Life After A Balla

“What up, nigga,” Duke responded.

“I’m at the Bleu Moon Sports Bar downtown on Bayshore Drive. Can you be here in like twenty minutes? I know how you’re always late, nigga. I don’t have all day to wait.”

“Be easy, man. I’m on my way,” Duke said ending the call.

Now that he was back in the streets getting money, he didn’t like dealing with dudes in Georgia. He preferred to deal with the connect he’d met in Miami years ago. Not to mention, Miami had some of the best coke in the world.

Cruze tapped the huge bulge of money in his pocket that Skye and even TSA had managed not to catch onto. I wonder how Skye is going to react when I tell her we have to drive back to Georgia instead of flying.

CHAPTER 3

Skye sat for what seemed like thirty minutes twiddling her thumbs looking out of the huge glass window inside the conference room. She looked around admiring the decor. The huge black oval conference table had small marble specks that matched the high-back leather chairs. The trendy room had a calm and private ambience. Skye especially liked the well-crafted wooden floors. They added to the overall look and feel of the room. Looking at the sign on the wall that read, Toni Vaughn and Associates, Skye had heard the name often, and knew the top notch lawyer definitely came highly recommended in the Miami area.

Tired of flipping through the outdated magazines, her mind drifted to what the woman on the plane said to her. “God has a plan for you.”

As the statement replayed over and over in her mind, Skye wondered what the plan was. Moments later, a woman rushed into the conference room and threw her gold Louis Vuitton Alma bag on the table. When she walked over and apologized for being late, then introduced herself, Skye was totally shocked, to see that Toni Vaughn was actually a female. She expected to see some white stuck up lawyer wearing a boring grey suit come in carrying a worn down leather briefcase. Instead, she was exchanging a handshake with a well respected black female sports attorney who represented several NFL players. Toni was a beautiful woman, with a gorgeous mocha complexion, and long chocolate brown hair that was pulled back in a neat ponytail. Skye admired her well-fit Marc Jacobs pant suit and Sergio Rossi peep-toe pumps. Now, it made perfect sense why Sandino never bothered to introduce them. Skye couldn’t help but wonder if the two of them had ever fucked.

Knowing him, I’m sure they did, she thought.

“It’s good to finally meet you, Ms. Vaughn,” Skye stated with a suspicious glare.

“Nice to finally meet you, too, Mrs. Washington. I can’t believe I’ve been representing Sandino all this time, and we’ve never met. Oh, by the way, call me Toni.”

“And you can call me, Skye. I no longer wanna go by Mrs. Washington.”

Toni gave Skye a questionable look. “Will do.”

The two immediately got better acquainted by Toni asking about Skye and the kids well-being. Once that small talk was out of the way, Toni then decided to ask Skye if she knew anything about Sandino’s condition. When Skye told her that she refused to look at the news or listen to anything dealing with his shooting, Toni decided it was time to bring her up to speed on Sandino’s prognosis. She looked at Skye funny, wondering why she didn’t know what was going on with her own husband.

“So, you don’t know anything? It’s been back and forth on the news since the day it happened,” Toni mentioned.

“Listen Toni, let me explain something to you. I went through a traumatic experience at the hands of that man. He abused me for years and I’d finally left him and moved away. He found us and came to my house with a gun trying to kill himself. Since that night, I’ve been having trouble sleeping and been taking medication all because of him. I didn’t want to know anything about his condition. I just wanted to move on with my life and try to get over the pain I endured all these years. But if you feel it’s necessary to discuss, go ahead,” Skye said.

“Well, let’s start at the beginning, I guess,” Toni said, sitting down. “I believe it’s still amazing to everybody how Sandino survived this type of gunshot wound. I still find it hard to believe that he came to your home threatening to kill himself. It seems so unlike him.”

Suddenly, Skye became a bit nervous, but tried to play it off. “Well, Toni I’m sure there’s a lot about my husband that you will never know. He wasn’t exactly the man everyone thought he was.”

Hearing the tone in Skye’s voice told Toni not to touch the obviously sensitive subject.

“From what I’ve been told the bullet passed through his head without crossing the midline of the brain, where the most critical injuries typically result. The penetration was nearly fatal, and he’s lucky. After finding out that your son was the one who called 911, he actually saved his life. If Sandino hadn’t gotten to the hospital just in time, he surely would’ve died.”

Skye sat listening to Toni thinking, yeah…yeah…yeah, I already know all this shit. I had to keep up with his progress to make sure he wasn’t coming after me again or telling the police the truth. I know that after the doctor’s performed an emergency surgery to extract skull fragments and a small amount of tissue from his brain, and that part of his skull was removed to avoid further damage. Shit it’s because of that surgery that saved his sorry ass life. They should’a let ‘em die.

After the surgery, Sandino was placed in a medically induced coma to allow his brain to rest. Surprisingly he ended up beating the odds by surviving several life threatening infections and later started making progress towards recovery. Four months later, he was transferred to one of the best rehabilitations centers in Miami.

Skye continued listening to Toni as if the information was all new to her.

“One of the first steps in Sandino’s rehabilitation is to help him try and regain the ability to take care of himself. Although he’s made some amazing progress, the brain injury did cause paralysis on the left side of his body and severe memory loss. The right side of his body doesn’t respond well either, so he’s taking occupational and physical therapy and he’s also working with a speech therapist.” Toni explained.

Skye was relieved to find out that Sandino had a lack of memory. “So, can he talk?”

Toni shook her head. “Not that well. He mostly mumbles things, but he can manage to say yes and no every once in a while.”

At that moment, Skye reached inside her purse deciding this was the perfect time to give Toni the divorce papers. When she slid them across the table, Toni looked at the papers then back at Skye.

“I think you might wanna hold off on this until you hear what I have to say,” Toni replied.

Suddenly, their conversation was interrupted by Toni’s assistant knocking on the door. “Excuse me Ms. Vaughn, I just wanted to remind you about your 2:00.”

Toni looked at her watch realizing she was running behind. “Okay, Erin thank you.”

“Alright Skye since we need to wrap things up, I’ll start off by telling you, I have some good news and some bad news to discuss. Which do you prefer to hear first?”

“I’ll start with the good news.”

Toni flipped through the papers and looked over at Skye. “Your husband has appointed you as his POA.”

Skye looked confused. “POA? What does that mean?”

“A Power of Attorney which is authorization to represent or act on your husband’s behalf in regards to handling his bank accounts, private affairs, business, healthcare, real estate etc, in the event that he should become disabled or legally incapacitated.”

“So, who is his Power of Attorney now?”

“For now I am, but of course that’s just temporary. Normally a spouse would automatically become a POA, but Sandino has a written and notarized document that says you couldn’t become his until you agreed to his terms.”

“He’s such a fucking asshole,” Skye vented. “How much money does he have left anyway?”

Toni looked down at the paperwork she’d recently got from Sandino’s accountant. “When you add up Sandino’s football pension and all the former endorsement money he had rolled into a separate account over the years, he’s still worth a whole lot of money. We’re talking about fifteen million.”

Skye was speechless for a second. “So, what’s the bad news?” she finally asked.