Page 6 of Mafia Kings & Wedding Rings

After putting my car in park behind his, I grabbed my bags from the store along with my crossbody Chanel bag and got out.

Sayer lived in the burbs, but he was as hood as hood could be.

Being a medium-level coke distributor, he got money and kept a low profile.

I admired the hustle in him, that was for sure, and he had no problem paying for anything I asked for.

I just couldn’t be one of those women who was always looking to be taken care of.

I never wanted anybody to be able to throw anything in my face, so I made sure to work for my shit.

He loved that about me, and me working didn’t stop him from dropping stacks in my purse when he didn’t think I was looking.

Most of the cash I’d been able to stack was because of him.

I wasn’t broke and busted like that, but with the way this world was setup, I could be at any given moment.

My daddy was living in a long-term care facility and that shit wasn’t cheap.

Since it had been raining off and on, Sayer’s block was empty and quiet.

You could see a drizzle against the streetlights shining down on the glistening pavement.

Bringing my key to the lock, I let myself into his pad and was instantly hit with the aroma of vanilla and low music.

His mama loved that damn scent, and since she decorated his house and came over and cooked and did laundry for him on a regular, she made sure it smelled like her.

We didn’t exactly get along, so I made myself scarce around here on weekends when I knew she would do her pop-ups.

Sayer mainly spent time at my place since his hours in the street were unpredictable.

Quietly padding through his front hallway, I paused in the doorway to his living room, and my stomach instantly flipped. It felt like someone had slapped me in the face. A very

pretty and pregnant mocha-complected woman stood at the coffee table, folding baby clothes; the same table I picked out for him.

Sayer’s tan, tatted arms were around her, stroking her growing belly and kissing along her neck.

He was so far up her ass he hadn’t even noticed I stepped inside.

She did. Immediately, an ashen expression washed over her face.

“What’s wrong?” Sayer asked, backing up and finally taking note of me in the doorway.

The very relaxed smile he wore only seconds ago immediately wilted.

“Shit, Brie—” He stumbled away from the girl like he was about to stroke the fuck out.

“I thought you said it was over with her.” His bitch tossed the onesie she was folding on the table in a fit.

“Is that what you told her?” I demanded, tilting my head at who was supposed to be my man and looking his stupid ass up and down.

“Look, Brie?—”

“Answer the fucking question, Sayer! Did you tell her we broke up?” I snapped.

“Yeah. I mean, shit been off with us for a minute now. You know that.”

“Yet you still been texting and pulling up on me on breaks because you know I’ve been working! Are you fucking for real right now? Clearly this didn’t just happen. You gon’ tell me that baby ain’t yours?” I aimed a finger at his little prissy bitch standing there like she was about to fall apart.

“You better answer correct, Sayer,” she warned, stroking her stomach in circles.

“Kendra, shut the fuck up!” he barked at her but kept his eyes on me.

“Don’t yell at me!”

“Yeah, aight. That’s my baby!” he confessed. “But this ain’t what you think, Brie.”

“If you tell me you not fucking with her like that when I walked in here to you hugged up like I didn’t help you furnish this muthafucka, I will kill you, Sayer.”

“So what the fuck am I supposed to do with that?” he asked, trying to retain some of his cockiness because he knew I was through.

“What you gon’ do, Brie? What you got without me now that you ain’t even got a job?

I’m fucking with Kendra because she knows how to treat a nigga and drop what she doing to cater to her man.

Only reason I was checking on you was so you wouldn’t crash out. I know how you can be.”

No the fuck he didn’t! He was there when I didn’t give a fuck about the world or anyone in it.

He’d watched me crash and burn plenty of times and was always there to help me pick up the pieces.

If anything, that’s what was breaking my heart the most. Once the finest nigga in the room to me, he had fallen so far off that pedestal I knew there was no coming back.

Medium ugly me, please. These pretty niggas were too feminine for me.

I didn’t want to engage in some drawn-out ass argument with him because we had been there before.

That was giving him too much. I didn’t want to give him an inkling that there was ever any spinning the block.

I’d forgiven a lot, but this was crossing the line.

Drawing my knee up, I connected with his balls, channeling every drop of rage he put there as he crumbled like a bitch. Sending a right hook across his jaw, I sent him to the floor in a sorry ass heap.

“Don’t worry about it, baby. We’re even.”

“Sayer!” Kendra rushed to kneel at his side to check on him.

With his hands between his legs, trying to catch his breath, he groaned in agony and rocked from side to side.

I left him and his bitch right where I found them and stomped outside to my car.

My townhouse with Plum was about fifteen minutes in the other direction, but I needed a minute before I started driving.

My hands shook while gripping the steering wheel.

How the fuck had I not seen this? Was I so wrapped up in my own shit that I ignored the fact that this nigga got a whole baby on the way? My God!

I’d met Sayer in one of the darkest, lowest times of my life.

Most people thought because I had an education and worked in the field that I do it meant that a bitch came from money.

That couldn’t be further from the truth.

Everything I had, I worked twice as hard for.

God loved throwing curveballs at ya girl.

My parents were blue collar. Daddy drove for the city, and my mama was a dietitian over school services.

I went to school on a partial scholarship for track, but when I fucked my knee up jumping hurdles, I ended up injured and was advised not to run again by my doctor.

It was then that I was approached by this agent and got into modeling.

With my thick curves and slim waist, I was a photographer’s dream.

Sayer happened to be friends with the dude too, which is how we crossed paths at one of his parties.

I walked into the situation thinking it was going to be for catalogs and stuff like that, but it turned out to be adult magazines.

I wasn’t naked in the photos, but they were revealing nonetheless.

When my daddy found out, he had a fit, and my mama stopped talking to me for a period.

Sayer was all I had, and somehow, I grew dependent on that nigga.

Graduating from college and working with other kids who were athletes with injuries made my parents proud.

I swear the two of them thought I was going to turn into a porn star or some shit.

The familiar vibration of my cell phone let me know I had a call coming through. Sniffling and quickly wiping my tears, I dug the device from my pocket, seeing Oak Bluffs Medical Lodge flash across the screen.

“Hello.” I swiped to pick up and put the phone to my ear. “Yes, this is her. I’m sorry, what? I’ll be right there.” I huffed, quickly locating the keys in my hoodie pouch, and started my car.

This was becoming a day from hell. I buckled up and swerved my car onto the street in the opposite direction of home.

My father needed me, so my own shit would have to wait.

Swerving from lane to lane, I knew I was going well over the speed limit to quickly arrive where the facility was.

I was lucky enough to find parking near the entrance and immediately got out and sprinted to the doors.

The call had rattled me. All I could think about the entire way was how much of an anchor my daddy had been for me.

Our relationship was far from perfect, but that man always showed up when it mattered.

Before he got sick, we had dinner every week.

He said a daddy/daughter date was necessary so we could keep up with each other.

I was working and in school, so it was hard, but he made sure to keep me grounded.

Thinking of losing him left my mind traveling to the worst scenario.

“Good evening. I need your name and the name of who you’re here to visit.” The redhead receptionist didn’t bother looking at me as she focused on her computer screen with her hands posed at the keyboard.

“Cambrie Rhodes. I’m here to see my father, Carlos Rhodes.” She tapped her keys quickly before grabbing a visitor tag from behind me and sliding it to me.

“There you go.”

“Thank you.” I accepted the tag and pressed it across the front of my hoodie while marching toward the hallway where my daddy’s room was located.

“No! No! I said stop! You leave me alone!” His high-pitched, desperate cries alarmed me, and I took off in a jog until I reached his open doorway.

Surrounded by doctors and nurses trying to pin him down, he put up a fight, swinging his arms and legs every which way.

“What are you doing to him!” I screamed, rushing inside and alarming everyone.

“Are you a relative?” one of the nurses checked with me.

“I’m his daughter. Let go of him!”

“He’s become extremely agitated. He roamed the grounds earlier and got lost. When we found him, he was going on about how he didn’t belong here. He was asking for Chrissy,” one of the doctors alerted me.

“That’s my mother. She died years ago,” I whispered.

“The experimental treatment didn’t work, Ms. Rhodes. Your father’s early onset Alzheimer’s is getting worse. His lucid days are few and far between. He’s going to need a better-guarded facility than we can provide here. Which means it’s going to cost more.”

Daddy was still fighting and kicking, not letting up or even trying to be reasoned with.

I hated seeing him like this. Lowering my eyes to the ground, I could only nod at the news I was hearing.

I expected this much. The last few times I’d visited, he didn’t know who I was or where he was.

It was heartbreaking. Growing up, especially after losing my mama, I’d become very dependent on him.

Watching him deteriorate the last few years had been stressful as hell.

“Do whatever you have to do to get him calm. I’m going to go get some air and I’ll be right back.” Immediately, I turned and rushed from the room.

I couldn’t fall apart in front of people I didn’t know.

When I reached my car, I stopped and leaned against the driver’s side door.

As much as I wanted to scream at the top of my lungs, I held back and tried to get myself together.

With a tight chest and constricted airwaves, I gasped for air.

Falling against the side of my car, I sank to the ground and buried my face between my knees.

This was really my life right now in a nutshell.

How? When did it start spiraling like this?

How much am I supposed to take? My mind spun with a million questions I didn’t have the answers to.

I decided to pop a muscle relaxer and stick around to sit with my daddy for the rest of the night rather than go home.

I didn’t even want to face Plum. My best friend was crazy as hell, and if I told her what happened tonight, she’d be ready to go set Sayer’s house on fire.