A Thug's Wife (Full Length Novel) (31 page)

             
Zaria checked in her rear view and then checked her side view mirror, but she didn’t see them. They were with her in the parking lot a moment ago, but now they were nowhere to be found.

             
“They were, but I don’t see them now.”

             
“Shit. Okay, let me holla at them, and I’ll hit you right back.”

             
“Okay, baby see you later.”

             
“A’ight, I’m about to head home. Be safe, and I’ll see you soon.”

             
“K, bye,” she hung up.

***

Cherie was pissed as she turned down the street that led into the subdivision where Zaria lived. Her life was being ripped apart, and she didn’t know how to put the pieces back together. Marco was sitting in jail behind her, and she had since broken it off with Kareem. She wasn’t lying when she said she didn’t want him. She was done listening to her mama and only wished she had the sense enough to do so long ago.

             
She grabbed the bottle of vodka that she’d stolen from her mama from the passenger’s seat. She’d been sipping on it for the better part of the day. She removed her hands from the wheel and opened the bottle. The car swerved from side to side, and she damn near clipped a car, but caught herself when she placed one hand back on the wheel. She was fucked up.

The alcohol had her mind all over the damn place as she headed towards her sister’s house. She was on her way to confront Quasym and Zaria for breaking u
p her relationship with Marco. They just couldn’t let her be happy and had to go and fuck it up for her. Zaria thought she was the shit now that Quasym was making a little money and felt like she could outdo Cherie, but Cherie was about to let them both know that it wasn’t true.

             
She was about to tear them a new asshole, and she hoped that she said all the right things to them to tear their relationship apart like they had done hers. As she turned down Zaria’s street, she tilted the bottle back and took a long sip of the liquor. She didn’t care if she was really the one to blame for her break up with Marco, the alcohol was telling her different. Right now, in her drunken mind, this shit was all her sister and Quasym’s fault.

             
“Look at this bitch,” Cherie giggled as she spotted her sister grabbing bags out of the trunk. Again, she tilted the bottle up and took another sip, allowing the liquor to penetrate her blood stream. She tossed her hand up and incidentally dropped the bottle of liquor onto the floor of her car. “Shit!”

             
Cherie removed her hands from the wheel and looked down to grab the bottle of Vodka. She couldn’t reach it, so she pulled her seat back, and then tried again. She could feel her car swerving all over the place, but she was too inebriated to pay it any mind, “Got it!” she said as she came back up, but it was too late. Her eyes popped open as her car smacked directly into her sister, causing a loud crash that caused her front window to crack, and her head to hit the steering wheel.

             
Cherie brought her hand up to her forehead and rubbed it. She brought her hands to her face and noticed the blood on her fingers. She bit down on her bottom lip, removed her seatbelt from her body, and stepped out of the car. She staggered as she made her way to the front of the vehicle, looking for her sister.

             
“Zaria!” she yelled out frantically. She didn’t see her anywhere. “Zaria! Zaria, where are you?” She got down on her knees and looked under the car, but didn’t see Zaria. She slowly stood to her feet and then walked around to the other side of Zaria’s car, but she still didn’t see her.

Finally as she made it to the back of Zaria’s car she could see a trail of blood leaking from the back of one of the tires. Zaria was practically tucked underneath the car
of the BMW at the edge where the trunk was located. Cherie was horrified with what she had done. She tried to say so many things, but nothing would come out. She had only come here to confront Zaria for what she had done, but she wasn’t trying to kill her. It hadn’t been
that
serious, and she loved Zaria. They could fight every day of the week, but she would never want to see her dead.

She wanted to reach out and grab Zaria, but panic began to set in. She quickly backed away from Zaria, ran around the car, and jumped back inside of hers. She placed the car in reverse and smashed the gas, but it wouldn’t move. “Oh my, God! Come on! Come o
n!” She smashed down on the gas once more and, but the tires only dug into the grass. She placed the car in Neutral, and it caused the car to jerk backwards. Quickly, she threw it into reverse and backed out of the yard until she was back on the street. Throwing the car in drive, she zoomed down the street leaving her sister and her unborn baby tucked under the car to bleed to death.

***

Cherie pulled her car to halt in the middle of the road. Tears cascaded down her face as she thought about her sister bleeding to death. She had left her! She couldn’t do her like that. She had to go back no matter what the consequences could be. Zaria could still be alive, and she had the opportunity to make things right, but she had to turn around. The effects of the alcohol were quickly wearing off as the realization of the tragedy she caused set in. She made the nearest U-Turn and smashed down on the gas.

“Please be okay, big sister. I’m coming back. I didn’t mean to do this! Oh God!”  Cherie turned down the closest stre
et that led her back into Zaria’s subdivision and quickly sped down the neighborhood street.

BONK! BONK!

Cherie slammed her foot onto the gas as a fire truck with flashing lights sped past her. Her heart dropped into her stomach. She pressed the button to let the window down as the fear that hit her caused her body to overheat. She placed the car into park, opened the door, and vomited into the streets. She knew they were headed for Zaria.

“Damn, what the fuck have I done?” she asked herself as she spit
onto the concrete. She hopped back into the car, placed the car into drive and drove toward Zaria’s house. She couldn’t believe her eyes when she turned down the street. The whole block was lit up like a Christmas tree. It was filled with police cars, two ambulances, and that big ass fire truck that just whizzed by her. She backed up and turned her car around, and then parked her in front of one of the houses. “I gotta do something. I gotta make it seem like I just got here. I know what I’m a do.”

Cherie go
t out of the car, stumbled a bit, but headed towards Zaria’s house. It had only seemed like a good five minutes to her that she drove away from the scene and that fast help had arrived. She thought she was going to have enough time to make up for what she had done, but they’d already beat her to the punch. Thinking quick on her feet, she bolted towards the scene screaming at the top of her lungs.

“Zaria! Oh, my God! Zaria!” Cherie cried out. She spotted Sym standing near the car as the paramedics placed Za
ria onto the gurney. She wanted to throw up again. Zaria’s lower part of her body was covered in blood, and her stomach was not as big as it had been earlier. She knew she fucked up more than she thought. She had to fix this shit.

Quasym briefly looked aw
ay from Zaria and spotted a bruised and bloody Cherie coming toward him. He didn’t know what the fuck was going on. He pulled up and spotted one of his neighbors kneeling down by Zaria’s car with a phone to their ear. It was like déjà vu all over again, back to when Zaria had been gunned in their driveway in the hood only months earlier.

“Aye, somebody help her!” Quasym yelled out. He looked down at Zaria once more and then rushed over to Cherie noticing she was about to fall over. He reached her before sh
e could hit the ground and held her up. “What the fuck happened?”

“I don’t know; I was coming down the street and them niggas was speeding my way when they clipped my fuckin’ car.”

“What? Who?” Quasym asked with a confused look on his face.

“I was getting
ready to turn down this street to come and see Zaria when the bitch ass nigga just hit me out of nowhere. It was like he was trying to get away from something.”

“Who? Who the fuck are you talking about?” Quasym asked through gritted teeth. He shook Cherie
by the shoulders trying to get her to focus. She was talking in circles, and shit was making the situation that much more confusing.

“It was Hova. I saw him and them bummy ass dreads. He sped off the street and ran right into my car.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes, I’m positive. I saw him. It was Hova.”

Chapter 31: Make Them Niggas Pay

The following night, Quasym, sat in his car blowing a blunt away. He glanced at the clock in his car and looked around as the chick he had been waiting on come towards him.
She knocked on the window, and Quasym pressed the unlock button to the doors. She pulled the door open and dropped down in the passenger’s seat.

             
“What they say?” he asked.

             
“They said that he will be out by morning,” Ashley said as she handed Quasym the paper for Marco’s bond.

             
“A’ight, ‘preciate it ma’. So you sure that this address you gave me is where I can find Hova at?”

             
“Yea, I just dropped Samanta off before I met you down here to take care of this. I made sure that’s where they were going to be at, and she said yes. She said they were gonna chill out; she was gonna cook, and put on some movies. She even invited me and my niece to come out and chill with them.”

             
“A’ight good looking,” Quasym handed Ashley a rubber banded wad of money and cranked his car up.

             
“Thank you. Make sure you let Marco know that I helped you out on this and tell him to please call me. I haven’t heard from him in months.”

             
“A’ight ma’. I’m a be sure I pass that along. ‘Preciate it.”

             
Quasym waited until Ashley stepped out of the car before pulling away from the bails bondsman place. He sped through the city streets until he reached I-30 and headed towards West Dallas. He didn’t know where the fuck Devon was at and why he hadn’t been able to get in contact with him.

He tried to call him all day yesterday after Andres hit him with the news of him being his half-brother, but never got a response. He tried again last night after the whole ordeal with
Hova coming at Zaria again, but still nothing. He was beginning to worry that maybe Hova had gotten to him and was only waiting for someone to tell him that they found Devon’s body. Even then, he had the address to where Hova was located thanks to Ashley. He was about to head out to the address, but first he had to handle something.

             
He was hitting damn near one-twenty on the freeway in his Challenger and made it to West Dallas within record time. He exited the highway and headed towards the projects to find his workers. His congested as so many thoughts came to him, one after another.

His unborn child was dead. Sadly, the baby had been the only reason why Zaria survived. The doctors stated that there was a possibility that she might not be able to have k
ids again. Zaria wasn’t aware of that yet, and begged the doctors to leave it to him to tell her the bad news. She was in so much pain physically from her accident and emotionally from the loss of their child that she’d been carrying that she didn’t need more to be thrown at her. That could wait.

             
Tears streamed down his face and quickly he wiped them away with the back of his hand. He didn’t have time to cry. He had other things to do and would save that crying shit for later. Quasym popped his neck from side to side as he turned his car into the Lake View Townhomes and pulled to the back of the complex. He parked his car, got out, and went to the apartment where he had been moving work from. He banged on the door and waited for someone to answer.

             
“What up boss man?” one of the soldiers asked. Quasym walked straight past him, shot through the living room, and went to straight for one of the back bedrooms. Everybody that was in the house working had stopped what they were doing. They heard all about Marco getting locked up and Quasym’s wife being in the hospital after being run down. They knew some shit was about to pop off, but they hadn’t expected to see Quasym so soon.

             
POW!

             
Quasym didn’t waste no time getting right down to business. He shot his worker, Chad in the shoulder causing his body to jerk and his face to beg for forgiveness. He knew he and Ronnie fucked up when they lost Zaria, but it wasn’t his fault. Ronnie spotted some bitch in the parking lot of Babies R Us and just had to holler.

             
“Where the fuck were you niggas at when my fucking wife was being rundown?”  Quasym yelled with his gun pointed at Chad.

             
“I…I…man we had lost her on the way back.”

             
“I don’t pay you niggas to get lost. I paid you to watch her at all fuckin’ times.”