Cisero Page 8

  “Let me the fuck go.”

  He grinned wickedly. “Yes, fight me. That shit makes my dick hard,” he growled.

  Ignoring his words, I still had possession of the knife I reached back and shoved it in his upper thigh, gaining myself a short reprieve, he went to one knee but managed to grab my arm and snatch me back, I fell on my ass and bounced. Scrambled up on my knees. Somehow, he made it up before me. He stepped in front of me, fisted my hair, and then used it to pull me up from the ground. My scalped burned. I cried out. It felt like he was pulling it from the root.

  “Feisty. I like it.” I realized this was some sick sex foreplay for him. My heart sped up. “Do you fight them before they fuck you?”

  “Fuck you!” I managed to swipe him with my long nail across the face. He shoved me, then back handed me so hard my head swam. My mouth filled with the taste of copper. I sagged towards the floor. I had never been hit that hard in my life. I ended up on bended knee. He circled behind me and again he grabbed my hair, this time from behind and used it to pull me backwards onto the ground. My back hit the tiled floor so hard I was sure my lungs deflated. I couldn’t scream, couldn’t breathe. It got even harder when he got on top of me. He ripped my shirt further. Nausea rose, I could feel the bile burning the back of my throat. He was speaking, but I couldn’t make out what he was saying. The ringing in my ears was too loud. Roughly he grabbed my breast, leaned down and bit into the nipple. I bucked from the pain. He palmed my face and slammed my head back into the tiled floor. My ears rang louder. He started trying to unbutton my jeans. Then suddenly, I was able to breathe again. His weight was being lifted off of me.

  I scrambled up on my knees, air returning to my lungs, I prepared myself to fight. I finally looked up and found Michael pressed against the wall. The knife I put in his shoulder was protruding from his stomach. I expected to see Gabriel, but it was Cisero who had him by the throat. Both his meaty hands squeezing, Michael was turning blue. I still couldn’t hear, and my vision was blurry.

  I tried to stand still but wobbled. I was falling when Gabriel scooped me up. I didn’t even have to see him to know it was him. The bile I was trying to swallow rose in my throat, lurched forward. I threw up all over myself and Gabriel. I remember coming awake with bright lights shining in my face. Cisero’s face came out of nowhere, blocking them out.

  My throat was so dry, it hurt to talk, but all I could think about was being with Lovie. My phone was the closest I could get to her. I needed it.

  “My phone?” I croaked.

  I felt it seconds later being pressed into my hand. I was numb, but also hurt, though I wasn’t sure it was physical pain. I just wanted to sleep.

  “I killed him for you.” I heard Cisero whisper against my ear.

  He smelled like coffee and cheap soap. I found that odd for some reason and it stayed on my mind until everything went black again.

  Epilogue.

  Four months later

  I paced back and forth in the small dressing room. Wondering what Justice response to seeing me was going to be. She had snuck out of the hospital a few nights after the incident, leaving only a note behind asking us to leave her alone for at least a year. I made it 4 months. That was as long as it took me to get my affairs in order once my father’s estate was turned over to me.

  “You’re nervous. Why?” Cisero asked lifting a thick brow. He sat across from me on the sofa.

  Of course, I was fucking nervous.

  Frustrated I fisted my hand at my side.

  “Stop talking to me, Cisero.”

  I hadn’t even wanted him to come. I was still trying to get use to him being around. He kept buzzing around like he thought I would kill myself or something. I allowed him because for the first time when he was needed, he’d stepped up. He had saved Justice. We weren’t best buddies or anything, but our relationship was better than it had been in years.

  The door banged open; music flooded in. Justice was grinning, fanning herself with two one hundred-dollar bills when she walked in. “You know just because you pay him to let you back here doesn’t mean he isn’t going to tell me you’re back here. He also gives me half.” My knees almost buckled at the sight of her rounded belly. My eyes got stuck there. I couldn’t speak.

  “Husband. Summertime.” Her voice was full of affection as she smiled at both of us.

  I could tell by how loud she was and by her movements that she was in manic state, which meant she wasn’t taking her meds. I didn’t care, we’d figure it out later.

  . She came over. Rose up on her tippy toes and kissed me on the mouth, slid the money into the breast pocket of my dress shirt, then she made her way over to Cisero who was grinning from ear to ear. She hugged him and he whispered something in her ear.

  “Still don’t like you, but I do love you, like a brother,” she responded to whatever he said.

  She came back over and snapped in my face. “Are you okay? I hope you’re not still dwelling on what happened months ago. All is well. All is forgiven. Thank Lovie for that.”

  They called her name to come back to the stage.

  I found my voice. “You kept it?” I asked the obvious question.

  “Not it, her. I kept her. Mostly because Lovie said she’d refuse to talk to me if I didn’t and I was kind of attached to her already.” She rubbed her belly. “I think a baby will get her out of the house too or she’ll allow me to come visit if I bring her. But I can’t talk right now. I have a set to finish and when I come back you can drive me home and we’ll figure out how you can fit all of you and your issues into my little two bedroom house, because I’m not moving.” She said, then she fluttered out of the room. Diaries Bread started playing.

  “She seems well.”

  Cisero broke me out of the haze I was in. I ran her words back in my head. Then realized what she said. A smile tugged at my lips.

  “I guess I’m moving.” I spoke absentmindedly.

  “I guess you’re moving.”

  I started making plans in my head that Cisero interrupted.

  “Big brother, not to rain on your parade. But what happens when your child is walking and talking and thinking and ask to speak to her beloved aunt, then Justice gives her a broken, long disconnected phone and tells her to text a sister that’s been dead since she was fifteen?”

  Justice had woken up in the hospital and said a police officer told her, her sister had gone to live with her real father in California. The police hadn’t even gotten a chance to speak to her. She’d dreamt or imagined it all. No matter what anyone told her, she wouldn’t believe that her sister was gone. The doctors wanted to put her in a facility. Charles said no. Then he arranged for her to come live with us. I can recall watching her from the stairs as she walked into our home looking lost. She was so beautiful, but her eyes were dead. I wanted to fix her.

  She cried and had nightmares for a week straight, only stopping when Cisero would sleep with her. I was jealous and wanted to help her, too, so I came up with the phone idea. I texted her as her sister. I told her I was okay a few times and it seemed to work. She acted normal. Charles found out what I had done and disconnected the phone, but Justice kept talking to her sister. Cisero and I went with it and would threaten anybody who found out if they even thought about saying something to her. A few incidents happened where someone showed her an article that proved her sister was indeed dead and she freaked the fuck out, violently. Then a few days later the delusion would begin again.

  Meredith insisted that she see someone if she wanted to continue to live with us. Even after being given meds for hallucinations, , PTSD and anxiety by her therapist, she continued to imagine she was talking to her sister on that phone.

  I shook the memory away and cut my eyes to Cisero. “I really don’t know.”

  I would figure it out in time. If she was willing to stick by me knowing all that I was, I was willing to stick by her. I woke up feeling heavy, everything felt surreal, like I was in haze.

  Cisero
.

  I turned my head away from the light that was shining impossibly bright in my face. Turning away didn’t help. It was too big, like the sun was shining directly on me. I threw my left arm over my eyes, blocking most of it out. I tried to go back to sleep when suddenly the realization that something was not right hit me like a punch to the stomach. I wasn’t in a familiar place. My surroundings felt different. Smelled different. The bed I was in was softer than my own and smaller. I went to sit up but couldn’t. I heard the clinking of metal before I felt it bite into my skin. What in the fuck? I tried to move my right arm again, I couldn’t. That’s when I knew for sure I’d been handcuffed. I tried to move my legs, and those too were restricted. My heart sped up. But there was no panic or fear. Why wasn’t I panicking? I felt heavy, everything felt surreal— like I was in haze.

  I tried to recall something that would explain why I was handcuffed to a bed, but no new memories came. The last thing I clearly remembered was dancing with Justice at my niece’s, LaLa’s first birthday party. They both had looked so beautiful dressed in all white. Smiling. LaLa was the splitting image of her mother, but with vibrant blue and hazel eyes.

  “Summertime, you’re awake.” A chill ran down my spine. Only Justice called me, Summertime, but I knew Justice voice as well as I knew my own and the person who had spoken was not Justice. Though she sounded close enough. Like Justice, but without the southern twang. Just as melodic as Justice, though. I knew she’d be able to sing too.

  I Lifted then snatched my head toward said voice. About twenty feet away stood a woman that looked so much like Justice that it was unnerving. There were a few differences. Her skin was lighter, her body wider and instead of long flowing curls, Almost Justice had her hair shaved on the sides and the top was a mop of short, soft looking curls. They had the same sad eyes, though. I was so confused I just stared at her while she stared back at me, with a goofy grin on her face, as if she was in awe of me. “Who are you?” I made myself ask.

  “I’m Lovie,” she replied with a big bright smile. That was the only thing about her that didn’t remind me of Justice, at all. Justice didn’t smile as big or as bright. Justice smile didn’t make my heart ache.

  “I’m sure Justice has told you all about me, though we never had the pleasure of actually meeting.”

  I laughed. I would kick Gabriel’s ass for playing with me. This was obviously a prank.

  “Lovie’s dead.”

  “No. I’m not.” Fake Justice raised her arms and spun for me, childlike. “Though daddy tried to kill us, it didn’t take.” She pulled her gown down to expose a bullet wound right over her heart. “An inch to the right and I’d be as dead as you claim I am.”

  Huh?

  I blinked hard, then closed my eyes.

  I had to be dreaming or high. Maybe that’s why I couldn’t feel regular emotions.

  “You’re not dreaming. You might be high. The drugs are still in your system.”

  I hadn’t even realized I’d spoken out loud.

  “Drugs?”

  She nodded. “Yes, the drugs I gave you. Well, I didn’t physically give them to you” She said it in a tone that implied she thought I was stupid for asking her.

  “How?“

  “Why?”

  She made her way over and stood at the foot of the bed. She was beautiful and I couldn’t help but notice her thick nipples pressing against the fabric of white night gown. My head swam.

  “When you left the party, you were pretty smashed, so you probably don’t remember her, but the girl you left with, Angela. I paid her to inject you and bring you here.”

  “Why would you do that?”

  She shrugged. “I want a baby and since you’re the only man I ever loved; I want you to give it to me.” She smiled and pulled her grown over her head.