Wifey, Part 1 Read online

  Wifey:

  From Mistress to Wifey

  Erica Hilton

  This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  Wifey: From Mistress to Wifey. Copyright © 2011 by Melodrama Publishing. All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. For information, address Melodrama Publishing, P.O. Box 522, Bellport, NY 11713.

  www.melodramapublishing.com

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2011927238

  ISBN-13: 978-1934157466

  ISBN-10: 1934157465

  First Edition: November 2011

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  Interior Design: Candace K. Cottrell

  Cover Design: Marion Designs

  CHAPTER 1

  Jasmine

  It was one in the morning on a Friday, and I had been sitting in Shabazz’s condo since ten o’clock that night. I was bored and broke, a combination that always turned me into a brat and a bitch. What made matters worse was, Shabazz wasn’t picking up his phone nor returning any of my text messages, so I didn’t know what the fuck was going on.

  I did know, though, that I was getting tired of his bullshit and his disrespect. I was tired of playing with my pussy and watching movies by myself and falling asleep while waiting on his ass to come home from running the streets. I knew Shabazz was going to come home wanting to fuck, and then after we fucked, he was going to have a new excuse about why his money wasn’t right. And, more than anything, I was way past tired of hearing why his paper was fucked up.

  When I heard the keys jangling in the lock, I put the remote control down, stood up from off the couch, and walked toward the front door, where I stood with my bare feet, wearing my pink wife-beater and my black leggings. I had my hands on my hips, in a defiant position. I was ready for war, ready to confront Shabazz and have him explain to me why he couldn’t at least return a fucking text message.

  I shouted at Shabazz as soon as he pushed open the door, “Can you tell me why the fuck”—I paused in the middle of my yelling, and my mouth fell open. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing.

  Shabazz hobbled into the living room, his hands, his shirt, his pants, and his sneakers all covered in blood.

  “Oh my God! Baby, what happened? What happened to you?” I asked, panicking as my heart pounded through my chest.

  “Them LeFrak niggas killed Skeen!” Shabazz was hyperventilating as he spoke. He stripped down to his underwear as quickly as he could.

  “Are you serious? Did you get hurt? What happened? They shot you?” I tried my best to see if I could tell where the blood was coming from.

  Shabazz dropped to one knee, wincing in pain.

  “Nah, but I think I broke my muthafuckin’ ankle!” he said and yelled out in pain. In frustration he punched his living room floor three times and left a bloodstain on the white oak hardwood floors in the process.

  At that point Shabazz’s phone started to vibrate, but he didn’t pick it up.

  “Baby, just chill and try to relax. I’ll take care of you.” I ran off to the bathroom and grabbed some towels and hydrogen peroxide. By the time I came back to the living room, Shabazz was on his feet and limping toward his bedroom.

  “Baby, what are you doing? I told you to just chill! Look at your leg!”

  “Jasmine, I gotta get dressed. We gotta get the fuck up out of here! I don’t know what’s up, but something ain’t right. I can feel it. It’s like niggas set us up or something.”

  “Shabazz, calm down! Look at your leg. Just sit for a minute and let me clean that out first.”

  Shabazz turned his head and saw the gash in the back of his thigh. He shook his head, his lips curled in anger. “I got grazed and didn’t even feel that shit!”

  “This won’t burn, but it’ll help clean it out so that it won’t get infected.” I poured peroxide onto one of the towels and then applied it to the gash.

  Although Shabazz was wincing in pain, I could tell that he was finally starting to calm down. But, at the same time, he was still very much on edge and kept saying that we had to hurry up and leave his condo.

  “You wasn’t answering your phone or your texts or nothing. I mean, I see why now, but oh my God! What the hell happened? Tell me everything. You scared the shit out of me, coming in here covered with blood like that!”

  “My ankle is killing me.”

  At that moment his phone began vibrating, and it seemed like it wouldn’t stop.

  “You not gonna answer your phone?”

  Shabazz looked at me, but he ignored me. I had him sit down on the couch, and then I went and got a bucket and filled it with water and ice so he could soak his foot and his ankle in it. After a few minutes of having his foot in the ice water, he finally began to tell me what had happened.

  “We was out in Pomonock all day, and around nine o’clock, I hit up Skeen and told him to come through with the re-up. He was in Brownsville when I hit him up, so he didn’t get to Queens until after eleven. So when he gets to the building, he called me, and I came down and met him outside in front of his truck, and we both walk back into the building together. But when we get into the lobby, I see this nigga name Brandon from LeFrak posted up on the wall near the elevators, and he’s like, ‘Yo, Skeen, you know what this is,’ and he pulls out the ratchet and aimed that shit at us.”

  “What did Skeen do?”

  “Skeen looked at me like, ‘What the fuck!’ I knew by his look that he wasn’t strapped, so I ain’t even hesitate. I pulled out my burner and I go to let off, but my shit jammed.”

  “What?” I asked in disbelief.

  “Exactly. So I’m like, ‘Ahhh, fuck!’ and I start backing up to get the fuck out of Dodge. I was still tryin’ to fire, but the shit just locked up on me. Then Money just starts letting off at me and Skeen—Blaow blaow blaow blaow!—and the gun blasts is echoing and ricocheting and shit, like crazy, in the lobby. So I dip around to the other side of the elevators, made it into the stairwell, and ran up like three flights. And the whole time, I’m trying to fire my shit to un-jam it, and it finally fires.

  “As soon as I knew it was firing, I was straight. I ran back down the three flights and I tripped. That’s when I fucked up my ankle. By the time I get back to the lobby, I see Skeen laid out in front of the elevators, bleeding crazy, and he was barely moving but his eyes was open. By that time Brandon and his punk ass was gone, and people started flooding into the lobby to see what happened.

  “I picked Skeen up and he was spitting up blood, and he had that look like he knew he was about to die. I carried him to my truck and put him inside, and I fly to Jamaica Hospital. When I got there, I grabbed a wheelchair and I pulled him out of my truck and put him in the wheelchair. Then I wheeled him in, and I just left him in the lobby of the emergency room, and I bounced.”

  “You bounced?” I asked, not fully understanding why.

  “Yeah, I had to. With my probation, my ass would be locked up. I couldn’t take the chance.”

  “Y’all had beef with this dude or something?” I asked.

  “Nah, I mean he’s from LeFrak, and LeFrak niggas always bump heads with Pomonock niggas, so that’s nothing. But he probably watched how we move and he caught us slippin’.” Shabazz shook his head.

  “So it was just a stickup?”

  “Yeah, whatever. I mean, I don’t know. H
e got the re-up, so it seems like a stickup. But, at the same time, that shit seemed like a setup.”

  At that point his phone began vibrating again. And when it stopped, it started again. It seemed like it wasn’t going to stop vibrating until he answered it.

  “This muthafucka Nico! I don’t wanna hear this nigga’s bullshit.” Shabazz reluctantly answered the phone. “Yo!” he shouted into the phone after putting it on speaker mode. His hands still had dried-up blood on them, and I figured he didn’t want to get the blood on the phone.

  I nursed his ankle while he spoke.

  “Shabazz, you a’ight? Where’s Skeen? Niggas been blowing up my phone telling me y’all got shot. What the fuck happened?”

  “I don’t wanna talk on the phone. Where you at? I’ll come through.”

  “Don’t worry about where I’m at! What the fuck happened to Skeen?” Nico barked through the phone.

  “I dropped the nigga at Jamaica Hospital. He ain’t make it, though. I could tell he was gone before we even made it there.”

  Nico was quiet, and I could just sense his anger through his silence.

  Shabazz spoke up. “Skeen came through on a re-up, and Brandon caught us slippin’,” he explained.

  “Nah, the nigga caught YOU slippin’, homie! All I know right now is Brandon is s till breathing, you still breathing, and Skeen ain’t breathing and my product is missing. What the fuck is wrong with that equation?”

  “I put it on everything, my gun jammed on me, and that’s the only reason he let off on us like that.”

  “Shabazz, you fuckin’ up, my nigga! Skeen’s uncle is coming home in two days, and now how the fuck I’m gonna tell him some shit like his nephew just got murdered?”

  Shabazz and Nico both were quiet.

  “If your shit jammed and you a real G, then you take a fuckin’ bullet! That’s how you was supposed to get down. But, from what I hear, niggas is telling me that yo’ ass ran like a bitch and left Skeen.”

  Shabazz took the phone off speaker and put it to his ear and began talking.“That’s not how it went down,” he replied.

  I couldn’t really hear what Nico was saying, but I definitely could tell that he was barking on Shabazz.

  “A’ight, yeah. A’ight, I’ll be there. No doubt,” Shabazz said before ending the call with Nico.

  Shabazz didn’t immediately say anything to me, and I didn’t say anything to him. The vibe in the room felt similar to the awkwardness of seeing your friend getting screamed on by one of their parents.

  Shabazz tossed his phone across the room.

  I watched it bounce off the floor. “Don’t stress out, baby,” I said as I continued to nurse his ankle.

  I did my best to front and to be a voice of encouragement, but all I could think about was what a difference six months made. Six months ago when I had first met Shabazz, I was feeling him from the moment I saw him. He had a bald head, his goatee was perfectly trimmed, and he had the whitest teeth I had ever seen. And his white teeth complemented his smooth, dark skin perfectly. Shabazz was pushing an all-black Spyker SUV, his swagger was on a thousand, and from day one it seemed like we fucked each other twice a day every day like two rabbits in heat.

  It was all good because it wasn’t like I was letting him fuck for free. Shabazz would trick off on me, and he always made sure that I wanted for nothing. But recently that all started to change, and in the last month or so, it seemed like his money, his swagger, and his street cred were all starting to quickly dry up.

  Shabazz ran both of his hands down his face. I could see that he was in physical pain and that he was also feeling punked, stressed, and anguished, all at the same time. There was no way at that moment that I could possibly bring up the fact that I was broke and needed some cash. I needed tuition money, car insurance money, clothes money, and spending money.

  I knew I needed to rethink this situation. Perhaps it was time to start looking for a new sponsor.

  CHAPTER 2

  Nico

  Two days after Skeen was killed, his uncle Bebo came home from prison after doing seven years in Club Fed on a conspiracy charge. But years before going to jail, Bebo had started a Brooklyn-based drug crew that he called “Ghetto Mafia.”

  Back when he’d first started Ghetto Mafia, I was a teenage low-level, hand-to-hand drug dealer in the organization, but I eventually worked my way up to a crew chief and then to a lieutenant. Ultimately, I became Bebo’s right-hand man and the number-two person in the organization. And when Bebo got locked up seven years ago, I took over the head position and had been holding it down ever since.

  If I’m being real, I can say that Bebo didn’t know what the fuck he was doing before he went to prison and that’s why he got locked up. I mean, he was street-smart, and he had more heart than anybody that I had ever met. The only problem was, Bebo never had the business smarts that he needed to mix with his street smarts. Me, on the other hand, I had the heart, the street smarts, and the business mind to match.

  When Bebo got locked up, we was controlling most of Queens and half of Brooklyn, but now, seven years later, we ran the New York City drug game, moving heroin, cocaine, and marijuana in ten different states on the East Coast and three states in the Midwest. When I took over the organization, we went from grossing 8 million a year to now grossing 1.5 million a month.

  With the money we were making, it was nothing for me to make sure that Bebo came home to a brand-new Bentley coupe that was parked and waiting for him in front of Touch nightclub on 52nd Street in Manhattan, which was where I’d decided to throw his homecoming party.

  It was around nine-thirty at night when I arrived at Touch with my fiancé Mia, and my swagger was heightened. My driver opened our door, and we stepped out of our Maybach Landaulet in style. I was wearing a $4,000 tailored suit that I had custom made specifically for this party. Mia was wearing a form-fitting black-and-silver Gucci cocktail dress that showed off her ass. And she wore it with high heels that showed off her toned caramel legs.

  As we exited our car and made our way past the line that snaked down the block from the front door of the club, Mia and I looked like New York royalty and the ultimate power couple.

  With my hand firmly on the small of Mia’s back, I ushered her into the party, avoiding any pictures.

  “Nico, what’s good?” one of the bouncers said to me as he removed the velvet rope to let me and Mia go inside.

  I gave the bouncer a pound, and I told him to make sure that he escorted Bebo, as soon as he arrived, directly to area we’d be lounging in.

  “As soon as Bebo gets here, make sure you let him know we got them bottles on deck for him in the back.”

  “No doubt,” he replied.

  “Hey yo, make shit feel like the fucking President is walking up in this muthafucka when he arrives. You feel me, my nigga?”

  “I gotchu,” the bouncer reassured me.

  I quickly looked around to see if I saw any dudes who looked like they were on some jealous-hating shit, but from what I could see, everybody looked like they were there to party in peace.

  “This is a real sexy spot, baby,” Mia said to me as she held on to my arm and we made our way fully into the spot.

  DJ Pro Styles was doing the music, and although it was still early and the spot wasn’t fully packed yet, I knew it was going to be a good night. Pro Styles had everybody that wasn’t at the bar out on the dance floor enjoying the music, and the energy in the spot was perfect.

  Before long, different members of Ghetto Mafia started arriving, and we all made our way over to a private area that I had reserved specifically for Bebo’s arrival. When he arrived, I wanted him to feel the respect, and the unity and the love. Mia mingled with the wives and girlfriends of the other Bebo members, and I made sure that nobody popped any bottles until Bebo arrived.

 
We didn’t have to wait too long because about a half an hour later Bebo arrived in the private lounge area that we had set up. He was with ten other dudes; two of them I had never seen before.

  “My muthafuckin’ nigga! Welcome home, my dude!” I said into Bebo’s ear after giving him a pound and what seemed like a two-minute-long ghetto embrace.

  Bebo grinned. “You did my shit up right!”

  “We just getting started. You know how I do!” I replied. I then introduced Mia to Bebo, whom she had never met in person.

  “I finally get to meet you. Nico talks about you like you his blood brother, so I feel like I already know you.” Mia smiled her perfect smile, gently shaking Bebo’s hand.

  “This is my brother right here!” Bebo replied to Mia and gave me another pound. “I got so many wild stories I could tell you about this nigga right here!” He laughed.

  Before I could blink, Bebo was surrounded by everybody coming up to him and showing him love.

  “Nico, I wanna build witchu, give me a minute though,” Bebo said to me.

  I nodded my head in response.

  Mia then commented to me how Bebo was much shorter than she had envisioned him being.

  I didn’t reply to Mia directly and told her, “Be right back.” I had to go check on something with the promoter. Mia chilled and continued to mingle with everybody, and I walked off to try and find out what was up with the stripper chicks I had hired to be with Bebo for the night.

  While I eased my way to the front of the club trying to find the promoter, I bumped into Shabazz. He had a bad-ass thick chick on his arm, and he was also with a drug dealer in our organization from Pomonock named Poota.

  “Ohhh shit! What up! What’s good! My nigga Nico in the muthafuckin’ house!” Shabazz said to me. The music was loud, and he had to raise his voice over the music, but he was being extra loud and unusually animated as he held out his hand for a pound.

  I gave Shabazz a pound and a quick embrace. He reeked of liquor and weed. Right at that moment my short fuse was blown, but I maintained and didn’t check him immediately.