Mr. Jones: His Side of the Story (The Jones Series Book 2) Read online

  Mr. Jones

  His Side of the Story

  Part Two of The Jones Series

  (Part One is titled “Mrs. Jones)

  Copyrights 2014 ©

  All rights reserved by Savvily Published LLC

  B.M. Hardin

  This book is a work of fiction. All persons, events, places and locales are a product of the others imagination. The story is fictitious and any thoughts of similarities are merely coincidental.

  Acknowledgement

  With this book, I simply want to acknowledge God. He has taken me farther than I’d ever thought I would go in my writing career and I am so thankful for the gift that he has blessed me with. It is truly something to be doing something that you love and I wouldn’t change it for anything in this world. I love what I do and most of all I love the readers. Because of you, I am where I am in my writing career and I just want to say thank you!

  Dedication

  This book is dedicated to a few of my special and awesome readers!

  Tonya Pope, Denise Brana, Amber Van Denack, and Tiffany Hudson. You guys are some of my superstar readers and thank you so much for supporting me and my work!!! Muuuah!

  “Mr. Jones”

  His Side of the Story

  Chapter One

  I stared at Niveah as she took her last breath. I wanted to help her, I really did. The man, the husband in me wanted to save her---but I didn’t.

  Hell, the truth was that I knew that I couldn’t.

  By no means had this been easy for me. I’d killed before, but killing my wife; yeah, that was something different.

  But what was done, was done. I hadn’t had a choice.

  Instead, of doing what a part of me wanted to do, I did what I’d been told to do and after knocking over a few things around the bedroom and grabbing a handful of her jewelry, I turned my back to her and headed out of the bedroom.

  The baby began to wail, almost causing me to turn around to comfort her, but I couldn’t turn back. I had to get back to the office before they noticed that I was gone.

  Downstairs, I headed back out the back door that I’d kicked off the hinges. I was surprised that Niveah hadn’t heard the forced entry. I was hoping that she had and I thought that she would have come down the stairs, which would have made it easier to get the job done. It would have also given me a few more minutes to make the scene look more like a break-in or robbery, but it hadn’t worked out that way.

  Hurriedly, I made my way through the trees and over a few fences until I found myself back at my car on the next street over. I looked around to see if anyone would have noticed me, but there wasn’t a soul in sight.

  Before entering the car, I pulled the black clothing from over the top of my wife beater and dress pants that I was wearing underneath.

  As I drove, I placed the clothes, shoes, her jewelry, the mask, gloves and the gun in the black duffle bag that was riding shot gun in the passenger seat. I put back on my black and red polo shirt and my dress shoes that I’d taken off a few moments earlier. I had to get back to the office before anyone noticed that I was gone.

  I told the guys that I wasn’t feeling my best, and they assumed that I was going into my office to relax for a second, just to pull myself together. But what they didn’t know was that it was all a part of a plan and I had a murder to commit.

  But I knew them and if I knew them as well as I thought that I did, one of them would be coming to check up on me any minute now.

  Though killing Niveah felt as though it’d taken forever, looking at the clock, I had only been gone from the office a little over fifteen minutes.

  Working only a few minutes from home made the plan easier; which had been one of the few reasons that I’d chosen the house in the first place.

  Everything, every single detail of my life for the past few years had been planned out; in preparation for this very moment. It had all been for this day; well maybe not this exact day, but I knew that at some point this day would come.

  Before I headed back into the building, I spotted him waiting for me. He was in a car that I’d never seen him drive before and he had the window down far enough to show the look of anticipation on his face. He glanced at his watch as I headed in his direction. With no words exchanged, I threw him the duffle bag full of the evidence and hurriedly, he sped off.

  Nervously, I glanced around the parking lot to make sure that no one else was there that wasn’t supposed to be. It was late in the evening so only my business partners and I were left at the building.

  I glanced up toward the sky as I headed inside. I damn near ran to my office and slammed the door behind me. I had so many thoughts popping in and out of my head that I needed to take a seat but instead---I headed inside my personal bathroom.

  With the door locked behind me, finally…I breathed.

  I felt as though I hadn’t breathed the entire time.

  My heart was still pounding, my mind was still racing. I hadn’t noticed how bad my hands were shaking. You would have thought that it was my first time holding or shooting a gun; but it wasn’t.

  There was a time when I could shot a person without thinking twice. I could kill a man and not feel one bit of remorse.

  Yeah, Niveah had turned me into a pussy. I swear pretending to love her, and then actually falling in love with her, had softened me up a little bit.

  But I had to shake it off. This was business.

  After I stabilized my breathing, I washed my face and hands with cold water. I glanced up at my reflection in the mirror.

  “Ah! What the f---,” I closed my eyes and then opened them again. I checked behind me and then looked back at the mirror. For a second I’d thought that I’d seen Niveah’s reflection standing beside mine in the mirror.

  My mind was playing tricks on me.

  Niveah was dead.

  “Ay man, you okay in there? What you screaming for? Everything good bro?” Dominick asked, as he tapped on the bathroom door.

  Dominick and I had been boys for as long as I could remember. We’d grown up with the same struggles, in the same place, and around the same people. In the past, we’d gotten involved with some of the same folks, cheated our way through college together and done some foul and crazy things that neither of us bothered to mention.

  As far as I was concerned, he was the closest thing that I’d ever had to a brother. As far as I was concerned, we didn’t have to be blood to be kin.

  “Yea man, I’ll be fine. For some reason, I can’t seem to get right. I think I might need to head on back home,” I said as I came out of the bathroom.

  I headed to my desk and picked up my briefcase. I scanned the desk for my keys.

  “Santana, here they are---on the sink. You sure you okay man?”

  I simply reached for him to throw them to me and nodded my head.

  “Oh, we still need your input on a few more things bro,” Dominick bellowed.

  “Email them to me, I’ll get right on the computer when I get home,” I said as he followed behind me.

  I stopped at the front desk. Slyly, I glanced behind it to make sure that I’d turned the cameras off when I’d come in earlier that evening. Often, almost every other day, our receptionist, Forgetful Frankie, would forget to turn them on, so I knew that if she was ever questioned, she would simply say that she forgot. The fact that she often forgot was the reason why she’d had the job for so long. The boys always joked as to why on earth would we keep around a receptionist that would forget to do everything. I’d always talked them into keeping her around.

  As I said, everything had always been for a purpose.
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  “Alright, take care homie and get some rest. Oh, and kiss the baby for me,” Dominick said and I nodded.

  The baby…

  Damn it; I had to get back to the baby.

  She was probably there screaming at the top of her lungs, begging for her mother’s touch but Niveah couldn’t hear her.

  Niveah was a cold, dead corpse by now.

  It wasn’t until that very moment that what I’d done really started to sink in.

  I killed her. I’d really killed her.

  But I hadn’t had a choice.

  In my defense, I’d never expected to fall in love with her. Initially, it wasn’t supposed to have gone on so long but of course we hadn’t wanted anything to seem too suspicious. And who knew that Niveah would end up getting pregnant, which cause the plan to be drawn out an additional nine months.

  I’d thought that my heart was incapable of love but somehow, Niveah had managed to get through. But even the love I had for her hadn’t been enough to save her.

  Pulling up at the house, I could hear baby Darla crying before I’d even reached the front door. I rushed in and up the stairs to her aid.

  The room was dark, so I cut on the light. I couldn’t make myself look in Niveah’s direction. Instead, I headed toward the crib and grabbed the baby. She continued to cry while in my arms but I could only comfort her for a second.

  I had to stick to the plan.

  Timing is everything.

  The timeline of all of my actions were critical.

  I’d done many crimes before; but nothing like this. I’d taken care of a few loose ends in the past, but this was different.

  Niveah’s death meant the world to him. This job wasn’t like the others. Plenty of times I’d been paid a few thousands to shoot up a room full of nobody’s that the police would rather see dead and off the streets anyway. No, everything about this job was different.

  Killing Niveah was different; she was my wife, more or less.

  I took my phone out of my pocket and with the baby still crying, I called Dominick.

  “What’s up bro, you see the paperwork?”

  “Bro I need your help! I just walked into the house and…Niveah is dead!”

  Immediately, Dominick started to question me. I pretended as if I didn’t have any of the answers to his questions and he told me to call 911 and that they were on their way. Dominick knew me better than anybody and if I could convince him, I could convince anyone.

  “911 what’s your emergency?”

  “My name is Santana Jones. I just came home and found my wife dead!”

  As soon as I hung up with the operator, I laid the baby down and headed back downstairs. I glanced at the open back door, just to have a look at it.

  Everything had been done right. I’d followed every step down to the tee; I couldn’t afford to mess this up.

  It was supposed to look like a robbery but looking around I discovered that I could have messed up the place a lot more than I had. I was the best in the game when it came to taking care of business, but as I said, Niveah had made a me a little soft.

  I headed back up the stairs to get Darla and as soon as I entered the bedroom I heard banging on the front door.

  Here we go.

  ~~~

  “Sir what happened?” the black police officer asked me.

  “We came home today from the hospital. I shouldn’t have left them but I needed to go into the office, just for a little while. I shouldn’t have left them,” I stated in a low baritone voice. I was in a deep stare appearing to be in shock. I held my daughter close to my chest and I even managed to shed a tear or two.

  After all, I loved Niveah. I really did.

  As the police continued to question me, I wondered what was going on upstairs. I was uneasy, which was a first. The palms of my hands were sweating and I felt as if I was struggling not to show how uncomfortable I was.

  All three of the fellas were now at my side; Dominick, Evan and Monte.

  Dominick and I both linked up with Evan and Monte in college. Basically, all four of us were doing what we had to do to please our folks; but the streets and trouble had our hearts. We dabbled in a few things illegal and other things to keep some money in our pockets. But none of them had ever done some of the things that I had. At least not to my knowledge.

  Both Evan and Monte were married. They weren’t exactly happily married; but they did what they had to do to keep their wives mouths shut.

  Evan was the most laid back and understanding of the crew. He was calm, cool and collective; until you pissed in his cornflakes. He didn’t mind portraying the good guy image but he had a dark side that shouldn’t be tampered with or taken lightly. That’s the side of him that I got along best with.

  Monte was the exact opposite. He was always ready for whatever. He didn’t mind taking off his suit and tie and getting his hands dirty. When it came to doing something illegal or cutting corners, Monte was always up for the job.

  In college we got into some trouble together and we’ve been partners in crime and in business ever since. Though, none of them had been a part of this little business venture. I hadn’t told any of them about my plan or the truth about my history and Niveah. It was made clear that I shouldn’t include or say a word to anyone about anything. And since my life and my future depended on it---I had to do what I had to do. And I had to keep my mouth shut.

  “Sir, what else?”

  “I left. I went to the office. I wasn’t there for too long. I’d even pulled myself away from the meeting to call and check on them, but she hadn’t answer. She was here, dying, and I hadn’t been here to save her,” I forced several more tears from my eyes.

  Yeah, I had been the one to call Niveah while she was taking her last few breaths. I’d almost forgotten that part but luckily I’d remembered.

  Everything had been done for a reason. I was sure that the technology wizard that was on his side had already done his part so if the police went digging, my phone call would put me at the job; rather than in the same room as Niveah. He had more than enough connects if you know what I me.

  I watched the officers inspect the back door. I watched one of them sneakily look down at my shoes, but there was nothing to see. The shoes that I’d used to kick in the back door were long gone.

  “What else?”

  “Uh, I had a headache. Probably from the lack of rest since she’d had the baby, and when she didn’t answer my call, I decided to head home. I left, and when I got here, before I’d even gotten into the house, I heard the baby crying. I rushed upstairs and that’s when I found her…dead.”

  I hung my head and kissed my daughter’s forehead.

  I was trying to focus but my mind wouldn’t let me. This was my first time ever being questioned by the police and since someone unnamed had already been paid off in the police department, I knew that the police officer was wasting his time. Money ruled the world and with enough of it anything and everything was possible; even when it came down to getting away with murder. Someone could always be bought or paid off---including me.

  A lot was riding on Niveah’s death and a lot of people’s lives and reputations were at stake if things didn’t go as planned.

  And I’ll be damn if…

  “Mr. Jones! Mr. Jones! We have a pulse! It’s a miracle, but we have a pulse!”

  What the---

  The EMT workers rushed down the stairs with Niveah on a stretcher. As soon as I got sight of her, chills ran down my spine. It was as if I’d just seen a ghost.

  Suddenly, her body began to shake uncontrollably.

  “We have to get her to the hospital now!” The woman screamed, just barely glancing in my direction. Immediately, I jumped to my feet and headed out the door behind them.

  She can’t live.

  Niveah can’t live!

  *********

  Chapter Two

  “She suffered a stroke on top of everything else. We were able to remove one of the bullets so far but
the other one is in a risky position. Her body is in a state of shock and she is now in a coma. In my professional opinion, she only has about a 25% chance of surviving. She has to go through another surgery but afterwards, assuming that we don’t lose her while on the table; she will be hooked up to the machines. I say give her a few days and if nothing changes, well…the choice is yours. Take some time and think things through. But it may be in your best interest to start planning for a funeral,” the doctor said, patting me on the shoulder.

  Niveah’s parents, her sick father and all, immediately came to town and were there at the hospital with me. They both looked at me with tears in their eyes, awaiting my response. But I said nothing.

  “We have to wait it out and see what happens. Niveah is strong. She will pull through this,” her mother said as she rocked baby Darla in her arms. Her father didn’t say a word. He was barely hanging on to life himself.

  25% chance of survival?

  There’s no way that she will pull through this. Niveah has to die. If she lives, the whole plan will be ruined; not to mention that I’ll be spending the rest of my life behind bars.

  What was I thinking by taking off the mask? If Niveah survived, I was more than positive that she would be able to identify me as the shooter.

  I was starting to sweat so I took a seat.

  If I wait a few days before I pull the plug, at least I’ll look like I care. But what if she starts to get better…then what?

  I needed to make a phone call. I needed to give him the scoop on what was going on.

  He’d told me to shot her in the head but I just couldn’t. Killing her was bad enough already. Shooting her in the head was harsh.

  But I should’ve listened to him because if she survived, all hell was going to break loose.

  My mother-in-law continued to cry as she comforted my daughter. Darla cooed. I couldn’t help but smile at her. She was never supposed to be a part of this. She wasn’t a part of the plan.