TYCE II (20 page)

“Can you see him?” I asked Sway.

“Naw, he’s somewhere
in the parking lot tho!”

Sway stuck his head out from behind the tree.

“Damn, I gotta get to my Jeep cuz my gun is inside.”

Sway slapped the trunk of the thick tree, “I left my shit in my truck too. I didn’t wanna bring it in the hospital with me…I didn’t think I needed it.”

“I think Diego was countin’ on that
too
, that’s why he ambushed us here.” I
said spotting
my Jeep in the distance.

I still had my vest on so making a run for it was an option. Based on what he was hitting, I knew he was a horrible shot from far away. What I didn’t know was where exactly he was at. The parking lot was lit up in sections but overall it remained dark and shadowy.
It was a gamble but one thing was certain…we couldn’t camp out behind these trees all night.

“Where did you park?” I asked Sway.

He pointed toward the other side of the lot,

“Over there.”

“I’m over there.” I nodded in the opposite direction.

I grinned at him slyly; he did the same as we read each other’s mind.

“I’m about to get my track star on.” I looked at my Jeep.

“You think your that fast?” Sway grinned at me.

“I know I am…watch me work.”

I spotted my cigarette still burning on the ground about five feet
away
from where I was hunkered down
. I realized I never got a chance to finish my much-needed smoke break. It would be a shame to just let it go to waste. With that in mind, I decided to finish it. I stepped out from behind the protective shelter of the mini forest and walked out in the open.

“What are you doin’ Tyce!? Get your ass back here!”

“I’
m gonna
finish my
damn
cigarette.” I looked back at him.

Surprisingly, there was no one else outside except us.

I bent down,
picked up my
stress-relieving
treat,
and stood up to my full height.
I placed the filtered tip between my lips and inhaled the flavorful smoke. As I
exhaled,
I stared out into the gloomy parking lot and spotted my sharp shooter crouching down behind a compact car. Despite the extended distance, Diego and I made direct e
ye contact from across the lot.

When he aimed his gun, I stood still and continued to enjoy my cigarette.

When a bullet splintered the wood of the bench behind me, I stood still and continued to enjoy my cigarette.

When I heard a bullet whiz by my earlobe, I stood still and continued to smoke my cigarette.

“TYCE!!! COME ON MAN, STOP FUCKIN’ AROUND, GET THE FUCK DOWN!!” Sway shouted at me.

I looked at him, “I
’m
almost finished.”

I took one last drag and tossed the butt aside. I cracked my neck and pointed my finger directly at Mr. Alverez.
Next,
I took off running like I was returning a punt, heading straight for my
Jeep. It was the fastest I’d ran since my teenage years…but I still had plenty of life left in my legs and I was barreling toward my Jeep at warp speed dodging several bullets along the way.

             
When I reached my truck I whipped out the keys from my front pocket rapidly hitting the unlock button on my alarm remote. I snatched the door open, leaned inside a little, and opened my glove compartment. The sweet sight of my all black Desert Eagle
equipped with the rubber combat style grip
greeted my eyes. Now, after having multiple bullets fired at me…I could finally return the favor.

             
I wasn’t through running yet, but this time I was running straight for Diego. I was mad a
s
fuck at this point and I had no regard
for my own safety. Even if I got shot, there was no way that was going to stop me from killing this man. So with adrenalin rushing through my veins like a river I dashed in Diego’s direction.

             
My gun was leading the way, while my legs propelled me toward the cowardly sniper. Just as I got a little closer I spotted something that made me slow up just a tad. Sway was standing up stomping the shit out of what I assumed was Diego
.

“Save some for me Sway!” I
happily
jogged toward the one sided fight.

Once I came around the corner and seen firsthand what was going on, I couldn’t stop grinning. A feeling of relief came over me. Diego was curled up in the fetal

position trying to protect himself from Sway’s brutal beating.

“Look atcha now bitch!” Sway shouted down at him.
“Shootin’ at niggas like a fuckin’ postal worker!”

Diego was so focused on me that he failed to see Sway coming up from behind him. It was a classic distraction and flank military style attack that Sway pulled off perfectly.
I watched in amusement as Diego tried to cover his head and face. His normally slicked back hair was strewn all over the place. Super Mexican Diego Alverez was getting his ass whooped like a crack head in a hospital parking lot.

             
I motioned for Sway to stop and took that time to look around making sure we were still alone. Amazingly, with all that happened in the last three minutes not a single person inside took notice. It must have been my lucky night.

             
Diego looked up at me; he had a trickle of blood coming from his bottom lip. A look of pure hatred
catapulted from his pupils landing on my face.

“
Yur lucky I furgot
tu where
my glasses bitch
.” He snorted.

“And here I was thinkin’ you missed on purpose, how silly of me.” I kneeled down on one knee, “You look like you could use a friend right now, how
‘
bout we go get a couple of burritos huh…my treat?”

“
Fuck yu
!
I’ll fucking kill yu
!”

“Yeah that’s what your brother said.” I looked up at Sway, “Throw his ass in the trunk.”

             
Damn life is a trip; you never know what’s going to happen
or
where you might end up. If someone
had
told me I would be living with two women
and
have a man that vowed to kill me tied up in my living room, I would have told them they were crazy.
However,
here I was in that exact situation and that was just fine with me.

             
Angelique, Dallas and Sway were all sitting in the front room looking at the elephant in the room…Diego Alverez. I was stationed across from him snacking on
Skittles
. The sweet candy always helped me process things in my head, ever since I was a kid, as far back as I could remember, I always had a bag of
Skittles
with me whenever a lot of shit was on my mind.

             
It was 2:30 in the morning and everybody was dressed for bed except me, Sway, and of course Diego. Dallas sported extra sexy boy shorts and Angelique chose to rock sweats. As soon as she saw Diego laid out in the living room she immediately went to her room and changed into
jogging pants and tennis shoe. I smiled to myself as she sat there bouncing her leg up and down rapidly. She was trying desperately to control the urge to pounce on Diego like a tiger and bite his head off!

“So this is the man who’s been trying to kill you.” Dallas pointed a lazy finger at him. “This Ricky Ricardo lookin’ ass nigga.”

“
Tell yur bitch tu shut the fuck up
.” Diego turned over on his side.

“No
you
shut the fuck up bitch!” Dallas snapped back.

I cleared my throat, “Dallas baby go get me an iron please.”

When she heard me say that she instantly sprang up from her seat on the couch and trotted away laughing. Moments later, she returned with the item I requested and plugged it into an outlet that was closest to him.

“If you disrespect either one of my women one more time, I’ll let them
tell me where to give you sixth
degree burns with this hot ass iron…comprende?” I popped a red
Skittle
in my mouth.

Diego just glared at me, I could tell he wanted so say something but thought better of it. My eyes said I was telling the truth and he knew it.

“What are you gonna do with him?” Angelique looked at me.

“I haven’t decided yet.” I sighed a little.

“Why not? T
his is the man who
’s trying
to kill you! If you don’t kill him now he’s not gonna stop til you’re dead!” Angelique put her elbows on her knees.

“
She’s absolutely currect
.” Diego sneered at me.
Angelique clapped her hands together. “See, jus’ put a bullet in his head and you and Sway can dump the body, aint nobody gonna miss him!”

Sway cracked his knuckles, “Angelique is right, we should jus’ kill this fool.”

“Yeah, I’m not surprised you and Angelique agree with each other, you two seem to be getting along
real
good these days.”
Dallas crossed her smooth legs one over the other.

I looked at her strangely, “What the fuck are you talkin’ ‘bout?”

Dallas looked at Sway,
and then
she smiled at Angelique. I could tell she was enjoying this whole scene.

“I’m talkin’ about Sway and Angelique
fuckin’
each other behind your back.” She folded her arms across her chest.

Sway
smoothed his hands over his pant leg but remained silent. Angelique on the other hand wasn’t so calm.

“
Bitch
! I told you not to lie on me!” Angelique yelled.

“I know you two are fuckin’ around, and now is the perfect time to bust ya’ll since everyone is here. Tyce needs to know about your hoe ass. He needs to see that the only real woman in this relationship is
me
.”

My hand rubbed the three-day-old hair on my cheeks. This shit was crazy retarded. Here I had my arch
enemy spread out on my floor and ugly
accusations of cheating flying out of
Dallas’s pretty mouth. I always considered myself to be intelligent and a good judge of character. Looking at Dallas, I could tell she believed what she was saying.

“Angelique, go get all your money from the safe.” I spoke to her in a low even tone.

Her hands were shaking with anger as she stood up and quietly walked out the room. Sway watched her the whole time but didn’t say anything to me or her.

Dallas continued, “I heard her on the phone the other d
ay talking to Sway all sexy
, and a friend of mine was at her club the othe
r night and said she saw Sway
in there all hugged up with Angelique
!
Then
she said they went
to a private room
together, they musta had an orgy up in there cuz she was like two other women were in there with them and Sway came out wearing nothing but his boxers! I’m tellin’ you they’re fuckin’ Tyce!”

As Dallas spewed out all the damaging
info
like a star witness, Sway remained quiet.

“
Maybe yur
cock es small and she’s not satisfied
.” Diego chuckled to himself.

“Shut the fuck up before I burn the bottom of

ya feet and make you moon walk around this muth
a
fucka. Don’t think cuz this shit popped up I forgot about you…that would be a mistake on your part.” I pointed to the iron.

Minutes
later Angelique walked back into the living room
carrying a blue duffle bag full of cash. It was all the money she had in the safe we all shared. It amounted to a little over two million.

“Here it is…but I jus’ wanna say that you didn’t even give me a chance too…..”

I cut her off with a
wave of my hand and motioned for her to give me the bag. Angelique looked at me in my eyes.

“How you jus’ gon believe this bitch without hea……”

I cut her off again with a stern expression and a harder wave of my hand.

“I don’t wanna hear it, sit back down
.” I pointed to her old seat.

“Yeah bitch I told you you was gonna get yours.” Dallas nodded her head up and down.

I popped an orange
Skittle
in my mouth and placed the heavy bag stuffed with cash on my lap. I turned a
nd
faced Sway.

“Man the fact that you didn’t get all irate and upset over the accusation, offer up some kinda excuse, or even look at Angelique in any unusual or familiar way, lets me know that it aint true. As far as you’re concerned Angelique, the fact that you were willing to part with two million dollars just because I asked for it let me know that your main concern is me. Trust me babe; no
lying, cheatin’, backstabbin’
ass woman would give the
man she’
s cheatin’
on two million dollars at the drop of a dime. That shit jus’ wouldn’t happen.” I continued. “I believe Dallas heard what she heard and her friend saw what she saw, but I also believe there’s an explanation behind it. But for a person to say
they trust you and then ask
you to explain yourself really means they don’t trust you at all…so I’m not gonna ask either of you for anything, let’s jus’ squash it. I was never one to deal with he say she say shit, I believe what I see…period. Come get your money Angelique.”

“
Yu mean my money
.” Diego looked up at her as she came towards me.

“Naw nigga we stole it fair and square, this is
my
money.”
An
gelique kicked him in his ribs before she lifted the bag from my lap.
“My fault Tyce I’ve been dying to that ever since I seen his punk ass.”

Sway finally spoke, “I’m glad you didn’t let this high school shit come between us, one day we’ll talk more about it cuz I need to let you know wasup with me, but now aint the time for all that, we gotta figure out what to do with Diego, wasup man, how you wanna handle this?”

Dallas
s
hot up from her seat, “
Hold the fuck up
, that’s all you hafta say after what I jus’ told you!?
Angelique is lying
!”
She threw her hands in the air wildly.

“
Bitch you heard him
, now shut the fuck up and sit down!” Angelique turned to face her. “
I’m
the realest bitch in the room and aint shit you can do to stain my status, while you trying to play me you only played yourself. Talkin’ all that shit about me getting put
out, hoe I aint goin’ nowhere!”

Now it was my turn to stand up because this shit was getting out of hand. I couldn’t stand arguing and
bickering between
the women I loved. What the hell went wrong?

“You two need to chill out, I got enough shit to

deal with.
Don’t you see the man we stole millions of dollars from on the fuckin’ floor? Come on now, ya’ll need to kill this shit.”

Dallas narrowed her eyes in anger and bit down hard on her bottom lip.

“I know one thing I’m not killing.” She stared directly at Angelique.

“What’s that?” I eyed her suspiciously.

She put both her hands on her hips, “I’m not killing this
baby
in my stomach.”

The whole room went dead silent. Even Diego wasn’t saying a word, he was looking at Dallas liked the rest of us. All of a
sudden,
I heard a loud thud as Angelique dropped the duffle bag
to the floor. A split second later she charged toward Dallas t
ackling her like a line backer! They both went flying back o
nto the couch cushions sliding the leather sofa back a few feet. Angelique grabbed a fist full of Dallas’s long hair in her left hand while she punched her repeatedly in the face with the right.
Dallas brought her knees to her chest, pressed the bottom of her feet against Angelique’s mid section and pushed with all her strength. Angelique went flying through the air landing on the opposite end of the long couch; she was just about to fall over the edge when I caught her.

“WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOIN’!!!?” I grabbed her shirt collar.

“
Fuck her
!
Fuck her
!” Angelique snatched away from me.

“You better deal with that crazy bitch before I kill her!!” Dallas scooted off the couch and stood up.

Her hair looked like she just woke up from a
three-day
nap.

“I aint gotta deal with this shit!” Angelique stomped over to her bag, jerked it up, and stormed out of the room.

The four remaining people in the room saw the back of her
Oakland
Raiders
sweatshirt as she walked out.

“
Looks like yu got more problems than me
amigo
.
” Diego sat up leaning against the other couch.

I gave him an evil stare, “Your face looks a lil wrinkled…keep talkin’ shit and I’ma smooth it out for ya.”

Diego was really starting to get on my nerves.

Sabrina woke up to a nurse asking her who the president of the United States was?
It took her a minute
to answer the petite Asian woman
but she finally uttered
Barack
Obama
. Next, the nurse asked her what her name was and she answered m
ore quickly, “Sabrina Alverez.”

“Good good, how do you feel?” Nurse Cho touched her thigh gently.

“I feel like shit.” Sabrina answered weakly. “My throat feels like sand paper and it’s sore.”

“That’s because you had a tube down your throat during surgery, I could get you some ice chips for your throat if you
’d
like.”

Sabrina sighed, “That would be great
, thank you.”

“You’re welcome sweetie, I’ll be right back.”

Sabrina was in the recovery room
of the hospital, well, it wasn’t reall
y a room, more like a space
closed off by curtains. She looked at the back of her right hand noticing the IV stem poking out, at the same time she not
iced a slight tingle in her skull
. She felt around her head with her left hand
feeling two bulky bandages in different places. Slowly the memory of what transpired came creeping back into her mind. She remembered standing there with Tyce. She remembered him pushing her to the ground. She saw the image of a giant black bumper coming straight for her face.
Her recollection was a little hazy after that but she could guess what happened next.

The nurse returned with a cup of ice chips, “Here you go sweetie.”

“Thank you, umm can you tell me what

happened to me?”

“Well
,
you were hit and ran over by a
car;
you had multiple head wounds, a collapsed lung,
a broken ankle,
and three badly broken ribs which caused an immense amount of internal bleeding. If it wasn’t for your brother donating his blood you probably wouldn’t have made it.”