Page 3 of Back in Blood

Pulling my key fob from my pocket, I hit the unlock button and opened the rear passenger door of my Denali. After getting Caprice buckled in, I turned the volume up on my radio and ignored the vibrating of my phone. There wasn’t a soul that I wanted to talk to and that had me even more pissed off. I hadbusinesses to run, and I was in my feelings like a female not caring about work or any of my responsibilities. I didn’t like that shit. Gracie’s Corner was playing for Caprice, and she was in the backseat singing along. A nigga was dead ass fighting tears. She meant everything to me and to know she might belong to another man was killing me inside. Females played some dangerous ass games. The fact that Robin was still breathing spoke volumes about how I’d changed.

If Caprice wasn’t mine and Robin wanted to keep me away from her, she could because I wouldn’t have legal rights. The walk inside the daycare felt long as hell. It felt as if I was dropping Caprice off into the unknown. Telling her goodbye had never been so hard. I needed to shake that shit bad, but I didn’t know how. Dolph was going to see me, and that was a fact, but I wasn’t going to holla at him just yet. The thought of going to his crib and dragging him all through that muhfucka had crossed my mind more than once.

After dropping Caprice off, I headed to my car dealership. There were two full-time employees and two part-time employees. One of the full-time employees, Curtis, had been with me since I first opened, and he did a good job of keeping things running smoothly. He made the schedules, scheduled the maintenance on the vehicles, and supervised the other employees. I was generally only there about two days out of the week for three or four hours. We had meetings once a month, and I was satisfied with the people on my team and the way business was going. My goal was to add at least ten more cars to my inventory by the end of the month. We generally sold three to four cars a week. That wasn’t bad for a small dealership.

It was a good thing that I didn’t have to be hands on with any of my businesses because I could take all the time off I needed in order to get my mind right and still make money. I wasn’t an emotional man. Never in my life had I been the type to get in myfeelings and let my pockets suffer because of it, but when it came to Caprice, shit hit different. That little girl was my whole heart, and she might not even be mine.

After speaking to my employees, I went in my office and called my credit card companies one by one to have Robin’s name taken off my cards. My days of taking care of her were over. I’d never in life see Caprice go without whether she was biologically mine or not, but Robin was cut off. I wouldn’t piss in a cup and let her drink it if her throat was on fire. She was the worst kind of woman in the world, and Dolph was a whole pussy nigga. The kind to call me brother and look me in my face knowing he had sex with my lady. I guess Capri looked like a sucka to everybody. It was all good though. If I had my way, I was going to get the last laugh.

CHAPTER 2

LISA

“This one is really good,”I marveled as I chewed the piece of red velvet cake that I’d just placed in my mouth. I used the plastic fork in my hand to break off another piece. “Oh yeah, this is delicious.” I closed my eyes and groaned. My decision was becoming harder and harder.

One of my best friends Ariyana giggled. “At this point, you’re going to have ten cakes at your reception.”

“No, I’m not,” I sighed. “Sintonio would have a fit.” The cakes that my friend and I were tasting were delicious, but Sintonio didn’t care how good they were. He felt that anything more than $50 for a cake was too much. Especially since I wanted two cakes. Our wedding cake which would be three tiers was $600. The second cake was $200. For the second cake, I was having a hard time choosing between German chocolate and red velvet.

I had a pretty good career as a nurse, and Sintonio made good money with his trucking company. But the year before, he put $30,000 down on a house for us, and I was five months pregnant with our first child. We had a lot going on, and paying an arm and a leg for a wedding wasn’t something that Sin wanted to do. I had been saving for the past six months, and a large portion of the wedding was being paid for by me. Butwith my dress, the engagement photos, photographer, flowers, DJ, and invitations, the money I’d saved was almost gone. My father gave me $1,500 towards the wedding and hell, that went towards the venue and the open bar. Sintonio would be paying for everything else including the cakes, and if I told him three cakes were $1,000, he’d ask me if I was crazy.

I wouldn’t even be able to blame him because we did have a baby coming. I had already maxed out my credit cards buying a crib, car seat, clothes, etc. As I stated before, Sintonio made great money. But he paid all of the household bills and the note on my Lexus. So when it came to things that I wanted, I liked to buy them myself. We were a team. The wedding was going to cost around $25,000. To me that wasn’t too bad. Ariyana and her husband had dropped almost $100,000 on their wedding. I wasn’t trying to compete or keep up. I just didn’t want my wedding to look cheap and tacky. I liked what I liked, and I didn’t mind working for it. Thankfully, my morning sickness subsided at three months. I ate pretty healthy and made sure to stay hydrated. Taking my supplements and taking care of myself had me feeling pretty good, so I was able to pick up some extra shifts here and there until Sintonio got mad. He felt it was ridiculous for me to be working overtime while pregnant just to pay for an extravagant wedding.

Maybe he didn’t understand, but I had been dreaming of my wedding day since I was in my early twenties, and I was thirty. After kissing a few frogs, I finally found my prince in Sintonio. We’d been together for three years, and he proposed to me two days before I found out I was pregnant. I didn’t mind walking down the aisle pregnant. We would be getting married in two months and going on a four day honey slash baby moon to Cancun.

“Thank you for coming with me,” I hugged Ariyana after deciding to go with the red velvet cake. “Sin has been workingextra hours. We’re saving for this baby by any means necessary. I told him when I go back to work, I’ll pay for the baby’s daycare, but I know he’s going to help. He acts like it’s a crime if I want to pay bills.”

“Shit, you better keep him,” Ariyana pursed her lips. “I’m married, and my man damn sure lets me help pay the bills. Let me tell him I don’t have my half of the mortgage, he’ll probably look like he swallowed a rock.”

I giggled because she was right. I loved Brian for Ariyana. He treated her well, and he was a firefighter, but they didn’t get paid the best. She wanted a $400,000 house, and he made it clear to her that in order for them to be comfortable, he’d need her help with the mortgage, and I thought that was fair. Ariyana made great money as a property manager for an apartment complex, and she also had a side hustle doing taxes. Last tax season, she told me she made around $32,000 from just a few months of work.

I got in my car and made my way home, so I could start on dinner. I had the past three days off, and I spent the first two doing absolutely nothing. It would be back to the grind tomorrow, so I had to get caught up on laundry, do some meal prep, and clean my house. In another month, I would start working on the baby’s nursery. I had always wanted three kids and since I was starting kind of late, I knew my kids would be pretty close in age. After the baby was born, I was going to wait eighteen months and start trying for number two. As long as I had baby number three by the age of forty, I was cool.

After putting my ginger tresses in a ponytail, I showered and got started on dinner. I was so in love with the way ginger hair complimented my cinnamon brown complexion that it was my signature color. I hadn’t worn black hair in years. My real hair was dyed ginger and any weave that I put in my hair was the same color. I also never missed a lash appointment. Every twoweeks, I was in my lash tech’s chair getting my cat eye wispy lashes filled in because I loved the way lashes accentuated my almond shaped eyes. Prior to me getting pregnant, I was a cool one hundred and thirty pounds, but I’d gained thirteen pounds so far. I wasn’t complaining because most of it was in my booty and thighs. My son was doing my body right.

I had been home for about two hours when Sintonio came in. My man stood 5’10 and though tall men were a turn on for me, I was only 5’6, so it wasn’t like I towered over him. He was on the short side, but he was still taller than me. He had skin the color of butterscotch, and curly hair. When we first met, he was in the gym heavy, and Sin had a six pack. Over the past three years, his face and his belly had rounded out a little, but he was still fine. He claimed after I had the baby, we could start working out together. Gaining weight for him wasn’t hard because he was getting older, and he sat down for most of the day in his truck. Sintonio had been driving trucks for six years, and two years ago, he started his own business. He started off as a one man show, and he had moved up to four trucks and three people driving for him. I was so proud of him.

“Hey, babe. You got it smelling good in here.” He walked over to where I was on the couch and placed a juicy kiss on my lips.

“You want me to fix your plate, or are you going to take a shower first?” Sintonio didn’t necessarily get dirty at work but most days, he liked to shower before he did anything, and that was understandable.

“Let me hit the shower first. You can start fixing it in about twenty minutes.”

“Okay.”

I had a younger sister, Gwen, and an older brother, Malik. I was thirty, and they were twenty-nine and thirty-two. Gwen was cool, but Malik and I were closer than me and Gwen. Nonetheless, Gwen, Malik, Ariyana, and my other best friend,Gemini were my tribe. Ariyana and Gemini were both married, and so was Gwen. None of their marriages were perfect but hell, no marriage was perfect. My parents had been together for forty years, and there were plenty of times I thought they were surely going to part ways. One time they did. My father moved out of the house for ten months but eventually, he went back. Still, they were all married, and I couldn’t wait to be Mrs. Hooks. I loved Sintonio, he was a great provider, and we had good sex. He was romantic, faithful, handsome, and I knew he would be a good father. I couldn’t ask for anything more.

I became so engrossed in a book that I was reading on my kindle, that I forgot to start making his plate in the requested twenty minute time frame. When I heard him moving around in the bedroom, I stood up to go to the kitchen. Sintonio came in the room just as I was grabbing him a bottle of water from the fridge.

“Where are you going?” I asked him when I turned around and saw that he was dressed and smelling good. His favorite cologne permeated the air, and he was clad in jeans, a sweatshirt, and Timberland’s. He’d even put two gold chains and a gold watch on.

“Me and Tay are going to run to his sister’s cookout. I’m not going to be out there long. Maybe two or three hours at the most. My ass is tired.”

“Oh okay. Here you go.” I attempted to keep my tone even because I didn’t want Sin to know that I had an attitude.

He was thirty-two and though he still hung out in lounges and bars, his weekend outings with the fellas had slowed down a lot. I wasn’t that female that always wanted my man up underneath me. He worked hard, and if he wanted to go out and have fun with his friends, he should be able to do that. But I didn’t like Tay. I actually despised him. Whenever I tried to tell my man that he shouldn’t affiliate himself with Tay he looked atme like I was crazy and accused me of nagging. Being pregnant made me extremely emotional, and I didn’t even want to get started up. Tay was bad news. Sintonio had known him since middle school and almost every time trouble found Sin, he was with Tay.

Sin had actually started improving the most when Tay went to prison. It was during that time he got his CDL’s and began driving trucks. He also started saving to buy a house and got on his grown man shit. Sintonio had never really been in the streets but it almost seemed that when he hung with Tay, he had a point to prove. He didn’t live up to his full potential, and that was crazy to me. Tay had been home from prison for a year, and nothing had changed aside from the fact that he went in skinny and came out muscular. He still didn’t have a job, still did dumb shit, and still wanted to be a gangster at his big ass age. The weekend before, he had to do a seventy-two hour hold in the county jail for a domestic violence incident between him and his girlfriend. Some things would never change, and Tay was one of them.

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