“Excuse the hell out of me. I used to be one of them bitches in Starlight. Did you forget?”
“You know what the fuck I mean, Ken,” Nia explained. “I don’t even think it’s a good idea for you to keep living at Momma’s. Too much has been going on, and I think, sooner or later, you’re going to have a nervous breakdown with all this bullshit that has been happening. You’re more than welcome to shack over here if you want to.” Unbeknownst to Nia, her life was in harm’s way as well.
“I don’t know, Nia. I will have to think about that one. Momma’s house is my only home right now,” Kendra explained.
Trent tried playing his life over in his head. One would have thought his life was a movie.
“Fuck it. A’int no nigga gonna run me off the block. If they want war, then I’mma bring the heat for them niggas. A’int no marks living here,” Trent said, reaching for his heat from underneath the couch and putting it behind his back, in his waistband. Outside, Trent grabbed his Beretta from his work car and stashed it under the backseat of his Escalade. Again, Trent was on a money mission. He knew what was against him. Trent had that ‘I don’t give a fuck attitude’ going on. Back downtown, Trent stayed up top, hustling in front of the Frontier with Marquise and Marcos not too far from his side. They all kept themselves on high alert.
“Here come that nigga, Dan,” Marquise alerted.
Dan, a retired police officer from Chicago, was the top security guard for the Frontier Hotel. He had moved to California when his wife was murdered. The authorities never found the killer. Word around town was that he had bodied his wife; then, he went on the run. The police had never had any leads, so they never pressed the issue.
“How many times do I have to tell y’all not to serve that shit right here? Take that shit elsewhere,” Dan commanded.
Trent, along with Marcos and Marquise, crossed back to the other side of Fifth. Marcos was handling a customer when he heard someone yell, “They’re in the window!”
Marcos walked off, and the smoker went in the other direction. Right when Marcos got to the corner, the cops jumped on him.
“Fuck,” Marcos mumbled.
“You got marked money,” the officer said, walking up on Marcos.
“I don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about,” he replied.
Trent and Marquise were also getting hemmed up by the other officers.
“I’mma say it again. I believe you have marked money,” the officer said, taking the twenty dollar bill out of Marcos’s pocket. He had given it to the smoker to buy the drugs with. The officer had his clipboard with a Xerox copy of the twenty dollar bill. He examined the serial numbers on the money to make sure they matched. Marcos knew he had gotten caught slipping.
“Yep, that’s my money,” the officer confirmed. Marcos was handcuffed and hauled off to the precinct.
Trent was sweating bullets because he still had his gun on him. Some way, God was on his side. The officers had to break up a fight between a mother and her daughter. The daughter was mad that the mother had smoked up their last bit of crack. Trent looked up and whispered, “Thank you, Jesus,” as he found a paper bag and wrapped his gun inside of it. He, then, knocked on the door of the Sanborn. He handed his gun to the person who opened the door, so he could stash his gun for him. Next, he paid one of the chicks that hustled on the block to go see about Marcos.
Treniyah was now awake and alert. Her head was pounding, and her throat was dry. She noticed that her hands and feet were tied. She tried to scream out but to no avail. Tears raced out her eyes. She didn’t have a clue where she was or who she was with. Last thing Treniyah remembered was reading a letter from Nicole. As she was trying to recall how she got where she was, Treniyah heard footsteps. Then, the door opened and shut. She blinked her eyes, trying to see her assailant. She squirmed violently, trying to free herself.
“I’m not gonna hurt you. I promise,” Wiz said.
Treniyah managed to ask for a cup of water, and Wiz complied. After taking several sips of water, Treniyah asked, “Why am I here?”
Wiz didn’t have an answer, so he just sat quietly, but that didn’t stop Treniyah from questioning him. “Can you please tell me why I am here?”
“Nothing against you, lil mama. Let’s just say someone owes me something, so I gotta hold you here until I get what I want.” Wiz didn’t want to reveal too much to the girl, so he left it at that.
In Treniyah’s mind, she figured that somehow the reason she was in this predicament was because of her brother. Although Treniyah was twenty years old, she still had the heart of a teenager. She had never traveled far away from home because she didn’t think she’d be able to be without her family.
While he was in the room with Treniyah, Wiz received a text message from Kendra, explaining that she needed him. Wiz replied that he could meet up with her at his house within the next hour. Wiz walked out the room and talked to one of his masked men.
“Keep an eye on her. If she gets hungry, feed her. I need to make a run real quick. Under no circumstances are you guys to touch her. If I come back here and her clothes look wrinkled, I’mma put a bullet in your head, dig?”
The two young dudes said they understood, but, as soon as Wiz left, one of the young dudes started to flirt with Treniyah.
“Aye, cuz. She looks like she has a fat ass,” the thug said, licking his lips.
“My nigga, don’t even try it. You heard that nigga. He ain’t playing with us. He said, if he came back here and her clothes were wrinkled, he would body us,” the other thug spoke out.
“Nigga, lighten up. I’m just having some fun. That nigga Wiz ain’t stunting this bitch right here.”
“All right. Shoot yourself. I don’t want any parts of this.”
The young thug got up and walked out the boarded up house. To him, it didn’t make no sense for two niggas to die because of one person’s stupidity. He decided that he would wait for Wiz to come back. He sat at a donut shop around the corner from where the house was located. Back in the house, the thug was caressing Treniyah’s legs and saying, “Mmm, baby, you thicker than a Snicker. You got me hard already. I bet you have that wet-wet.” He pulled her pants down aggressively. “This is the best early birthday present,” he said as he slid her panties to the side and violated the space between her legs.
Treniyah cried and prayed at the same time. The thug dropped his pants and boxers. He laid her up on the bed and tried to kiss her. Treniyah spit in his face. The thug slapped her across the face and said, “Stupid bitch!” He roughly spread her legs apart and entered her.
Treniyah screamed out in pain, “No! Get off me!”
She cried, but the thug tuned her out while he kept pumping.
“Damn! Your shit’s tight,” he announced.
Neither one of them heard the door open while the thug was tearing into her virgin womb, so he didn’t even know what had hit him. The other thug had returned and shot him in the back. Treniyah screamed out.
“Ah, cuz! What the fuck you doing?” he asked, rolling off Treniyah.
“Don’t make no sense for both of us to die over your dirty dick, so I made the decision for Wiz.”
The thug shot the other twice more in the back. Treniyah was still screaming as blood splattered all over her.
“Calm down! I’m not going to hurt you at all.”
He picked her up as she shook uncontrollably. He carried her to the bathroom. The water wasn’t running, so he sat her on the toilet and ran to the kitchen to grab some water. The thug took his shirt off to clean the blood off of her.