Page 56 of Don't Kross Me
“Not so fucking fast. I need Cassie’s belongings.”
“What the hell are you talking about?” she seethed while snatching her arm out of his grip.
Kross smacked his lips. “You know what the fuck I’m talking about, Joyce. Give me all the belongings that were recovered from Cassie’s car. Then you can see Aniyis.”
“Are you really using your son as some sort of a pawn? What kind of father are you? You’re evil.”
“Man, call it what you want,” he dismissed her, waving her off with a scoff. “Your daughter wasn’t much of a saint either. Just give me what I’m asking for, and you can see your grandson.”
She glared at him with her jaws clenched. She had been defeated by him once again because if he pulled out of thedriveway without her getting to see Aniyis, her heart would’ve been left in agonizing pain. Doing just as he expected, she went inside the home to retrieve the belongings that were boxed up and given to her by the coroner’s office. She was too deep in grief about losing her daughter to even muster up the courage and strength to go through the belongings. She shoved the box into Kross’ chest before bypassing him to go see Aniyis.
He followed her to the car and sat the box in the passenger seat. “Watch out. I’ll get him out for you,” he told Joyce.
She moved aside so he could retrieve Aniyis. Upon seeing each other, Joyce’s and Aniyis’ faces lit up.
“Hey, grandma’s baby!” She wrapped her arms around him once Kross handed him off to her.
“Grandma!” Aniyis flung his arms around her. “I missed you!”
Despite how much he and Joyce didn’t get along, Kross couldn’t deny how touching the moment was. He hated he had to be the bad guy and keep the two away from each other, but Joyce had him fucked up, so she had to suffer.
“Oh, I missed you too, baby.” Joyce smiled before kissing his cheeks.
“Daddy, can I stay for a little while?” Aniyis asked with his big brown eyes full of hope.
Kross peered into Aniyis’ eyes. He wanted to say no, but the sad eyes Aniyis was giving him was enough to make him cave. “Sure. I’ll come by and pick you up later today.”
He went to the backseat and grabbed Aniyis’ crutches and medication bag so he could hand them over to Joyce. She thanked him, glad that she was granted a few hours to spend with her grandson.
Aniyis waved goodbye to his father while he backed out of the driveway and headed in the direction of the condo. Kross glanced over at the box Joyce gave him. It was markedin permanent marker, and the label read “Cassie Andrews’ personals.” He drove with one hand while using the other to rummage through the box for what he was looking for. In a Ziploc bag, he found Cassie’s phone along with her wallet. Just as he expected, the phone was dead since it hadn’t been charged in close to three months now. For the rest of the ride to the condo, he drove with an uneasy sense of anxiety clouding him.
Stepping inside the condo, he sat the box on the kitchen counter before finding the nearest phone charger to plug the phone in. It took a little while for the phone to power on, but once it did, he was faced with her wallpaper, which was a photo of them at one of their last visits before his release. Seeing himself in his prison blues with Aniyis in his arms while Cassie smiled widely, looking at them in full adoration, stung his heart a little bit. That was what he envisioned when he got released, for them to be together, not him being out here by himself spiraling with a million and one questions and no one to answer them.
He tried his best to get into the device, trying different codes. By the time he was locked out of the phone for a total of ten minutes, he knew he had to think deep to figure out what the code could have possibly been. He tried her birthday, Aniyis’ birthday, his birthday, their anniversary, even her angel numbers he remembered her constantly talking about whenever she saw them.
“Fuck,” he groaned while tossing the phone aside. Maybe it was a sign for him to stop digging while he was ahead. He leaned against the counter with his head in his hands and let out a stressed sigh. “Cassie, what the fuck you hiding?” he mumbled to himself.
Reaching for the phone, he decided to try one more time to get in. This time, he typed in his release date and gained access. Despite the secrets that were coming to the light, there was onething Kross couldn’t deny, and that was how much Cassie loved him. She never gave up on him and represented him up until the day she died.
He went straight to her text messages, knowing that if he were to find anything, it would have to be in there. She had message threads with the obvious people like Amoura, Ezekiel, Los and even Noonie, who were her main support system while Kross was locked up. As he continued scrolling, he bypassed a few of her clients who were satisfied with the custom pieces she made them. He even caught their message thread from when he had her sneak him in a phone. Nothing was out of the ordinary until he started to get to the bottom of her list of text messages. Kross’ brows bumped together as he began reading the messages that came from different numbers.
(407)-125-6901
U can’t hide from me.
(321)-682-0183
Everywhere u go I know where u are.
(786)-222-9102
Tell that pussy ass nigga that’s not his son. Imma get him touched soon.
(813)-744-0060
I’m gonna kill u bitch.
The more messages Kross read, the more his heart clenched in anger. None of the messages ever got a response from Cassie. All she ever did was read them and block the number immediately, which prompted whoever it was to just text her off a different number. Kross whipped his phone out of his pocket and began dialing up each number that sent Cassie a crazy-ass text. All of them were out of service and no longer reachable.
