Page 46 of Rhodes to Love

“Okay. How are you feeling besides emotionally heavy? Do you need help?”

“I’m okay, baby. Handle your business. I’m glad they caught him, but I hate it was your friend.”

“Yeah, me too. I’ll be up there as soon as I’m done.”

“Okay.”

Right when I was about to call Ali, he was FaceTiming me. I picked up and saw Percy’s punk ass. He had a bit of blood in the corner of his mouth and his jaw was swole the fuck up. When he saw me, he said, “Man, I ain’t got shit?—”

“Shut the fuck up. If you were just visiting, I would have known you were coming. If you here, then you got everything to do with everything.”

Ali brought the phone to his face. “Ryan is having a sit down with Trouble tomorrow. He got him to meet with him in L.A. Shawn and a nigga named Nathaniel are going with him but will stay hidden just in case there’s any funny business. This nigga here is working directly for Trouble.”

“Well, I appreciate y’all taking care of it,” I said, insinuating for them to permanently shut Percy’s punk ass up.

“Got’chu. Talk to you tomorrow evening. Hopefully, the talk goes well, and you will be in the clear.”

“Thanks, man. I owe y’all big time.”

“Mm-hmm. A time will come where you will pay us back in full.”

He chuckled, and I did as well. “I look forward to it. Talk to you tomorrow evening. Hopefully, this will all be over with.”

“Yep. He got his payment already… three years ago. This should be done.”

I nodded. “Thanks, bruh.”

He gave me a head nod then ended the call. After taking a deep breath, feeling some relief, I headed upstairs to check on my baby. It had been an extremely rough day. Shit, it had been a rough few days. She had a lot on her plate trying to see after everybody. I didn’t know how she was able to do that. I would get sick of hearing everybody’s shit.

When I walked into the room, I could hear she was on the phone. Somebody was on the phone yelling, and I could hear my baby crying.Shit.

“She fucked up! I do my fair share of dirt and did a lot of that shit when I was young too, but she took the shit too far! I didn’t raise her that way, Rima! I was pissed before now, but my daddy is dead partly because of her ratchet ass bullshit! Those muthafuckas wouldn’t have been in on that had she not pissed those niggas off! Fuck! This shit hurts so bad, Rima!”

“Aunt Tiff, where’s Uncle Ryder?”

“He went to go see about her ass! He can stay at your place with her! She’s spoiled, and she needs to be on her own if she wanna pull shit like she did. She can’t be hanging around me, because she proved to me that shit ain’t safe.”

“You’re angry and hurt right now. Wait until you calm down.”

“Fuck that! I ain’t gon’ ever calm down about those muthafuckas killing my daddy! You may as well get used to her being in your spot, because she can’t come back here, and she sure in the hell can’t work in the office with me no more. I can’t stand to look at her ass!”

As I stood there watching the tears fall down my baby’s face, my heart sank to my feet. This was too much on her. She took her phone and threw it at the wall. She was so damn angry. I went to her and scooped her up in my arms and grabbed her purse from the dresser. She laid on my shoulder and cried her eyes out.

When we got to the bottom, I lowered her to her feet and helped her slide on her Crocs. “Where are we going, Rhodes?” she asked softly.

“I’m just getting you away for a little while. Your dad has my number. If they need to get in contact with you, he knows how to reach me. I need to get you away from everything for a couple of days. Okay?”

“Okay.”

I grabbed a pair of jeans, socks, and my Forces from the washroom and put them all on. After grabbing my wallet, keys, and phone, I led her out to my garage and pulled the cover off my Range Rover SV Carmel Edition. Her eyes widened. We’d never ridden in it, because there was no reason to. Once I helped her inside, I walked around the vehicle and got inside with her.

“You need this, baby. I’m so sorry for everything that’s going on, but you are my main priority… you and my baby. I can tell that all this shit is stressing you the fuck out. I refuse to allow that.”

I gently caressed her cheek then called my aunt to let her know we were going out of town for a little bit and peeled out to refresh my baby’s spirit.

CHAPTER19

KARIMA

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