Page 61 of Rah

“I turned on him, is what he keeps saying. Can you believe that? He has a baby on me, but I turned on him?I’mthe disloyal one? I don’t even recognize who he is.”

Just talking about it raised the level of anger that had been sitting with me since this all began. Rah had a lot of nerve. I hated even being in that hospital because he was there. I hated being in the same room with his ass.

All he had to do was tell me. Had he told me that he had a chick on the side pregnant, I would have told him to step and still had my baby. Both of us could have gotten what we wanted. But no, Rah was too selfish to think enough about me to do such a thing. He wanted his cake, to eat it too, the pie,andthe motherfucking filling.

What turned my face red with rage was the fact that that bitch could have her baby, but I couldn’t. I had been with him for over ten years. I had given him so much of me, my youth,my children. And some bitch that just comes along can get the big house and family.

“How are the kids doing now that they are back home?”

“Elijah is fine. He’s just happy to be home. But something isn’t right with Essence. She’s just pissed off. She’s snapping on everybody. Getting into screaming matches with Elijah. It’s not like her.”

“Well, being snatched out of your home is a lot to deal with. And she is a teenager. She’s probably just mad she missed Christmas.”

“I can’t believe Rah wasthatmad at me. All because I left him? Because I burned up some money.” My mouth bawled up as I fought the stinging in my eyes that was introducing tears.

I was so sick of crying.

“Solae, it’s going to be okay,” Kahlani said as she wiped my face. As she did so, I noticed three guys getting off of the elevator. One of them was so familiar to me, but I couldn’t place him. I guess I was familiar to him too, since he did a double take when he saw me.

“Who are they? Friends of Moses?”

Kahlani took a quick glance and then turned back to me. “Probably. I’ve never seen them before. There have been so many people coming in and out of here, girl. But you know who hasn’t shown up?”

“Who?”

“A chick.”

“What chick?”

She shrugged her shoulders. “Hell, any chick. Not one woman has come to visit him, not even a friend. I never doubted him when he claimed to be in the studio late all those nights, but in the back of my mind, I wondered. But clearly, he really was. He wants to make it so bad.”

So much grief came over her at that moment. I wrapped my arms around her. She buried her face in my shoulder as I buried mine in hers. In such a short time, our worlds had been turned upside down. It was a lot to take in, and it was hard as hell to be strong.

“I just want him to be okay.”

I matched Kahlani’s somber tone as I told her, “He will.”

RAH

“Let me holla at you outside.”

I wasn’t comfortable leaving the waiting area. I had been lingering around like a fruit fly since everything went down. I had to be sure that I was there when Moses woke up. He needed to know what story to tell the police so that our stories would match.

If we stuck to our story, there would be no way that we could be linked to Carlos’ murder.

I wasn’t sure if Moses would still fuck with me like he used to once he woke up. Though there was a lot of pain in his eyes before they closed, I could also see there was a lot of disappointment in me.

Nothing in me felt bad for how I played this, though. Had I told Moses what I was planning that night, Moses would have chickened out and I would have missed my opportunity. I took a big gamble with his life. Yet, the guap that I obtained in the process was well worth it. I planned to give Moses a nice portion of it so that he would feel the same.

I had to sit on the money for a minute until Carlos’ death settled down on the street. I needed to figure out a way to introduce this new wealth without looking suspect. Yet and still, the world was my oyster now. I could do anything that I had been obsessing about in my mind. Anything I wanted was now in the palms of my hands. I could be the man that I wanted to be.

I’d done it all by myself. That’s what I thought as I made small talk with Caine as we took the elevator to the lobby. I didn’t need these helpless niggas no more. They did nothing to assist in getting me to the next level, though I was the reason why they were able to eat.

This was their last stop, including Solae, Aaliyah, and Felicia’s big mouth ass. I was cutting their dead weight off so that I could take this new ride to wealth solo.

“So, what’s up? Why you call me out here in this shit? It’s cold as fuck.” I hid my face behind the collar of my Moncler coat and stuffed my hands in my pockets as Caine looked at me nervously. “Speak, nigga.”

“I think your girl recognized me,” he told me. “She looked at me like she knew me from somewhere.”