God Don't Like Haters 2 (4 page)

My father snapped. "You don't know shit about
my wife! Not a fucking thing!" Veins bulged in his neck. "My wife
is one of the most successful women in the music world and has been
for the last SIXTEEN YEARS!"

I looked at my father strangely. What the
hell was he talking about?

I knew it was about to come to a fistfight so
I grabbed Archie and pulled him into another room.

"He needed to hear that," Archie said to me,
breathing hard. "You okay? Stop crying."

Archie hugged me, cradling my head.

"I'm sorry you had to hear that," he said.
"But I had to tell it like it is. Kirbie, I told you I'll always
protect you from him."

I was crying softly. "Who's gonna protect me
from you?"

"What?"

"Let me go, Archie."

"Baby, stop crying first. It's okay."

When he felt the muzzle of my .380 press into
his stomach, he slowly released me, leaving his arms open wide in
surrender.

"Kirbie, all I did was yell at the man,"
Archie said apologetically. "I was only sticking up for you."

"This isn't about the argument with my
father," I said, teary-eyed. "This is about the robbery!"

"You're upset because I didn't help you find
those niggas? Is that it? Kirbie, don't shoot me again. Please,
baby ..."

"You set that robbery up, Archie. I know you
did. If you lie to me, I'll shoot you dead right now."

He glanced down at my gun. He was probably
deciding if he could take it from me. But he knew better.

"Tell me that you set it up!" I hollered.

He licked his lips, then came clean. "I set
the robbery up," he stated.

"Why?! I thought you loved me!"

"I do love you, don't you understand? That's
why I did it. I was trying to prevent you from taking the pill
money and wasting it on that music shit. It's the same thing you
did for me by calling the casinos and putting me on the gambling
anonymous lists."

"That's not the same thing!"

"Well, it is a little different but it's
still the same intent. I was trying to help you. I set up that
whole thing to help you. That should tell you how much I love you
and what lengths I'll go to for you. You know I fucking love you,
Kirbie. I was just trying to prevent you from having your dreams
crushed. And I'm tired of you getting played by that phony record
company you're signed to."

Coras was right. Archie had been trying to
hold me back all along. But now I was wondering if Archie had good
reason to. I had spent a lot of money over the past year and I
didn't even have one mixtape of my own to show for it. Just
singles, and features on Coras's mixtapes. Maybe
I 
was
 getting played. Maybe Coras was using my
voice for his hooks to get noticed faster. That would explain why
he kept Ashleigh around. She was his scapegoat.

"I'll show you how much I love you," Archie
said. His eyes were starting to fill with tears too. "Can I reach
in my back pocket?"

I didn't answer him, but kept the gun on him
as I tried to wipe away my own tears. He carefully reached in his
back pocket and pulled out a small black box.

"This is why I wanted you and your father
here together. I wanted to ask his permission to marry you. But I
know that's not gonna happen now. And I don't think I even need it.
He was never a father to you."

As Archie slowly got down on one knee, his
tears began to trickle down his cheeks. My gun was pointed at his
head now by default. He held the box up and gently flicked the top
back. I cried harder, as I stared at the most beautiful diamond
ring I had ever seen in my life.

"I put a down payment on this ring and was
gonna sell the pills you thought were stolen to pay off the rest of
it. This is a fifty thousand dollar certified diamond." He cleared
his throat. "Kirbie Amor Capelton, you have two choices: you either
kill me dead right now, or accept this ring and be my wife for
eternity. There is no other option."

Chapter 6

Monifa Chavis

"Where's Milo?!" I shouted.

The doorman, a big ol overfed boy in a black
tanktop and covered in tattoos, stared at me like I was fresh meat.
Then he actually leaned against the door like it was a high school
locker and he was about to spit a line at me. He smiled a set of
straight teeth, then looked right down my low-cut shirt. This was
why I hated coming to my brother's dope house. All of his workers
were thirsty.

I flung my hair over my shoulder with my
hand. "Take a picture; it lasts longer."

"What do you need Milo for?" he asked. "I can
take care of you."

I had to admit—his voice was deep and sexy.
But that didn’t matter.

"Is Milo here or not?" I asked.

"I'm not sure. That depends on who you
are."

"I'm his sister, Monifa Chavis," I
stated.

He immediately straightened up. He knew he
fucked up by trying to talk to his boss's little sister. But since
he was halfway cute, I wouldn't tell on him. Milo had been
overprotective of me since I was born. When I started dating he'd
beat my boyfriends up for no reason at all other than to send a
message. It was irritating at first but as I got older I learned
how to use it to my advantage. I could keep my boyfriends in check.
Once, when Johnathon Williams, a grade above me at the time (and a
white boy), chose to dump me right before prom and take another
black girl in my place, I lied and told Milo that Johnathon called
me the N-word and spat in my face. I expected Milo to hurt him bad,
enough for Johnathon to not want to show his beaten face at prom.
But what happened was far worse than I imagined. Johnathon didn't
show up for prom all right—because he'd been shot to death in his
parents' house during a "random" home invasion the night
before.

That day, I learned firsthand that my brother
didn't play about me.

And Coras knew this. So why did he cheat on
me with Kirbie? He must have stopped valuing his health. Even
though Coras apologized and tried to deny what I had seen with my
own two eyes, he still needed to be punished. There had to be
consequences when you broke the rules in a relationship with me.
Maybe next time he'd think twice before letting another bitch like
Kirbie sit in his lap. 

The big doorman let me inside the apartment,
where there were more thuggish negroes. A heavy stench of marijuana
smoke invaded my nostrils before I even took three steps in. I
started fanning the air in front of me, coughing lightly at first
then it got worse. The guys in the living room started
laughing.

"Too loud for you?" one joked about the
cloudy smoke.

I caught my breath and noticed that a couple
of them I recognized from being "friends" with my brother on The
Site. It was weird because this was my first time seeing them, yet
I felt like I knew half of them because I had frequented their
pages so much. The dark-skinned guy sitting on the couch in sweats
and Nike slides was named Oyeah Mason on his Site page, and I knew
almost his whole life story—he graduated from Lincoln Prep four
years ago, got seven college credits from Rockhurst before being
expelled for drugs; his baby momma's father got him a job at UPS
(which was still listed as his place of employment on The Site ),
but he got fired six months ago for, in his own words, "doing my
job fuck them I'm not doing nobody else's work." And according to a
status update posted by his baby momma last week, he was also
delinquent on child support payments. But I checked a county court
website that was updated daily and saw that he was only behind a
hundred and fifty bucks. His baby momma always tried to make him
seem worse than he really was.

I could have probably named three more people
in this weed spot by their Site names, if not on the first guess
then the second.

"Where's my brother?" I asked. I singled
Oyeah Mason out with my question because he was the most familiar.
And the most handsome.

"Upstairs," he said, pointing down the
hall.

He didn't question who I was. That let me
know he knew my business too. The Site worked both ways.

As I marched down the hall, I heard the
female moans of sex, and I could smell it too. It wasn't a bad
smell or a good smell, it was just ... unsettling. Probably because
I knew it was a half mix of my brother's scent. I knocked on the
door where the moans were coming from. I beat on the door hard.

"Who is it?" Milo. Angry. And the sex had
stopped.

"It's Monifa," I said, trying to sound
heartbroken. "Milo, I need to talk to you please." I was in
character, about to put on a show. Like I said, I knew how to work
my brother's emotions. I took a deep breath, trying to gather
tears. "It's your sister. Are you busy?"

"Hold on."

A second later the door thrust open. My tall,
handsome brother was standing there panting in complete nudity. I
hadn't seen him naked since we bathed together as kids, and that
was millennia ago. His wiener, which was dreadfully darker than the
rest of his brown skin, began to slowly pulse-shrink as the seconds
passed. I stared, lost in the magic of male shrinkage, as an odd
thought occurred to me: 
I wonder if this is what our
daddy's penis looks like.

"Monifa, up here."

I looked up. "Huh?"

"What's wrong?"

I looked past him at the girl on the bed he'd
been fucking. She had a cute sew-in and innocent doe-like eyes, and
from what I could see of her body that wasn't covered up by the
sheets, she was also full-figured. My brother had a thing for thick
women.

"I'm sorry I came here," I said, and
sniffled. "You're busy."

I turned to leave and he grabbed my arm and
pulled me into the room, just like I knew he would. He snapped his
fingers at his plaything, jerked his thumb toward the door and she
sprang to her feet and collected her clothes and scurried out of
the room. Milo was pulling on a pair of dark jeans when he asked me
again to tell him what was wrong.

"It's about Coras," I said sadly.

"What? He get shot or somethin'?" Milo was
halfway into pulling his shirt on when he saw me shake my head no.
He paused, then slid his shirt all the way on and sat me down on
the bed. "He hit you?"

"No."

"Then what?"

"He cheated on me."

Milo sighed, then pulled me into his arms. He
held me and kissed my forehead.

"I'm sorry to hear that," he said.

"I know you told him that if he ever broke my
heart you were gonna fuck him up but please don't do anything to
him."

I was smiling inside. 
Reverse
psychology.

"You don't want me to fuck him up?"

"No," I whimpered.

"Okay," he said, "are you gon' be
a'ight?"

Did he just say okay?

I pulled away from my brother and looked at
him sideways. "You're not gonna do anything to him?"

"No, not if you don't want me to."

I almost blurted, 
You killed
Johnathon and I didn't want you to!
 but I caught
myself.

"Monifa, I didn't really like that nigga
Coras when you introduced him to me but I served him product
because he fucked with you and treated you right. Then, he turned
out to be one hustling ass nigga. I make a lot of money off of
selling him weight. I'm not gon' break off a good relationship with
him because he cheated on you. Now, if he hit you, that's a
different story."

I knew if I lied and told my brother that
Coras hit me then he'd kill him. I didn't want that. I loved Coras.
But I wanted him to be punished somehow.

"His friend put his hands on me," I said
desperately.

"Who?!"

"His producer. Gee Beats. He threw me on the
ground when I caught Coras with the other girl. I told him not to
touch me and his drunk ass slammed me."

This got my brother riled up.

And before I left the apartment, I was
sure 
something
 was going to be done
to 
somebody
.

On the car ride home I looked up Oyeah Mason
on The Site and thumb-tapped his profile picture to enlarge it. He
was sure easy to look at, with some of the softest-looking skin I
had ever seen (and this clearly had to be due to a Site-generated
photo effect because he didn't look this blemish-free in person).
Still, he had a nice set of lips that looked moist and kissable,
and his brown eyes sparkled with sincerity. He should have been a
professional model, not selling drugs for my brother.

I clicked Like on his picture.

Monifa Chavis:
In time, everybody gets what's
due to them. Call it revenge, call it karma, call it whatever you
like. Just don't get mad when it comes back around and punches yo
punk-ass. Nobody does me wrong and gets away with it.

Chapter 7

Andre "Coras Bane" McDougald

"Did you see what Monifa just posted?" Ashleigh
asked me.

I was donning my Cuban link chain in the
mirror, getting ready for the performance at the Sprint Center
tonight. The last thing I wanted to hear about was Monifa and
social media.

"I don't care what she posted," I said.

"Look at it."

"For what?"

Ashleigh put her cell phone in my face and
made me read the status update. I looked it over and shrugged my
shoulders. Ashleigh didn't like that response.

She said, "Every time she posts some revenge
shit, it's about you. What happened?"

"I don't know."

"Call her and find out."

"No. Tonight is one of the biggest
performances of my budding career and I don't wanna kill my vibe by
talking to her."

I stared in the mirror at the gold chain and
how it sat against my bare chest, hoping Ashleigh would drop the
issue. She did, thankfully. She walked off, leaving me in her
master bedroom alone.

I couldn't tell Ashleigh what happened
between me and Monifa, even though I knew she knew something was
up. If I told her that Monifa caught Kirbie on my lap kissing me, I
would be in the dog house with both of my ladies. I didn't know
exactly what Ashleigh would do if she found out. She'd be deeply
hurt, to say the least. And when you hurt a girl deep once, she
might still ride for you but the dynamic would change, if only
slightly. I didn't want that to happen.