You're the One I Want (32 page)

I was looking around, being nosey, when lights from a car flashed through the bedroom window. Bree and I ducked. A whip pulled into the driveway.

“Who in the hell? That's Tangela's ride,” Bree said after peeping out. We sneaked out of the room and hid around the hall. “How the hell does she know Katiesha?”

I fucking knew it. I knew that Tangela had something to do with Katiesha's death. That bitch was trying to do everything she could to keep Bree from coming here. We held still as we heard her pick the lock to the front door. She burned a flashlight through the house. I knew she was up to something. Tangela was feeling between the cushions of the sofa, flipping them over.

“What is she looking for?” Bree whispered over my shoulder.

Tangela took the cushions and threw them across the room. “Fuck!”

“We need to go.”

“Fuck that. I want to know what she's doing here.”

“We need to go now, come on.” I pushed Bree back through the window and I climbed out after her. As we moved to get back to my SUV, a blunt force struck me. The last thing I heard was Bree screaming.

T
he floor was blurry when I woke up. My throat felt dry and salty. My feet and one of my hands were asleep and my shoulder hurt like hell. It felt like it was broken. There was something holding my wrists together. When I tried to pull at my binds, my skin went with it. My ankles were held together by duct tape. My neck popped when I raised my head up. My sight was coming in clear. Deanthony was sitting quiet next to me, knocked out. I noticed a line of blood that had run down the back of his neck, staining his T-shirt. I could tell he was still alive from his chest constricting from his breathing. It smelled like wet and rot wherever we were.

“D,” I called out to him, but he wouldn't open his eyes. “Deanthony, wake up.”

“Don't worry about him.”

I heard a voice coming from behind one of the cement poles where we were being held, but I couldn't see who it was or where that familiar voice was coming from. “Who is that?” He wouldn't answer but gave this devilish laugh. “Who the fuck is out there?” I hollered. My heart beat like a drum in my chest. This figure slowly started to make his way out of the shadows, into the sliver of light. “Blue?”

“Hey, Hot-Pink.”

“What is this?” I asked, working to break free of the duct tape that held my ankles together.

Blue looked sleazy as ever in dark-blue baggy shorts that knocked against his knees and a black wife beater. A thick gold chain with a marijuana leaf charm hung around his sweaty neck. “Hush, girl. I'll be the one askin' the questions,” he said. I jerked away as he caressed my cheek. “B, I gotta tell ya, when I saw you at the club the other night, it brought back a whole lotta memories. I remember the first night you went up on stage. I could tell you were scared shitless, but you did a damn thang. You had them fools droolin', eatin' outta ya hands like you were the Pied Piper of black men. Was makin' me money, hand over fist for a long time. Pullin' in, what, a grand, sometimes two, a night?”

“I told you. I'm done with that life. I'm married now.”

“Went and married you a doctor, all fancy livin' out there with all them well-to-do white folks?” Blue yanked my head back, fisting a hand full of my hair.

“One thing that hasn't changed about you, Blue.”

“And what's that, Hot-Pink?”

“After all these years, your breath still smells like shit.” I laughed.

“That's my Bree. Always the comedian, always the funny bitch.”

“Invest in some breath mints, nigga.”

Before I could take another breath, Blue slapped me hard across the face. The pain was like a thousand and one bumble bees stinging me in the face. I tasted blood pooling in my mouth.

“Fuck you,” I said, spitting blood in his face. I felt around with my tongue to see if all my teeth were still attached. They were. Blue licked his lips as blood and spit dripped from the tip of his nose. He wiped me from his face, licking the tips of his fingers like my blood was syrup. “It was you, wasn't it, who killed Katiesha?”

“That lyin' bitch. You know, when Katiesha first came to me, she made a shitload of money. It was nowhere near as good as you, though, baby girl. I told her I was done with her as soon as she
started messin' with crack.” Blue took the gun Deanthony had in his waistband and started waving it around.

“I knew she was caught up when she started coming to work late, and you know betta than anybody that I can't stand tardy bitches. Kateisha was high all the time, losin' weight and shit, coming to work with sores on her legs, bags and shit under her eyes. The last time I let her go on stage, she fell on her ass. That was the night before you came to see me at the club.” Blue straddled me, holding the gun against my face. “I told her to take her ass home, that she didn't have a job until she got herself together. Night before you came was the last time I saw her.”

“You're a liar. She was making all that money for you, but when she got messed up, all that stopped, right? So what did you do, come over here, y'all started fighting, you brained her in the head?”

“I got an idea,” Blue said.

“There's a first.”

“Why don't you leave that bookend nigga and come back to me? All will be forgiven. We can run Risqué together.”

“Nigga, you crazy. I would rather eat glass than go back to that shit hole.”

“You ain't think it was so bad when yo' ass was on the street, when you didn't have a pot to piss in. Strolled up in my club, lookin' like you weighed about fifteen cents. Now you all high and mighty, walkin' around my club with that nose of yours up in the air.”

“Nigga, didn't you get the memo? I
am
better than you. I regret the day I ever met your trifling ass. You ain't shit, and you—”

Blue wrapped his hand around my jaw and squeezed, as if he was trying to stop the insults from tumbling out of my mouth. Deanthony was starting to come to. “You know what, I'm done with you, bitch. I'm sick of your mouth. Maybe this nigga right here will be more cooperative.” Blue got up off me.

“Listen to you,” I said, “using big words now.”

He turned his attention toward Deanthony. “Wake up, pretty boy.” Blue slapped Deanthony awake. The bleeding behind Deanthony's head had stopped. I was glad he was alive. It sounded like he was trying to say something. “Rise and shine, hero.” Blue snatched the duct tape off Deanthony's mouth. “What's that? Speak up.”

“Let her go.”

“Why do they always say that shit? You ever notice in movies when the guy is tied up, he always tells the bad guy to let the girl go, like the bad guy actually would?”

“You're fucking crazy.”

“This shit here ain't no movie.” Blue hauled back and hit Deanthony across the face with the butt of the gun.

“That's enough!” a female voice yelled from the right side of me. “I told you to cut out all that rough shit. I don't want that bastard dead yet.” It was Tangela. “Bree, I'm so sorry, girl, about all of this.”

“Tangela, what did you do?”

“It all just got out of hand. I didn't plan for it to go down like this.”

“What are you talking about?”

“She did it,” Deanthony said.

“What?”

“She killed Katiesha.”

“Shut the fuck up,” Blue warned. He backhanded Deanthony.

“Tangela, what the fuck is he talking about?” I asked.

“It was an accident.”

“She was the one who hired Katiesha to fuck Kashawn that night. She wanted to make it look like Kashawn was messing around on you. She figured you would leave if you caught him fucking somebody else,” Deanthony said..

“Shut him up,” Tangela said. Blue took the roll of tape and went once around Deanthony's head, muffling his mouth.

“What the fuck is he saying?”

“Bitch, do you have any idea how hard it's been to see you walking around here with a man that good on your shoulder? A good man you cheated on, a man you clearly don't deserve.”

I couldn't believe this shit.

“He was mine. I saw him first at Roxy's that night.”

“Is that what this is about, you holding a five-year grudge because I got Kashawn that night instead of you?”

“He told me he wished he had married me instead of you.”

“You're lying.”

“Remember what you said to me the day before you took your whorish-ass to Atlantic City? You told me to take care of Kashawn, so I did. He told me that he was embarrassed to be married to a stripper, said he wished he could have married a lady, someone he could respect, a proper doctor's wife and not some trash from the byways of the ghetto.”

“All this time, and it was you stabbing me in the back. So you told Katiesha to dope Kashawn up.”

“Just enough to put him out, but that bitch ended up putting him in a damn coma.”

“Bitch, Kashawn almost died because of you.”

“I thank the Lord he didn't. It's been in God's plan all the while for Kashawn and me to be together. You have everything, Bree. You live in a palace, you have cars, a designer wardrobe, and what do you do? You trade in a life any bitch would kill to have for his low-budget thug of a twin brother? What kind of bitch does that?”

“You would be surprised what she's done,” Blue said, laughing like a mischievous demon from hell.

“Oh, I doubt that. I've known Bree for a minute. I've learned after all these years not to put anything past this man-stealing bitch.”

Hearing all of this, I couldn't help but start laughing.

“What the hell is so funny?” Tangela asked.

“You. I can't believe that you went through all that to get a man who isn't even yours. It's the most pitiful thing I've ever heard,” I said.

“That's what someone like me is willing to do for her man, unlike a selfish bitch like you.”

“Here's the thing, though. Kashawn isn't your man and he never will be. You know why? Because he loves me.”

“Well, once you're out of the picture, baby girl, I will be there to console him during his time of loss and grief. In time, he'll forget that he was ever married to you. We'll get married, I'll move into that mansion of his, and erase any trace of your ass. I'll give him some children. Children you can't give him because you're too busy opening your legs to this piece of shit.”

“So why did you kill Katiesha?”

“That crackhead bitch got greedy. I paid her five stacks to help me break you and Kashawn up, to keep her mouth shut about me and what went down. I didn't care what she did with the money. She could have smoked it up on crack, for all I cared, as long as she left town so nothing would come back on me. But no, she got it in her head to blackmail me for more money, saying that she was going to run and tell you everything if I didn't pay her dirty ass another fifteen stacks. I couldn't believe she had the lady-balls to try and shake me down for more cake. When I found out Kashawn was in the hospital from a drug overdose, I knew she had something to do with it.”

“How could you do this to me, to Kashawn? You were my best friend. There was nothing I wouldn't have done for you.”

“I guess I got tired.”

“Tired of what?”

“Tired of seeing you prance around in that nice house, driving a car for every day of the damn week, while I can barely pay my rent.”

“You could have said something. I would have helped you.”

“Damn, bitch, you still don't get it, do you? I'm not the kind of woman who settles for a piece. I want the whole damn pie with whipped cream on top. I couldn't have done it without your fuck-toy here, who had a hand in helping me carry out
our
plan.”

“What?” I said, turning my attention to Deanthony.

“Believe it, Bree. You see what the power of pussy will do to a man. When I convinced him that ending your marriage to Kashawn meant getting you back, he was in this shit to win it. Ain't that right, D?” Tangela ripped the duct tape off his mouth.

“I'ma kill you, you fucking bitch.”

“That will be hard for you to do with a broken shoulder.”

“What?” Deanthony asked, gasping for breath. When Tangela nodded at Blue, he grabbed a baseball bat that was leaning against the wall of the garage door.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

“Damn, I can't look,” Tangela said.

Blue held onto the base of the bat with both hands.

“No, stop! Don't!” I pleaded.

Blue positioned himself, lifted the bat over his head, and took a swing, slamming it into Deanthony's right shoulder.

“AAAAGGGGHHHHHHH!!!!!”

I had never heard anyone holler in such agonizing pain as Deanthony did. His screams sent my eardrums rattling. I could literally hear the bone in his shoulder shatter. Tangela pushed the tape back over his mouth to drown out his screams.

“That should shut your ass up.”

“You bitch! You fucking bitch!” I felt the adhesive of the duct tape starting to wear down from the pulling against the binds.

“I knew he was going to back out of the plan, so I took this to keep him in check.” Tangela pulled her iPhone out of the front pocket
of her sweatpants. “Now before I show you this, viewer discretion is advised,” she joked. Tangela held the phone to my face, showing me a video of Deanthony ass-fucking some man in a motel room. “This is going to give Mama Liz a heart attack when she sees this. I hope so anyway. I sent a copy of the video to her phone an hour ago. It will be a nice surprise to go with her morning coffee.”

My wrists were free from the ties of the tape. “So you're scraping the bottom of the barrel, in cahoots with this motherfucker.”

“Shut your mouth, bitch,” Blue said, behind gritted teeth. One thing Blue was known for was his temper. Back in the day, he damn near beat a pimp to death when the man tried to coax Nakia from under Blue's smelly ass.