Travis stood, walked over to her, then pulled her into his arms. She allowed herself to break in his arms. “I want him dead, Blake. I want him in hell,” she mumbled into his chest. Travis kissed her temple. “I promise you, he will be. He’s going to get a first-class ticket there if it’s the last thing that I do.”
He glanced down at his daughter. Even with a battered face, she was gorgeous. She was a carbon copy of her mother with her father’s fairer skin. Travis was twenty-three-years-old when Blakeney was born. He nor Marla, who was twenty at the time, knew what to do as parents. They made a way, though, to be great parents who loved their daughter immensely.
After their daughter, they made the decision not to have any more children. They wanted to selfishly pour all of their love into their one baby girl. It was the best decision that they ever made.
The sound of the room door opening caught both of their attention. Shana walked in with a small smile and a dreary spirit. She was tired and wanted all of this to be over. Every day after work, she’d been at the hospital with her best friend and a heavy heart. “Hey, Auntie Marla and Unc Travis. How is she doing today?”
Marla gathered her strength quickly. She was one of the strongest women that Travis knew, and that was why he pursued her. As soft as Marla came across, she wasn’t scared to fuck it up and leave. She had the bodies to prove it. “She’s doing good. I just want my baby to wake up.”
Shana sat down in the seat that was at the table in the room. Her heart hurt more than anyone knew, and she needed it to stop. “Um, I know where Cory is,” she blurted.
The air stood still. Travis heard her, but it still seemed like the words came out jumbled. “What did you say?”
Shana’s nervousness sat on her chest. She cleared her throat. “I know where Cory is. He thinks that I’m going to meet him tonight.”
Marla’s mommy senses were tingling. She smelled bullshit. “Shana, why would he think that you were coming to see him tonight? Please tell me that you are not fucking my daughter’s soon-to-be-dead ex-boyfriend.”
Her head shook hard enough to potentially snap off. Her hands matched her head’s motion. “No! No! I’m not.”
Travis took a step forward. He wanted to know where Cory was, but right now, he wanted to know Shana’s connection to all of this bullshit. It was important for him to know whether he needed to plan for two plots or one. “So, if y’all not fuckin’, then why is that nigga calling you and expecting to meet you? Makethat shit make sense, Shana darling, and make it make sense quick.”
Her tears were immediate. She knew she needed to say what she needed to before Travis lost his temper. She’d seen his attitude when his temper was gone. “Cory likes me. He’s been trying to convince me to be with him for a while.”
Marla’s head tilted back slightly to accommodate her risen nose. “Is that so? How long has this been going on? I’ll assume that my daughter doesn’t know about this bullshit.”
Blakeney definitely didn’t know about her man’s infatuation with her best friend. It was the worst kept secret. “Um, it’s been going on for over a year and a half. I never did anything with him, Auntie Marla, I promise.”
Travis wasn’t buying it. “Baby girl, you’re not making sense, and it’s starting to piss me the fuck off. You’re telling me that you never gave into any of that fuck nigga’s advances, and you didn’t tell my daughter? On top of that, this nigga calls you, tells you where he’s at, and expects you to meet him? When did he call you?”
She wished he hadn’t asked her when. “He . . . he called me the day it all happened and told me where he was going. I heard from him again about an hour ago.”
Fire rose in Marla’s chest. There was no way she could let that fire stay there. It would hurt too much.
Smack!
She rushed over to Shana and transferred the fire from her chest to her hand then to Shana’s cheek. “Bitch, you came in here the day this happened and didn’t say shit to us about that nigga calling you, knowing we were looking for him! It’s been over a week, and you’re just now saying some shit, but you want us to believe y’all not fuckin’!”
Shana’s hand covered her cheek that indeed was on fire. Fire successfully transferred. Her tears were plentiful, and her fearwas real. “I was scared because I felt like this was all my fault.” She jumped at the bass in Travis’s voice when he demanded that she tell him how. “Um, when Blakeney told me that she was pregnant, I told Cory now that he was having a baby with her, I would never be with him.”
“So that tells me your ass thought about the fuckin’ proposition. If my daughter wasn’t pregnant, then you would have fucked her nigga!” Travis roared. When Shana tried to deny it, he held his hand up. “That wasn’t a fuckin’ question. What did that nigga say when he called you to make you think this was your fault? Because I know you didn’t come up with that yourself.”
Shana tried to stop her tears, but it was impossible at that point. When Cory first approached her, it wasn’t bold. He was extremely flirtatious, but she waved it off because he was drunk. As time when on, he became bolder. He would tell her that he really wanted her when they first met, but she was on his homeboy. Blakeney was gorgeous. That went without saying, but Cory preferred darker skinned women. Yes, Blakeney was gorgeous, but he liked what he liked.
Cory was careful to not flirt with Shana while they were in the presence of his woman, but he did slick shit. He knew that Shana wouldn’t say anything, because if she was, she would have from the beginning. There were times he would discretely smack her ass. She would tell him to stop, but there were way too many flirtatious giggles in the request for her to be taken seriously.
She knew she should have said something from the beginning. The horrible reality was that she liked the attention. In her mind, as long as she didn’t fuck him, she hadn’t done anything wrong. Blakeney knew that she was a flirtatious person.
Shana’s relationship with her man, Cory’s homeboy, left much to be desired. Tron cheated on her without remorse. Heoften told her that if she wanted to leave she could, but she never did. As beautiful as Shana was, there was deeply rooted self-hatred that was placed in her by her mother. A boyfriend that didn’t give a fuck about her and a man that gave her attention was the catalyst to where they were today. She may have never fucked him. What she did was worse . . . She gave him hope.
Shana’s head dropped. With her eyes closed, she told them what he said. “He told me that now that there was no more baby, we could be together. He said he did it for us.”
Smack!Marla delivered another slap to her face. “Let me tell you something. You’re going to tell us where that nigga is at. You’re also going to meet with him, and we will be there. Do you fuckin’ understand me?”
Shana nodded. She glanced at her watch. “Yes, ma’am. I’m supposed to meet him in an hour.”
Travis stepped in front of her. His voice was calm, his tone was even, and his demeanor was demonic. “Shana darling, after we get Cory, I’m going to allow you to go home, pack your shit, and get the fuck out of the city. You have forty-eight hours. If I, my wife, or anyone from my team sees you in the city after that time, the order will be to kill you.”
Her eyes bulged, and her head bucked back. She didn’t think she had done anything so wrong that it called for death. “I don’t want to lose y’all. I’m so sorry. I love y’all. She’s my best friend, my sister.”