THE GANGSTERS WIFE - Ride Or Die

To them, he goes by Kash, Boss, Hitman. To me, he goes by partner, soulmate, and the love of my life. Since we were sixteen years old sitting in the back of a high school classroom, we’ve belonged to each other. For those same five years, Kash has also belonged to the streets. I chose this life the moment I chose him. That much, I know. It was never without understanding the risks either. Kash isn’t a bad person, nor is he one of those average stand on the corner type of guys with no direction. My baby has ambition. He’s smart. Calculated. This life chose him just as much as I did, so all I can do is stay loyal to mine. And yes… he is mine. Most girls would probably say that like it was some kind of weakness. Like loving a man too hard automatically made you stupid. Maybe to them it did. Maybe to girls who only knew Kash from rumors, headlines, whispers, and the way people suddenly lowered their voices whenever he walked into a room. But they didn’t know the version of him that came home to me at three in the morning smelling like cologne, smoke, and outside air, sliding into bed like the world hadn’t spent all night trying to pull him away from me. They didn’t know the Kash who danced with me in the kitchen while noodles boiled on the stove because the power had gone out again and we were too broke to afford takeout. They didn’t know the boy who sat behind me in eleventh grade math flicking paper balls at the back of my head just to piss me off enough to talk to him. The same boy who got suspended two weeks later for putting another guy through a locker because he grabbed my wrist too hard in the hallway. Kash loved hard. Dangerous men usually do. That’s the part nobody tells you. People always talk about the money, the chains, the fast life, the fear attached to men like him. They never talk about the way those same men hold you like you’re the only soft thing left in their world. Like if they loosen their grip for even a second, everything around them might collapse. And maybe that was our problem. We loved each other so much we stopped noticing how dangerous our world was becoming. Women envied me because of the way he loved me. Not just financially either, though Kash made sure I never went without a thing. It was the smaller stuff that got to them. The quiet stuff. The way he automatically grabbed my hand crossing the street. The way he remembered every little thing I liked without me repeating it twice. The way he’d come home from long nights and still stop to kiss my forehead first before doing anything else. Every soft gesture he made toward me came naturally, because making me happy somehow filled something inside him too. Men envied Kash for different reasons. His drive. His hunger. His ability to walk into almost any situation and somehow leave with profit attached to his name. Kash had this way about him where people either wanted to be beside him or wanted to be him. There really wasn’t an in between. Even back in high school he moved like somebody twice his age mentally, always thinking ahead while everybody else was just trying to survive the day in front of them. That’s why the streets loved him too. Kash understood them. And the streets have a dangerous habit of holding onto men who understand them best. Our slip-up was inevitable, so it wasn’t a shock when things started taking a turn. It was only unexpected how soon it happened, because life was still going as good as it could while people plotted in the dark without us even knowing. That’s the thing about this lifestyle. Problems don’t usually knock at the front door first. They build quietly behind your back until one day everything hits at once. At the time though, I was too caught up in loving Kash to notice the shift happening around us. Too comfortable in our routine. Too used to his lifestyle to realize people had started paying attention to me too. By noon, the apartment was almost painfully quiet. I moved around slowly, still wearing one of Kash’s oversized hoodies while cleaning up around the kitchen more out of irritation than productivity. My phone sat face down on the counter beside me, buzzing every couple of hours with another dry-ass message from him that I fully intended on ignoring a little longer. You ate? Stop being dramatic. Open the door for the food when it gets there. Typical Kash. No apology. No accountability. Just him trying to force his way back into my routine without actually addressing the argument itself. The worst part was knowing he was probably still checking on me anyway. I found myself glancing toward the small camera tucked into the corner of the living room before rolling my eyes at myself. Kash monitored everything connected to me when we weren’t together. The apartment cameras. My location. The front entrance. Sometimes I swore that man knew I was irritated before I even decided to be irritated. Part of me wondered if he was watching me right now. Another part already knew he was. With a quiet sigh, I grabbed my phone off the counter and finally looked at the newest message sitting across the screen. Open the damn door. Right on cue, a knock echoed through the apartment a second later. I sucked my teeth softly before walking over, already knowing Kash had probably sent enough food to feed half the city instead of just admitting he missed me like a normal person. That was his thing. Kash didn’t do emotional speeches unless he absolutely had to. He handled things through actions, money, gifts, protection. Anything except simply saying what he felt outright. Pulling the door open, I was met with two large takeout bags and a nervous-looking delivery driver who barely made eye contact with me while handing them over. “The order’s already paid for,” he muttered quickly. Of course it was. I thanked him quietly before shutting the door, setting the bags onto the counter while fighting the small smile threatening to pull at my lips. Because annoying or not, Kash remembered everything. Even angry, that man still knew my Friday order down to the extra sauce cups. I grabbed my food out of the bag before carrying it over to the couch, curling one leg beneath me as the warmth from the container settled into my lap. The apartment still smelled like him faintly, mixed with takeout and expensive cologne trapped somewhere in the furniture. Shaking my head softly, I lifted the container slightly toward the camera tucked into the corner of the room. “Thank you, Kash,” I muttered sarcastically. A familiar deep voice immediately crackled through the speaker system. “You’re welcome.” I froze mid-motion before slowly looking toward the camera with narrowed eyes. “Of course you’re talking to me through the damn camera,” I said. A low chuckle came through the speaker. “No,” Kash replied calmly. “I’m talking to you from…” Before he could finish, the front door suddenly unlocked behind me. “...right here.” I turned around so fast I nearly dropped my food into my lap. Kash stood in the doorway dressed in all black, one hand still resting near the keypad while the other held his phone loosely at his side. The second my eyes landed on him, irritation and relief hit me so hard at the same time it honestly made me more annoyed than I already was. Because there he was. Three days gone. Three days of ignoring me in person. Three days of acting stubborn. And somehow he still walked into the apartment looking like the answer to every problem I had. His eyes moved over me slowly, taking in the hoodie, my bare legs stretched across the couch, the food in my lap, before the corner of his mouth pulled slightly. “So you was ignoring me,” he said casually, locking the door behind him. “But still ate my money.” “And wore your clothes too,” I shot back instantly. Kash looked at me for a second before his eyes dropped down to the oversized hoodie hanging off my shoulder, and just like that, the tension between us cracked. A small smile tugged at my lips. His answered it immediately. “Of course you did,” he muttered, shaking his head like he expected nothing less. The apartment suddenly felt lighter again. Familiar. Like us. Kash kicked off his shoes before walking over and dropping onto the couch beside me like he had never left in the first place. The cushions dipped beneath his weight as he reached into one of the takeout bags, stealing a fry from my container first just to be irritating. I smacked his hand away immediately. “You bought all this food and still touched mine first?” “Because yours looks better.” “It’s literally the same order.” “Nah,” he said calmly, already chewing. “Your food got attitude on it.” I rolled my eyes hard while fighting another smile, and Kash leaned back against the couch watching me in that quiet way he always did whenever he knew I was still mad but softening anyway. “So,” he said after a moment, “you done acting like I died?” I stared at him for a second before scoffing softly. “You disappear for three days every time we argue, Kash.” “I was busy.” “You always busy.” “And you always dramatic.” My eyes narrowed immediately. “See? That right there is exactly why I be wanting to fight you.” A low laugh left his mouth, deep and effortless, while he stretched one arm across the back of the couch behind me. Too comfortable. Too unbothered. Like this conversation wasn’t the exact thing that had me sleeping angry for three nights straight. “You missed me though,” he said. I hated that he sounded so sure about it too. “Don’t piss me off.” “That wasn’t a no.” I tried to stay irritated. Really, I did. But Kash had this annoying ability to pull me out of my mood just by being himself. Maybe it was because we had been doing this dance for years already. Fighting. Ignoring each other. Finding our way back naturally like neither of us really knew how to stay away for long. His fingers brushed lazily against my thigh before he finally looked over at me properly. “You ate today besides this?” he asked quietly. And there it was. That subtle shift only I ever really noticed. One second he was joking. The next he was checking on me without making it obvious.