Married to a Balla (20 page)

Cruze wanted to say that it was cool, but it wasn’t.

“Hopefully we can move past this. Why don’t you come back and work for me,” Sandino added.

“Unlike some people in your crew, I’m not interested in just working for you. I’m your friend, nigga. I was there for you way before you became a fucking football player.”

“I know man, and that’s why I’m apologizin’ once again. I fucked up.”

Cruze looked at Sandino. He’d lost so much weight since the last time they saw each other. He also wondered if Sandino was getting soft because he’d never heard his longtime friend apologize to anyone. Not even Skye. It was just something he didn’t do. He felt sorry for Sandino even though the shit he did was still foul.

“Apology accepted my nigga. I knew you couldn’t live without me,” Cruze joked.

The two stood and talked for awhile until Reka, a chic Cruze was at the club with, walked up.

“Damn Cruze, I been walking around looking for your ass. Where you been?” she asked with an attitude.

“I’m sorry baby, go back and have a seat at the bar. I’ll be right over,” Cruze instructed. With all the commotion, he’d totally forgotten about Reka’s fine ass.

When she walked away, Cruze and Sandino both watched her huge ass shaking in her short, BCBG freakum dress.

“Damn, who is that?” Sandino asked, drooling from the mouth.

“Somebody off limits to you playa,” Cruze said laughing and walking away.

“Well, I suggest you get her outta here, cause Sandino Washington will get them draws,” he responded with a loud laugh.

When Cruze walked away, Sandino headed back over to VIP.

About an hour later, Cruze and Reka were drunk and having sex in one of the men’s bathroom stalls. Reka was on her knees sucking Cruze’s dick when Sandino and Black walked inside.

“I’m glad you finally snapped out of it and decided to leave the fucking house,” Black said.

“Yeah, I’m startin’ to lose it. Skye needs to bring her fuckin’ ass home so I can see my kids.”

“Well, at least we know it’ll only be a matter of time before Dre finds out their whereabouts in Atlanta,” Black reassured.

“He better,” Sandino said, walking over to one of the urinals. “Man, why every time we come to the fuckin’ club, nigga’s have to test us?”

“Yeah, you right, but we went toe to toe with them young heads. I thought Cruze was a punk, but he came though for our ass tonight!” Black replied. “I gotta give his ass props.”
“Fuck that nigga Cruze, especially since he wanted to go missin’ in action and didn’t even bother to come see me while I was locked up. That’s why his dumb-ass fell for that apology. I’m gonna use his ass until I know for sure that nigga is loyal again. As a matter of fact, if Dre doesn’t do a good job, I might send his ass to Atlanta, too.”

“Yeah that was foul how he just up and disappeared on you like that that. He knew you were going through some shit,” Black co-signed as usual.

Cruze stood in the stall listening to Sandino shit on him once again. He waited for them to exit the bathroom then pushed Reka off him and zipped up his pants.

I’m going to show Sandino’s ass what loyalty is really about
, Cruze thought.

****

Wearing a t-shirt and a pair of cut off shorts, Mercedes went into the refrigerator and grabbed her bottle of Kendall Jackson Chardonnay instead of the orange juice. It was nine o’clock in the morning and after pouring her a nice, tall glass, she sat back down at her computer, lit another cigarette and sipped. Seemed like all she did was drink lately. The situation with Justice had completely stressed her out, not to mention the shit going on with her sons. Surfing the web, she looked for a new job since her February rent was due in two weeks. With only three hundred dollars to her name, Mercedes wasn’t much of a saver, never had been…especially since she’d hoped that Justice would’ve asked her and the kids to move in with him by now.

Mercedes glanced at the caller ID on her house phone when it rang. Seeing the words,
Marietta Detention Ctr
, pop up on the screen, she didn’t bother to answer it. She couldn’t bear to hear either of her sons complaining to her about getting out. Until she found a job, Mercedes had to figure out how to keep a roof over her head and food on the table. Unfortunately, bail money just wasn’t a priority at the moment. For now, the boys had made their bed so they were going to have to lay in it.

“Shit, where’s the damn money at anyway if they were selling fucking drugs,” she said, blowing out some smoke.

She picked up her T-Mobile, myTouch phone and dialed Justice’s cell number. She knew he wasn’t going to answer, which was perfectly fine since that wasn’t the purpose of her call. As soon as his voicemail came on, she quickly hit the star button to activate his voicemail. After she figured out that the passcode was his birth date, Mercedes checked his voice mail at least three times a day. It was like an obsession, she had to see who’d been calling her man.

When Mercedes realized he had a new message, she turned down the TV with her remote. A frown appeared on her face within seconds as soon as she heard Skye’s voice. She listened as Skye told Justice how much she enjoyed the night they’d spent together. Skye then went on to say, she couldn’t wait until their date that night. Furious, Mercedes immediately deleted the message and threw her phone across the room.

“I see right now I’m gonna have to fuck her ass up. Things were headed in the right direction with Justice and I until this bitch came along!” she yelled. “Why is she trying to come between me and my man?”

She smashed the cigarette into her cheesy, New York City tourist ashtray.

Mercedes desperately needed to see if she could find out anything about who Skye was…who she was hiding from.
Maybe if I find out who was beating her ass, maybe I can get her away from Justice before I lose him forever
.

Protecting Skye’s identity was out the door at this point. While working for Justice, Mercedes learned how to search the entire country’s battered shelters database, so she quickly put her snooping skills to work. Pulling up another internet browser, she typed in the domain name to the website then typed in Justice’s username and password. Once she was directed to the proper page, Mercedes typed in the name Janelle Coleman, but nothing came up. Frustrated, she started tapping her long fingernails against the desk.

That bitch appeared out of no where. Where is she from,
Mercedes thought
.
She remembered trying to pick Kareem and Jordan for some information one day as well, but never got far.
She got them bastards trained
.

As time passed, Mercedes racked her brain trying to think of what she could do to get that bitch back for stealing her man. Then it hit her…Craigslist! She remembered one of the women who previously stayed at the shelter telling her she’d met and married the man who abused her on the popular community website.

After logging on, Mercedes looked at all the advertisements and services they had. Even though there was no longer an adult services tab, that didn’t stop people from finding ways to market their services. They just did it in a disguised, clever way, which was exactly what she was about to do.

Mercedes started to laugh. “I know what I can do. Janelle is gonna regret the day she decided to take something that didn’t belong to her
.
”

Excited about the plan that was about to unfold, Mercedes went to Yahoo and created a fake email account. She then went to a porn website, stole a picture of a pretty naked black girl to help with her plan.

She went back on Craigslist, typed in Atlanta for the city, then clicked on the Personals tab titled, ‘women seeking men’. After hitting the, ‘sex with no strings attached’ link and answer a few more general questions, she finally began typing.

SOME GIRLS LIKE IT ROUGH AND RAW…

Hi, I’m Janelle and I need a man to fulfill my fantasy. If you’re into role playing, so am I. Come to my house, tie me up and fuck me hard! I’m looking for someone to punish me because I’m a naughty filthy freak. Email me if you’re interested. Don’t be shy…I’ll be waiting.

ONLY SERIOUS INQUIRES NEED TO APPLY!

Mercedes displayed an evil and wicked grin as she hit the post button. Within minutes the fake ad had over ten responses. She couldn’t believe how many horny, freaky-ass men there were in the world. She was even more surprised that Craigslist allowed people to post and respond to ads like that.

She talked to one man via email about her fantasies and painted a mental picture of what she wanted him to do to her. The man responded with his own freaky requests, which had Mercedes shaking her head. She could tell he was one sick pervert and that’s exactly what she was looking for.

After giving the man Skye’s address, Mercedes smiled again.

“That bitch will never make that date. I can’t wait for her to finally get what she deserves!”

Chapter 22

Skye carefully got up from the table at the nail salon grabbing her purse and keys. She refused to mess up her freshly done French manicure. Everything was almost complete for her special date with Justice later on that night. She even managed to find a cute, cheap black dress from Rainbow, a store she would’ve never been caught dead in when she was living off of Sandino’s money.

Heading to the car, Skye stopped and turned around when she heard someone yelling at her.

“Janelle, Janelle!”

Skye wondered who the big woman was as she walked toward her.

“Janelle, hold up for a minute!” When the woman finally approached her, she seemed out of breath. “Girl…I need to lose some damn weight.”

Skye chuckled, but didn’t respond.

“Don’t you remember me? We were at the shelter together. My name is Toya,” the woman said when Skye seemed concerned.

Skye nodded her head. “Oh…yeah that’s right. I’m sorry, I guess I didn’t recognize you at first.”

Skye questioned what Toya could’ve possibly wanted.

“How you been?” Toya asked. “You look good.”

“Thanks, I’ve been well,” Skye responded.

“Well, I went by the shelter about a week ago to talk to Justice about something and he wasn’t there. I asked Mercedes if she knew where he was and she said, with a crazy look in her eyes, probably with that bitch, Janelle.”

“Oh really. That’s not surprising. You know she didn’t care for me very much.”

“I know so that’s why I just wanted to tell you once again to watch Mercedes. Before I moved out of the shelter I used to watch how jealous she got whenever she saw you and Justice together. It was obvious that Justice liked you…everybody knew it. After you got there, he started walking around smiling like he’d won the damn lottery.”

Skye smiled.

“Let me tell you this one last thing and I’m not gonna hold you any longer. It was a girl who came to the shelter about a month before you got there. She was cute, but still wasn’t any comparison to you. Anyway…Mercedes thought the girl liked Justice, and do you know what she did?”

“What?” Skye questioned with concern.

“Mercedes put something in that girl’s food. One night after we ate, that girl woke up with shortness of breath, she was throwing up like crazy and even her nose started bleeding. Nobody suspected Mercedes, but I know that bitch did something. Hell, she was the one who went out and got us food from Olive Garden that night.”

Skye was shocked but not surprised. She knew Mercedes wasn’t playing with a full deck.

“Damn, that’s crazy.”

“Somebody need to check that bitch,” Toya replied.

“Well, thanks again for the warning,” Skye said opening the car door. “I really appreciate it.”

“You welcome, but watch your back, because that chick got it bad for Justice.”

“Okay, I certainly will,” Skye replied getting into the car.

She didn’t know or trust Toya well enough to discuss Mercedes any further.

While driving home she could hardly wait to see what Justice had planned for them. He’d decided to take Skye out and cheer her up after learning that she’d been fired from her job for abruptly leaving that day. He also offered to pay Lydia an extra fee to keep Payton over night while they went out.

She’d lost all confidence in herself. The fear of not having a job and needing to provide for her children along with starting a new life was intense. That’s the reason Skye stayed with Sandino as long as she did. Staying in an abusive relationship with him seemed more comfortable than leaving and not knowing where she would go or how she would make ends meet. She’d been abused to the point where Skye was convinced that she was unworthy and unlovable. That’s until she met Justice.

After pulling up at her apartment, Skye jumped out of the car with a giddy smile. It felt like she was going to the prom as opposed to a simple date. Even though she and Justice spent time together, most of the time it was in the house so it had been a while since she’d really gone out and enjoyed herself. Instead of picking her up from home, Skye planned to meet Justice back at the shelter since he had a lot of paper work to catch up on. She was glad he’d finally fired Mercedes ass. The thought of having to deal with that bitch on a daily basis made her skin crawl especially after talking to Toya.

Walking in the house, Skye kicked off her shoes and walked into the kitchen. She then looked at the clock on the stove. It was 1:45 p.m. and Kareem was due home from school within the next two hours. Jordan normally stayed after for basketball practice. Skye was grateful that Justice had gotten the lawyer he’d dealt with in past to somehow perform a miracle and get Kareem’s house arrest conditions changed, which seemed to make her son a little less depressed. Even though he had to come straight home, at least now Kareem was able to get out of the house. She only hoped that the same lawyer could help in his case when he went to court in March.

Opening the refrigerator, Skye realized that she’d forgotten to pack Payton’s apple juice that morning, so she grabbed the bottle knowing Lydia might need it. After slipping on a pair of flip flops, Skye quickly opened the door.