A soul with no face is a lonely embrace

Meanwhile in Syracuse, NY

I hadn't been in one of these places since I started fuckin' with Laya. Watching hoes on the lit stage didn't amuse me anymore. I was only here because I had to be.

Before arriving, I made sure that I dressed so that I would not be noticed - sweats and a hoodie, a plain jacket and timbs. The last thing I needed was for someone to recognize Dave East in a spot like this.

"You wanna go in the champagne room daddy", she purred in my ear. The shiny latex lingerie she wore reflected the green and purple lights from the stage onto my face.

"Nah keep doing that shit right here." I encouraged, rubbing my hands over her fishnet covered legs.

She bounced her ass on my lap to the music, in an attempt to give me a quality lap dance worthy of the money in my pocket.

I leaned back, unimpressed and looked beyond the stripper to the nigga at the bar deep in conversation.

Ro.

He was the only reason we were here.

Jay and Freaky were positioned around the room just in case shit didn't go as planned. They made sure to cut the cameras around the club and keep the back rooms clear. Meanwhile, Shoota sat in the car a block away, waiting on us, so that we could get away smoothly.

This Ro nigga was bold too. You'd think that after he got news that his dumb ass brother was offed, he'd go into hiding. But, he was out here in a strip club, drinking Crown Royal by the bottle.

From across the smoky, dark club I made eye contact with Diamonté, the stripper Freaky hired for the plan and gave her the signal to approach Ro.

The deal was for her to lure him into one of the private rooms, so that he could be dealt with and she could walk away unharmed with $5k. She sauntered across the crowded floor and rested her hand on his shoulder, easily gaining his attention.

My phone vibrated in my pocket, I pulled it out to notice Laya trying to FaceTime me. Ordinarily I wouldn't hesitate to accept it but this was not the time and definitely not the place for that. So I declined it and every call after that until she got the hint.

"Tell wifey that you busy baby", the stripper teased with her long nails grazing the front of my pants. I looked over to the bar to see Diamonté and Ro gone.

Good he took the bait.

I held onto the stripper's waist and lifted her off me. I slapped her ass and asked,

"Where them private rooms at?"

Her eyes hung low and she took her bottom lip between her teeth tightly. "Right this way", she grabbed my hand and ushered me to the back.

Before she could open the door to the small private box, I pulled her closer to me and handed her a stack from inside my jacket pocket. I leaned against the door frame and lowered my mouth to her ear. For anyone passing by, it would look like I was kissing her.

"You gon take this and go back to your dressing room. Close the door behind you and make sure no one else comes back here. You ain't ever seen me." I said sternly. She looked up at me with fear in her eyes but nodded her head in confirmation, then scurried off behind me.

I took the strap out my waistband and counted the doors until I reached the fifth one. Diamonté already agreed that this would be the one she'd take him into.

I knocked twice on the door and when I heard the muffled "yeah". I busted it open to see Diamonté on her knees in front of Ro.

"Yo what the fuck is this?!", he squinted his eyes looking at the bright light in the doorway. "You set me up bitch?!" He shouted trying to get the glock out of his pants that were bunched up on the sticky floor.

In a frenzy, he punched Diamonté onto the ground and scrambled for his gun before I shot him once in his knee.

Thankfully the blaring club music and the silencer on my gun, concealed that one shot but this screaming bitch would draw attention.

"Shut the fuck up and get out!", I shouted at her.

Ro groaned in pain and cursed, when I walked further into the room.

"East, that's you nigga?" He breathed hard. "Should've known that your pussy ass wasn't far behind" he swallowed writhing in pain.

For the fun of it, I shot him in his other knee and took joy in seeing him squirm out of the chair and onto the floor in agony. Spit foamed at the corners of his mouth as he tried to keep from screaming out.

"AH BITCH!"

"Funny that's the same thing your brother said when we shot him up." I said nonchalantly leaning onto the wall.

"East you ain't gotta do this. We ain't mean to kill him, it wasn't even my idea man, come on!" He begged, holding both of his knees as blood poured out of them.

"Then who's idea was it?" I already knew that he was lying, niggas will say anything not to die. "Man save that shit for a muthafucka who gon listen. I already know why yo greedy ass killed Mug. I know that you was really lookin' to kill me too." I thought back to the night when my cousin was killed, rage filling me. "Remember that the streets talk bitch, and I'm always there to listen."

"Mane f-fuck y-you East! That's why Mugga got what he fuckin' deserved and you gon get yours. You o-out here watching me, WATCH THEM NIGGAS ON YO FUCKIN' TEAM. That slick shit you doin ain't finna last long."

I was tired of hearing his voice, and sick of his existence, so I sent one final shot aimed perfectly between his two cocked eyes and left the room. I walked out the back through the unlocked door into the cold and foggy midnight air. I threw my black hoodie over my head and stomped through the alley to the unmarked SUV waiting on the corner.

What's done, is done. I felt nothing.

But I knew this shit was far from over.

"Ok Ms. Daniels, your friend is hopped up on fluids. There's a bit of vitamin c and b3 for hydration and a lot of morphine for the pain in there." the nurse adjusted the IV in Ne's arm.

She was currently set up in what use to be my old bedroom in the penthouse. Heavily sedated, so she had been knocked out since we left her apartment at six this morning.

I stood at the foot of the bed with my arms folded, half listening intently to the elderly white nurse and half lost in my head.

"Ms. Daniels...Ms.Daniels...Ms. Daniels!"

"Yes ma'am?" I whispered snapping back to reality.

"Thankfully... she has no internal bleeding or swelling in her brain. But, she has two broken ribs and the bruising is severe. She's going to need to be iced about once a day and the dressing she has on the wound on her lip and leg needs to be changed twice a day for the next week. Make sure she doesn't move too much. She's going to be healing for the next three months." She wrote on the little pad in her hand. "Let's see, oh! No over-the-counter pain killers, they will thin her blood and cause issues down the line. You got all that?"

"Y-yes ma'am"

"Well even if you do, I still wrote it all down for ya." She ripped the paper off the pad and handed it to me. "Now let's go in that bathroom, so I can take a look at you."

"No no that's not necessary. Really I'm fine ma'am."

"Huh tell that to someone who hasn't been an ER nurse for thirty years. Your face almost looks as bad as hers, you have a purple ring in the shape of a hand print around your neck, your ankle is swollen and what puts the icing on the cake...is the dry blood matted in your hair from that huge wound.", she shot off.

My hand touched the back of my head and I winced from the pain.

"The bastard got what he deserved." she mumbled while escorting me to the bathroom.

I sat down on the toilet, while the nurse set up all of her stuff.

"Now when my dear friend Johnathan called me about a job, I didn't know I'd be treating his Laya"

"You know me? How?" I cringed a bit as she tied my hair up.

"Oh my Lord, this is going to need stitches. At least seven. I'm going to clean and numb the area first okay?"

"Okay."

"And to answer your question. I knew both your mom and dad. I use to work for the hospital in Nassau when they lived in The Bahamas. I actually was the one that helped to deliver you in Turks. Then when my husband died, I left and moved to New York...and started working for your dad."

"Working for him how...? What could a nurse do for a lawyer?...OW!" I coiled away from the stinging sensation of the disinfectant on my scalp.

She stopped and bent down to look at my face. "You'd be surprised."

"By what?" I watched her fill a needle with anesthetic from a tiny glass bottle.

"What he really does...I mean along with his practice. But it's not my place to say. Sherry is officially locking her lips and throwing away the key."

I only knew my father to be a defense attorney for people in Turks and The Bahamas.

But I thought back to a few hours earlier, after I called my him. He was so methodical, intentional, and calm. I hadn't realized it then, but now it was clear that this wasn't his first time covering up a crime.

I could've sworn that I was living in an episode of Scandal or that I was an actual client of Annalise Keating.

He arrived there thirty minutes after my call in a white transport van. I remember pacing the window to look out for him while Ne laid off on her sofa. Four people exited the van along with him, wearing white coveralls.

As soon as I opened the door, they immediately went to work cleaning the apartment. Scrubbing away blood, sweeping up glass, and replacing broken items.

"Shouldn't we just call the police? It was self defense, they'll understand that we were ju-", I searched for the right words to say, "just protecting ourselves."

"No!" My father chastised loudly. "Trust me that's not the best thing to do right now."

My anxiety caught up with me. The onset of a panic attack arriving. "So the best thing to do is cover it up?! What sense does that make? You know what, I should never have called you, just pack your people up and leave and I'll call the police." I raced to the front door and opened it for them.

"Come on...leave!" Everyone ignored me, going back to what they were originally doing.

"Allaya close the damn door!" Johnathan bellowed.

"Lay please close it. I think we should listen to him." Ne rasped.

With my anxiety still creeping, I hesitantly closed the door and joined my friend on the plush chair.

"Now if you call the police, they will open an investigation. Which sounds fine in theory, but that could lead to disgruntled family members coming forward and arguing that it was not self defense and with a damn good lawyer and the fact that the American judicial system has a bias against black people and foreigners, there is a good chance that you both could be convicted for a crime you didn't mean to commit and serve jail time."

I was about to be sick. Me and jail time didn't even sound right in the same sentence.

He looked at me with empathy. Then made me take Nene upstairs to shower and get cleaned up. They gave us clean clothes and when we were done, they disinfected the bathroom, right down to the grout and drains.

We sat in the living room. Watching them all working together, my father giving orders and overseeing. They even bought a new knife block and plates.

They put Kyle's body into a garbage bag and dragged him to the van...to disappear forever.

When it was all done at the ripe time of 5:46 am exactly as the stainless steel oven showed, my father sat across from us. He placed the felt brimmed hat that he was wearing on his lap, crossed his legs in the front of him, and said,

"Ladies, I already have an excellent idea about how this all happened, so no need for drawn out explanations. But I need to know which one of you killed him."

I stared at my hands, while I felt Nene start to cry on the side of me. I grabbed her hand and held it tight before lifting my head...

"I-it was me. I did it. I killed him. She didn't touch him...not once." I admitted shakily.

He looked a bit shocked, his mouth open with the revelation. But he quickly closed it and went on,

"Alright. I can make this all disappear. In fact it already has. But the key to making this go away forever, is you two." He pointed at us. "Your story is the key and I'm going to give it to you. So listen up!"

"Shaneice you called Allaya at 12:07 am because you had a fight with your boyfriend. She came at 12:27 am and you all left about two hours afterwards in your car. What did you all do within those two hours? You cleaned and packed. Everything spotless and neat like it was before the fight with Kyle. You all then left in Shaniece's BMW vehicle which is now parked under the parking structure of Allaya's boyfriend's condo in Harlem. This is also where Shaneice will be staying until she feels safe enough to come home." He paused for a minute to make sure that we absorbed the info.

"Now about Kyle..." he looked seriously at Nene. "After he beat you, he left. Didn't say where he was going, he grabbed a cab and went away. Now you could get creative about why... say you had a fight about him leaving you and going back to Canada or maybe moving to be with your pregnant cousin. Whatever you want to say, I give you creative freedom. I have his cellphone with all of his texts so I know everything. You will not call the police or raise suspicion. Even if he is reported missing, they won't put much effort into it because he is a Canadian citizen. Laya, for your sake you're going to need to cover up your bruises as to not disrupt the story. Nobody should know that you were involved in this fight."

"W-where's Kyle's body now? How can we be sure that no one will find him...or the truth?" I asked one of the many questions I had.

"I have a friend in the Bronx with a funeral home.", my father looked at his Rolex. "He should be cremated by now, his ashes divided and mixed into five separate urns. So where will he be next week? Who knows, he could be on someone's fireplace or at the bottom on the Atlantic Ocean...it doesn't matter because he's gone. There is no body." He finished.

"I need both of you to swear that if anybody...I mean anybody - mother, father, Kyle's parents, boyfriend....". He looked at me. "...police officer, stranger, hell even me, asks what happened, you tell them that exact same story. Do you understand?"

We both shook our heads. He stood up and put on his hat.

"Good! Now you two will go to Allaya's residence. I'm sending someone there to check on your injuries. Wait three days until you come back here. Three days! Shaneice I want you to text and call Kyle's phone tomorrow and continue to do it for the next week, to make it seem as if you're looking for him. I will have someone call your phone and I want you to stay on the line for exactly 4 mins before hanging up. I want to establish the fact that he told you that he left and isn't coming back." He emitted, pushing us into Nene's car.

"And remember ladies, if you're going to kill someone, you do it right." Then he tapped the hood of the car to signal that we could drive off.

"You're all done dear. I'm going to have these prescriptions delivered to you this afternoon. Please get some rest love. You need it." She drawled before packing up her stuff and leaving.

But I couldn't sleep. I was awake the flashes of blood, the sparkle of the chrome blade and hearing the annoying screech of Kyle's voice.

No matter how you put it, or what way it was arranged. At the end of the day, I was a murderer. I took the life of someone's child and I was going to hell for it.

I sat in the chair on Ne's bedside and took out my laptop to work. I did everything I could think of, in order to get my mind off of my sins.

I did homework until I was two weeks ahead of my program and I completed studio work for the week. Then when I was finished, I busied myself with looking at warehouses for Nene's business and setting appointments with real estate agents and interviews with future employees to help her while she was recovering. It was the least I could do for putting her in this position.

Then I took a two hour phone call with a developer and he told me everything I needed to know about investing in my childhood home.

When I was done it was almost 6:00pm. Twelve hours later and I barely moved. Nene woke up about an hour ago. Surprisingly she was really talkative. Without my prying, she told me everything - about the abuse, Kyle's constant cheating and her abortion.

I held her hand as she cried and tried my best to be there for her 100% but I was still lost in my head.

"You know my parents wanted me to marry him. I could only imagine what mommy gon say when I tell her he left me", she giggled bitterly at her own lie. "I begged God to forgive me for taking away that baby's life. But you have to u-understand that I couldn't let him grow up with a father like Kyle." She sobbed. "He found the clinic appointment in my calendar...on my computer and when he confronted me, he dragged my ass up and down that house until I passed out. The whole time I said to myself, Shaneice this is your karma, God is finally punishing you for being a bad person."

I squeezed my eyes shut and rubbed her back while she spilled all of her secrets. "I'm so sorry that you had to do that Laya. You've always been the strong one. But now, I feel free yanno? Like everything's gonna be alright."

That's the problem with being labeled the strong friend...nobody knows the extent of how much you're hurting. I'll admit that it's partly my fault as well, because I could never confess that I was damaged goods.

"Don't worry about anything babe. We'll put this shit behind us." I reassured her. "You hungry? I'm gonna make dinner." I said getting off the bed.

"No Laya don't do that. Shouldn't you be resting too?"