And what about the mysterious stranger, that had stopped Gabriel? Who was he? What was he? Was he strong like Gabriel?
“Who the hell are you?” Shanice asked from where she still stood by the door staring at me.
I frowned at her. “It’s me, Yasmin!”
I was kind of frustrated that she was asking stupid questions. She was taking a very dangerous situation lightly and I couldn’t understand why. I mean yeah technically she didn’t know how dangerous the situation had become, but still she should be able to look at the panic on my face and know that now was not the time for her to be joking around.
“Yo, your eyes are purple, and where the hell did you get all that hair. I thought you had bald spots!” That was it. I stopped pacing and faced her fully.
“Shanice, I’m in trouble. I need you to be serious for a minute!” For just a moment shock registered on her face. I had never snapped on her before.
“Dang! Alright! What’s going on?” Of course, she was high, that fact frustrated me more. Talking to her was going to require more effort than I wanted to extend right now.
“Gabe is going to kill me!” Her eyes lit up.
“So, you have been with him this whole time?” She sat down on the couch grabbing one of the pillows and hugged it in front of her.
“Girl, tell me all about it?”
“I don’t have time to fill you in on all the details, but yeah he caught me trying to steal from him and instead of calling the police or putting a bullet in my head, he said that I had to marry him.” Her mouth dropped.
“Stop lying!” She gasped. See what I mean? She was looking at me as if I had just told her I won a billion dollars in the lottery.
“I’m not lying! He’s trying to force me to marry him!” She held up her hand shaking her head.
“Force? Girl, stop trippin’! He shouldn’t have to force you! If The Beast of New York wants you to be his wife, the only thing you should be saying is when and where!” I exhaled. There was no way she would understand. She and the other girls at Shugga’s were just too damn superficial to ever see the problem of him forcing me to be his wife.
I folded my arms as I continued my pacing. “It doesn’t matter anyway because I don’t think he wants to marry me now. I crossed him and now I think he’s going to kill me.”
“Girl, are those Jimmy Choo’s you kicked off? Those shoes expensive as hell”
“Everybody warned me never to cross him!” I continued, ignoring her completely.
“Oh damn! Look at that ring. Rock so big it’s blinding me… and it’s purple. I have never seen a purple diamond before!” She jumped up off the couch and grabbed my hand to get a better look.
I snatched it away from her. “Damn it Shanice!” Her startled cloudy gaze came up to mine.
“I just told you my life is in danger and the only thing you can focus on is this material crap!” Tears of frustration came to my eyes. I felt like I was trapped in the Twilight Zone. I had demons and thugs with super powers trying to kill me. Black cowboy angels coming to my rescue, and all this girl wanted to talk about was material garbage that can be destroyed if one set fire to it!
“Don’t you see what I’m telling you? He is not normal. He’s very powerful and mean! And maybe even a little psychotic! He just killed a man without blinking an eye, and he’s coming for me next!” It seemed as if my words had finally penetrated through her head.
“Wait! He’s coming here?” She grabbed my hand and pulled me to the couch. I sat down twisting my mother’s ring around my finger.
“No—at least… I don’t think so!” I shook my head confused.
“Okay, tell me what happened to make him want—” She never got the rest of her sentence out. There was a loud crash before her front door came flying into the apartment with such force that it embedded itself in the opposite wall.
Both of us stared at it for a moment as our brains tried to process what we were seeing. Then we turned as if one unit toward were the front door used to be. Gabe, Mac and Jerome walked slowly through it looking around to make sure we were here alone.
Both of us opened our mouths to scream at the same time, but before we could, Mac and Jerome were on us. They had our hands and mouths duct taped before we could even blink our eyes. But that didn’t stop either of us from trying to scream our heads off.
Gabe sat at Shanice’s dining room table as if he had been invited, casually picked up a pile of mail and began looking through it. Yes, I was pretty sure now! He was a psychopath! He still wore his tuxedo although he had taken off his bowtie and unbuttoned the first few buttons on his shirt.
Jerome went to stand outside in the hall to make sure nobody came this way, while Mac stood over us making sure we didn’t move from where we sat huddled together on the couch.
“Let me guess whose idea it was to steal from me.” He spoke casually as if he didn’t just cause her front door to become a part of her living room wall. His dark angry gaze fell on me and I would have given anything to just sink through the couch.
“You have shi**y taste in friends baby. I mean don’t get me wrong, Shanice Johnson.” He read her name off the piece of mail in his hand and for the first time I noticed that the knuckles on
