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  “Hand me over my fuckin’ daughter,” he said.

  I pushed the little bitch in his direction and she fell. As soon as she got up, she ran toward him and I could hear Chantel driving the car in our direction. He picked her up and ran toward the bleachers.

  As soon as I turned to make a run for the car, I heard guns blazing in my direction. I was trying to manage running with this big ass bag and the shit seemed damn near impossible. From the sound of it, it had to be more than one gun that was shooting at me.

  “POW! POW! POW!” Gun shots rang out in the night air, and my only motivation at this point was the million dollars that I was carrying on my shoulders.

  I was ducking bullets left to right, and as soon as my hand touched the passenger door to get in, a bullet tore through my right shoulder, causing me to drop my gun.

  POW! Another bullet hit me. This time in the back of my right thigh.

  “Goooo! Gooo now!!!” I screamed, as soon as I had the door closed.

  Chantel took off from off the baseball field and made it back towards the parking lot. She quickly got us out of there. I looked back and Quan was busting his gun along with two other niggas. That’s why it felt like more than one nigga was shooting at me.

  “Fuccckkkk!!” I screamed, as I held my shoulder in pain.

  That shit burned like a motha fucka. While I was running, all of my adrenaline was pumping, so I didn’t feel when the bullet pierced my skin, but now I was feeling every damn thing and that shit hurt like a bitch.

  “Which way do you want me to go?” Chantel asked once the gun fire had ceased.

  “Just keep going straight. I want to get at least twenty miles away, so we can get to a motel or something,” I said.

  “What about your shoulder? You’re going to bleed to death,” she told me.

  I grunted and waved her off.

  “We can’t stay in the area, man. Ain’t no telling where these niggas at.”

  After driving around for about two hours, we made our way to Naples, Florida. I had a spare shirt in the back of the car, so I went and tied it around my shoulder and another one on my thigh. I was still in pain, but not nearly as much as I was in before. We pulled up to a motel called Sea Shell motel and Chantel parked the car.

  “Reach in that duffle bag and take out a hundred. Go pay for us a room,” I said.

  She took a hundred-dollar bill out and exited the car. Again, the thought of leaving her ass ran through my mind, but I knew it was no way that I would be able to get around with my shoulder fucked up like this. As she was inside handling the reservations and shit, I opened the bag and scanned through the money with a big smile on my face. It was dark inside the car, but I could still see the amount of hundred-dollar bills that lay neatly wrapped inside the bag.

  I closed the bag back up and watched as Chantel came back to the car with a pissed off look on her face. I wondered what the fuck her problem was. I also noticed that she still had the same hundred-dollar bill in her hand that she left out of the car with.

  She opened the car door, got in and slammed it. Throwing her head back on the head rest, she let out a pissed off sigh.

  “What the fuck is wrong with you, girl? Did you get the room or what?” I asked her, not in the mood for her fuckin’ mood swings.

  “He fuckin’ played us, Tracy,” she said, never turning her head to look in my direction.

  “Fuck you mean he played us? The fuckin’ money is right here! What are you talking about?” I asked her.

  “Yeah, the money is right here, but it’s fuckin fake,” she snapped.

  I reached up with my good shoulder and turned the light on in the car.

  “I went inside, and when it was time to pay, they wouldn’t take the hundred-dollar bill because they said that it wasn’t legit. He did all the fuckin’ tricks to find out if the shit was legit or not. He looked for the holograph of the face on the bill, the watermark, and the security thread. The shit is fake, Tracy, because I did the shit myself after him,” Chantel said.

  “Hold on, maybe it was just that one. Let me see something.”

  I went into the bag and pulled out a stack of money, neatly wrapped with a rubber band. I popped the rubber band, handed Chantel a few bills and kept a few for myself. I held one of the bills up, and sure enough, this shit was indeed fake as fuck. Number one, instead of Benjamin Franklin being on the hundred-dollar bill, it was Abraham Lincoln. He really did get our asses with this one.

  “Why the fuck wouldn’t you check the money before you handed him over his fuckin’ daughter?” Chantel cried.

  “Oh, bitch, shut the fuck up! Did you check the damn money when I sent your ass inside to pay? No! So, shut the fuck up with that bullshit,” I barked at her.

  I don’t know where the fuck we were going to go from here because this incident was a lesson learned for both Quan and Charlie. Ain’t no way in hell we would ever be given the opportunity again to take their daughter again because now they would be extra careful with her. Fuck, man! Back to square one!

  Chapter 7: Quan

  Did this clown really in his right mind think that I would just easily hand over one million dollars like it was nothing? Yeah, in his mind, a million dollars may be nothing to me, but when you’re a ghetto nigga like myself who came from nothing, a million dollars is everything. I keep telling these clowns that I would never forget where I came from, and I damn sure wasn’t about to just give up a million dollars that easily.

  I know you’re probably wondering, where the hell did Quan get this fake ass money from? Like I mentioned, I’m still sort of wet behind the ears when it came to this rapping shit, so I still had a bit of some ghetto ass tendencies. For instance, if I’m shooting a music video, I’m not about to have my fuckin’ money getting thrown around and showing my shit off, hell no. So, when we shot my music video a few months ago, titled “The Money Man,” it was my idea to use fake money. Call it cheap, or call me broke, but I was not about to be bullshitting around with my real money for a damn music video. The niggas on set clowned me for that shit, but in my opinion, the shit was pretty smart. At the end of the day, it had worked out in my favor.

  I just wished that I was around to see the look on this nigga’s face once he found out that bag full of money that he thought was about to change his life wasn’t really legit. Had I not come up with the idea of using fake money on my music video, lord only knows how I would have gotten myself out of this situation because a nigga like me was stingy as hell with my money if it didn’t benefit me, my wife or my daughter.

  I’m not going to lie, me and my niggas went out like some real motha fuckin Gs the way we went to work tonight on them guns. I knew we didn’t kill him, but hell, the nigga’s spirit was dead since he didn’t get what he came for, so that was enough for me. This is what the fuck happens when soft ass little boys try to play a grown man’s game.

  We were now sitting in the parking lot of McDonalds. I had my daughter on my lap and she wouldn’t let go of me for shit. I was very fuckin’ grateful that God had allowed me to get my daughter back tonight safe and in one piece. God damn, I couldn’t wait to get my ass in the damn studio tomorrow and work on this diss track. I had so much shit up my sleeve. I knew my daughter knew something, but I wasn’t about to bother her with the events that took place tonight. But best believe, tomorrow morning, I wanted answers to every fuckin’ thing that went down.

  “You hungry, baby?” I asked my daughter.

  She shook her head no. Dre and Quay had already left, and I thanked those niggas for being there with me in my time of need. If the situation would have been different and one of them was going through what I’d just experienced, it would have been the same because that’s what real niggas did for each other.

  “Where is Mommy?” China asked me, lifting her head from my chest.

  “Mommy is at the hospital, but she is going to be okay,” I told her.

  I didn’t really want to go that much into detail because she had b
een through enough shit already for today.

  “Just don’t be mad at her, okay, Daddy?” China said, looking me dead in my eyes.

  I kind of figured what she was talking about, but just to make sure, I decided to ask.

  “Why would I be mad at her?” I quizzed.

  “Because you think that she put me in danger. She didn’t know, okay? We both thought that it was going to be a sleepover. If it’s anybody’s fault, it’s mine because I begged Mommy to let me go,” my daughter cried.

  I pulled her into me. My daughter was only seven years old, but like I told Charlie, I swear her ass has been here before. I never thought that she would put the blame on herself and I needed her to know that it wasn’t her fault.

  “China, this is not your fault what happened, so don’t say that again. Like you just said, Mommy didn’t know, and neither did you. I don’t blame you for this, and I’m not blaming your mama either,” I said, wiping her face.

  She calmed down a little bit. After she fell asleep in my lap, I picked her up and laid her down in the back seat. Since it was so late, and I didn’t feel like driving all the way to my house, I decided to crash at my mother’s house since her house was closer. I was still kind of pissed off with my wife, so I wasn’t calling her ass, but I did turn around and snap a picture of China and send it to her.

  I knew Charlie was up because she had been calling and texting me every five minutes. Off the strength of her being pregnant, I sent the picture because I didn’t need her stressing while she was carrying my baby. Call it petty, but her ass was in the doghouse, and I would just swing by the hospital tomorrow to make sure that she was good and so that she could see China.

  The Next Day

  “I swear to God that this nigga is going to feel me as soon as he brings his ass in this hospital room. I’ll be the first to admit that I fucked up, but his ass is being very petty by not calling or texting me. I got the picture he sent me last night of China, and his dumb ass didn’t even have the decency to respond to any of my calls and texts,” I heard Charlie venting in the hospital room.

  I stood by the door and decided not to make my presence known for a few more seconds because I wanted to know just how much shit she was going to talk.

  “Charlie, can you please sit your ass down somewhere? The doctors already told you that you were stressing, and you know that that’s not good for the baby. You know that China is okay now, so please sit the hell down,” Toya fussed at her.

  “Yeah, sit your ass down somewhere,” I said, walking further into the room and making my presence known.

  “Where is my daughter?” Charlie asked me, getting straight to the point.

  “She downstairs at the gift shop with Dre. She will be up here shortly. What’s all that shit you was just talking?” I asked her, wanting to see if she would be bold enough to repeat it.

  “I’m sure you heard every word I said,” she smartly replied and got back in the bed.

  “What’s good, Toya?” I asked her.

  She was in the corner of the room on the couch, with the blanket wrapped around her legs.

  “Hey, Dre,” Toya waved.

  By looking at her, I could tell that she was tired and that hospital couch wasn’t comfortable because I’m assuming that’s where she slept last night.

  “Mommy!” China yelled, coming inside the room with a brown teddy bear that read “Get well soon” and three balloons that had the same thing.

  China had insisted on getting her mama something from the gift shop, even though I assured her that her mama was going to be fine. She ran toward her, with the teddy bear in her hands and jumped in the bed with her.

  “Are you okay, mommy? What happened to your arm? Oh my God, and why do you have that big knot on your head? Jesus, Mommy, look at you,” my daughter said, being overly dramatic. I mean, she even put the palm of her hand on Charlie’s forehead to check and see if she had a fever or anything. I stood off to the side and laughed.

  “I’m glad you’re doing okay, sis. I’m about to get out of here though,” Dre said.

  He walked over to the bed and hugged Charlie. After he hugged her, Toya came around and did the same thing, and then they both exited the room.

  I went and sat down on the chair next to Charlie’s bed, and then it dawned on me that Charlie’s mother hadn’t been up there. “Where your mama at? She been through here yet?” I asked.

  “No, and I don’t plan on telling her. That lady is going to let me have it and then call me every name in the book, except a child of God. I already got you on my back about the messed up decisions I made, and I damn sure don’t need her ass doing the same thing,” Charlie said and I agreed with her.

  Charlie’s mama didn’t play that shit, and she would still get in Charlie’s ass and make her grown ass cry.

  “What about my sister? Has she been down here? I texted her last night to let her know that you were in the hospital,” I told her.

  “She called me saying that they wouldn’t let her up since visiting hours were over, but she did say that she would be over here this morning. You know Monae don’t roll her ass out of the bed until like one, though,” Charlie said.

  I nodded my head in agreement about my sister’s lazy ass.

  For the remainder of the day, I stayed in the hospital room with my wife and my daughter, kicking it. The nurse came in and confirmed that they would discharge Charlie early tomorrow morning. Monae came and hung with us for a little while and then she left. She claimed she had to go home and study for a test, but I knew her ass was about to go somewhere and fuck with that nigga, Quay.

  Right now, it was almost ten o’clock at night and I was laid up in this little ass hospital bed with Charlie, and our daughter was knocked out on the couch with a blanket wrapped around her.

  “So what happened last night?” Charlie asked.

  I could tell this was something she had been dying to ask me since I walked in the room this morning, but due to the fact that our daughter was there, she laid back on questioning me.

  “It’s crazy because I gave the nigga the bag with the money and he handed over China to me. Then me, Quay and Dre started busting our guns and this nigga still managed to get away. This shit been heavy on my mind because I couldn’t even recognize dude’s voice from nowhere, and when he jumped into the car, all I know is that a female was driving. But, shit, I only know that because I saw her from the side when he opened the door,” I said, still very much pissed at myself because we let this nigga get away alive.

  I liked to know who my opponent was, and any nigga out here that had beef with me, I wanted that nigga to voice that shit. Now, I had to walk around here not knowing who the hell tried to rob my ass. Hell, for all I knew, it could have been any of those niggas that I have in the studio with me on an everyday basis.

  “You gave the nigga a million dollars in cash?” Charlie asked me in a loud as whisper.

  “Don’t be dumb, Charlie. The shit I gave him wasn’t no legit cash. This shit just might work in my favor because look at it this way. If I were to give the nigga and whoever the fuck was associated with this shit a million dollars in cash, they would have easily fuckin’ disappeared, and then this shit would be over. Clearly, if these niggas had to rob me, then that means that they don’t have money like that. So, where the hell can they go now? They don’t got the funds to disappear like they had planned.

  “Miami talks, and I can obviously tell that whoever did this shit wasn’t smart. So, I know they going to end up telling the wrong person how I gave them some bogus ass money, and some way, somehow, that shit is going to end up back to me, and we go from there,” I said.

  “But, you don’t think that you should just leave it alone and say fuck it? At the end of the day, we won because we got our daughter back. We didn’t get back a fake China, we got back the real thing, and that’s all that matters. The more you retaliate, the more these niggas are going to continue to fuck with us. Quan, you and I have shit to live fo
r. We got that little girl over there to raise,” Charlie said, pointing at China. I turned my head and looked at my daughter as she slept so peacefully. “And we got this one that’s in my stomach.” She placed my hands on her small stomach.

  “I would go crazy if something were to happen to you, so please don’t put your family in a situation like this.”

  I understood where she was coming from, but as a man, certain shit I just couldn’t let slide. Yeah, I got my daughter back in the end, but that still wasn’t enough for me. I needed every fuckin’ body that took part in this shit dead. I checked my daughter last night from head to toe for any bruises, and she didn’t have one, except for the one from when she fell last night due to that stupid ass nigga shoving her so hard. It still wasn’t enough for me to let it go.

  Since I can remember, I’ve always told Charlie just about every move I made, except of course, when I would go out and cheat. But since she was so set on me leaving the situation alone, then I wouldn’t tell her about me finishing the job. I knew I was taking a big risk because I was a rapper and constantly being watched, but it was a risk that I was willing to take.

  “You don’t still want a divorce, do you?” Charlie asked, resting her head on my chest.

  “Nah, I guess I’m going to have to keep your ass around a little while longer,” I teased.

  “Good for you because I’m sure somebody out there would enjoy this pregnant pussy,” she shot back.

  “Keep fuckin with me, girl, I’m going to have that left shoulder looking like your right one,” I said.

  I was dead ass serious, but she laughed like what I told her ass was a joke.

  Chapter 8: Toya

  It was almost midnight, and Dre and I were coming back from the James L. Knight Center after seeing Katt Williams: Conspiracy Theory. I’m not going to lie, that show was funny as hell, and I was in there dying laughing at Katt Williams’ crazy ass. The only thing that I didn’t like was the fact that the show was set to start at 8:00 p.m., but it didn’t end up starting until about 9:15. When it did start, Katt Williams wasn’t the one who performed first. He had like five comedians opening for him. They were pretty funny, but we paid our money to see Katt Williams. He didn’t bring his ass on stage until about 10:15, but I guess it was worth the wait because the man was hilarious.