It was time to put things into action. “Fuck everything and everyone else. I’m tired of being played in the background. Time for me to play upfront,” Nicole said.
Since the night she found her mother sucking Trent’s dick, payback had become the only option. “I got my ass beat constantly just to be told I’m not your bitch. Negro, please!” Nicole said. She was fed up. First and foremost, Nicole called Section 8.
“Thank you for calling the Housing Authority of the City of Los Angeles. How may I help you?” the man stated.
“Yes, how do I go about reporting negligence?” Nicole asked.
“What kind?’’ the man asked.
Nicole huffed. Then, she said, “Never mind.”
She hung up the phone. Nicole thought clearly about the situation. She wasn’t ready to be homeless. Then, she thought about her younger brother and sisters. Where would they go? She had to think of something else, but, in the mean-time, she had a bigger fish to fry.
Wiz wasn’t trying to ignore Kendra’s texts or calls on purpose. Since he’d been spending all his time with her, he had lost his main focus, but seeing Trent last night reminded him of the task at hand. For him, it was both business and personal, and whoever got in the way got dealt with.
Wiz sat on his oversized chair, freaking his Black & Mild, contemplating his next move like he was playing a game of chess.
“Yo! We gotta move this thing forward as soon as possible, fam,” Wiz said to his partner.
“Yeah, nigga. We coulda had this bitch by now, but you’re playin’ Captain Save-A-Hoe and fallin’ in love,” he said.
Wiz didn’t respond because he knew his friend was right. Wiz nodded his head in agreement and said, “I hear ya. Let me get at shawty myself, though.”
“Aight, nigga. You the boss,” he uttered.
Kendra was nicely dressed in a pair of Seven jeans and a brown sweater with matching Gucci boots and hat. She had a few errands that she needed to run. She needed to pay all the utility bills, stop at the grocery store, and put some clothes in the cleaners. After finishing her errands, she decided to visit Trent’s parents. It had been awhile since she had spoken to Mrs. Moore since her mother had passed away, and, right then, she needed a hug.
Kendra rang the door-bell. As she waited for someone to answer the door, she shifted from one foot to the other.
“Who is it?” a voice yelled from behind the door.
“It’s Kendra,” she answered.
The door flew open. “Oh, hey, Ken!” Treniyah said, giving Kendra a hug. “Come inside. How have you been?”
“I’m okay. I could be better, but I’m good,” Kendra answered half-heartedly as they walked to the family room.
“Is your mom around?” Kendra asked, facing Treniyah.
“Yeah. She’s taking an important call right now,” Treniyah responded.
Kendra removed her jacket and shoes and sat on the lounge.
“Well, look what the wind blew in,” Mrs. Moore announced as she entered the room. “Girl, give me a hug.”
Kendra stood up and hugged Mrs. Moore. Kendra and Mrs. Moore talked for a few hours. Kendra missed the bond that she and her mother had, but the comfort of Trent’s mother felt great.
“You just stop by here anytime you need to. You don’t need Trent to come over,” Mrs. Moore continued as Kendra wiped the tears that were forming in her eyes. “Just let those tears fall, baby. I know you really haven’t mourned your mother’s death. Just let it all out.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Moore. I really needed to get that out. It hasn’t been easy these past few months, but I’m maintaining,” Kendra responded.
She grabbed her things and made her way for the door. Kendra had time to think things over on her drive back home. She thought she was being overly dramatic with Trent. She wanted to put everything behind her and move forward, but she was going to have her cake and eat it, too.
“I’m so sick of being lonely every night while my man is out with his homies. I wanna know how it feels to loved,” Kendra sang and bobbed her head to every lyric of the Field Mob song as it played on the radio. She was just a few houses away from the Moore’s home when she saw someone that she had wanted to see for a long time. She stopped her car so abruptly that the tires screeched against the pavement. Her eyes were fixed and locked on Nicole. Kendra had always known that Nicole liked Trent, but she never thought that he would pay her any attention. She knew this was the Nicole who had texted Trent a few months back. Kendra decided that she would put an end to all of it as she double parked in the middle of the street. Kendra got out the car and walked to where Nicole was standing. On the inside, Nicole was fuming, but she was happy that Kendra wanted to talk to her, which made her part a lot easier.
“Aye, Nicole. Let me ask you something woman to woman,” Kendra said. Nicole stood there with her hands on her hips.
“Your suspicions are right,” Nicole said, tormenting Kendra. Nicole figured she should just come clean and stop beating around the bush. She was done hiding behind lies.
“My suspicions?” Kendra questioned.
“You stopped me because you want to know if I’ve been fucking Trent, so, like I said, your suspicions are right. Not only am I fucking him, my momma’s fucking him, too, and I’m three months pregnant. You’re going to be a step-mommy,” Nicole said harshly. She figured she might as well tell it all. He did’t give a fuck, and neither did she.
Kendra thought her ears were deceiving her as she heard Nicole’s voice echoing through her head, “Your suspicions are right. Not only am I fucking him, my momma’s fucking him, too, and I’m three months pregnant,” was all that kept replaying in her head. Kendra raised her hand.
“You gonna hit a pregnant woman?” Nicole asked.
“Bitch, your face ain’t pregnant,” Kendra said. Before she knew what she was doing, she had hit Nicole with a right hook.
“I’m only going to tell your ass this once. Fuck with my man again, and I’mma see that your bastard-ass child won’t make it into this world.”
As Kendra got back in her car and sped off, Nicole remained in the same spot with a dumbfounded look on her face. Concerned people asked if she was okay, but she just ignored them and kept it pushing. Nicole really hadn’t thought that one through. She was well aware that Kendra would put her hands on her. Apparently, Kendra had made her look like a fool, but Nicole kept her stride.
“All’s fair in love and war, baby,” Nicole said as she shook it off and continued walking to the Moore’s house.
Once she was outside of Trent’s parents’ home, she realized that she didn’t know how they would take this news because she had been friends with Treniyah since she was eight years old. She had enjoyed spending some summer and Christmas vacations with the Moores. She had practically lived with them from time to time.
When she was fifteen, she saw Trent coming out the bathroom after taking a shower with just a towel wrapped around his body. She instantly developed a crush on him. She was also fifteen when she started giving him oral sex. Trent was her first for everything, so, in her mind, he was rightfully hers. She had loved him ever since she first laid eyes on him. Every time she stayed the night over, she tried to figure out a way to sneak into his room.
Nicole opted to write Treniyah a letter explaining every detail because she was too afraid to face her best friend in the whole wide world. As Nicole was putting the letter in the mailbox, Treniyah exited the house and asked, “Hey, Nikki! What do you have in your hand?”
Tears formed in Nicole’s eyes. She didn’t want her friend to think any less of her, and she hoped that, no matter what happened, she would still be her friend and that she would choose to be a part of her niece’s or nephew’s life. “It’s a letter for you. I don’t know how to tell you the words, Tren, so I thought I’d write it down. Please don’t read it until after I’m gone.”
As Nicole walked away, Treniyah read the letter. By the time she finished, Nicole was out of sight. Treniyah was so wrapped up in the letter that she hadn’t noticed the dark green Nova parked across the street a few houses from their home. Treniyah was so confused by the information that she had just read that she was speechless.
The man in the dark green Nova had been casing the Moore’s home for a while, waiting on anyone to come or go from the house. He had been growing more and more impatient by the minute. He was just about to start his engine when luck struck his way. He watched when Kendra came and went. He even saw the dispute between Kendra and Nicole. His luck seemed to have gotten better when Treniyah appeared outside to talk to Nicole.
He stepped out the car, heading in Treniyah’s direction. She never even looked his way. She assumed that he was there for a neighbor. Before she realized what was happening, it was too late. The man walked up with a napkin in his hand. He covered Treniyah’s mouth with it, and she fainted instantly. He, then, picked her up and placed her in the backseat of his car. Another masked man grabbed her cell phone and placed it in one of the pockets of his jacket. Then, the driver drove to a secluded location in Long Beach.
Wiz was waiting for them when they arrived. He ordered them to tie Treniyah up. “Make sure y’all niggas don’t do anything to her unless I give you the green light. Is that understood?”
Both men nodded their heads. Wiz wanted for there to be a fair exchange for Trent’s sister. He wanted Trent. Things hadn’t been going as planned since he’d stepped back into the states. He had almost lost another of his boys when he was grazed by a bullet from Trent’s gun, so Wiz wasn’t leaving until he had his head.
Kendra was overwhelmed, but she knew that there was no forgiving Trent. This time, she was making sure to put her foot down. Kendra didn’t have time for the “I’m sorry’s” or “My bad’s”. She was more than fed up. This was the very straw that broke the camel’s back.
Kendra ran into her sister’s house. “I can’t believe this nigga,” she cried.
Nia looked at her sister and asked, “Why you keep doing this to yourself? Don’t you know you’re worth more than that?” Nia walked out the room. Frankly, she was tired of hearing about it.
Kendra followed behind her sister. “I’m dead serious. On my word, I’m good on that nigga. Can’t believe this bitch says she was carrying his baby,” a distraught Kendra said, holding her head down. That immediately had Nia’s full attention.
“What the fuck did you just say?” Nia asked, hoping her ears had heard wrong. “Wait a minute! Back that shit up! Who the fuck is pregnant, Ken?”
“That trifling bitch-ass Nicole. That bitch thought she was talking slick until I slapped the dog shit out of her,” Kendra answered, slapping the air like Nicole was in her presence.
“Yo, Ken! You can’t be hitting pregnant women. Your ass will end up where daddy at. Don’t be a stupid bitch.”
“Fuck that. I let that bitch know to stay the fuck away, or I’ll make sure her baby won’t be born.”
“So, what you plan on doing? You know I got your back.”
Kendra shook her head and shrugged her shoulders. “I don’t know what the fuck to do. I have so much going on in my mind right now that my head is killing me,” she spoke out.
“I wonder if Marcos’s ass knew anything about this shit. I’mma text his ass and find out. He probably was fucking the nigga’s sister for all I know. I don’t put nothing past niggas,” Nia said, reaching for her cell phone.
Kendra slapped the phone from her sister’s hand and said, “No! No! No! I don’t want Trent knowing that I know. If you tell Marcos, Marcos will warn him. ”
“Yeah. You’re right about that, but I wanna know if the nigga is out fucking hoes, too,” Nia said.
“I seriously doubt that. That nigga loves your dirty-ass panties. I think you done put a hex on that boy ‘cause he chases you around like a puppy,” Kendra said, laughing.
“Bitch, please. Me and this nigga wasn’t always like this. I had to tame that ass. Shit! You remember, when me and him first hooked up, he stayed his tail at fucking Starlight, tricking his money off on those nasty bitches, doing God knows what with them, then coming to me when he ain’t have gas in his car.”
“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.
Treniyah was still shaken up. She cried out, “Can you please let me go? I just want to go home to my family please.”
The thug felt sorry for Treniyah. He wished that he could have gotten to know her. He wondered what it would have been like to date a young woman as beautiful as she was.
“I’m sorry. I can’t do that, ma. If I let you go, we will both end up dead. I already messed up by leaving you in here with my dude, and he violated you. Now, when Wiz gets back, I will have to pay the piper,” he said with anguish in his voice.
He ran to grab a shirt out of his car. This was the second time Treniyah had heard the name Wiz. She made sure his name stuck in her head like cement. She would never forget the name, and, God willing, she was going to make him pay.
The thug made sure she was all cleaned up. He even untied one of her hands, so she could clean down low. He gave her privacy, but he left the door open just in case she tried anything. After Treniyah was done, she put on the extra big Pro Club shirt he had given her. Treniyah stepped out the bathroom and said, “I’m finished now. I guess you can tie me back up.”
The thug grabbed her by the hand and said, “Look. I’mma check us into a motel. Now, I want you to play along like everything is cool. If I feel you tryna be a threat, then you will leave me no choice but to hurt you, understand?” he asked.
Treniyah got the message loud and clear. To her, he was something like a hero. Although he had kidnapped her and was keeping her hostage, he had also killed his friend for raping her. She felt somewhat safe, so she agreed to follow the rules.
“Understood,” she said.
They drove to a motel on the east side of Long Beach. After checking in, the thug sent Wiz a text message to let him know about their new location.