Page 10 of Saint Baptiste 2

I turned and looked at her. “Padone’m?”

She turned to face me. “Yes.”

I ran my tongue over my bottom lip, with hesitation.

“Forgive me,” I finally responded, with my eyes locked on hers. “It means forgive me.”

Did I think she’d forgive me? Fuck no.

I didn’t deserve forgiveness. What I’d done... the way I’d mishandled her... it was unforgiveable. There was no coming back from what I did.

She didn’t say anything. I didn’t expect her to. That eerie silence was back. The longer we sat in it the more the illusion began to dissipate, the harder it would be to avoid that conversation.

An hour and a half later, she was asleep again. Except this time, she was in my bed. After we ate, we smoked, talked and somehow I ended up between her legs again. I didn’t know what the fuck tonight was. I figured shit, maybe she was on the same type of time I was on. Appreciating the moment while we had it. Allowing the illusion to be what it was until we couldn’t let it be anymore. We never spoke about what happened. Didn’t need to. The silence after I told her what padone’m meant, though quiet was loud enough.

She was asleep and I was parked at Pandora’s rear entrance pulling from a blunt, with my eyes locked on the purple, fluorescent box hanging in a window at the very top of the building. I slouched down further into my seat and rested my head against the window to get at a perfect angle. The fuck I gave about that illusion an hour and some change ago seized to exist.

Who I was then... I wasn’t that nigga anymore. The focus had shifted to the sad ass brown eyes that stared up at me when I walked into that room. The sadness I noticed when I had Blondie on her knees and when I walked into that room, differed. Completely. Back in that room, Naoki was empty. She was a shell of who I knew her as and that shit fucked with me.

I ran my hand over the top of my head and pulled on my blunt. My family would be disappointed. Jahad especially. There was a certain standard I had to live by. I couldn’t post up masked up, dressed in all black, with a full clip. I didn’t get my hands dirty anymore. Couldn’t. It was too much of a risk. But did I give a fuck, though? Fuck no. Stopped giving a fuck the minute I walked into that room.

When I walked in, the focus was her. When she was in any room, the focus would always be her. I had a way of compartmentalizing. I was strategic and handled things accordingly. If this was a different situation, I would have sat on it. Would have sent a few trusted men to handle what needed to be handled. But this was delicate. This wasn’t business. This was personal.

My phone vibrated. I didn’t touch it. Left it where it was in the passenger seat. Instead, I groaned, sat up, put the blunt out, and pulled the shiesty mask up over the bottom half of my face. Brushing by the phone, I grabbed the nine.

Shit. I couldn’t remember the last time I was on a mission. Low key, shit felt good. For the first time in a while, I understood why Blaise couldn’t get with the corporate shit. I sympathized with him. It was hard to separate from the roots because this shit... the thrill of it... the adrenaline rush... it made my dick hard. Was it the adrenaline? Or the pleasure I would get from doing to them, what they did to her? Violate. That’s what they did. Didn’t see it that way? Of course not. Most muthafuckas wouldn’t. People would look at that situation and speculate all of the wrong type of shit.

Naoki was promiscuous. A freak bitch dressed ready to fuck. She was a dick eatin’ slut that wanted to be fucked by three niggas. She invited them up to her suite. It was consensual. And who was I? Shit. Her jealous ass ‘boyfriend’ who couldn’t accept the fact that he’d cuffed a rat ass bitch who liked to have trains ran on her. I had low self-esteem. Dick was probably on midget. I was jealous so... I did what? Brought my lame ass down here with a full clip and committed triple homicide behind my bruised ego.

That shit was crazy.

The shit people would make up.

The shit people would assume.

It would be wrong. All of it. Not just the shit about me—the shit about us. What we had wasn’t that fucking black and white. It wasn’t simple. Who we were... the way I felt. My why. It wasn’t about possession or any of that shit.

She was empty. A nigga didn’t need the eyes I saw her with to see the shit because they could feel it. Her body spoke the words she didn’t have the courage to. And body language—that type of body language especially—is the kind that all men speak. But see... they continued anyway... because she promised them pussy. And if she didn’t say stop, or no, to them that meant keep going. They disregarded the lifelessness behind her beautiful sad brown eyes and kept tryin’ to fuck anyway. And because of that, I had the same disregard for their lives. Fair exchange.

The minute I put my eyes back on that purple box, the light went out and I sat up. Tossing the hood of my plain black hoodie over my head, I hit the unlock button and got out of the whip. Stuffing my hands into the front pocket of the hoodie, I made my way around to the front of the building. It was late. The club closed over an hour ago, so there were only a couple of cars in the lot. Because Pandora’s had top tier customer service, Malcolm, Keith, and Branden were given extra time to enjoy themselves on the eleventh floor with a Princess of their choosing. I mean shit that was the least I could do for them. I did ruin their night.

Before I got to the front of the building, I heard them talking. They were happy. Talking like they were best friends. Chopping it up about all the wild shit they had their Princess do. Cornball ass niggas. I wasn’t one to judge. People had their kinks, but I had true hate in my heart for these niggas. Shit got worst when the conversation flipped to her.

And then, suddenly, the plan... it was changed. The plan I had to be quick and smooth… it went out of the fucking window. What was it with me and plans tonight?

“That bitch wasn’t about that shit for real anyway. You felt how tensed she was?”

“She talked a good ass game though,” said another one with a laugh. “I can’t even lie. She had me thinkin’ she was about to eat dick all muthafuckin’ night.”

“Mannnn she wasn’t trying to eat shit. We got in that room and what she do? Swallow the whole bottle of liq. Weird ass bitch. Every time I tried to get to the pussy, she kept closing her legs. I was bout ready to just force them bitches open like... ‘give me that shit bitch. Ain’t nobody about to be playin with you.’.”

They laughed. He laughed first but then the other two joined in as if the nigga wasn’t talking about rape. Oh. Aight, then.

I slowed my pace. Waited for them to meet me in the parking lot. The sounds of their voices grew as they got closer. I pulled my hands from my pockets and eagerly brushed my finger against the trigger as I waited. Still, they were talking. Laughing and talking. Didn’t know about what. Didn’t know if they were still on her. Didn’t give a fuck really. I’d heard enough. The only thing I could think of was the shit they said before. About her body language. They knew. Niggas… we always fuckin know. Like I said before… body language was a language we all spoke. Especially when we were about to slide in pussy. Some niggas listened, then you had niggas like the pussies heading my way… that just did not give a fuck.

They rounded the corner and jumped back when they saw me.

“Shit nigga, you scared the fuck?—“

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