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Breeze was weighing her options as the Korean woman trimmed her toe nails when her cell phone started to ring.
“Hey,” she answered.
“What you doin’?” Dior asked.
“Gettin’ these feet of mine done. Why? What’s up?”
“I was wonderin’ if I could come and stay wit’ you for a few days.”
“Yeah, that’s cool, but what’s up?”
“I just need a break.”
“Okay. I’ll pick you up as soon as I’m done here.”
Breeze hung up her phone and thought about what Dior had just asked her. Dior hadn’t been to her home in a long time and she wondered why she wanted to come over now. She wondered if Lala had told her that they were looking for Primo.
Nah, that was crazy. Dior would never do anything like tell Primo’s enemies where he lived. No matter how she felt about what had happened between him and Brian she’d never do anything like that to Breeze.
She paid for her pedicure and wished she could have gotten a fill in on her fingernails as she climbed into her car, but her girl needed her so her nails would have to wait.
***
Dior had been ignoring Brian, Brandon, Belinda and C’s phone calls for the past week. They’d left her messages saying that she needed to pick Brian Jr. up, but she had no intentions of doing that. She was tired of being responsible for him 24/7. It was way more than she’d bargained for and she was enjoying her break.
While Donna was out job hunting all Dior had to worry about was herself. Belinda was calling her yet again. Dior thought about ignoring her call again, but she decided to answer since she knew that Belinda could be relentless.
“Hello,” Dior answered, using her fake I just woke up voice.
“Girl, what is wrong with you?” Belinda asked.
“Nothin’. I just needed a break,” she said, still using her sleepy voice.
“Well, you and Brian are responsible for this baby. He’s been here for over a week. It’s time for you to pick him up.”
“Okay. Let me get up. I’ll be over there in a lil’ while,” Dior promised before she hung up.
She finished packing her bag and looked out of the window to see if Breeze was there to pick her up yet. She grabbed her cell phone charger and let out a sigh of relief when she saw her friend’s expensive sports car roll to a stop in front of her house. Dior was climbing into the passenger side seat before Breeze could put the car in park.
“What the hell is goin’ on?” Breeze asked with a frown.
“Remember I told you how Brian was mad at me cuz I ain’t know the baby had a fever?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, he went off on me when I went to pick him up, so I left him there.”
“You did what?”
“I left him wit’ his daddy.”
“For how long?”
“It’s been a lil’ over a week now.”
“How long you leavin’ him there?”
“I don’t know. Why the mama always gotta be stuck wit’ the baby anyway?”
“That’s a good point,” Breeze said as she cruised through traffic.
“I’m so tired. And my mama just lost her job. Brian got the trust fund and Belinda got a good job. They can take care of him.”
Breeze just listened as her friend went on and on about how she was tired of juggling so many responsibilities. At least he’s your child, she thought. Now you see how I felt having to keep Nya’s ass all the time.
“So, you just gon’ leave him there forever?” Breeze finally asked.
“Why not?”
Breeze didn’t answer; she just drove, watching her rearview mirror to make sure that no one was following her. Once she was satisfied that she wasn’t being followed she headed home. She stopped at a liquor store near her house and got a bottle of Grey Goose and some cranberry juice.
Dior followed Breeze into the house and watched as she punched in the security code on the ADT panel.
“I still can’t get over how nice this place is,” Dior said as she walked into the living room.
Primo’s house was nice as hell. From the plush carpet to the marble floors and countertops to the expensive furniture.
“Yeah.”
Breeze sighed as she looked around. The house was nice, but she wondered how long she’d be able to stay there. She grabbed some glasses from the kitchen, filled them with ice from the dispenser on the refrigerator and met Dior in the living room.
“Okay, I told you all my messy stuff. Tell me what’s up wit’ you and Mister Primo,” Dior said as she powered her phone down.
She was not going to be talking to anybody anytime soon. She was about to get drunk and forget about all of her problems. She hadn’t kicked it with her girl like this in a while.
“I don’t know,” Breeze said as she sat down next to her friend.
She poured them both a mixture of vodka and juice and got comfortable on the couch.
“Everything was good, I mean I thought so but I think...” she thought about whether or not she was going to tell Dior about everything or not. They’d always shared all of their secrets and she needed someone to talk to.
“You think what?”
“I think he got a wife and kids,” she admitted after a long drink from her glass.
“What? Why you say that? Where would she live?”
“He be talkin’ to her on the phone when I’m gone and they be talkin’ about kids and shit.”
“Damn,” Dior said as she shook her head. “You ask him about it?”
“Naw. Niggas don’t admit to shit.”
“True. So what you gon’ do?”
“I can’t go back to Lauren’s, that’s for sure.”
“So you just gon’ continue to play second fiddle until his wife finds out about you?”
“Hell naw. Imma get me some money and do me.”
“Money from where?” Dior asked.
Money sounded good. Enough money would solve a lot of her problems.
“From Primo. I been savin’, so I got like twenty thousand put up and—”
“That ain’t gon’ get you nowhere,” Dior cut her off.
“I know. I got the combinations to his safes and it’s a half million in there.”
“Now that’s what the fuck I’m talkin’ about,” Dior said excitedly.
“I just don’t know. If I take all that money he gon’ wanna kill me, so I would have to get far away.”
“Far away. That sounds nice,” Dior said dreamily.
She wanted to get far away and never look back. “Can I go wit’ you?”
Breeze thought about what they were talking about as she stared at the ceiling. She’d hated being stuck with Nya all the time, but she did love her little sister. And although Lauren rarely showed her any respect, she was her mother and Breeze couldn’t make herself stop loving her.
“Where would we go?” Breeze asked.
“Anywhere we want. But that’s all the money he got?”
“I doubt it. I think that’s just all he keeps in the house.”
“We need to find out where the rest of it is,” Dior said, the liquor making her feel nice and relaxed.
“How?”
“We could follow him. Where he at now?”
“He said he had some business somewhere. He’ll be back tomorrow.”
“Then he probably comin’ home wit’ a big amount of money that he’ll need to put in his other hiding spot.”
“Right.”
“We could follow him and see what he’s really workin’ wit.”
Breeze thought about it for a minute as she sipped her drink. She wasn’t trying to play the dummy and let Primo get locked up or let his wife find out about her. If she didn’t take control of the situation she’d be left assed out.
“You don’t think we could live off of a half a million, tax-free dollars?” Breeze asked her friend.
“We probably could, wit’ some good budgeting,” Dior reasoned as she rolled her eyes.
She didn’t know what the hell Breeze was scared of or why she was letting her feelings for Primo cloud her judgment. If she was willing to take some of his money she might as well take it all.
Even though Breeze was trying to convince her that she was listening to her head and not her heart, the fact that she didn’t want to take Primo for all he had led Dior to believe otherwise. Dior felt that Primo owed her.
He had taken things from her that he could never give back to her. If he hadn’t shot Brian everything would be just fine. Brian would be in college and able to help out more with the baby. If she had it her way, she was going to take that nigga for all he had, whether Breeze liked it or not.
“Where would we go?” Breeze asked again.
Dior thought about it for a few minutes before she answered.
“I say... Miami.”
“I was thinkin’ Hawaii.”
“Naw, that shit is expensive. What about Brazil?”
“That might be nice. But we’d need a passport, wouldn’t we?”
“I don’t know. How soon you thinkin’ about leavin’?”
“Before the end of the month,” Breeze told her friend.
She didn’t tell Dior, but she was worried about their house being raided any day now. She needed to get her money and get the fuck out of dodge. She’d have to leave her family behind, but she barely saw them anymore anyway.