Page 34 of Soft On Her
“Trust me, the last thing I want to do is hear you screaming like a fucking hyena, and while you looking like the chicken Peter Griffin was whooping,” Levi retorted, stepping to the side so we could enter the room.
Deja’s facial expressions went from angry to thankful to confused in a matter of seconds. I fought to keep my chuckle at bay because Levi wasn’t lying. The way Deja’s hair was sprawled all over her head definitely mirrored a chicken.
“Milani?” Deja puzzled. “You know Sneaux?”
“Yeah, I’ve known her since we were kids,” she replied, then glared at Levi. “What the fuck did y’all do to her?” Milani screeched, referring to her bruised face.
“Deja’s face was already fucked up when we grabbed her,” Levi clarified. “So take some of that bass out of your voice, Milani. And don’t ever accuse me of putting my hands on a lady. I’ll never do no shit like that. The crazy bitch did try to fight her way out of the truck, and I had to slam her against the door. If she has a lil shoulder bruise, that’s all me. But I ain’t fuck her face up like that.”
“Levi didn’t do this. It was my father,” Deja lamented. “So I want to make a deal. If you just give me and my daughter freedom, I’ll give you everything you need to take down my father and brother. Whatever beef you have with them, please leave us out of it.”
“Why the fuck would we believe you’d sell them out?” Levi inquired.
“I just said my father did this to my face,” Deja shouted, squinting at Levi. If she wasn’t on our territory and being guarded by a man three times her size, I’m positive Deja would’ve asked if he was dumb. “This is why I didn’t want to talk to you. It’s like your synapses aren’t firing.”
I chuckled that time, and Levi mugged me.
“Why did Mr. Antonio do that to your face?” Milani questioned, her tone the softest in the room.
“He felt like I was fucking things up with Sneaux after Mr. Luis told him she said I was standoffish and wasn’t going to force it,” Deja sniffled as a tear rolled down her face. “I’ve never been more than an object to my father. A means to an end. He’s hated me since my first husband died before we could reap the benefits of that arrangement. With my mother’s passing, his anger has only gotten worse, and without her around, I don’t know how much longer I can take his abuse. No offense, Sneaux, but my heart is already with someone else, and my father knew that before proposing this arrangement. I just want to take my daughter and have a little control over my life.”
Levi shifted like he was over her pleading, but I believed Deja. For the first time since I met her, I could read the sincerity. It was oozing off her words and seeping out of her pores. Deja just wanted to live her life in peace. My heart instantly softened for Deja, because it felt like listening to Milani vent about wanting to live her life on her own terms when we were younger.
“No offense taken,” I shrugged.
“If my father and AC are out of the way, I can finally do that. I won’t even need money because I’ll have income from my thriving bakery, and my boyfriend is a doctor. He will take care of me.”
“A doctor?” Levi pried.
“Yes, a doctor. He helps people, he doesn’t kill them,” Deja spat.
A smile spread across Levi’s face, and he pulled out his phone to shoot off a text. “What’s his name?”
“Why? He doesn’t have anything to do with this life. Leave him out of it,” Deja sputtered.
“You’re locked in a fucking room! Why do you think this is a negotiation?” Levi fumed, his fists clasped tightly around his phone. He moved across the room and shoved his phone in Deja’s face.
Deja’s mouth slipped ajar, and her eyes lifted from the phone to Levi. Her gaze turned lethal as she lunged across the room toward Levi. The metal chair she’d been sitting in scraped violently against the floor before toppling over behind her. Levi’s hand wrapped around Deja’s neck the moment she stepped within his reach, and with one brutal shove, he slammed her into the wall behind her.
“Okay, the angry rooster lost her privilege to roam the room freely. Cuff her ass to the chair until we talk to her people,” Levi demanded as Cameron grabbed Deja’s arms.
“If you touch him!” Deja sneered, chest heaving from anger. Levi smiled, emitting a loud laugh.
“My God, I’m terrified,” Levi joked, leaning down to pull Deja’s breast back into her top once Cameron had her cuffed to the chair. “The woman who can’t even fix her top because she’s cuffed to a chair is threatening me.”
“Fuck you, Levi!” Deja raged.
“Her nigga is the one who shot at you. She must got gold between her legs to have a pediatrician try to kill the woman she’s barely seeing,” Levi tossed me the phone.
“No! He wouldn’t do that,” Deja argued.
Quinn’s contact flashed across Levi’s screen with an incoming FaceTime call before I could get a good look at the picture. I passed Levi the phone, and he slid the bar to answer. “That pediatrician from Michigan is the one who shot at Sneaux. He’s fucking Deja,” Quinn announced.
“I just figured that out myself from letting Deja run her mouth.”
“Although he reported his credit cards stolen as a cover up. I went through both of Deja’s phones looking for anything that would help us with AC and Antonio like you asked, but instead I found hundreds of thousands of texts between Deja and the doctor. Plus, he checked into the hospital with two gunshot wounds to the shins early Saturday morning.”
“Thank you, Quinn.”
