TYCE II (16 page)

             
Walking to the huge closet to find something to wear, the sound of the phone ringing made her make a
U-turn and answer it before it went to voice mail. She sat with her bare ass on the bed as she picked up the phone placing it to her ear.

“Hey Khalil wasup?” Dallas answered.

“Wasup lil’ cousin what’s good?”

“I’m jus’ doin’ a lil’ personal groomin’…I was jus’ about to call you.”

“I guess we on the same page today, I was callin’ to see wasup with ya man, did he make that move yet?”

Dallas got up to look out the window, “As a matter of fact he did and
he got your money back, how’s that for keepin’ your word?”

“Damn, that nigga pulled it off, I gotta admit I had my doubts.”

“Tyce aint ya average nigga Khalil…or I wouldn’t be with him. I’ll have him call you so

y’all can hook up.”

“Thanks for lookin’ out Dallas.”

“No problem, tell auntie Joyce I said hi.”

“Alright I’ll do that.”
Khalil hung up.

Dallas tossed the phone on the bed and resumed the half hour long ritual of sorting through her various outfits before deciding what to wear. She finally decided on a
little sexy purple dress that stopped just below her round rump. She held the dress out in front of her as she walked from the c
loset to lay it on the bed. Stepping
back from the foot of the bed to
admire the beautiful color,
she contemplated what shoes to rock with it. Suddenly she felt a wave of heat surge through her body. It felt like
somebody had turned on
an oven inside of her chest. The warm internal heat traveled north to her throat causing an over whelming feeling of nausea.
A split second later her undigested breakfast came spewing out of her mouth landing all over her sexy outfit for
the day. She doubled over
clutching her stomach attempting to catch her breath.

The
eight hundred dollar dress was covered in yellow and beige liquidity chunks of funky vomit. Dallas looked down at her aching st
omach and shook her head slowly letting out a long shaky sigh.

             
The element of surprise was my best advantage right now. Armando had no idea that while he was trying to find me, I was secretly
tracking him. Thanks to my m
om and the spyware
I put on his phone, I knew exactly where Diego lived. It was all a part of the plan…what I didn’t plan on was Diego knowing Pamela’s number and the type of business she was in. I got lucky when Armando called her to set up a fake appointment. Pamela had the bright idea of setting up Armando on kidnapping charges to get him out the way for a while but it went wrong when her friend Gloria got cocky and thought she could handle him on her own. Now she was in trouble and I had no choice. Either let her die or go get her…and I wasn’t about to let her die because of me. I didn’t even know this woman, a
ll I knew was she was
my mother’s friend…and that was enough for me.

             
It was just before sunset as I parked my Jeep on a side street around the corner from Diego’s mansion
. I already had my
bulletproof
vest on, three guns loaded, and a full bag of skittles. My Jeep had plenty of storage space so I always had a killing care package on board where ever I went. You nev
er know when you might need it.

             
As I munched the tasty candy, different thoughts went through my mind. Sitting in the leather seat behind dark tinted
windows,
I imagined the best outcome. I envisioned myself and Gloria walking out of there unharmed. There was no sense in being negative about the situation; I always believed that thoughts are things, living things that can manifest in real life if you believe
in them.
So every time I was going into
something that
could possibly end my life I filled my head with positive thoughts and images
, and tonight was no exception.

             
Some might say I was crazy for strolling into the lion’s den all alone like this but I didn’t give a fuck. I had beaten the odds all my life and I wasn’
t about to run out of luck
now…at least that’s what I told myself
as I approached the tall steel gate surrounding Diego’
s property
.

             
My eyes surveyed the area taking in the lay out. Everything was wide open with very little places to hide. The bars of the gate were separated just enough to squeeze my frame through, I was
estimating
the measurement when a voice came from the small speaker box to my left.

“Who are you?” It said.

“My name is
me
, who the fuck are you?” I responded angrily.

There was a short pause. I knew the voice belonged to a woman.

“Are you Tyce Adkins?” She asked hesitantly.

I looked around curiously, “Yeah I’m Tyce.”

Right in front of me the gate began making a creaking sound as it opened up slowly.

“Hurry up and come to the front door you don’t have much time!”
The voice instructed.

What the hell was all this I thought to myself as I jogged the distance to the huge front landing. The sun had gone to sleep letting the moon take over and this whole scene had a dark feel to it. I stopped about 20 feet from the door and pulled out my gun. I looked left, right, and all around me seeing nothing. It was quiet. The sounds of locks clicking broke the silence and the door swiftly opened. I got down on one knee to make myself a smaller target just in case someone opened fire. My gun was aimed steady a
t the door and I was prepared to

shoot first and ask questions later. I short Mex
ican lady
dressed like a maid stood before me looking like she was about to have a heart attack.

“Don’t shoot senor!”

“
Where’s Diego, Where’s Armando
?!” I shouted.

“They
’re
not here!”
She raised her palms to me.

“Who the hell are you?”

“My name is Carmela, I’m Diego’s cook.”

I looked into her frightened eyes, “So nobody’s in there?”

“Yes yes nobody.”

“Is there a
woman in there with you?”

Carmela looked down at the speckled brick porch, “Your mother was here, but but she’s at the hospital now, I I don’t know which one but she was taken there earlier this morning…she’d been shot in the leg.”

I stood up and lowered my weapon at my side. A confused look spread across my face as I
registered what the cook just explained to me.

“Who took her to the hospital?”

Carmela paused her words and walked out onto the porch
. She looked back over her shoulder like she forgot something.

“I took her to the hospital.”

I looked around Carmela’s s
mall frame to see who the good Samaritan
was and I was shocked at who I saw standing there.

“
Sabrina
, what the hell are you doin’ here?”

She stepped onto the porch, walked down the steps, and stood face to face with me.
I looked into her kind eyes as they began to gloss over. She placed her moist lips against mine giving me a gentle peck.

“I don’t want anything to happen to you, and I’m sorry about your mother, I did what I could and got her to the hospital. I think she’s gonna make

it, she was in surgery when I left. I would have called you but you didn’t give me your number remember?”

I was stunned. I normally h
ave a lot to say but as I stared
at
Sabrina,
my tongue was pad locked.

“Ok, time out, what the
hell is goin’ on? How did you…”

She cut me off, “
Carmela called me this morning
and told me your mother had been shot. She was all
panicked so I came right over.”

I looked at her blankly, “Ok so what the fuck do you live here or what?”

Sabrina licked her full lips, “Tyce…
Diego is my father.”

             
The peroxide bubbled and sizzled as it cleaned the bite wound on Angelique’s thigh. S
he thought about going to get a
shot
of antibiotics
but sitti
ng in an emergency room for five
hours just to get a little shot was not appealing to her at all. She would just keep it clean and cover it with a band-aid. This was the third time she’d cleaned it today and the task wasn’t getting any less painful. Th
at bitch Ranae had the nerve to
actually
bite
her. She examined her leg
carefully
and reasoned that Sway’s wife must be mixed with Vampire. Maybe she should have hit her in the face with a silver chain; that
always
seemed
to work on
the show
True
Blood
.

             
Sway never told his wife
he was working with her. If she
would have
known that
,
she would have suggested he be upfront wit
h Ranae to avoid
any possible
confusion. Honesty in this circumstance would have prevented the fight in her place of business, not to mention the ugly stigma of “home wrecker” that
was now falsely attached to her. Angelique
detested
that term with
a passion. Not that Sway wasn’t sexy or attractive to her but she was no “home wrecker” by any means.
Sure,
she may have flirted with him a bit, and
yes,
he’d practically seen her naked but that was just her personality. She was a
n extremely
friendly exhibitionist,
anyway that didn’t matter because
she only had eyes for Tyce A
dkins, she’d been crushing on him since she was a teen ager, and now she had him. To her he was the epitome of sexy, the best part of her day, her black knight in a shiny new pair of
Jordan’s
.

             
She finally had a man that appreciated her and didn’t take her for granted. Never in her wildest dreams did she envision having to share her man with another woman, but
honestly,
it wasn’t that bad. Other women swore up and down and sideways that they would never share a man under any circumstances. Angelique would argue that the right man at the right time might change the mind of more than a few of them. Men all over the globe were cheating left and right at the first sight of a woman. Men that claimed they were in love with their ladies
and would never cheat.
Please
, they just wouldn’t tell you they fucked another woman. Shit, half of the women in the world were sharing their man with multiple women over the course of their relationshit and didn’t even know it. At least Tyce was man enough to stay true to his word, what the fuck was these other nigga’s malfunction?

             
Angelique suddenly realized she was starving. It had only been like three hours since she last ate but her stomach
was growling at her like a cornered cougar
. She decided to call Tyce and ask him to bring her a four-piece meal from
Popeye’s
on his way back from wherever he was. The thought of that hot golden fried chicken rolling around in her mouth made her stomach rumble even more. She grabbed her phone and called her man…
she hoped to God he answered because this was a chicken craving emergency!

             
Sabrina and I walked side-by-side back to where my jeep was parked. Neither one of us spoke a word; just the sound of heels hitting concrete was all that could be heard. The pace wasn’t fast, it wasn’t slow either, just a casual awkward stroll down the meticulously manicured clea
n streets of the neighborhood.

             
We finally made it to our destination
;
stan
ding in front of my black bumper, we faced each other. Her short hair was a little wilder than usual and her brown eye’s looked tired. Sabrina’s face was free of any
makeup;
she probably didn’t have a chance to apply any since she had to leave her house in a hurry to help Carmela this morning. She put her hand
on my chest and looked up at me smiling.

“Fancy meeting you here.” She joked.

I laughed a little, “Yeah tell me about it, I guess it’s a small world after all huh?”