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  While we were having lunch Nate called, saying he needed me, so I got the rest of my food to go and told Carmen I had to slide out of there. She understood, told me to call her later, and then we parted ways. But I never did call her. Nate had me cornered in our bedroom and I couldn’t do anything else but cater to his every need. He wasn’t as good as Fatu, but he would do.

  Getting the Shock of My Life

  (Kira Speaks)

  Nikki never returned any of my phone calls. If she wanted to continue playing these stupid-ass games, I could do the same. I mean, damn, I was trying to look out for her silly ass. But if she wanted to end up one dead bitch, then I didn’t care. Now that I thought about it, maybe if she did die, I would be better off. One less drama queen I’d have to worry about, and she’d be out of my hair for good. Sounded cold, but I was just now realizing that this bitch was a thorn in my side, and this town wasn’t big enough for the both of us, so one of us had to go.

  On the third day after my revelation about Fatu, I decided to go down to the shop because I needed to check on some things. It was a Monday evening around six pm, and the salon was closed. I drove around the block twice, just to make sure that Fatu’s car wasn’t parked on a side street. When I felt like the coast was clear, I parked my car and rushed inside the shop. I locked the door behind me and walked around to make sure everything was in place. I sorted through all the mail and grabbed a few things from my back office.

  When I walked back to the service area I heard the doorknob rattling as if someone was trying to get in. I was terrified. And when I saw Fatu’s face through the window, my heart dropped. What was even scarier was that it had just dawned on me that I had given this nigga a key a couple of weeks after I got the locks changed, so my heart crashed into the pit of my stomach. I wanted to run out the back door, but my feet wouldn’t budge. All I could do was stand there in shock and fear and watch Fatu enter the shop.

  “Kira, what’s the matter? Why have you been avoiding me?” he asked as he closed the door behind him.

  I tried to respond, but my mouth wouldn’t move.

  “And what’s up with that message you left me?” He continued to walk toward me.

  I inched away from him, making sure I kept my eye on the baseball bat I kept beside my station.

  “Fatu, a bitch called me and told me you are dealing with her,” I lied, trying to throw him off. I was alone with this man, so I couldn’t let on that I followed him to the house of the woman he had raped and murdered.

  “Who is this woman?” Fatu growled. I could tell he was growing angrier and angrier by the minute.

  “She said her name was Alana.”

  “Kira, you are not telling the truth. I don’t know a woman with such a name.” Fatu frowned. I wondered if he knew that I knew the truth. We were both trying to read each other.

  “Well, that’s what she told me.”

  “When did she call you?”

  “The night I was here working on a client, and you told me you were going to be at work.”

  “She called here?”

  “Yeah, she did. You can ask Rachael. She heard the entire conversation.” My eyes teared up. I hoped that it looked like I was getting upset at the thought that another woman who claimed to be involved with him called and harassed me. But really I was on the verge of crying because I knew my life was at stake, and I could not look that man in the eyes.

  Fatu stood only about three to four inches away from me. “I don’t know who that could’ve been, because I have never cheated on you with another woman. I would die first before I hurt you.”

  “Fatu, I don’t have to lie.” I threw out my usual attitude so he wouldn’t remain suspicious. A look of ease came across his face like he was starting to feel comfortable.

  “Kira, believe me, those were all lies. I wouldn’t dare do such a thing. You are too precious to me. Now, if you are to be my wife, you have to trust me,” Fatu said.

  Hold up! Did this fucking murderer just say the word trust? “Fatu, I wanna trust you.” I acted like I was torn.

  “Listen, meet me at my house tonight. I have something for you,” Fatu said invitingly.

  I was afraid he would ask me to come over. But as scared as I was, there was one last thing I needed from his house before I could put my final plan into motion.

  “OK, I’ll see you tonight. But no sex, Fatu. We have to talk about this other woman,” I demanded.

  “That’s fine, baby,” Fatu relented. He kissed me on my forehead and left me standing in the middle of the salon floor. After he closed the door, I exhaled and thanked God for sparing my life once again.

  When All Else Failed

  (Nikki Speaks)

  I’d been hanging out with Carmen, Xavier, and Nate on a regular basis since all that shit went down with me and Kira. I had to admit that I’d been really enjoying myself. The only thing that freaked me out was that every time I mentioned Neeko’s name, or asked Carmen if she’d heard anything about whether he was involved in the robbery, she always found a way to avoid answering my question. All she would say was, “I told X what you said,” and then she’d change the subject. She did this twice, so I vowed never to ask her about it again.

  Fuck it! I didn’t care what X did to Neeko. At this point in the game, I didn’t even care about the jewelry I lost. To me it was just a drop in the bucket! I’d since replaced it, so I was done with that whole situation.

  Aside from that, Carmen and X were cool! They weren’t your typical couple. They had really competitive natures and since Xavier made a nice chunk of change out there in those streets, they walked around like they were the Russell Simmons and Kimora Lee of the hood. They both had this aura about them that made the whole world think that they were rich, and no one could fuck with them.

  Carmen really made it known that she was the queen around these parts because she craved the attention. Everything she owned had to be ten times better than the next person’s. I didn’t pay her ass any mind, though, because she was just one of those typical chicks who ain’t never had anything. You should have seen the way she rocked her Louis Vuitton bags and her iced-out bracelets. Every time I turned around, she was sporting a different style lace-front wig like she was some kind of celebrity. The jewelry her husband laced her with to replace the stones that were stolen from her at the shop was insane.

  One day I met up with Carmen at her new hair salon off Ewing Drive and decided to take a ride with her out to Lincoln Park, which was a housing project located in the northeast part of Houston. X ran it like it was his very own community. Carmen told me that she had to pick up some money from him. When we pulled up outside the apartment building, X was standing by a telephone pole, talking to a couple of cats. Whatever they were talking about had all of them in an uproar. The closer we came to them, the clearer the conversation became.

  “Come on, now, y’all know that nigga Kobe ain’t got shit on LeBron James! Y’all know LeBron walked all over top of that nigga and made him eat dick when he made that slam dunk.” Xavier demonstrated his words with hand gestures.

  A couple of guys laughed while the others argued with Xavier. Carmen pulled curbside right in the middle of all the laughter and commotion. “Every time I turn around, y’all are always fussing about a game,” she said.

  “Ain’t nobody fussing,” Xavier replied. “I’m trying to school these unknowledgeable niggas about what happened in the game last night.” He leaned into the car and kissed Carmen on the lips.

  “Aww, ain’t that cute!” I commented.

  Carmen giggled and wiped saliva from the corners of her mouth. She held out her hand to X. “You got that for me, right?”

  “How much you need?”

  “Give me what you think I should have.” X went into his pocket and whipped out a stack of hundred-dollar bills. He divided the stack in half, gave Carmen one of the halves, and stuck the other one back into his pocket. Carmen stuck her stack inside her handbag and thanked him.

&nb
sp; “So where y’all going?” X asked.

  “To the mall.”

  “Weren’t you just at the mall two days ago?”

  Carmen sighed. “Yes, I was. But while I was there I saw a couple things that I wanted, so now I’m gonna go back and get ’em.”

  “I hope it ain’t another damn purse. You be killing me with all those damn purses.”

  I chuckled. “Don’t be talking about purses. Purses are like a girl’s best friend.”

  “I thought diamonds were a girl’s best friend?” Xavier asked and smiled.

  “Trust me, they both go hand in hand.” I looked at Carmen for a cosign.

  “She ain’t lying about that,” Carmen agreed.

  The two of them talked for a bit more and then X told Carmen to go ahead and leave. After we pulled off, Carmen told me that X didn’t like it when she stayed out in the projects more than ten minutes. He said the streets weren’t a place for a woman, especially his woman. I took that as a cue to tell her how my life was back in Virginia. I didn’t go into lots of details about my case or the murders, but I did tell her that I was used to hanging out in that type of environment. I even told her about my two ex-boyfriends, Brian and Syncere. Carmen couldn’t believe that I used to live the same exact life she was living.

  “No way!”

  “Whatcha mean by that?”

  “I just thought that you just started fucking with hustlers when you came to H Town. Shit, I didn’t know you had a track record and that you were a veteran at this shit!”

  I smiled with pride. “Well, know you know. And you may not believe this either, but my last two exes had mad dough too.”

  “What kind of dough are you talking about?”

  “I’m talking million dollar status.” I lied a bit.

  “Damn, your men were getting paper like that?”

  “You damn right! I would not have accepted anything less.”

  “So, why did y’all break up?”

  “Well, see, me and Brian fell apart because the feds locked his dumb ass up. And with Syncere, it was a matter of him being so damn violent. He couldn’t keep his fucking hands to himself, so I had to keep it moving.”

  “I would’ve killed his ass first, and then I would’ve jetted on him.”

  “Don’t worry, he got what he deserved.”

  “So, how was Kira living?” Carmen pried.

  I could tell she would have rather talked about Kira instead of me, because Kira was a little more private and she carried herself like she had always lived a glamorous life. I was a little apprehensive about speaking on Kira at first, because I really wasn’t in the mood to big up Kira’s lifestyle. I mean, she wasn’t all that. Then I thought, I can say anything I want, and Carmen won’t know the difference. How can she verify what I’m saying is true? I mean, it ain’t like she and Kira are friends. So I started talking my ass off.

  “Did Kira ever tell you she was married?” I asked.

  Surprised by my question, Carmen said, “Nah, she never mentioned it. So when was the last time you spoke to her?”

  “The day she put me out.”

  “You haven’t spoken to her since then?”

  “Nope.”

  “You know that’s not right!”

  “Girl, please! Kira can kiss my ass!”

  Carmen burst into laughter. “Well, whatever happened to her husband? Where is he now?”

  “He got killed while he was in jail.”

  Even more shocked, Carmen’s mouth fell wide open. “Are you kidding me?”

  “No, I’m dead serious.”

  “What happened? Who killed him?”

  “I was told that an officer on the inside did it.”

  “But how?”

  “Well, what I was told was that Kira’s husband owed some cats a lot of money, and that the only way they were gonna be able to get him was to pay somebody on the inside to clip him. And that’s what they did,” I exaggerated, because all in all, I didn’t want her to know that Kira had his ass set up to be killed by Papi and I knew about it. That would have made me look really grimey, and I could not have that.

  “Oh my God! What did Kira do? I know she must’ve been devastated.”

  “I think she knew it was going to happen,” I continued to lie. “There was a lot of word on the streets before all of it went down.”

  “Wow! That’s deep.” Carmen drove with an expression of disbelief.

  “Trust me, she didn’t shed one tear for his ass! That nigga fucked every stylist that worked for her, and he had three kids on her with three different hood chicks from the projects. So she was glad that nigga was gone. And when she got that big-ass life insurance check in the mail, that made her life even better.”

  “Did they have a lot of money?”

  “Yeah, he was dealing with some heavy weight.”

  “How much you think he was bringing in on a weekly basis?”

  I thought for a moment. “Umm, probably about a couple hundred grand, if not more.”

  “That’s it?” Carmen snorted. “The way you were talking, I thought he was making around about what X be bringing in.”

  “Well, see, I was just guessing because I really don’t know. But I do know that they were living in a half-a-million-dollar home, and they had a lot of money stashed.”

  “What kind of cars were they driving?”

  “Kira was driving an older model Lexus, and Ricky was driving a Benz.”

  “Did she have any furs or mink coats?”

  “Hell yeah! She had a ton of ’em. She had all the hottest Chanel bags, Dior dresses, fur boots, diamonds necklaces, and she even slept on Versace sheets. Ricky made sure she had the flyest shit on the streets. Everybody in Virginia knew them, so they made sure they stayed on point. Bitches around our way couldn’t stand her for nothing in this world. Every time I turned around different hoes would walk up in her shop and disrespect the hell out of her by airing her husband’s business to everyone who was in there, saying that they slept with him and dared Kira to say or do something about it.”

  “What did she do?”

  “Even though I can’t stand the bitch right now, I will be honest and say that she didn’t pay those bitches no mind. She acted like the bigger person, flaunted her big-ass diamonds, and told those hood rats that they could fuck her husband all they wanted, but they would never get his money because she held all the bank account numbers and the combination to the safe. And when she said that, those tramps were sick!”

  “That was cute, but I bet she didn’t have a rock like mine,” Carmen commented as she admired her five-carat, princess-cut diamond ring with twenty-two side baguette-cut diamonds.

  I looked at her ring and thought for a second. “Now, I ain’t gonna lie, your ring is hot! But I think Kira’s ring was a little bit bigger than yours. I remember her telling me her ring was a seven-carat diamond, and that Ricky paid well over fifty grand for it.” The lies kept getting bigger and bigger.

  “I find that hard to believe,” Carmen replied with a snide look on her face.

  “Well, believe it, because money was no object to Ricky, and everybody knew it.” It was obvious that Carmen didn’t like the idea of another woman having it going on better than her.

  I looked out the window and smiled to myself. This bitch was starting to get on my fucking nerves with all this competitive bullshit. It was bad enough that I was competing with Kira, and I wasn’t about to go through the same crap with this ho! Either Carmen was going to have to get a grip, or I was going to find somebody else to hang out with. Better yet, it was time to end this little party real quick and call my boo Nate. At least I didn’t have to worry about him trying to outdo me. If anything, he was going to be trying to build me up. And that was exactly what I needed.

  Walking Into a Death Trap

  (Kira Speaks)

  When I arrived at Fatu’s apartment, the elevator ride that usually calmed me was making me sick. I wanted to bust the glass that surrounded me and run
as fast as I could. The thing that kept me still was thoughts of the millions I could swindle from Fatu. There was no way he would deny me once I laid my cards on the table.

  The elevator stopped and I exited. Fatu had the door cracked and I entered the house. Something felt eerie, like someone was watching me. Then I noticed a note on the table that sat behind the couch.

  KIRA, I HAD TO RUN OUT, BUT I WILL RETURN SOON.

  “Great,” I whispered. Fatu wasn’t home, which meant I would have enough time to find that bloody T-shirt and bounce. That was the only reason I risked coming to his house. I needed blackmail ammunition, and that shirt, which I was sure contained the DNA of one of the murdered women, was just what I needed.

  I wasted no time racing upstairs. I burst into the bedroom and headed straight for Fatu’s closet. Just as I suspected, his maid had not done his laundry yet. She normally washed his things once a week, on Wednesday afternoons, but every now and again she’d do them a day or so earlier if his laundry started to pile too high. The first day I saw the bloody T-shirt in the hamper was on a Thursday, and since today was Monday, there was a really good chance that the shirt would still be at the bottom of the hamper.

  I scrambled through the dirty clothes like a madwoman. I ran across a couple of pairs of his dirty boxer shorts and started to sniff them, but decided against it. The smell of sex would have definitely torn my stomach all to pieces, and I couldn’t afford to be in that state. After sifting through nearly every garment he had, I finally found that stained T-shirt and stuffed it into my handbag. All I had to do now was make it out of there.

  “Baby, you love being in my closet,” Fatu’s voice boomed. I jumped so high, I could’ve jumped out of my skin if it were possible.

  “Baby! I thought you were out. I didn’t hear you come in,” I gasped. Sweat beaded my hairline and my nose.

  “I was.”

  “So what are we about to do now?”

  “Make love to me,” he stated in a very low tone. Fatu was acting very weird, and not only that, he could hardly look me in my eyes.