The Prada Plan 2: Leah's Story (6 page)

“Who is that girl, Mommy?” she asked, her voice breaking from emotion. At such a young age, Leah was experiencing heartbreak for the very first time, and the collapsing feeling of her chest made it hard for her to breathe.

“Is that my sister?” Leah asked, searching for answers.

Natalie gripped the steering wheel so tightly that her knuckles turned white. “No, that’s not your sister, baby. That’s not even his blood! That bitch Dynasty is up to the same old tricks, and he is just going along with it. He knows that little girl isn’t his! He can see that she ain’t his!” Natalie yelled. Unable to contain her anger, she grabbed her clutch purse and scrambled out of the car. “Come on, Leah!”

Obediently, Leah climbed across the seat and out of the car. Her mother grabbed her hand roughly before snatching her down the street. Natalie’s high heels stabbed the pavement as she waved Slim down, just as he was opening the passenger door for Dynasty.

“Slim! Slim!” she shouted, losing all dignity as Leah ran full speed just to keep up with her. Her voice cut through the air in a high, furious shrill, causing everyone who was out on the block to turn toward the scene she would inevitably cause.

The hair on the back of Slim’s neck stood up when he heard her calling his name.

“Who is that lady, Daddy?” Disaya asked as her father put her down on the ground.

“Yeah, who
is
she?” Dynasty repeated with an attitude.

“Nobody. Get in the car,” Slim instructed. He tucked Dynasty and Disaya safely inside, then attempted to walk around to the driver’s side.

This bitch has lost her damn marbles,
Slim thought angrily.
I told her to keep a low profile. Now her crazy ass is parading down the street, putting on a fucking show.

“Slim! I know you hear me, mu’fucka! Don’t you get your ass in that car!”

The disrespectful tone of her voice caused him to cringe in regret. She was asking to be made an example of. Half of the other players in town were out on the block that day, and if he let one ho disrespect him, they would snatch his entire stable as soon as he pulled off. His business was sloppy, and Natalie was trying his patience.

“You better handle that bitch. She’s a problem,” Dynasty commented slyly as she put on a fresh coat of lipstick, arrogantly looking at herself in the mirror. She tried to appear uninterested, although she was trying her best to ear hustle.

Slim stepped away from the car and approached Natalie aggressively, grabbing her firmly by the elbow.

“Fuck you come here for, Nat? Didn’t I tell you I would come to you?” he asked her, whispering harshly as he jerked her, chastising her as if she were a child.

“You said you were coming last night, baby. I waited for you. Why didn’t you come by?” she asked sweetly as she reached up to stroke Slim’s face. Slim dodged her advances and looked her squarely in the eyes.

“Go back to the motel. I’ll be by there later on. Look at you. You’re fucked up! You need to leave that liquor alone. You’re embarrassing yourself. Don’t come around here again,” Slim stated, his voice unforgiving, and his clenched teeth giving away his shitty disposition.

Leah clung to her mother’s sleeve as she watched the tense interaction between the two.

“What? Don’t come around here? Embarrassing myself?” Natalie shouted, loud enough for the entire block to hear. “You son of a bitch!” Natalie removed the money she had earned and threw it at him, causing the bills to rain over him. “What, Slim? I’m not good enough because I’m not that bitch?” Natalie screamed as she pointed toward the car where Dynasty sat.

Dynasty’s eyebrows rose in aggravation. “I got your bitch! Keep talking,” she said without asserting too much energy. She was arrogant and knew her position. There wasn’t another woman in town who could threaten her, but she wasn’t above putting a bitch in her place if need be either. She rolled her eyes as she waved her hand in dismissal, leaving it to Slim to handle.

Slim’s reaction was instinctive. He wrapped his hand around Natalie’s neck and pushed her against the brick wall outside of Jimmy’s Bar.

“Me and you, we’re done, bitch. That’s why I cut you loose all those years ago. You’re fucking nuts, and you don’t know how to follow my lead,” Slim stated, shoving her one last time for good measure before walking away.

Leah looked on in horror as she watched her mother charge Slim, hitting him in the back of the head. Natalie was making a spectacle of him in front of the entire block, and the embarrassment caused him to see red.

“Mommy! Ma! Stop it!” Leah screamed as she ran up to her and tried to pull her away. Her small arms tugged at her mother’s body in an attempt to stop the madness.

In a drunken state, Natalie pushed her daughter to the ground with such force that little Leah’s knees split wide open. Blood gushed instantly, but the sting of her mother’s blatant lack of love burned more than the wound itself.

Slim turned on his heels, and before he could control himself, he punched Natalie with all his might. Her head snapped back so violently that it felt as if her neck had broken, and her legs gave out beneath her.

“Mommy!” Leah screamed as she began to cry hysterically. She scrambled to her feet and ran to her mother’s side.

Leah held her mother’s bloody face in her hands as she tried to help her up. Natalie shamelessly staggered to her feet, drunk from the knuckle cocktail Slim had just served her.

“You’re a dirty mu’fucka, Slim! I’ll never be good enough, will I? Fuck you, Slim! Fuck you! This is your daughter!” Natalie yelled as her face began to swell.

“Bitch, I told you she’s not my fucking daughter! She’s not my kid! She’s not mine! Get that through your skull!” he hollered, looking at her in disgust before storming away.

Natalie cried tears from the root of her soul as she watched the love of her life walk away from her. What she didn’t know was that love didn’t hurt, and what she was experiencing…what she was feeling…what she was consumed by was control. He had captured her mind so long ago that his hold over her caused her to do unthinkable things. All she wanted was him—his attention, his affection.

Shooing Leah off of her, she called after Slim as she ran behind him. She chased his car all the way down the street, while Leah ran behind her, both in tears, until his tail lights disappeared from their view.

The other working girls on the block laughed at the desperate mess that Natalie had become, but they were all in the same boat. Slim held court over their emotions as well. He had sold them all a dream. It was all a fantasy, a street marriage between a pimp and prostitute that only required one side to remain loyal. Natalie could have easily been any of the young women on the block. They all shared the same circumstance. They were caught up in a man that could never love them back.

Their taunting comments haunted Natalie as she grabbed Leah’s wrist tightly and spun around wildly. “What the fuck are you bitches laughing at? What are you looking at?” she yelled as blood dripped from her busted lip.

Leah didn’t know what to say or do as she was forced back into the car. Hearing Slim deny her so vehemently was wrenching to her soul. She didn’t understand why he didn’t want her. Natalie had filled her head with false hope, and now that the truth had come to light, she was crushed beyond comprehension.

As Natalie drove away from the strip, she battled with her own demons. In need of someone to blame, she turned on Leah. “This is all your fault. You see that little girl Slim had? Why would he want a little wench like you when he has her? She’s perfect! She’s pretty! Why can’t you be more like her?”

Natalie selfishly blamed Leah when inside, she knew that the real comparison she was making was between herself and Dynasty. It wasn’t Leah who Slim didn’t want; it was Natalie. She had never been woman enough for him, but admitting that to herself would be like holding a mirror to her tarnished face.

What she did not know was that she was filling her daughter with insecurity and jealousy. The irrevocable damage she was doing would scar Leah for years to come. For the first time in her life, Leah knew what it felt like to hate another human being. She despised the little girl that she had seen Slim with. The green-eyed monster had his sights set on her. Envy consumed her, and her heart burned so badly that she felt as if she were choking. She couldn’t understand what the little girl, Disaya, possessed that she herself did not. Why wasn’t she worthy of a father’s love?

As her mother belittled her and compared her to the green-eyed beauty queen that Slim claimed as his daughter, Leah hardened herself on the inside. She turned her face toward the window so that her mother would not see the tears that cascaded from her eyes. Her insides were in so much turmoil that her stomach felt hollow.

Why does my daddy love that other little girl more? Why won’t he love me?
Nothing in the world had ever felt so bad. After everything she had been through in search of his acceptance, she felt scorned. Scorned by life, burnt by the mother who was supposed to love her, and thrown away by the father she never knew. It was on that day that she became a bad seed, and everyone who had ever hurt her became her enemy. She never wanted to be so vulnerable again. She was closing off her heart, and she promised herself that she would never allow anyone to trample on her feelings ever again.

Leah looked down at the puddle of blood that pooled around her bare feet. A sickening calm spread over her as she looked into her mother’s eyes. As they stared at one another, hatred filled the space between them. Unspoken apologies were overdue, but unfortunately, it was too late. Whatever needed to be said would be forever lost in translation. Death had silenced Natalie forever as her dead eyes questioned why.

Leah had snapped, and something inside of her felt that her actions were justified. Tired of the nightly abuse that her mother was inflicting upon her, Leah told herself that she had endured enough. Natalie never saw it coming.

After being betrayed by her own mother, Leah felt no remorse for the sinister things she planned in her head. The woman she had loved the most had allowed her to be defiled, had used Leah for her own selfish motives, had brought Leah’s world crashing down around her. She was no longer an innocent child. Detached from right and wrong, Leah acted instinctively, defensively.

She was tired of her private parts being touched by different men, and tired of being compared to the little green-eyed girl that had Slim’s heart. She would never live up to the unrealistic expectations that Natalie had set for her, and she was constantly terrified of what man may walk through their motel room door next to have his way with her. She did what she had to do. So far detached from what was right and wrong, Leah resorted to her only method of escape—murder.

The many men who had climbed atop of her small body had driven her to her breaking point, and Natalie was the one to blame.

The stench in the room was overwhelming as the summer heat baked her mother’s dead body, but still she couldn’t move. She was stuck, staring into the lost eyes of the woman who had failed to nurture her. Psychologically, Leah was unstable. Her mental and emotional state had been compromised to the point where she felt nothing. Even the horrid stench of the corpse or the sight of her mother’s drying blood didn’t disturb her. She was disconnected from all emotion, out of touch with the good little girl that she used to be, unplugged from reality. All she knew was that everything that had happened to her had brought her to this point.

She was so full of hate that it poured out of her eyes, giving her rotten intentions away to anyone who cared to stare into her soul. What could have been a beautiful girl with so much potential had been transformed into a troubled one with too many demons to count.

A knock at the door caused Leah to look up, but she made no effort to move.

“Housekeeping,” the voice announced just before she saw a young woman enter. “Oh my God!” the woman shrieked as soon as she laid eyes on the gruesome scene before her. She hesitated, unsure of what to do or what she had just walked in on. She looked around the room in fear, figuring that someone else had committed the crime. When she was sure no one else was in the room, she motioned for Leah.

“Come on, sweetheart. Come to me,” she urged.

Leah stood up with a blank stare in her eyes and slowly walked over to the housekeeper. It wasn’t until the woman saw the bloody knife in Leah’s hand that she realized what had actually occurred.

“Did you do this, honey?” she asked with wide, doubt-filled eyes. No little girl could possibly cause such carnage.

Leah nodded her head as she dropped the knife to the floor. Her bottom lip began to tremble as she stared at the lady who was kneeling before her. The woman grasped her shoulders.

“Why, sweetie? What happened? Why did you do this?” she asked, genuinely concerned.

The tears that rained down her face didn’t match the ice-cold look in her gaze. “Because she hurt me,” Leah responded, her voice monotone and unflinching, unapologetic.

The woman was taken aback by the satisfied leer that Leah wore, and she stood to her feet as she backed away from the little girl. She could feel the devil in the room, and she instantly knew that something evil lived inside of Leah. She was no ordinary child. She was unremorseful, and had far bypassed the realm of sanity….

The blaring shrill of the car horn behind her caused Leah to snap out of her daydream. Thoughts of the past plagued her, and she gripped the steering wheel so tightly that her knuckles turned crimson, the same color of the blood she had spilled over the years. Sticking up her middle finger at the impatient driver behind her, she sped off, running from her troubled past and chasing her own destiny—one that fulfilled her need for acceptance and her obsession for revenge.

Chase and Khi-P rode through the hood. Black gloves and black masks disguised their identities as they neared their intended destination. No words needed to be exchanged. Everyone had a position to play, and on this cold, black Friday, it was time to put in work. One of their own had been crossed, and the way that they moved, every action had a reaction.

The consequences for snatching baby Sky would be deadly for anyone involved. The gray, overcast skies should have been every indication that it was about to rain, but what Houston had never seen before was the downpour that Indie was about to bring. He wasn’t into making it rain dollars. That was for trick niggas. Indie was about to make it rain bullets, and anyone he had ever beefed with was in his crosshairs. The way he felt, the entire fucking city could get it if need be. No one was exempt, and niggas would bleed until he received the answers that he sought, or until his daughter was returned home safely.

He was highly offended by the trespass that had been committed against him. And as he rode in the backseat of Chase’s old school ’64 Chevelle, anger consumed him. He was silent, stoic, still. He wasn’t a rah-rah type of nigga that talked big. He acted big.

These niggas think it’s a stage play. I live this. I do this. I don’t play gangster. I’ma burn this bitch to the ground if something happens to my baby girl
. His brow furrowed deep from a combination of worry and madness. On the outside, one would never know his troubles, but on the inside, there was a bitter and brutal storm brewing. His entire life was flashing before his eyes.

Everything depended on baby Skylar’s safe return. He knew that YaYa would never get over her grief if this ended badly, and he would never forgive himself as well.

He was jarred from his thoughts when the car stopped moving. He stared out of his window.

“You sure you want to do this?” Khi-P asked as he peered intently at Indie through his rearview mirror.

Indie didn’t even look his way. He simply stared out of the window and nodded his head.

CLICK-CLACK!

The sound of Chase cocking his .380 handgun was the beginning of the end. Indie was the conductor of this street symphony, and he was about to serenade a couple niggas right to sleep.

BOOM!

Chase had just played the first note. Indie watched as Chase and Khi-P got out of the car and unloaded their semi-automatic pistols on the trap house. They wanted to leave a blood bath behind, sending a message to whoever was in charge. They didn’t know much about the out-of-towners who had come to Houston, but they were looking to find the head nigga in charge.

Unwanted beef had caused Indie to murk one of the Tallahassee boys, and now they were bringing heat to his front door. He was a man, so he stood behind everything that he had ever done, but drawing his family into things had been a low blow. A deadly line had been crossed. Like North Korea, he showed no mercy when his borders were penetrated. YaYa and Skylar were off limits.

Indie had put word out in the hood that he was looking for the leader of the out of town crew, searching high and low for him to no avail. Finally, Indie decided that if he couldn’t find his enemy, he would make his enemy come find him. He didn’t like war, but sometimes it was inevitable, and consequently, he was good at it.

The South was too slow for him; they didn’t rock the same way as he did. He was ruthless, but at the same time calculating. He moved with intelligence instead of arrogance, and now that he saw how they got down, he was about to teach a lesson that they would be sure to remember.

These niggas don’t want to see me,
he thought.

Fearless, Chase and Khi-P blazed through the unsuspecting hustlers that ran the trap spot. The two were magnificent when it came to gunplay. Chase had been taught by the best, and was popping off nothing but headshots as he moved through the place. His murder game looked like art as he beat the odds. Two guns in the hands of men like Khi-P and Chase outnumbered the seven ordinary hustlers any day.

It wasn’t until they made their way upstairs that they encountered a challenge. Out of nowhere, bullets began to fly in their direction.

“Fuck!” Khi-P yelled as he was grazed by a shot. “This no-aim-having-ass nigga!” he yelled as his nostrils flared in anger. He couldn’t believe that he had been hit. In all his time hustling, he had never been shot, and it put a slight bruise on his enormous ego.

Gunshots rang out loudly as the men exchanged fire, and Chase leaned against the living room wall to avoid being hit. Bullets chipped away at the wall around him. They had clipped every hustler in the house, but this last man standing was not going down without a fight. He was reckless, and his gun was spitting hollows nonstop.

Counting the shots in his head, Chase waited patiently. He knew that every shooter would eventually need to reload, and when he heard the pause he was waiting for…

BOOM!

Chase bent the corner and found his target, hitting him in the leg and dropping him to the ground instantly.

When Indie heard the firing cease, he stepped out of the car and cautiously looked around before proceeding into the house. He walked down an aisle of bodies as he followed the massacre up the stairs to his awaiting crew. Chase and Khi-P stood over the bleeding man, and they both turned to Indie as soon as he entered the room.

“What do you want to do with him?” Khi-P asked.

“I just want to talk to him. Help him up,” Indie replied as he grabbed a rickety wooden chair out of the corner and pulled it up to the bed. He waited patiently as they lifted the dude to his feet and then shoved him down on the bed. Not one for disorder and chaos, Indie sat down across from the guy. Emotionless and unreadable, he gave away no sense of his inner instability. Visibly shaken and trembling from the wound to the leg, the guy watched as Indie studied him.

“I’m not here for you, but you know how to get in contact with who I’m looking for. Who do you work for?” Indie asked.

“Fuck you, ol’ pussy-ass nigga,” the hustler responded with bravado.

With no time for games, Indie was unimpressed by the show of loyalty. He sighed with deep distress. “This can go two ways, my man. The easy way…” Indie paused for emphasis as he stared the young thug in the eye, penetrating his hard shell.

Out of nowhere, Indie hauled off and smacked fire from the dude. The butt of Indie’s snub nose pistol broke the bones in his jaw.

“Or my way,” Indie finished as he sat back and watched the man before him writhe in pain.

“Fuck, man! Fuck type of shit you on? I don’t know nothing,” the hustler stammered as blood spewed from his mouth.

Indie didn’t hesitate to put a hollow tip through his uninjured leg.

“Aghh!”

“You don’t got no more legs left. The next one going through your head,” Indie warned as he wrapped his finger around the trigger and put the barrel of the gun directly against the temple of the man’s head.

Fear captivated the man as urine ran down his leg. “W–w–wait,” the guy stammered nervously.

Indie removed the gun and waited for the man to speak.

“I’ll talk, man. What do you want to know?” he asked.

“My daughter…a baby girl. What do you know about a kidnapping?” Indie asked.

“I don’t know nothing about no kidnapping. We ain’t even on no shit like that. I swear, man,” the guy pleaded.

Indie jabbed the gun hard into his temple, an unspoken threat that the hustler was trying his patience.

“I swear! I swear! Minnie ain’t ordered no kidnappings. We were here to settle the beef with you for killing Duke. I don’t know shit about snatching no kids!”

The desperation in his voice revealed the truth in the words he spoke, and Indie withdrew his pistol. He had gotten a name. Minnie was who he needed to see, and by leaving the hustler alive, he knew that Minnie would come looking for him.

“Tell Minnie that Indie is looking for him and that it would be in his best interest to holla at me immediately,” Indie stated.

Indie and his crew retreated, leaving the bleeding young man to act as the messenger.

With red-rimmed eyes, Disaya waited by the living room bay window all night for Indie to return home. It had been an entire day, and the weight of the world was heavy on her shoulders. Everything in her wanted to call for help. Her maternal instincts were steering her to reach out to someone. Under these circumstances, she embraced authority. She welcomed the idea of handing this burden off to them, but at Indie’s request, she refrained from calling the cops. Against her better judgment, she was allowing him to handle this.

Helplessness made every minute seem like two, and the only thing that she could do was send her prayers up to God. She needed Him to send her a resolution. She was on the brink of insanity, and it wouldn’t take much for her to lose her mind. Knowing that she had done so many grimy things to so many people made her feel like this was her karma, but she hoped that God wasn’t that cruel. Punishing baby Sky for her mistakes would be unjust.

Please just bring my daughter home. Keep her safe,
YaYa begged as she fell to her knees to show humility. Speaking with God had not been a ritual that she frequently partook in, but desperate times called for desperate measures.

She couldn’t continue doing the same things, solving her problems with deceit and manipulation. She concluded that insanity was repetitive, doing the same thing and receiving the same results. It was time to try something new, and for her, that meant putting her faith in something greater, something bigger than herself, something holy.

This had broken her all the way down. There was no ego, no diva, no bitch left in her. She was at her purest and most raw state. Disaya Morgan was in rare form, as open and susceptible to pain as the day she was born. She was feeling the greatest worry possible, which was that of a mother, and her vulnerability was getting the best of her. Every fleeting thought revolved around baby Sky. Nothing else mattered at this point.

When the headlights from Indie’s vehicle shone through her window, she rushed to the door. Frantic yet hopeful, she rushed outside shoeless, her eyes roaming the backseat of his car, desperately searching for Sky.

“Where is she? She’s not here, Indie!” she sobbed. “Where is our baby?” she asked as she turned to him.

Defeated by the look of despair on his lady’s face, he shook his head and pulled her into his chest. “I don’t know, ma. I’m doing all I can. I put word out in the streets, but nobody’s talking,” he admitted. He hid the disappointment and his own fear in an attempt to keep her calm. He had a responsibility to his family. He was accountable for them, and if this played out badly, he would only have himself to blame.

He could see the turmoil in her gaze.

“She’s out there somewhere…without me. What if they’re hurting her?” YaYa asked. A million and one possibilities ran through her mind, and her entire body shuddered.

“Stop doing that to yourself. Let’s go inside and try to rest. I need you strong, ma. We have to hold each other up and get through this together. I’ma take care of this. I promise you that,” he said. He didn’t know who he was trying to convince more, YaYa or himself.

Lying in bed beside Indie, YaYa’s chest caved in slightly from anxiety. Not a single fiber of her body was at ease. She was restless. Calm was a state of mind that she couldn’t attain.

“Indie?” she called out. The only response she got was the light sound of him snoring. She couldn’t understand how Indie could sleep. There was too much at stake. Images of her innocent baby flashed before her eyes, and she felt for a moment as if this were all a bad dream.

This can’t be real. No one is cruel enough to do something like this,
she told herself. She pushed the covers off and hopped out of bed as she made her way to Skylar’s room.
This is all a bad dream. This can’t be happening. My baby is going to be safe and sound in her room.

“She’s all right,” she said aloud, trying her hardest to speak it into existence. Pulling open the door in desperation, she rushed over to the crib, only to be hit with reality. The bare crib caused her knees to buckle, and she grabbed onto the wooden rails for support.

What am I doing? My daughter needs me. I’m all she has,
she thought.

Although Indie was in their lives now, she thought back to how he had abandoned her before in her time of need. Feeling like a traitor, she reached for the cordless phone. She knew that the call she was about to make would jeopardize everything between her and Indie. It was risky, and would shine the spotlight directly on top of them, but her back was against the wall. There was no other solution. She had seen it in Indie’s eyes the moment he had returned home. Even he didn’t know if he would be able to bring their baby home. She took a deep breath and dialed the numbers.

“Nine-one-one. What is your emergency?”

“Someone took my baby. My daughter has been kidnapped,” YaYa whispered with a stifled cry as she covered her mouth to contain her fear.

She turned around and saw Indie standing in the doorway. She jumped and released the phone as if it had suddenly grown hot in her hand.

“What did you do, ma?” he asked as he shook his head from side to side. He knew the magnitude of her actions. Within the hour, their home would be swarming with cops, every part of their lives monitored and picked apart. They were about to be under a federal microscope, and to a hustler of Indie’s stature, that was worse than death. “What did you do?”

YaYa looked him directly in the eyes and wiped her tears as she replied, “I did what I had to do…for my daughter.”