Chapter 40 - A Street King's Widow
By Jenica J.
CHAPTER 40
Dinner had gone better than I expected. I spent years around this family, so I was familiar with everyone’s temperaments. I expected my mother-in-law to be the one with the most to say. She was a mother first, and I respected everything she had to say. The hardest part was over. I pulled into my gate and headed into the house. I had planned on going straight to work from his house in the morning. I grabbed a bag from my closet and grabbed my skincare, soaps, body oils, and grabbed a pantsuit to wear to work. My phone chimed while I was zipping the bag up over my suit. When I was off, I made sure to have email notifications off on my work email. If it was an emergency, they knew to call me. It was almost ten at night, yet I still opened the email. It was from Nicole.
“Nicole?”
The email didn’t come with any long message. There was one line: If something happens to me, you need to see this.
Underneath it was a link to an encrypted file. I stood there holding my phone for a second. How the fuck was she sending me an email? She had to set this shit up before she died. My first instinct was to open it right there. I clicked the link and the download started, but the file was too big for my phone storage. My curiosity was killing me, so I was about to head down to grab my laptop, but Shameek started calling.
“Hello?”
“Where you at? You said you was comin’ back.”
“I’m just grabbing everything I need.”
“You’ve been grabbin’ stuff for thirty minutes.”
“I got distracted. My bad.”
“With what?”
“Nothing. I was trying to figure out what I wanted to wear tomorrow.”
“Ky, throw some shit in a bag and come on. I’m already in bed.”
“Give me ten minutes.”
“Aight, I’m timing you.”
“Bye, Meek.”
“Love you,” he said.
I ended the call without saying anything. I had ten minutes to get the file downloaded before I walked out of the house. Rushing, I opened my laptop and logged into my work email to download the file. My fingers tapped on the table as I watched the numbers climb. I didn’t want to leave until it was fully downloaded. When it hit a hundred percent, I ran back upstairs to grab my things. Whatever it was, would be there tomorrow. I had spent so much time chasing down Rah’s murderer that I just wanted to take a break from it. Tonight, I wanted to go lay beside the man I loved.
Shameek was barely awake when he opened the door for me. I sat my bag in his closet and hopped in the shower. It didn’t take long for Shameek to join me. He placed small kisses on my neck as his hands caressed my breast. My mind had completely forgotten about the email when Shameek entered me. Sex tonight was different. We didn’t have to get it done quickly and sneak back to our houses. We took our time and explored each other until the shower turned cold. Even then, we still didn’t stop. An hour later, I was lying in his arms with my hair wrapped in a towel.
“I’m serious about you, Ky. I know the way this started was fucked up and messy. I just want you to know I’m not halfway in this shit.”
“I’m all the way in, too.”
Shameek kissed me on my forehead, and a few minutes later he was lightly snoring. It took me a minute to fall asleep because now that the sex was over and the room was quiet, my mind went back to the email. My eyes shifted to Shameek as he slept peacefully. He probably had no idea that Nikki had sent that email before she died. I wasn’t going to tell him until I knew exactly what she sent me.
The next morning, I woke up before him. I showered, got dressed, kissed him goodbye while he was still half asleep, and headed straight to work. By nine, I was behind my desk with the door closed. Again, I told everyone to leave me alone unless it was an emergency. I pulled my laptop closer and logged into the private account where I had forwarded Nikki’s email. The file was broken down into categories. I didn’t give a damn about any of them, but the one labeled Rah. At first, I didn’t understand what I was looking at because the contact names weren’t saved. The only thing that appeared were numbers. One of them I recognized from the old records I had been going through, which was Q’s number. The other one took me a second longer. Then it dawned on me that it was Shameek’s old number.
“No…”
I leaned closer to the screen and opened the first screenshot. The messages were dated the night Rah died. My stomach turned before I even read them.
Q: My people in place
Shameek: Make sure they stay where I told you
Q: They know what to do
Shameek: I don’t want no fuck ups
Q: They fire first. After that, it’s on you
Shameek: Bet
My heart started racing as I read the messages at least three times. I clicked the next screenshot. It was less than an hour after the last messages.
Q: You sure about this
Shameek: We too far in now
I pushed my chair from the desk and stood so fast that my chair rolled backwards into the bookshelf behind me.
“Did…did this muthafucka?”
Q had already admitted his men blocked the road and opened fire. Maybe Shameek was trying to manage the fallout. Maybe he knew about the plan but tried to stop it. Who the fuck was I trying to convince? I sat back down to click on the next screenshot. This was after the shooting.
Q: Is it done?
Shameek: Yeah
Q: You straight?
Shameek: Nigga fuck no
Q: Nobody can know how this shit went down. You sure he’s gone
Shameek: I said it’s done
The tears rolled down my face. I was sitting here witnessing that through Rah’s eyes. To see his own brother take the kill shot on him over some money had to be heartbreaking. All my mind could think about was Shameek telling me Nikki found some shit, and he had to kill her. Now I see why. She found the proof that he was the killer, and she was about to tell me. That realization hurt differently. He lied to me while supposedly confessing. Even when he told me the worst thing he had done to Nikki, he still protected the bigger truth. Nikki had done her homework. I asked that nigga over and over again if he knew who did it; the whole time it was him. I wanted to scream, but all I could do right now was cry. Shameek was the person that Rah trusted the most. How the fuck do you pull a trigger on your own brother?
I went to the bathroom to clean myself up. My body was hurting from the anger that had built up. Shameek’s face popped up on my screen as I dried my face. I stared at it for a minute before I answered and just stood there.
“Ky?” He paused, waiting for me to say something. “You busy?”
“I’m at work.”
“You ain’t text me when you got there.”
“I got caught up.”
“You straight?”
“I’m fine.”
“You sure? You sound funny.”
“I said I’m fine, Meek. I just have a lot going on.”
“Aight. I wasn’t tryin’ to bother you. I was gonna see if you wanted lunch.”
I closed my eyes and let the tears fall again.
“No. I probably won’t leave the office today.”
“Everything good there? Do I need to come by?”
“Yes, everything is fine,” I lied.
Everything at Royal Flush was fine. It was my damn life that was falling apart.
“You sure you don’t need me?”
“No.” I wiped the tears from my eyes.
“Aight. Call me when you get free.”
“I will.”
“I love you,” he said.
There was no way I could say that shit back.
“Ky?”
“I got to go, Meek.” I hung up.
I spent the rest of my day going through every file. My phone was turned completely off. Before I looked that man in his face again, I needed to decide which Kyenna was going to show up. The woman he loved, or the widow of the man he murdered.