Page 55 of Rah

I quickly told Priest, “Thank you”, and hopped out.

Rah was more focused on the car than me. Priest’s windows were tinted, so Rah couldn’t see inside. When he finally stopped staring lustfully at the foreign whip, he noticed me. His admiration turned to anger.

“You didn’t see me calling you?! What’s going on?! Is Moses okay?!”

This son of a bitch turned his back to me! He didn’t even have enough compassion to speak to me during a moment of grief. That hurt. I wondered where his compassion for the mother of his children had gone so quickly. I wondered if it had ever been in him. I wondered was I that wrapped up that I didn’t see how cruel this man really was.

After what he’d put me through over the past few days, I refused to let him see me sweat. Besides, I knew that his petty ass was just acting like a bitch because he saw me get out of a car that his broke ass couldn’t even afford.

“Solae!” Luckily, Kahlani came rushing out of the emergency room doors. It was as if she saw me through the glass and came running out.

I threw my arms around her. She was crying and shaking.

I regretted asking. “What happened? Is Moses okay?”

“I don’t know yet. He’s in surgery.”

He wasn’t dead, so I let out the breath that I had been holding since Priest and I left the club.

“What the hell happened?”

Before Kahlani could answer that, I noticed Priest walkingup. I looked at him curiously. I was sure that he had left, once I got out of his car. But he must have just left to find a parking space.

Kahlani looked at him enquiringly as well, wondering who he was, but kept talking past tears that fell silently from her eyes. “Moses and Rah were at a gas station when some guys tried to take his car. Rah was inside the store paying for the gas. He didn’t see anything until he heard the gun shot outside the store. As he ran out, the kids took off on foot. Moses was inside of the car bleeding from the abdomen. Rah first attempted to drive him to the hospital until he passed out. Then, Rah pulled into a nearby alley and called 9–1–1. I’m relieved he’s still alive, but I can’t take not knowing if he'll survive.”

I put my arm around her to console her while Priest stood next to me like a bodyguard. I caught Rah glaring at us. I was sure that he was pissed that I had the nerve to have another man with me around our family and friends.

I didn’t care. It hurts a man to see another man getting his woman’s attention. Yet, it was all fun and games when he was in the streets entertaining hoes.

KAHLANI

I was a nervous wreck.

The emergency room was full of me and Moses’ family and our friends. There had to be at least thirty people posted all over the place in the small emergency room. The security guards were on high alert, as if terrorists were in the hospital with a bomb. There had to be ten of them making their presence known to the anxious family members and the pissed off block boys that wanted to know who had shot their beloved prince. Even cops had arrived, sitting outside of the emergency room at least three squad cars deep.

I wished that they would make his friends leave. They were making my anxiety ten times worse. They were doing the most, threatening to kill whoever shot Moses and crying. I’d never seen men that ruthless fall apart like that.

“Kahlani, can I talk to you?”

I fought the urge to roll my eyes into the back of my head as Rah motioned for me to follow him. Solae was curious. However, she was doing her best to ignore Rah since he wasacting out because of Priest’s presence. I was shocked myself that she had the balls to sit in that room with Priest under her. Yet, after the shit that she had been through with Rah, I figured it was about time that Solae showed him that he wasn’t her end all be all.

“I got something for you.” Once I was in the furthest corner of the room, Rah reached in his pocket and handed me a wad of cash. “That’s about two grand. That should be enough to get you a lawyer to fight that case. I was supposed to give it to Moses’ to give to you, but…”

I took it, wondering where Rah’s sudden compassion had come from. He had always looked out for Moses in little ways, but never like this.

Rah answered my curiosity with, “I feel bad for you getting locked up. I had set that up for Moses. You weren’t supposed to be involved. But luckily it was you and not him.”

The audacity of this motherfucker threw me for an angry loop.

“You know what, Rah? I’m not even about to respond to that right now. It’s enough going on.”

I stuffed the wad into my pocket and walked away just as the doctor emerged from behind the double doors marked “Employees Only.”

Moses’ mother and father met him in the middle of the floor. Many other family members and close friends gathered closely around as everyone else fell so silent that we could finally hear the infomercial playing on the small flat screen on the wall.

When Rah took me by the arm and brought me into the circle so that I could hear the doctor, I cringed. His sympathy and compassion just felt phony as hell to me for some reason.

The first thing the doctor said was, “He’s stable.” We all letout sighs of relief that could have been heard all the way down the street.