“Are you sure you don’t want a ride?” Elaya asked with concern dripping in her tone.
“No,” Tiara told her, kissing her cheek. “I’ll just catch a taxi. It’s OK. You need to go straight home. You’ve done enough for today. I’ll call you as soon as I make it in, OK?”
“OK,” Elaya said and got into Clarence’s vehicle. She blew Tiara a kiss before Clarence pulled off. Tiara didn’t have long to wait before the cab pulled up to take her home. She got in and verified her home address so that the driver could take her to where her bed was located. Tiara held her Michael Kors over-the-shoulder bag tightly and listened to the cabdriver talk to himself as he drove. After a few minutes of listening, she soon figured out he wasn’t talking to himself. She saw his headphones in his ears.
This motherfucker is on the phone and driving, Tiara thought.
Instantly irritated, she cleared her throat, hoping that the older Caucasian man would hear her. He looked at her in the rearview mirror of the cab, and Tiara got the feeling that he was annoyed that she had interrupted his phone conversation.
“You do know that you aren’t supposed to be on your phone and driving, right?” she asked. “And I hope you know that because you are putting my safety on the line, whatever that meter says at the end of this drive, I’m only paying you half of that.”
The man looked dumbfounded for a moment, but before he could say anything back to her, Tiara held up her hand silencing him.
“Just drive, please,” she said.
She knew the driver wished that he could kick her out of the car. But if he did, she would raise hell and fuck him up in the process. By looking in her eyes through the rearview mirror, she was sure that he could see that she had some craziness in her. He drove all the way to her residence, and when he got there, Tiara took a peek at the meter. It read that she owed just over twenty dollars. She pulled out a ten from her purse and threw it in the front seat.
“If I ever see you, I won’t ever pick you up!” the angry taxi driver scoffed.
“Fuck you,” Tiara said before she exited the vehicle. “If you want money, then you should act like it.”
She slammed the door when she exited the vehicle, whipping her long hair in the process. And she flicked the driver off for good measure before she made her way to the entrance of her apartment complex. There were a few people walking the street, but not many. Tiara used her key to get into the secured entryway, and before she went up the three flights of stairs to her apartment, she checked her mail.
“Nothing but bills,” she said to herself and sighed.
A&E helped fund her outlandish shopping addiction and kicking it with her friends while her job paid her bills. There was no extra money to live, like really live. She was almost twenty-two, and she knew it was time for her to make amends with the Rogers. She just didn’t know when. She took the elevator all the way up to apartment number 313. Her apartment wasn’t large and lavish the way she’d like it to be, but it was home, and she was proud of what she had.
She opened the door and threw the envelopes in her hand on the dining-room table. Then she locked the door behind her and began to strip off her clothes right by the doorway. Tiara wanted nothing more than to take a long, hot shower in her bathroom. All the lights in her apartment were off, and she made her way through it naked and based off of memory. Undisturbed, she flicked on her light. Suddenly she screamed, long and loud.
“Oh, what?” the man sitting on her bed said, smiling at her. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost, my dear Tiara.”
“W-what are you doing here?” Tiara stammered, covering her chest and her crotch with her hands.
“No point in covering up,” the intruder said, eyeing Tiara’s perfect body. “I’ve seen it all before. Tasted it all before. Fucked it all before.”
“Leave!” Tiara yelled, looking around frantically before she finally located a pink silk Victoria’s Secret robe and put it on. “Get out!”
Tiara regretted not having any sort of weapon on her, not even a stun gun. Her heart was pounding, and she couldn’t deny that she was terrified. The man sitting on her queen-size bed was the man who was responsible for her life being the way that it was. He had taken away her innocence at an early age and was responsible for hurting the people she held dearest to her heart.
“I’m afraid I can’t do that,” he said menacingly. His grin and the look in his eyes made her stomach drop. “You have a pretty high price on your head in the underworld.”
He stood up from the bed, and Tiara took in his appearance. He was wearing a pair of 501 Levis and a Crooks and Castles sweatshirt, but tucked into his pants, Tiara took in the sight of the butt of a gun there. She backed herself into the farthest wall as he advanced on her. She prayed silently for herself and her best friends, hoping that they weren’t next. Finally, he was directly in front of her, so close that she could smell the tacos he ate for lunch on his breath.
“Tiara Rogers,” he said, using his pointer finger to gently brush against the cleavage showing through her robe, “responsible for the deaths of Blake Rogers and Doctor Pierce. How do you plea?”
“Fuck you,” Tiara spat, realizing that she was going to die at the hands of the ingrate anyway. “You aren’t even worthy to speak my name out loud.”
“Worthy?” he said to
