Page 80 of Dr. Bell

“Oh, it ain’t fair anymore, is it?” Chuckling, I holstered my gun. “Now, my son told you that if you had an issue to get at me. I’m here. What you wanna do?”

As his eyes watched me closely, he climbed from the bed and stood in front of me. Sizing me up, he smirked.

“You think you can fuck wit’ me, nigga?”

“I’on know. You tell me.”

He swung on me, his fist missing my face by a hair as I dodged his blow. With death in my eyes, I uppercut his ass, then drove my fist dead into the center of his face. He crashed against the nightstand, crushing the lamp, and knocking everything off the nightstand. Hands shaking, he brought them to his nose to try to catch the blood flowing from it. Incensed, he climbed back to his feet and came at me a second time, resulting in me cracking his jaw. He hit the floor. Repeatedly, I kicked him in his face until he was unrecognizable and unmoving.

“Bitch! Fuck wrong wit’ you?” I stooped over him and screamed in his face as if he was still with the land of the living. Just because I couldn’t help myself, I took my heat out and put two in his skull.

Walking back into the living room, I took note of the two niggas hogtied and deceased in the middle of the tan carpet atop plastic wrap.

“Wrap their asses up and burn this shit to the ground,” I ordered.

Back at home, I crept back inside the house, checked on Quilo to find him in his bed sleeping, then went straight to the bathroom. My clothes had already been removed and handled along with the van containing Quinton and his homeboys’ bodies. Thankfully, I had family tucked in all four corners of the country. Whether it was a Winters, Fountain, or Smith…they stayed ready for whatever.

I showered, dried off, then applied some lotion to my skin before donning a pair of boxers.

“Where were you?” Pretty asked as I eased back into the bed.

Wrapping my arm around her, I brought her back into the fold of my body.

“I went to see ya pops,” I answered.

Once a little groggy, her eyes popped open, and her head swiveled around to look at me.

“What? Why?”

“He had Quilo jumped.”

She chuckled lightly. “And here I thought I was keeping my internal struggles from you.”

“Oh, you was gon’ keep that to ya’self?”

“Nope. I just wasn’t sure and didn’t want to start anything.”

I kissed her forehead. “Well, you didn’t start anything. I definitely finished it though.” Yawning, I got comfortable and closed my eyes.

“Did you kill him?”

“Mm, hm.”

Moments later, Pretty snuggled closer to me. Not even minutes later, we were both fast asleep.

COCO

Ishould’vefeltaway about Adir killing my dad. Then again, I couldn’t find a single thing inside of me to care. Quinton had made his own bed by having Quilo attacked. In sadder news, Big O got killed just two days after Quinton. He was shot in a drug deal gone bad, and his story was only aired once on Orlando’s local news. I prayed Big O’s demise woke up Bryan and made him get his life together. It wasn’t my job to fret over Bryan’s future, though. I had bigger and better things going on in my life.

With the new year came so many exciting things. We’d just celebrated Humble’s twentieth birthday, Minnie and Judge Bell were celebrating their wedding anniversary next week, and my baby was growing perfectly. Quilo was nearing his decision for the college he wanted to attend, and the fact that his and Saar’s names were all over the sports stations just made it that more exciting for him.

In the middle of me thinking about all the wonderful things happening in my family, my phone rang.

I answered my husband’s call immediately. “Hey, baby.” The smile on my face couldn’t be dimmed by a single thing.

“Are you enjoying ya shoppin’?”

“Am I? Sir, I have cards in my possession that don’t have a spending limit.”