Free True to the Game III by Teri Woods Page B

said, freaking out, shaking her hands in the air, trying to find the reason for everything that was happening.
    “Gena, please calm down . . .”
    “No, don’t tell me to calm down. You were dead, Quadir, gone. Why would your mother throw me out like that, if . . . did she know?”
    Quadir stood still, knowing what his mother had done.
    “Listen, Gena, my moms did what she had to do. She was only trying to protect me.”
    “Protect you? Protect you? Are you serious? That’s your answer? You just let her throw me out like that, with nothing. You left me with nothing. You died, and now you’re back, but you’re back and you don’t want me anymore because of Jerrell, and I can understand that. I can understand it all. I see it all real clear. Fuck me, right? Fuck me, right, Quadir?” she yelled at the top of her lungs, ready to break something.
    “Gena, please, it’s not like that. It’s not like that, really.”
    “Then what could it possibly be like?”
    “You don’t understand; you’re too emotional to understand right now . . .”
    “Please, Quadir, please, just leave me alone,” said Gena. They both stood in silence as Amelia’s BMW pulled into the driveway. The garage door opened and then they heard it close.
    “I guess that’s her. Amelia, the most fabulous doctor in the world. The doctor who brings people back from the dead. Wow, she must be something, really something. Not only does she save her patients, she fucks them too,” said Gena as she began to make her way back to her room.
    “Gena, wait, listen . . . Please, Gena, there’s something I need to tell you; please listen to me, it’s important.” Quadir followed her as she slammed the guest bedroom door in his face.
    “Tell it to yourself!” Gena screamed, opening the door. “No, better yet, tell Amelia,” she said, slamming the door in his face again.
    She ran over to the phone on the nightstand and called a yellow cab.
    “Hello, yes, ma’am, I need a taxi.”
Fuck, I don’t even know where the hell I’m at.
“Never mind,” she said, hanging up the phone.
    Gena searched the room quickly for her clothes. She dressed, quietly crept down the stairs, and climbed out an open window in the library. She snuck away before Quadir and Amelia knew she was gone.
    Terrell walked briskly through the park, trying to make it to his meeting place and wrap things up before the rain started coming down again. He hated the weather this time of year, especially when it got locked in a rainy cycle. It was one of the reasons he had left the city. He hated the rain, and even more so, he despised the cold. The weather in his new city was as different from this shit as night and day. He had relocated to beautiful, sunny South Florida, and he loved it. He had vowed never to set foot in the city of brotherly love again, but now, business had forced him to come back. He had flown in to avenge his younger brother.
    Champagne pulled up to the park in her black S600 and backed into a parking space. She hated meeting Terrell; he was worse than his twin brother. At least Jerrell had a little bit of sense about him, even a little bit of class, compared with Terrell. They were both cold, heartless men, but Terrell was a straight-up animal. He was a brute, with no sense of social grace, no understanding, no limitations, no nothing. He followed his most basic instincts, as if he were a hyena or lion or some other wild-ass animal. The bad part about Terrell was his attitude. The penal system ate him up a long time ago and even though he had not been locked up for more than fifteen years, he still had an institutionalized mentality. He didn’t give a fuck and he didn’t care. He never would, just like most men who served time.
    Champagne could see him in the distance, standing and waiting for her. Goosebumps covered her body, and she felt creepy, crawling creatures up and down her spine. It was a feeling she got whenever she was around Terrell. She hated the way he