Chapter 3

Luca decided to trade in her pearl-white Benz for something less conspicuous. Everyone knew it was her car, and the Benz attracted too much attention. She had decided to move back in with her grandmother, and with several dangerous muthafuckas yearning to see her demise, she had to play it smart. And riding around in an expensive car was not playing it smart.

She traded in her Benz for a station wagon, a white Subaru Outback. The dealer thought she was insane, but she knew she still had the Audi S8 parked in Rockaway Park.

Luca was staying with her grandmother so she could be closer to Clyde. She had tried staying with Lucia, but on the second day she knew it wasn’t going to work out. Her mother was just too nosy. Lucia constantly came with too many questions, lectures, and parables. Luca wanted peace, and she needed to think. Wanting to remap her life and do things differently, she was in no mood for an interrogation from her mother.

After Clyde was shot, she drove to Rockaway Park, grabbed a few things and hid out from Squirrel and World in plain sight—back in her Brownsville neighborhood in her grandmother’s cramped apartment. Her Rockaway Park home created too many problems for her, and left bad memories.

First, there was Detective Charter viciously assaulting her and nearly beating her to death. She could still feel his hands gripping her fragile neck. Second, World was repeatedly breaking into her place and taunting her. She still had no idea how he was going in and out without a trace. Squirrel knew about her location too. Her home in Rockaway Park was more of a minefield than a home—shit just kept on happening there.

The only valuables she left there were her kilos of drugs and her money. She hated to leave them there, but she had nowhere to stash them. She figured it would be too risky to move it with the whirlwind of chaos surrounding her. The first chance she got, she was going to place it all into private storage.

Feeling everything was in a secure location, Luca didn’t dwell on losing her product again. Besides, what were the odds of her making the same mistake twice? Everyone who knew about the hidden safe was dead.

Luca placed the .380 into her coat pocket, climbed out of her Subaru Outback, and walked to the project building. The snow was melting. Two days after the crippling blizzard swept over the city and shut everything down from Long Island to New Jersey, city streets were still being plowed, mountains of plowed snow coated the side streets and the sidewalks, parking was a nightmare, and people were still digging their cars out.

Clothed in layers of winter clothing and her boots, she moved like her old self again, walking quietly with her head down, the blue wig absent from her head and her jewelry stashed in a safe place. She wanted to keep a low profile, knowing Squirrel and World were still out there. Phaedra was locked up, so that was one less concern for her.

Luca walked into the lobby and took the polluted concrete stairs to her grandmother’s apartment, since the elevator was out of order.

It was early afternoon, and everyone seemed to have stayed home because of the snow. Music blared from various apartments, the strong scent of weed permeated the air, and a teen mother could be heard yelling at her kids. The narrow hallway with graffiti all along its walls felt like it was getting smaller and smaller as Luca walked toward the apartment.

Luca had just spent the morning with Clyde, who was healing rapidly but still paralyzed from the waist down. She wanted to take a shower, a quick nap, and then head back to the hospital to be with him. Mostly, her time went to helping him rehabilitate.

Luca’s grandmother gave her a key so she wouldn’t be disturbing her by ringing her bell or knocking on the door whenever she showed up. She walked inside, and the place was quiet. Too quiet. Lucinda always had some gospel playing or was cooking. And her grandmother wasn’t in her usual spot—seated in the kitchen gazing out the window and being the neighborhood watch.

The apartment was cluttered with her grandmother’s things, and it was hard for Luca to get used to the strange smell of Bengay. Her grandmother was a wonderful woman, but it was definitely hard living with her.

“Grandma, I’m home,” she called out.

There was no answer.

“Grandma, where are you?”

When her grandma didn’t answer a second time, Luca became worried. Lucinda was an old woman with health risks, and the last thing Luca needed was another loved one in the hospital.

Luca quickly went to her grandmother’s bedroom and pushed open the door. She sighed with relief when she saw her grandmother sleeping in her bed with a People magazine next to her. The old woman had read herself to sleep.

Luca managed to smile. The five-foot-five elderly woman with her frail body and thinning gray hair was still as tough as a pit bull. She may have been small with multiple health issues, but Grandma Lucinda was still a vivacious woman who didn’t take shit from anyone. She was a Christian woman, but she was also an opinionated and dogmatic woman.

Luca gazed at her sleeping grandma for a minute. She thought about so many things. Her grandma was always advising her, telling her stories from the time she grew up. She loved her grandma dearly, so it was a horror in Luca’s mind to think about her dying. Whenever she needed a place to stay, Lucinda took her in. Whenever she needed someone to talk to because her own mother was incarcerated or running the streets, Lucinda was there. Even when she became a drug queenpin and the gossip about her spread through Brooklyn like an STD, Lucinda always believed there was hope for her granddaughter; that she would better her life.

She walked into her grandmother’s room and covered her with the sheet. Inside the bedroom were so many memories from her grandmother’s past—awards for past achievements, framed photos from her younger years as a teenager growing up in South Carolina, and pictures of her husband, Luca’s grandfather, a very handsome, distinguished-looking man. He was an ex-Marine, a sergeant, and had fought in the Korean War and in Vietnam. He was educated and ambitious. There were many photos of the two of them together, and you could tell that they were both profoundly in love. They had been married for over thirty years until his passing when Luca was just an infant.

Luca decided to linger in her grandmother’s room for a moment. She was rarely in the old woman’s bedroom, but it was somewhat fascinating to see her family’s history. It felt like she had traveled back in time looking at old photos of the neighborhood and old news clippings about her grandfather’s bravery and accomplishments from the wars he’d fought in.

Luca had only heard stories about how he took on drug dealers with his protesting and personal war on drugs. Coming home from Vietnam, he was infuriated by the heroin that flooded his neighborhood and seeing some of his fellow soldiers strung out on drugs. He decided to do something about it and went against the drug dealers in the ghetto, putting his own life at risk. Luca’s grandfather was determined to better his community. He was quoted in one article, saying, “It’s a shame to fight for your country and then come home and see your country not fighting for our equality.”

Luca read several articles about her grandfather. She wished she had known him, but would he want to know her right now? She had become a drug dealer and murderer. The core of her soul was acid. She’d tainted her family’s name and followed in her mother’s footsteps. He would be spinning in his grave if he knew what his daughter and granddaughter had become.

Being in her grandmother’s room, her emotions started to run on high. She placed her grandfather’s picture back on the shelf and quickly left the room. Guilt started to swallow her up. What made her walk inside there and leave so suddenly? Was it the spirit of her grandfather? Whatever it was, she felt this sudden force around her. The tears trickled down her face like a river.

Luca closed her grandmother’s door and retreated to her own bedroom. She closed the door and sat at the foot of her bed. She dried away her tears and tried to pull herself together.

Luca spent an hour just sitting on her bed, thinking. The quietness around her was comforting, and being in her grandmother’s apartment made her feel somewhat secure. It was a place where she could sleep without disturbance, and where she felt loved and respected all the time.

Luca undressed and went into the bathroom. She filled the tub with soothing, warm water and submerged herself neck deep into the water. The lights were off, and the bathroom door was ajar. She exhaled and closed her eyes.

While enjoying the bathtub, she thought about the choices she had made and the people who had come in and out of her life, either by her hands or not.

She also couldn’t stop thinking about Clyde. Every minute, every hour, he was on her mind. She was in love with him. They matched wits, and they’d both come from troubled homes growing up. Clyde understood her completely. She felt like herself around him. Everything that Squirrel wasn’t, he was.

But images of her man fucking Phaedra would abruptly flow into her head and she would clench her fist tightly with the urge to punch something. Just thinking about Clyde sticking his dick into what used to be her best friend nearly made her go insane. But she forgave him, right? He’d saved her life when Phaedra tried to take it.

Luca submerged herself under water, holding her breath, not wanting to come up anytime soon. Once again, she wanted to close her eyes and be somewhere else. Thirty seconds went by, and she was still holding her breath under water. She thought about her next move—it was going to be with Clyde.

Fifty seconds went by. Still under water, she thought about Squirrel and how foolish she was to ever think he’d actually loved her and would leave his baby mama for her. Seventy seconds went by, and she thought about the people who betrayed her and why? She thought about what she had left in life—her money and her drugs stashed in Rockaway Park. Ninety seconds went by, and she felt like she couldn’t breathe at all. She fought to keep herself submerged.

Luca kept fighting, trying to not breathe. It was difficult. Why is it always so fuckin’ difficult? she screamed inside her head. She couldn’t hold on any longer. She needed to breathe. She felt herself blacking out.

She thrust herself out of the water and took in a gulp of air and inhaled intensely. She felt winded and puffed out. She felt like she’d run a mile because she was breathing so hard. She lingered in the tub and continued thinking. She didn’t want to feel like she was drowning anymore. So who was submerging her?

***

Luca treated Clyde to lunch in his private hospital room. She’d brought Asian cuisine from Nobu. She knew her man was tired of eating the bland, tasteless hospital food.

Luca massaged Clyde’s body as they talked, even laughed a bit, while dining on ginger lobster, oysters, and shrimp fried rice. Every day he seemed to be getting better and better. The doctors told him he could start physical therapy soon, but his chances of ever walking again were slim to none.

After dinner, Luca noticed Clyde’s sudden mood change and figured it was the medication he was taking. “What’s wrong?” she asked.

Clyde gazed at her, uncertainty in his eyes. He heaved a sigh. “I don’t know where to start.”

“Just talk to me.” Luca took his hand into hers and smiled. She felt she could deal with whatever he needed to tell her.

“I don’t think I can do this anymore,” he said.

Luca was taken aback. “What?”

“This thing with us—”

“What about us?” Luca let go of his hand, fearing the worst was about to come out of his mouth. She didn’t know what he was trying to say, but her gut told her it was going to be frightful news.

“I’ve been lying to myself for too long about you and me.”

“Just say it, Clyde,” she spat.

“I’m in love with Phaedra.”

Luca sat there, shocked at what he’d just confessed. Did she hear him right? How and why? She felt faint suddenly. This couldn’t be happening to her, not again.

“What?”

“It’s something I can’t explain.”

“Fuckin’ explain it.” Her eyes were brimming with anger and sadness.

“It’s complicated,” he said faintly.

“Complicated?”

Luca wanted to scream. She wanted to attack him. She felt the sting of rejection again, and it was always an unbearable feeling. When Luca saw Phaedra run out of Clyde’s apartment half-dressed after the shooting, visions of Nate and Naomi flashed before her eyes like a bad movie.

Briefly, she’d wanted both Clyde and Phaedra dead, but when she realized Clyde was willing to die for her, she felt it was truly love. When he woke up out of his coma and the first thing he did was call out her name, it was solidified. She told herself that she would actually forgive him as well as Phaedra for their betrayal, something she was unable to do in the past. She wanted to do it because she truly loved them both.

But now, after hearing the grim news, she wanted to see both of them dead—brutally murdered and placed into the cold ground.

Luca yelled, “How the fuck is it complicated?” She fought hard to hold back her tears, but her voice cracked under the emotions she was going through.

“There’s a lot going on with you . . . with me, with us.”

“I’m by your bedside night and day taking care of you, loving you, and you do this shit to me?”

“Luca, I’m sorry.”

“Fuck your apologies, you piece of shit!” she screamed. “Fuck you!”

Luca’s rant echoed out into the hospital hallway, giving the hospital staff reason to enter the room.

“Is everything okay in here?” the day nurse asked.

Clyde answered, “Yes, we’re fine, nurse.”

The nurse looked at Luca, who was standing over Clyde’s bed, her back turned to the nurse. “Ma’am, are you okay?” the nurse asked.

“I’m fuckin’ fine.”

“Well, I’m going to have to ask that you leave if you keep up this disturbance.”

“I was fuckin’ leaving anyway.”

“I don’t want to have to call security up here,” the nurse said with matching attitude. “Visiting hours been over, and he needs his rest. You need to leave.”

Luca was seething inside. She felt the urge to spin around and assault the condescending bitch.

“This is your only warning.” The nurse turned around on her white crocs and exited the room, leaving Luca standing there with egg on her face.

“Luca—”

“Don’t. Just don’t.”

Luca took a deep breath and calmed herself down, but she couldn’t help wondering if Clyde had influenced Phaedra into trying to kill her. It was a far-fetched thought, but in her strange and bizarre world, anything was possible. Once again, visions of Nate fucking Naomi, and Squirrel being with Angel flooded her head. Why was she always not enough for these men?

Luca continued to hold back her tears. She leaned forward and gave Clyde a soft kiss on his lips and then whispered to him, “You’re no different than Nate. He thought he could fuck my best friend Naomi and get away with it. He was so wrong. I’m thinking you and Phaedra should do a double date with Nate and Naomi, all of you, living unhappily ever after.”

She turned away from him and exited the room.