Wifey 4 Life (10 page)

She snatched her hand from my uncle’s grip, rolling her eyes
and sucking her teeth as she stormed away. “Lucky bitch!” she said, gritting her
teeth.

Both Dré and the other guy sat back with grins on their faces.
They must’ve thought that little fit Kasey was throwing was humorous. I didn’t
think the shit was funny at all. Everybody in here needed their fucking heads blown
off, because none of them was dealing with full decks.

My uncle really shocked me, though. I sat there and racked my
brain trying to figure out why the fuck he was in on this bullshit. I mean, come
on! I had always been taught that blood was thicker than water. So why the fuck
had he set me up? We were family. I was his fucking niece, for God’s sake! Where
was the fucking love? I now realized that he had planned this shit with Tony way
before I came to town. Which explained why he’d pressed the issue for me to come
to the funeral. Now that was some grimy shit!

For the life of me, I couldn’t come up with a logical explanation
for why my uncle would do this to me. He was always like a fucking father to me.
I couldn’t count how many times he’d had my back in situations I couldn’t get out
of. We did drift apart when I got married to Ricky, but we still kept in touch.
I knew he hated the type of man Ricky was, and since I wasn’t about to let go of
my husband at the time, he pretty much took the leash off me and wished me luck.

I guess the straw that broke the camel’s back was when Nikki
got arrested. He didn’t say anything to me at the time, but I knew he was angry.
Nikki’s mother basically talked for the both of them. She hated the whole idea of
Nikki being around me, especially when she found out that Nikki got hooked up with
that Syncere, who turned out to be a psycho, and then he tried to kill Nikki. So
my uncle’s wife never let me live down that one. I don’t know how many times I tried
to convince both of her parents that I had no hand in introducing those two. Nikki
had met him on her own, but they refused to believe that, so I just threw up my
hands and said fuck it.

Then Nikki left town with me so we could start a new life together,
and she ended up being murdered. How fucked-up could that be? I knew it looked like
every time Nikki was around me, bad things happened to her, but really all those
bad things were Nikki’s own fault. Now it looked like I would pay with my life for
all of Nikki’s stupid mistakes.

“I want everyone to leave this room,” my uncle instructed.

And like flunkies, everyone got up from where they were sitting
and walked out of the room. When the room was completely empty, he grabbed one of
the metal chairs that was placed at the table a few feet away and placed it directly
in front of me. He took a seat and faced me. Looking me straight in the eyes, he
said, “You know Nikki was all I had after your grandmother was murdered, right?”

Once again I ignored him.

“You know what, I tried to convince myself that you had nothing
to do with my baby getting murdered, but then I thought about everything you said
to me and the police, and it just didn’t add up. Now that I’ve got you all to myself,
I know you’re gonna tell me what really happened to my daughter.”

I sat there and watched my uncle while he talked to me, and he
displayed no emotions whatsoever. If my eyes were closed, I wouldn’t have known
who the fuck he was. He looked and sounded very sinister. I couldn’t believe he
had these people holding me hostage so he could find out what had really happened
to Nikki. Unfortunately, there was no way I could come clean with him. Telling him
I was with Nikki when she got killed would implicate me. He could then use that
information against me and have my ass put behind bars for being an accessory to
murder. My life would be completely fucked up. Everything I’d built for myself back
in Anguilla would be a waste. My fiancé, the house I bought, my new car, it would
all go up in smoke.

“So what will it be?” he asked, his expression remaining unchanged.
“Uncle Lanier,” I began, my voice barely audible, “I don’t know what happened to
Nikki. She and I lost touch with each other before I left the country.”

Suddenly he wrapped his right hand around my neck and nearly
choked me to death. “That’s a lie!” he roared. The veins in his temple looked like
they were about to pop. I’d never seen my uncle like this before.

Gasping for air and trying to talk at the same time, I begged
him to let me go. I knew he couldn’t understand what I was saying, but he saw the
tears fall from my eyes, so he had to know I was in pain.

He finally released me, but I needed more relief. I wanted to
massage my neck with my hands, but they were still tied behind my back, so I was
left with no other choice but to sit there in excruciating pain as he plotted his
next move.

“Kira, I’m only gonna say this one more time,” he said calmly.
“If you don’t come clean with me about what happened to Nikki, you are really going
to be sorry.”

I thought for a second more after he gave me the ultimatum. I
wondered what he would do to me if I continued to act like I knew nothing about
Nikki’s murder. It was unclear to me what he was capable of doing, but when I thought
about how intense the pressure was when he wrapped his hand around my throat, I
knew he was capable of hurting me. The other thought that popped into my mind was
whether he had any intentions of killing me. He hadn’t made that clear to me at
all, so that was something I needed to know.

“Uncle Lanier, what do you plan on doing to me?” I asked, tears
still falling down my face.

“If you don’t tell me what happened to my daughter, I’m gonna
kill you,” he replied without blinking an eye.

I heard the sincerity in his voice and knew he was as serious
as cancer. But I couldn’t stop wondering how he got this way. I’d known this man
my entire fucking life. He used to remind me about how he changed my fucking diapers
when I was a baby, and now he was sitting in front of me threatening to take my
life.

One part of me believed he was serious, but the other part of
me thought he was bluffing. He was my uncle, my mother’s only brother; we had the
same blood pumping through our veins, so I couldn’t imagine him killing me.

Confused about whether I still had a leg to stand on, I decided
to call his bluff. Telling him that I’d witnessed Nikki’s murder, even though I
didn’t pull the trigger, would be devastating to me. Not only that, but I knew he
wouldn’t understand if I told him that she had turned against me and fucked my fiancé.
She was his baby—the only seed he had. So in his eyes she couldn’t do anything wrong.

Whatever I decided to say, I knew it had to sound convincing.
I took a deep breath and exhaled. Tears fell more rapidly from my eyes. “Uncle Lanier,
I swear on my life, I don’t know who killed—”

Once again he drove his fingers into my neck, even more savagely
than before. He literally sank his fingers deeper and deeper into my flesh.

I began to cough hoarsely as the breath was violently squeezed
from my body. Fear overpowered me. I wanted nothing more than for him to let me
go so I could coax air back into my heaving chest. I knew it would be just another
second before I expired because I started blacking out.

When he realized that I was passing out, his chokehold relaxed,
and he released his hand from my neck. My throat was racked with pain, and I knew
it must look really raw and discolored. Able to breathe again, I gasped for more
oxygen as he stood there and watched.

“You think I’m fucking playing with you? I will fucking kill
you, bitch! Stop playing with me and tell me who killed my fucking daughter!” Through
my watery eyes, I could still see him hovering over me.

As I began to breathe a little more easily, he lunged back and
slammed his fist into the side of my right cheek, drawing blood. “Tell me now!”
he yelled.

“OK. OK.”

Finally getting his attention, he took a step back and crossed
his arms. “I’m listening,” he said.

I tried to collect my thoughts, but everything was all scrambled
up in my mind. Words were jumbled over each other, and I couldn’t think straight.
I looked down to the floor, and then I looked back at him. Something told me that
he knew I knew what really happened to Nikki, and that was why he wasn’t letting
up. It was like he could see right through me. I needed to say something he wanted
to hear.

I looked down at the floor once again and said a silent prayer
asking God for a miracle. I asked Him to deliver me from this situation, and I told
Him I didn’t care how He did it, just as long as it was done. I cried out to Him
through my aching heart, and was hoping He heard me.

I looked back up, and my uncle still stood there, waiting. I
quickly reminded myself that I had to look at this situation from another angle.
I wasn’t dealing with a rational man. He wasn’t the man I grew up with and called
Uncle Lanier. This guy was cut from a different cloth, and he was out for my blood.

Right before I attempted to open my mouth, Kasey ran back into
the room. She said, “Hey, L.L., Dré said hold tight for a minute because the police
are in front of the house fucking with them young boys who sell them red bags.”

My uncle turned around and gave her his full attention. From
my point of view, she couldn’t have come at a better time. I looked to the ceiling
and thanked God. People said He looked out for babies and fools, and they were right.

“How long have they been out there fucking with them?” he asked.

“They just pulled up about three minutes ago.”

“Stay right here and watch her,” he instructed, and then he rushed
off.

I heard him as he hurried down the hallway and up the staircase.
I let out of sigh of relief as his footsteps grew fainter.

Knowing that the police were standing outside gave me the urge
to yell out for help, but then I figured, if I opened my mouth, my uncle would punish
me for it. Not only that, I was unsure of how close they were to the house. It would
be just my luck that they wouldn’t hear me. I knew if I was ever going to get out
of this, it wouldn’t be because the police saved me. That was shit you only saw
on TV.

After Uncle Lanier left, Kasey had a smirk plastered on her face
like she’d seen something amusing. I wanted so badly to ask her what the fuck was
funny, but I didn’t have any strength left in me to open my mouth. I could feel
blood running from my lips and my mouth like a faucet. All I could do was sit there
and pray to walk out of this place alive.

“Damn, homegirl! He really fucked you up!” she commented as she
stood before me, her hands pressed against her hips.

I looked at her, and then I turned my head away. She wasn’t worth
any of the time I had left. My focus had to be on trying to figure out a good-ass
lie to tell my uncle. The shit couldn’t be farfetched, so I went into thinking mode.
But once again, this dumb bitch interrupted me. I started to tell her to get lost,
but that would have been grounds for her to put her hands on me, and I wasn’t in
the mood for that bullshit. I wanted to keep every ounce of energy I had left to
use when my uncle got back.

“Bitch, don’t act like you can’t hear me!” she yelled.

“Kasey, why do you keep taunting me? You see how helpless I am
right now. I don’t have the energy to start a confrontation with you. If you beat
me until I was black and blue, I would just sit here and pray to God that you’d
have mercy on me.”

“Don’t try to make me feel sorry for you. I heard what kind of
chick you were, Ms. Thang. Yeah, L.L. gave us the rundown on you and your husband
Ricky, and how y’all turned y’all backs on Nikki after she got locked up for transporting
y’all shit.” She frowned. “That was some foul shit, if you ask me! Niggas like that
get dealt with when they do that betraying shit!”

Listening to Kasey talk me to death with all that misinformation
gave me a headache to go with the pain I felt in my throat. She made matters worse
when she said that I deserved to be in this situation because a lot of other people
suffered at the hands of me and Ricky. She even went as far as to say that she heard
how vicious Ricky was when he used to run the streets, but when it came to women,
he was soft.

“I remember when my homegirl told me that he tried to get her,”
she said. “She used to bartend at Blakely’s. Every time he walked up in there with
his boys, she told me that he always tried to get her to call him, but she said
she wouldn’t take his number.”

“I’m not surprised,” I replied nonchalantly. At this point Ricky
was dead, so his past life didn’t affect me at all. I couldn’t care less about anything
he used to do. All that shit I went through with him was behind me.

“Oh, so you knew your husband wasn’t shit, huh?”

I didn’t respond. To me it was somewhat rhetorical, especially
if what she said was true. I really didn’t want to entertain her anymore, so I closed
my eyes and laid my head against the back of the chair.

Finally I heard my uncle’s footsteps coming back toward us.
An uneasy feeling crept back into my stomach, and my heart started racing. He was
coming back to finish what he’d started, and I knew he was going to punish me.

My eyes grew every bit of two more inches when I saw him enter
the room. His facial expression hadn’t changed one bit. He looked like he had come
back to take care of business, so I knew I was about to embark on another rocky
experience.

“Kasey, I want you to come ride with me and Dré uptown,” he said.

“Is the police still outside?” she asked him.

“No. They just left.”

“Whatcha gon’ do with her?” she asked him.

“Breon is gonna watch her.”

“A’ight,” she said and left the room.

As soon as Kasey walked out of the room, my uncle walked over
to me. I was literally shaking on the inside and prepared for whatever he was about
to say or do. I looked directly in his eyes. I wanted to burst into tears and beg
him to release me, but I knew that wasn’t about to happen, so I left well enough
alone. I did, however, get up the nerve to ask him what he planned to do with me.