Loving Angel 3 (21 page)

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

ANGEL

“Mommy, why do you always call Faith chubby cheeks?” Ricky asked me.

“Because she has the fattest cheeks in the world,” Tyga answered for me. “Don’t you?”
He said to our daughter as he placed kisses all over her face. She smiled up at her daddy, shaking her little fist at him. He was always able to keep her bad ass calm.

My family and I were chilling in the king sized bed in my bedroom, enjoying a peaceful Monday evening. After all the drama of yesterday
, it was good to just have some down time. Maria had really ruined Delco’s and Daisy’s wedding day, but fortunately they had made it to Barbados for their honeymoon. And Aunt Missy was keeping Kiki and Kita for them while they were away.

“I want a different name too,” Ricky demanded.

“Your special name is booger,” I told him, tweaking his nose.

“I’m not a booger mommy,” he smiled at me, looking just like his daddy.

“You’re my little booger.”

I was tickling Ricky
and he was giggling loudly when I heard my phone ringing. I reached over to the bedside table and grabbed it. I was very surprised to see Mina’s name lighting up its screen. After all, we hadn’t spoken to each other since I threw her ass out of my hospital room the day after I gave birth to Faith. She didn’t even speak to me yesterday when we saw each other at Daisy’s wedding.

“Hello,” I answered.

“Angel, I need you to come pick me up at Harlem Hospital.”

“What’s wrong with you?” I asked in concern.
We may have been at odds with each other but she was still my mother.

“My fibroids started acting up
on me this morning. I was bleeding so damn much and was in so much pain that I had to go to the emergency room.”

“Are you good now?”

“The doctor gave me some pain medication but I have to come back later this week to have them removed.”

“Wow.” I never knew
that her fibroids were so bad that she would require an operation. She had them all my life and sometimes they would act up a little when she was having her period but not like that. Having bad fibroids was no joke; it made a lot of women anemic, causing them to feel weak all the time. “Give me a couple minutes and I’ll be there.”

“What’s up?” Tyga asked after I got off the phone.

“That was Mina. She’s at the hospital and I have to go pick her up. Her fibroids are acting up.”

“Is she going to be ok?”

“They’re releasing her so it can’t be very fatal. But she’s going to have to have an operation to remove them later this week.”

“What’s fibirds mommy?” Ricky asked, butchering the word.

“Nothing you have to worry about,” I chuckled at his little inquisitive ass, then I went to grab my purse and keys off the dresser. I gave Tyga and both my kids a quick kiss. “I’ll be right back.”

It was a thirty five minute ride to Harlem and when I got close to the hospital I called Mina and told her to come downstairs.
And I had to wait five minutes before she showed up looking like a raggedy mess.

“Thanks for coming to get me,” she greeted me after hopping into my car and
then closing the door.

“You’re welcome,” I replied.
She may have been able to turn off her love for me but I sure as hell couldn’t turn off mine. “So what were you saying about this operation?” I placed the car into drive and headed out the parking lot.

“They’re going to remove the fibroids because t
hey’re causing me a lot of pain. And when I’m having my period I have to change my pads every two hours.”

“When did it get this bad?”

“After I had the miscarriage my period started coming a lot heavier but it only got this bad over the last six months.”

“So you gonna be good after the operation
, right?”

“As long as it doesn’t grow back,” she revealed. I didn’t even know that could happen. “I’ve got something I need to ask you.”

I gave her a quick glance before looking back to the road, wondering what she wanted to ask. “What?”

“Afte
r the operation I won’t be at my best and I need someone to pick me up and look after me for a couple of days until I’m feeling better.”

I rolled my eyes at her. “You’re my mother Mina. Of course I’ll pick you up and let you stay at my place.”

She nodded. “Thanks.”

As much as I sometimes got mad at my mother for being extremely selfish
, I would always be there for her whenever she needed me. Everyone only got one mother and I would really hate living to regret not being there for mine.

After I dropped Mina
at her house with a promise to pick her up early Tuesday morning for her surgery, I hurried back home to my family. When I got there, Tyga was lying in bed by himself watching TV.

“Are the boogers down for their nap
?” I asked my bay as I joined him on the bed; slipping into the arms he had opened for me.

“Yep. Those two were
driving me crazy all evening. Thank god they’re now down for the count.”

I chuckled.
“You’re always acting mad tired when you have to take care of them. What if you were me and had to do it every day?”

“That’s why I appreciate you Sexy. I know taking care of my kids is mad work. But you have to admit
, I try to help you out a lot.”

I nodded because that was the truth.

“So how is Mina?”

“She’s good for now but she’s doi
ng surgery on Tuesday. I got to drop her off and pick her up and then she’s coming here to stay for a couple days.”

“I’ll be in Philly
on Tuesday, so you’re going to have to ask Chance to watch the kids for you when you have to play chauffeur.”

“I’d forgotten about that.”

He was going to Philly to meet with one of my dad’s business associates who wanted to do business with him.

I’d just have to make do by myself. Mina could be a little difficult sometimes but over the years I’d learnt to deal with her.

CHAPTER
THIRTY-THREE

KEYA

“Oh my god, I can’t believe that nigga almost shot me.”

David and I were riding in his car on our way back from our latest robbery. Things hadn’t gone do
wn as planned and not only did we not get any money, the nigga had pulled a gun on me, demanding answers pertaining to his friend’s death. And he’d threatened to blast me in the head if I didn’t give them. If David and Larry hadn’t run up into the spot when they did, I would have been a dead bitch now. I had told David that I had a bad feeling about Trouble. He was the nigga who had taken over for Big Mack and the one who we tried to rob tonight. He had seemed to be on to my game from the start. But David had only been thinking about the money he could get and not the danger my life could be in.

“Stop stressing about that shit. Larry and I got there in time didn’t we?”

I glared at him. “But I shouldn’t have been at his house in the first place.” I’d only been working Trouble for a week, so when he said he wanted to take me to his place I told David that the nigga was up to something.

David sighed. “I don’t know why we’re arguing over this. None of us were hurt.”

“That’s not the point David.”

“Let’s not harp on that
shit. What we need to do is move on to the next gig. I already told you that we should have been trying to rob that nigga Tyga and that bitch nigga Delco. If you had agreed with my plan, we wouldn’t have had to move on Trouble.”

“And I already told you
that I’m not gonna put my sister or my cousin and their kids in that type of danger. Anything could happen during the robbery.” Even as trifling as I was, I still wasn’t going to move against my family. Sometimes I couldn’t stand their asses but I would never willingly put them at risk.

“Well them niggas must have more
than one crib. Get close to one of them and let’s rob another one of their spots.”

By getting close to them
, he meant seducing them.

“And I already told you
, that those two hate me and that they won’t give me the time of day.” Instead they’d just run to their women and tell them what happened, then I’d have to listen to those bitches acting like they were better than me because I wanted their men. I wasn’t about to let that shit happen again.

His phone began ringing for
the third time since we’d gotten in the car.

“Are you gonna answer that?” I snapped at him. “And who the fuck keeps calling you so much
?”

He took one hand off the
steering wheel and used it to retrieve his phone from his sweatshirt pocket. As soon as I was sure he had accessed his call log I snatched the phone from his hand and quickly scanned the screen. There were many outgoing, incoming and missed calls from that trick Trina.

He swiftly
grabbed it back out of my hand. “What the fuck is wrong with you?”

“The better question is
, what the fuck is wrong with you?” I retorted. “Why are you still in contact with that bitch?”

“I’m not in contact with her. She’s the one who keeps blowing up my phone.”

“Then why are there outgoing calls to her?”

“To tell her to stop calling me,” he assured me as we pulled up to my apartment building.

That nigga must have thought I was Bozo the clown. As if I’d believe that shit. You didn’t call someone repeatedly just to tell them to stop calling you. But I should have known his ass was trifling. He was all up in my pussy within an hour of meeting me, even though I’d been friends with his woman.

“Go sell that shit to the next bitch, maybe she will believe your trifling ass.” I hopped out of his car and slammed the door before he could reply.

He was blasting his horn at me as I hurried inside the building and across the foyer at a quick clip. I was putting that nigga on ice for a while. There I was putting myself in danger so that he could have money in his pockets and he was running around behind my back with the next bitch. Probably spending the dollars that I was putting in his pockets on her. Hell no, that shit was not about to happen to a bad bitch like me.

I was still pissed as hell as I opened my apartment door. Once I got inside I switched on the hallway light then slammed the door so hard the sound echoed around the room. I was marching down the hallway when someone suddenly stepped out of the dark living room, scaring the crap out of me.

By the time my brain had registered that it was Dread, he had already pricked me in the neck with a needle. I clutched the injection site as I felt my body getting weak, and then my legs became so rubbery I fell to the floor.

Dread stood over me with a twisted smile on his face. “You didn’t think you’d get away with what you did to me
, now did you bitch?” He asked, before my world went black.

CHAPTER
THIRTY-FOUR

ANGEL

“Damn, you’d think you had to go to the store to get the juice,” Mina said irritably as she took the glass I was offering her.

I was really trying to be patient with her but she was getting on my
last fucking nerves. I knew that she wasn’t feeling well because she was recovering from her operation but acting snappy towards the person who was helping her, showed just how ungrateful she really was. She wasn’t the only one who I had to cater to. I had a four year old and a three month old who required my attention too, so she needed to be fucking patient when she asked for something.

I glared at her. “I was feeding my daughter
, Mina.”

She pursed her lips but
made no further comment on the issue, instead she said, “Can I get one of the pillows from the loveseat please!?” The demand was made with a curl of her lips.

I grabbed the pil
low then handed it to her but she didn’t even say a simple thanks. All I could do was shake my head as I walked away. My mother would never change. Ungrateful was really her middle name.

It was almost ten o’clock and I was mad tired from running around all day catering to the people in my life. Mina had been lying on the couch making demands of me since she got back from the hospital.
Faith had also been fussy all evening until she finally went down for a nap fifteen minutes ago. The only one who didn’t try to stress me today was Ricky. Instead my little booger was always trying to give me a helping hand. Too bad that whatever he helped with got messed up even more.

I opened the fridge and grabbed a bottle of water. I was chugging it down when I heard a loud commotion coming from the front of the house.
As I hurried to the living room I was wondering what the hell Mina was now up to. But my mother wasn’t the one causing the disturbance. No, it was much worse and the perpetrator had my heart beating out of my chest, as I observed the scene before me.