FOR BETTER OR WORSE

Chapter 12- Its Not Over

Black POV

I pulled the trigger and Ace's body hit the floor almost instantly. He stared at me with hate in his eyes.

"How could you do this?" He managed to croak out. "You're supposed to be Rio's boy. He's going to find out."

I sat up in bed and looked around the room. My eyes landed on the clock seeing that it was three in the morning. Sweat poured from my face as I tried to catch my breath. Tania woke up and placed her hand on my shoulder, I winched in pain.

"I'm sorry." She quickly apologized. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah. I'm fine. Go back to bed."

I walked into the bathroom and the faucet water ran as I tossed cold water onto my face. Today was Ace's funeral and I'd been having the same dream for the last few nights. It was only because my guilt was eating away at me.

"Get your shit together, B." I said to myself just as Tania walked into the bathroom.

Concern filled her face. "Are you sure you're okay, bae?"

I turned off the bathroom light and directed her back into the bedroom. The last thing I needed was for her to start worrying about me.

"I'm worried about us, Brandon." She said as if she was reading my thoughts. "Do I have to worry about some niggas coming to our house?"

Truth was I didn't know what Wealth was capable of. When I woke up the other day the last thing I expected was to be in a shootout.

She continued. "I think we should move. I'm due to give birth in any minute and I don't want to bring our baby into this."

"Relax. I will make sure we're good."

I could feel her piercing at me through the dark. Silence filled the room before she decided to speak again. "You also need to have a conversation with Rio. Him putting his hands on Renee wasn't cool."

I laid back in the bed. This wasn't the kind of conversation I was wanting to have at three in the morning.

"We'll talk about it in the morning." I said dismissing the subject before attempting to fall back to sleep.

***

I stood in the mirror adjusting my tie. The funeral was less than an hour away and we were nowhere close to leaving the house. I took a look at the watch on my wrist.

"Come on, bae. We can't be late." I announced throughout the house.

Tania walked downstairs fully dressed with half of her makeup done.

"I'll finish in the car." She said grabbing her purse.

We left out and arrived at the church just as everyone was walking in. I spotted Mario, Alaina, his kids, Lolita and Roland sitting in the front row and walked over to them.

Lolita smiled and greeted me while Roland held back. He stood and moved down a seat; making space for Tania and I. The pastor walked up to the podium and began the services.

I looked around the church and it was quite a few people. Ace was loved. I glanced over at Mario and noticed that he couldn't stop looking at his phone. At that moment it dawned on me that Lauren wasn't anywhere in sight.