The Streets Higher Stakes

31. Daddy's Little Secret

"I'm home!" Becky called as she came from the stairs, the others behind her.  I smiled at her joke and hugged her along with Jason, Austin and Jhene, it was the weekend and time to plan on what to do about Wiz. I hadn't come up with any ideas because the extremities had risen so much. Two people were already dead, there shouldn't be more.

"I forgot to say that I'm sorry for your loss," Austin said as he leaned back from Trish and put his hands on her shoulder. The rest of Austin's crew repeated what he said in their own manner and I watched over Austin's shoulder as she pressed her lips together and nodded her head. The loss was still fresh. It was silent for a few seconds as The Mischief's thought of Reeker. I hadn't known him that well but to the rest of them he was like family. I would have to ask them more about him but for now I wrapped my arm around Trish's shoulder and pressed my lips to her temple. I hated to see her sad. She smiled up at me and the reminiscing was over as the rest of the crew got out of their state.

"Are we ready to get started?" She asked everyone and they all agreed. We got situated in our makeshift living area, some of us sitting on the floor or furniture and the rest of us standing. I kept my arm around Trish and she didn't seem to mind as Jhene spoke.

"We have the perfect idea how to get Wiz," she said and grinned.

"Perfect but crazy you mean," Jason added with an eye roll as he adjusted his low hanging pants.

"What's the idea? It can't be more crazier than stealing adoption records from city hall, framing someone with a felony, or burning down a whole bunch of turfs at the same time." Paul listed with his long fingers as his brother laughed. We had done some crazy stuff.

"Every single gang on East side is working for the Bloods, Crips , or other gangs and we figured that with everyone taken he would have to make some new friends from scratch. From what you told us, Wiz isn't like that, he goes through links or connections he has with people. A friend of ours can pose as a Crip wanting to work from him and have him meet Wiz in person for the first deal, if it goes well we can get pictures from afar of it and leak them to the public. He won't have a job, he'll lose money and no one is going to want to work with him in our world. He'll be over," Becky explained, as if she had made these plans months ago.

"That's crazy," Dakota said as she looked up from her fingernails.

"Crazy seems to be our new thing." Trish said and she shook her head. "We're going to pretend to be a Crip, do we have to involve them? We don't need someone else after us." I couldn't help but agree with her. My knowledge on the Crips and Bloods was small but I heard gang stories on the news all the time and from my Dad. They were pretty bad, worse than Wiz even.

"It's the only idea any of us have had. We didn't think Cole's plan would work but it did,"Theo said as he popped a pill.

"Look how well that went. He got out of jail within days and the case was dropped completely," Thayer looked up from his phone. He hadn't been his usual moody, angry self for awhile now and I was beginning to think he was suffering from some type of new drug detoxification.

"But the plan did work at least for awhile," I argued with him and he shrugged his shoulders. "For awhile exactly but who's going to suffer next when it stops working? I don't need to see another murder," he said as his phone buzzed and captured his attention again.

"He's not wrong but he's not right either. We're going to try and get this plan to work as quickly and efficiently as the last one," Austin reassured us from Thayer's cold hearted truth. We continued to to talk back and forth until I noticed Thayer slip from the group quickly and silently. I waited a few seconds until I looked over my shoulder and saw him disappear down the stairs. I stood up and followed him, the others too engrossed in the situation at hand.

From the top of the stairs, I saw him go to another door that I hadn't noticed or been through before. I went down as quietly as I could and grabbed the edge of the door before it could close behind him. I went out to see we were in the back parking lot and Thayer was walking towards the right side of the building, the side without the patio. I watched as he turned the corner only to see a small figure come out and meet him. The figure, obscured from my view as Thayer bent down to it, grasped his neck as he picked it up. It wasn't until the figure was cradled against him did I see it properly. It was a little girl with waves in her hair and a childlike smile. She had brown eyes and they met mine as she leaned back in front of Thayer and pointed to me so he could see. He looked over and his eyes changed to one of anger as he saw me.

"What the fuck Cole? Did you follow me?" He asked as he put the child down.  Another figure came from behind the corner of the wall and it was a woman. It wasn't hard for me to put it all together as she clamped her hands over the child ears and gave Thayer a nasty look. "You couldn't keep your nose out of my damn business could you? " He questioned as he stalked towards me and shoved me up against the back of the wall.

"Thayer!"The woman yelled at him as she kept her hands over the child's small ears. She looked a scared the way he was acting.

"Is that your daughter? " I asked before he could do anything to me. He gave a long breath and nodded his head. Everything else pieced together, his strange behavior, him being on his phone and late to competitions. He was just trying to be apart of his daughter's life as much as he could.

"Cole? Thayer? Why are you out here?" Trish said as she and all the others came out behind her. Her eyes went from me to Thayer to the woman and to the little girl. She stopped dead in her tracks when she saw the child, as if she had saw a ghost. The little girl looked back at her before she got out of her mom's grip, much to her protest and walked until she was in front of Trish.

"Are you Twish?" The little girl looked up at her curiously. Trish didn't say anything because I knew what she was picturing. She was picturing her baby and what she would've been like if she hadn't got an abortion.

"Yes that's her," I said because Trish couldn't say anything. The little girl gave her a smile full of teeth and wrapped her arms around one of Trish's legs before she looked up at her. " My Daddy talks about you, he really loves you." She said as she tried to pronounce all the words properly.

Trish let out an animal like whine before dropping to the ground and embracing the little girl.