Thug Matrimony (23 page)

“You’re such a fuckin’ liar, Keenan.”

“She wants to be you so bad, it’s scary. I mean I’ve heard of sibling rivalry, but damn. You know she was talking about going to law school? The girl seriously needs some help.”

“Make her come back home, Keenan. Don’t do this to my baby sister.” Angel was so mad that she wished she had a gun on her.

“What’s it worth to you?”

“Nigga, what do you mean, what’s it worth to me?”

“Her coming home, or rather her wanting to come home?”

She looked at him, unable to hide her disgust. “You are the one who is sick, Keenan.”

He let out a sigh. “Why do I have to talk to you in the back of a fuckin’ taxi? Why the fuck are you taking me through all of this trouble? Dealing with your sister, flattening your tires, showing up at a damn wedding, Angel? What we had was worth more than how you’re treating me.”

“Keenan, you left me, remember? For years, if I’m not mistaken. Hello! It’s over. I’ve moved on, Keenan, there will never be anything between us. I love someone else. I have a new family. How else can I put it? It is O-V-E-R.”

“It’s not over until I say it’s over, Angel. Don’t forget who the fuck I am.”

“Keenan, why are you doing this? Do you realize that your behavior is considered stalking?”

“Call it what the fuck you want to call it. Do you realize, technically,
that you’re still my muthafuckin’ fiancée? So when can we muthafuckin’ talk? Over dinner, the easy way, or all out the hard way. Which way would you like it? That’s all I’m asking. You owe me some answers.”

“Owe you? I don’t owe you shit! Owe you? You think I want to have dinner with you and you’re fucking my baby sister? And you beat her ass?” She slapped him. Slapped him again. Then she started raining punches all over him.

“Hey! Hey!” the cabbie yelled when he saw Snake’s hand around her throat. Angel pressed her finger into his Adam’s apple, forcing him to turn her loose.

“Let me out, now! Stop this fuckin’ cab or I’ll call the police on this psycho nut.”

“No. Keep driving,” Snake spat.

“Stop the fuckin’ car.” She picked up her phone and dialed 911. He snatched it from her and turned it off.

She snatched it from him and slapped him across the face with it. She opened the door while the cab was still moving, ready to jump.

“Hey! Hey!” the cabbie yelled as he came to an abrupt stop, causing the car behind him to rear-end them. Angel felt the impact but didn’t care as she jumped out and ran across the street, jumping into another cab.

“Go! Please go! That man is following me,” she cried. The taxi slowly merged into traffic.

“Where to, ma’am?” the female cabbie asked as she shook her head. Anything is likely to happen in the Big Apple.

“The new Time Warner Building.” She sniveled as she dialed Kaylin. Before he could answer, Snake was running beside the cab, oblivious of the horns blowing around him. “Hurry up!” Angel screamed. He tried to pull the door open, but Angel locked it. “Can’t you go any faster?” she yelled.

“Traffic is not moving fast, ma’am,” she answered as she glanced at Snake from her side-view mirror.

“Cut around somebody. Lose him, damn it! He probably has a gun.”

The cabbie made a sharp left and zoomed down a side street. Snake was running behind them but soon gave up.

“Are you okay back there? I lost him.” She looked at her through the rearview mirror. Angel had her head back and was crying. Her hands were shaking so bad she could hardly pick up the phone. Kaylin was screaming her name. He had answered the phone as soon as it rang and could hear her voice and knew that sumthin wrong was going on.

“Talk to me, Angel. C’mon, baby. I can’t do anything if you don’t tell me where you’re at. Please, baby. Give the phone to somebody. Angel!” he screamed. “Damn it, say sumthin, let me know you’re all right!” He was pacing the conference room like an angry tiger. Everyone had cleared out as soon as they saw him jump up and start to cuss.

“Baby …” her voice finally strained through the line.

He was trying to remain calm. “Just tell me where you are and what the fuck just happened. Are you all right?”

“I’m … in … a taxi. I’m coming to the office.” She glanced back, hoping not to see Snake.

Kaylin let out a huge sigh of relief. He was definitely thinking the worst. “Just tell me you’re not hurt, baby. Tell me that,” he pleaded.

“My w-water broke.” She couldn’t stop crying. “He was in the cab with me. Why won’t he leave me alone? Make him leave me alone,” she sobbed.

Those words ate at Kaylin’s heart. “I’ma take care of him. I promise.” Kaylin was now at the elevators pressing frantically on the
DOWN
button.

“Oh, shit!” She screamed as she began to pant the way the Lamaze coach instructed. This was her first contraction and the cabbie thought that her eyes were gonna bulge out of her head.
When the contraction subsided she said, “It’s happening baby. It’s time … I’m scared.”

“Oh shit!” It had just dawned on Kaylin what it meant when the water broke. Now he had to really focus on being calm. “I’m at the elevator now. As soon as you pull up, we will go to the hospital. Don’t I need to call your doctor?”

“No!” she screamed. “Don’t hang up, baby, please.”

“Okay. Okay. I won’t hang up. I’m here, baby. How far are you?” He looked around. “Call an ambulance!” Kaylin yelled at the guard stationed at the front desk. “My wife went into labor. She’ll be pulling up here in a cab. Are you there, baby?”

“I’m still here. I’m scared. Are you out front?”

“I’m right here waiting on you. I need you to try and relax for me.”

“Okay.” She closed her eyes and laid her head back. She heard Kaylin instruct someone to call Dr. McCombs and let her know that Angel’s contractions were eight minutes apart and that they were on their way.

When he stopped talking she said, “Eight minutes? That’s all? Oh … here comes another one! Oh, shit!”

“Breathe, baby.”

She was holding her breath. “I can’t, it hurts.”

“C’mon, baby, breathe.” He heard her make feeble attempts at the breathing exercises. “I hear the ambulance getting closer,” he told her as he listened to her breathe, even though the contraction had stopped.

“I’m about two blocks away. Oh God. That was a hard one.”

“The ambulance is here. Where are you, baby?”

“Almost there.”

“Hold on.” She listened as he spoke to the paramedics.

The female cabbie beeped the horn as she pulled in front of the building. Kaylin turned his phone off and jogged over to the taxi. He opened the door and helped Angel out. When the spectators and passersby saw her belly and the paramedics wheeling the gurney they all started clapping and whistling.

As they helped her onto the gurney another contraction hit. She grabbed Kaylin’s hand and they did the breathing exercises together. She was then lifted up onto the back of the ambulance. Kaylin jumped in behind her, they closed the back doors, and they were off to the hospital.

“D
on’t hurt her,” Whitey snapped at Bullet.

“Shut the fuck up, you groupie muthafucka!” Bullet was tying Lil’E's hands behind her back. Her feet were already bound and he had taped her mouth shut.

Lil’E was kicking herself because the boss lady told her not to travel to Philly by herself. Since she had the twins with her, Smith & Wesson, she had told the boss lady that she wasn’t alone. Now she was hemmed up in some seedy motel room with smelly orange carpet and two crazed lunatics.

On the way back from her interviews, she was traveling the turnpike and stopped at one of the rest stops to gas up, freshen up, and grab a sandwich. A white guy came up to her asking for directions to New Brunswick and before she finished explaining the way, he had the burner pressed at her stomach telling her to get inside the Chevy.

She could tell that the white dude was from the South. His accent and the gold grill were dead giveaways. The big black dude didn’t say too much but his accent wasn’t screaming, dirty South. In any event she got caught slippin’ and here she was.

“Shawty, I was feelin’ you flow. You got mad skills on the mic,” Whitey was cheesin’ at her.

Is this what the superstars go through? Is this why they hire body guards?
To protect themselves from crazed, kidnapping fans and groupies?
she asked herself.

The more Whitey looked at her, the more in awe he became. “Damn! Lil’E!” He lustfully looked her over. “I can’t believe I kidnapped muthafuckin’ Lil’E! Shit, my muthafuckin’ niggas ain’t gonna believe this shit.” He licked his lips. “Damn, you finer than a muthafucka. Lookin’ like Alicia Keys. Boy, and that new remix … you put it down hard. Them strippers be at the club, wigglin’ real nice like to that shit.” He was trying to imitate the strippers’ moves and began singing the hook “In ya face, in ya face.” He dropped it like it was hot and was laughing. “Ya know what I’m sayin’? I’ma have to take ya panties for some proof. My homies ain’t gonna believe me, though.” He stared at her before it hit him. “You think you can autograph them for me?”

“Man, why don’t you shut the fuck up!” Bullet had heard enough. “Shut the fuck up and leave her alone.”

“Fuck yeah,” Lil’E tried to mumble under the tape, which tasted horrible and was burning her lips. “And tell him to stop staring at me. Go watch TV or sumthin. Let me be a hostage and die in peace. Lord, why I gotta be tortured by dumb and dumber?”

“I can’t believe what the hell I’m hearing.” Bullet continued with his tirade. “I don’t see why I’ve been hanging with yo’ stupid ass for this long. What the fuck you mean proof? You tryna get us a case? And over some bitch? A white bitch at that! They’ll fry us and then hang our asses. Your stupid white ass got me fucked up. I’m not tryna catch a case with a stupid, talkative, potential snitch ass.”

“Snitch? You got it fucked up! Man, stop trippin’. This Lil’E. And what the fuck you mean white bitch? I’m white!”

“Well, act like it, then,” Bullet snapped. “And find you some common sense. Oh, I forgot, y’all go looking and go running to find the noise and run right into all the trouble.”

“Ha, ha, ha. Punk muthafucka, you got jokes. It’s whatever, ‘cause that white bitch can spit.”

Oh God,
Lil’E screamed to herself.
I’m kidnapped by Beavis and Butthead. How the fuck I’ma leave my twins in the ride? I got to hit Hot ‘97, BLS, 105 tomorrow and I’m tied up in some fuckin’, stinkin'- ass motel room. Boss lady is going to kill me if these clowns don’t go ahead and do it first.

“I think she like me, man.”

Now, what the fuck I do to make him think that?

Whitey grinned as he sat facing Lil’E. “She really look like Alicia Keys. He reached out and touched her cheek. E squirmed away. “You think the boss man will let me hit this? I need some of that! And she pregnant too! Shit, I ain’t washing my dick for a month after I hit that! I’ma fuck the shit out of her. She gonna wanna be with me. Don’t worry about it, boo, you gonna love me in the end. We a match made in heaven.”

“Aww, man. You’s a dumb-ass bitch. Ask him yourself, dummy. He’s pulling up right now.” Bullet tossed the remote onto the bed and went to open the door. He looked at his watch and blurted, “Eleven forty. Damn. We been waiting on this nigga for almost three hours.” He snatched the door open and watched Snake get out the car. They were in the boondocks in Jersey somewhere holed up at a joint that reminded you of the Bates Motel.

“Damn, how the fuck y’all found this place?” Snake snapped.

“I know you ain’t complaining. You gonna let us do what we do, right?”

“Hell yeah, but damn.” His gaze went over to the bed where Lil’E was. She was a tiny little thing. “Put that bitch on the floor.” He was being careful not to show his face. “And blindfold the bitch!”

“Why? Dead men can’t talk,” Whitey snapped. “I know y’all gonna let me enjoy my job. I like looking at her.”

Dead men?
Lil’E froze in panic.
Oh, shit. My baby. My unborn baby, my grandma. Who’s going to take care of her? I didn’t even get a chance to take her to Italy. Lord, I’m only eighteen. Don’t let me die now. Damn. Why did I travel by myself? Who are these clowns? And what the fuck do they want with me?

“So what’s up?” Bullet wanted to know. Because he was ready to get this over with. They watched Whitey pick her up and place her on the floor. She had tears streaming down her cheeks. Bullet said in disgust, “You’se a sick son of a bitch,” when he saw Whitey kiss a tear off Lil’E's cheek.

“Gotta wait on this nigga to collect the dough. He claims he knows where the spot is. I wish he would hurry up.” Snake ignored the both of them.

“Yo, can I hit this real quick?” Whitey wanted to know. “Do you know who this is? She got that hot joint, the “In Yo Face” remix. This Lil’E, nigga,” Whitey gloated, as he talked to Snake.

“Man, I don’t give a fuck who she is. Just want to pay off this debt and collect what’s owed to me. I might need this nigga again.”

“So, I can get up in this or what?”

“Man, where you gonna take her? I damn sure ain’t gonna leave the room to give yo ass privacy. And I definitely don’t want to sit here while you rape a bitch,” Snake said matter-of-factly.

“Shit, I’ll get me a muthafuckin’ room, you know how we do. Shit, I know the pussy good. Fuck it, there ain’t no sense in lettin’ good, pregnant pussy go to waste. We killin’ the bitch so it really ain’t no shit. We can all hit that!”

“White boy, if you don’t shut the fuck up! You ain’t stop runnin’ yo trap about this bitch since we got here. I’m starting to think you wired!” Bullet fired off.

Snake got wild with a gritty look on his face and said, “You bitch, muthafucka, you wired?” At the same time he began to pat him down.

“What you think, nigga? Hell naw, I ain’t wired! I been with y’all paranoid asses for at least seventy-two hours and frankly I’m sick of both of you niggas. Matter of fact, let’s get this shit over with so I can take my ass back home away from you sorry-ass muthafuckas. Y’all got me fucked up, talking about wired. Don’t call me no muthafuckin’ mo!” he spat. “Let me pat yo’ ass down.”