest. I knew damn well it wouldn’t. Who could sleep after losing the love of their life? All I could think about was who would do this to him. Rah was good to everyone. He made sure no one felt left out. There were times I had to get on to him for just giving money away. The local football teams were able to get new cleats and uniforms because of my husband.

I turned to the other side where my cell phone sat on his pillow. Thanks to my mother-in-law, she had cleaned his blood off my phone. My heart was telling me to leave it there, but my emotions wanted to see what everyone was saying. It had been hours and I knew the city was aware of what happened. The first place I looked was social media. Sure enough, bitches were already saying rest in peace. Hated when folks didn’t let the family do the announcement before they had to be the first to say something.

The tears hit my pillow as I read the comments under his last post. He was posted with Shameek doing their secret handshake. It didn’t take me long to start balling. My pillow was soaked, so I grabbed his pillow and that didn’t make shit any better. All I could smell was him. I threw the cover off and sat on the side of the bed. There was no way I was going to be able to sleep, so I threw on a robe. When I opened the door to my bedroom, the doorbell chimed. As I made it to the bottom step, I came face to face with Averie, Rah’s baby mama. Her eyes were just as red as mine.

“Where my kid’s daddy?”

Any other time, I would’ve rolled my eyes at such a dumb question. Considering the circumstances we were in, we all thought it was a dream. Shameek approached both of us.

“He’s gone, Averie.”

Her eyes darted over to me. As his wife, it had slipped my mind to call. Shit, I was still in shock that I found him.

“I never got to say goodbye. The last thing we said to each other was we would see each other tomorrow to exchange the kids.”

“Come on. Both of y’all,” Shameek said.

As he walked us both to the den area, the door flew open. My peace was now out the door as soon as I saw the bitch face. Raya, Rah’s mistake fuck. The bitch he had a baby with while married to me. Still to this day, I hated this bitch, and their baby was three years old. I gave her my husband and put his ass out. He hated her ass as much as I did. Never understood niggas fully. Rah enjoyed it until she got pregnant, and her true colors started to show.

“Who killed my baby daddy? And bitch why didn’t you call us? You’re selfish and wanted him all to yourself. Now what am I supposed to do?” she shouted.

“You better get that bitch out of here,” I told Shameek.

“She is right. Why didn’t you call us?” Averie asked.