Page 18 of Certified Pressure 4
Still, I couldn’t take it anymore. I needed to hear his voice.
I pulled the burner phone off the nightstand and scrolled through my mind for the number I’d known since I was a kid. I typed it in slow, my thumb hovering over the call button. My stomach knotted up, but I pressed it anyway.
It rang once, then twice.
Then a soft, calm voice answered. “Hello, Kashmere.”
For a second, I thought I was tripping. I froze, holding the phone tighter. That voice wasn’t my father’s.
It was Abeni Mensah’s…
“Hello?” I said, my voice cracking.
“Don’t hang up,” she said, still calm. “We’ve been waiting for you to call.”
My mind went blank. My heart started beating fast and my throat was dry. “Where’s my daddy?”
“Your father is fine,” she said smoothly. “For now.”
The way she said it sent chills up my spine. “What do you mean for now? Where is he?”
“You shot my son,” she replied. “And now we have some things to discuss.”
I stood up, my hand shaking. “I ain’t got nothing to say to you.”
“Oh, I think you do,” she said, her tone never changing. “You nearly killed Pressure. You took from him, and you ran. That makes you mine now, Kashmere.”
I swallowed hard. “Bitch, you can’t threaten me like this. You don’t even know where I’m at.”
Her voice softened like she was talking to a child. “Bitch?”
I could tell she wasn’t used to being called that because she got quiet after that. Then a minute later, she spoke, sending chills down my spine.
“I don’t have to know right now. What’s done in the dark always finds its way home. I’ll find you. Until then, understand this… your father’s safety depends on you doing what’s right. Oh, and Kashmere… I got yourbitch.”
I dropped the phone, and it hit the carpet. I could still hear her voice, calm and cold, floating through the speaker.
“You tried to take my family’s peace, so now I will take yours,” she said. “Every day that you hide, something you love will suffer. Starting with your father.”
My knees gave out, and I sank to the floor. “Please don’t hurt him,” I whispered.
“Come home,” she said. “Turn yourself in and face what you’ve done. That’s the only way this stops.”
I picked up the phone with trembling hands. “I’m not going back there.”
“Then you’re choosing his fate.”
There was a pause. I could hear her breathing on the other end, calm as ever. Then the line went silent.
I stared at the phone until the screen went black. My whole body was shaking.
Abeni wasn’t bluffing, and I knew that shit.
I felt trapped. If I went back to Trill-Land, I’d die. If I stayed gone, my daddy would.
And somehow, I knew that either way, Abeni was going to win.
The following evening…
