Page 41

Quasim

I was leaned up on the side of the bed, and my feet touched the floor. The feeling of the cold tiles underneath my bare feet did something to me. It was another reminder that I had life inside of my body. That I would get up out this bed and rise to the occasion like I always did.

That was hard to do when your body was working against you constantly. Between the hard ass coughs, chest pains and the literal weakness my body experienced, I didn’t know if I would ever get back on my feet or my bike.

I blamed my father because he had me and Blaze living like we were invincible, and now I was paying for that shit. Being shot fucking sucked, and that shit wasn’t some easy shit to shake back from. Not when I almost died twice because of the bullets that entered me.

“Mr. Inferno, you shouldn’t be trying to get out the bed alone.”

I looked up at the nurse and she seemed familiar. “Where I know you from?”

I ignored her trying to put my legs back onto the bed. She stood up straight, her black hair pulled back into a bun and her face free of makeup. “ I’m married, Beloved ,” she mocked

Each day that passed, I was becoming more and more aware of things. Everything wasn’t as foggy anymore, especially since I stopped the pain medicine. That was what kept my ass loopy and not able to stay up.

I told Anjo’s ass to sit on that couch and not move, and as I looked over there, she was gone. How the fuck could I protect my wife and watch her fine ass when I was always nodding off like a damn junkie?

Soon as the words left her mouth, I smirked. “Small world, huh?”

She fixed the chords from the IV and pressed a button that stopped the beeping.

“Very small… the reason I was even on vacation was because we were celebrating my new job. My cousin put me on… he said it’s a word-of-mouth situation that he had to pull strings for.

I moved to the city and everything for this job.

She started unraveling my IV that was damn near around my neck from nearly sliding out of this bed.

“My name is Knoxie… everyone calls me Knox. I don’t know if I ever introduced myself before all hell broke out that night.”

“You did and the name wasn’t no fucking Knoxie.”

She broke out into laughter. “I never give my real name on vacation… I’m always Clarissa… my middle name.”

I nodded my head as I continued to keep my feet planted on the floor, flexing my toes. “Where did you move from?”

“Ashbourne, New York… it’s a couple hours away from the city.”

She grabbed the electronic chart from the side table and swiped through it. “Who your peoples?”

Clarissa looked up from the iPad, and back over toward me. “My cousins are Teflon, Kevlar, and Trigga.”

I nodded my head and laughed. “Shit… it’s really a small ass world. How the fuck is those niggas doing?”

Ashbourne was a few hours from New York City, and Teflon, Kevlar, and Trigga ran that city like they founded the shit themselves. Teflon used to run with the bullies before he stepped back and moved out the city.

Nobody really knew why he decided to step away, but he had been up in Ashbourne for years and had done well for himself.

There was respect for him and his brothers, always.

Only reason I really knew about Ashbourne was because of Teflon, and he was the one who put me in touch with the Valentini family.

They were another family that lived up in Ashbourne, too.

“You know my cousins?”

“Beloved, you wouldn’t have even gotten through the doors of this bitch without Capone not knowing who you linked with… never knew Teflon had a little sister.”

“He doesn’t. I’m his cousin.”

“You right.” I snapped my fingers. “You always lived in Ashbourne?”

“My entire life. When my mother decided she was tired of being my mother and wanted to be my friend, I moved in with my aunt. My cousins were already grown, and she never had a daughter, so I was spoiled… well, as spoiled as I could be living in Ashbourne Courts.” She snorted and went back to swiping away.

“So, coming to the city was your way of running away from your problems?”

She clicked the iPad screen closed and looked at me with her arms folded. “Why are you assuming that I’m running from something?”

“Your cousin is Teflon… you don’t need to work. Not that I’m in another nigga’s pockets, I know there’s enough money to go around.”

She fidgeted with the iPad case, which told me that she was, in fact, running from her past in Ashbourne.

“There’s nothing wrong with a woman wanting more for her life. Not wanting to bow down and marry someone just because their family is rich.”

I didn’t have any pain medicine, so I wasn’t about to sit here and pretend to care about the life she was or wasn’t running from back home. “Kangggg! Man, I thought you were up outta here!” Kobe’s loud ass mouth interrupted us.

He tossed his arms around me and hugged me so tight that I winced but allowed his extra ass to get it out his system. “Kobe, you good?”

He sniffled and backed away. “Yeah, I’m good… just don’t try and die on us again, okay?”

I laughed as Knoxie put the iPad back down and checked a few things before she left us alone. She knew she wasn’t going to get me back in that bed, so she didn’t bother to give me a lecture about me needing to lie back down.

A nigga had too much on his mind, and the first thing was my pregnant ass wife running around here like she was Lara Croft. Then, the fact that we didn’t have a home to live in and she was carrying my baby, and we had another child that needed stability.

“Taking the last water out the fridge is crazy, Kobe,” Capone walked into the room with his twin right behind him.

Not even a second later, Corleon rounded the corner and was coming in behind Cappadonna. “Oh, and I ran into them.”

“You ain’t ran into shit… you sped through the gates like I was a stranger.”

Kobe sat down on the couch and crossed his legs. “After the way they were trying to storm into my house and tried to kill me, Blair, and Syn… I couldn’t be too sure…”

When I turned to look at my friend, his ass was signaling for Kobe to shut the fuck up, and he was too late because he had already said all that needed to be said. “What the fuck you mean, niggas tried to kill my wife?”

“It was handled, Quasim.”

“And nobody thought to fucking tell me that my pregnant wife was being shot at?”

Kobe let out a dramatic sigh. “You were laying up in that bed like a dead fish… how were we going to tell you, Kang?”

Corleon broke out into laughter and left the room, then tried to walk back in like he didn’t just laugh in my face. “My bad, King… Blair is always safe, and we made sure of that.”

“Ever since burying Ellis, we know to make…” Kobe stopped talking once Cappadonna stomped and turned around, holding his head as he mumbled “Shit.”

“Kobe, you run that mouth too much,” Capone said as he plopped down beside him and nudged his shoulder.

He looked from me back at them, confused. “Why the fuck is everyone all hush and quiet like this man is a child? He’s not a baby, and he needed to know that Ellis was killed.”

My chest burned when he repeated the sentence.

I remained quiet as the words echoed through my ears and my feet remained flat on the floor, no longer cold.

I thought he made a mistake. Started desperately praying that he made a mistake and Ellis wasn’t dead.

Ellis couldn’t have been gone, and Kobe was talking shit like he usually did.

That’s what I wanted to believe.

As they all looked at me with sorrow in their eyes, I knew he wasn’t just talking shit like before. My guy was buried and gone from this earth, and I wasn’t there for Ezra and Evan. They needed me and I was down for the count, unable to be there for them.

Corleon shoved himself between his brother and Kobe. “You talk too much… I ain’t helping you with your ex-boyfriend now.” He pulled one of Kobe’s curls, and he slapped his hand.

“Did I talk too much or did you three fail to tell him the truth? Hmm… Kang is a praying man and you three all up in here lying like hell.”

“Blair asked for us not to say anything,” Cappadonna informed him, tossing a rubber glove at his head.

Kobe bit his knuckle as he looked over at me. “I’m sorry, Kang.”

I felt the pressure from the squeeze that Capp delivered as I remained seated. My mind was telling me to run out the room and go find the triplets. Praying that they were all alive, and this was all a misunderstanding.

“Tell me.”

Capone leaned forward. “Took bullets protecting your brother.”

I dropped my head, feeling the burn in both my chest and eyes as I processed what Capone had told me. It was one thing to hear every God tell me that they would take a bullet for the Inferno family, and another to actually be in the aftermath of the words and vows that they gave.

“He didn’t even become a God yet… why the fuck would he do that?”

Cappadonna sat beside me. “Had he not… you would have been waking up to the reality that your brother, and my sister’s husband didn’t make it. We all fucked up about Ellis, but any of us would have done the same thing, King.”

Capp rarely ever called me king, so hearing the words come from his mouth as he continued to rub my back, hit different. I looked into his eyes. “Doesn’t make shit any better. I was responsible for him… how the fuck you think that make me feel?”

“Like your wife is on the news,” Kobe said with his eyes glued to the TV, and both Capri and Blair were dressed in red as Capri walked behind whoever they had arrested and escorted them to the car.

Capri was talking to someone in the background while my baby played the back. The news reporter on scene was chatting, but the TV was on mute, because a bunch of sounds were overstimulating along with this stupid ass beeping from the machine.