Page 6 of The Prodigy 2: Rise of a Queen

She wasn’t wrong.

I knew that because of the way my daddy treated my mama. He told her everything. Well, almost everything. They cut up, shared their fears, shared their goals, and they talked shop. He never kept my mama on the outside like a lot of niggas do when it comes to business. It was like…her having full access to him was how he honored her.

My wife deserved the same.

“Aight.” I took a deep breath in preparation for what I was about to say. “You remember me telling you I was there when my pops got shot?”

She leaned forward. “…Yes.”

“My mama’s the one that shot him.”

Her head snapped back so fast, I thought she gave herself whiplash. “Are you serious?”

“I wouldn’t lie about no shit like that.”

Her mouth dropped open. “Oh my God. Jakari.”

“I ain’t see her shoot him. I came after the fact.”

She shook her head.

“She called me after she did it,” I explained. “Screamin’ and cryin’ and shit. She didn’t even say what was wrong. She just told me to come home cuz she needed me. Cuz something was wrong with my daddy.”

I left out the fact that I was with Kittora when I took that phone call.

“She calledyou? Why?”

“I don’t know…I mean, she always said it’s because I was the only one she could call. Eris was too young, and Nay…she didn’t trust him. So I was the one she called to handle it.”

“Handle what?”

“Making that shit look like it was something besides what it was.”

“I have so many questions.” She set Nugget on the floor and rubbed her temples. “Why did she shoot him in the first place?”

“He was fuckin’ around on her. Brought one of his hoes to the house. She caught them right in the middle of it. I think she just…snapped.”

“What did you do?”

I hated the way she was looking at me. It was like that first night, after she saw me shoot homeboy. Eyes wide, lips parted, tense. She was nervous.

“I took some shit out the house to make it look like a home invasion robbery. Got rid of the gun. We came up with a story like my mama wasn’t home when it happened. Basic shit.”

“Your dad went along with that?”

“Of course. You think he was gon snitch on his own wife?”

“No, I guess not.” She brought her knees up to her chest and hugged them. “Is that why you moved away?”

“Yeah. That’s part of it. I was just supposed to lay low until the heat was off, but every time I called and asked to come home, they both told me to wait.”

I could tell she was trying to process everything, and it wasn’t making sense to her. And why would it? Nothing about that shit was normal.

“Why didn’t they want you home?”

I thought that over for a minute. “I feel like my daddy couldn’t look me in the eye after that. My mama…I don’t know. I guess she was trying to keep me from having to deal with all of it. After a while, I stopped asking.”

“That’s fucked up.”

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