Before he could fire a round at her, Rufus stood hurriedly shot Crown multiple times in the chest. Crown’s body crashed into a glass table.
“Fuck!” Rufus shouted. He then looked over at his cousin lying on the floor and thought the worst.
“YB, get up! Get up, nigga,” Chaos begged.
YB coughed loudly and opened his eyes. “Damn, this shit hurt.” He was panting loudly but pulled up his shirt to show that he was wearing a bulletproof vest.
Chaos sighed with relief and hugged him. Their joy was short lived when Rufus said to them, “Yo, I think that bitch is dead.”
Chaos looked over at Sweet and saw her friend sprawled on her back. She looked dead.
“Nooooo!” she screamed, rushing over to Sweet.
She picked her up in her arms and noticed the blood and the bullet hole in her neck. “Oh my God, no!”
“Fuck!” YB muttered.
Rufus just shrugged and said, “Yo, let it be. The bitch is gone.”
“She was pregnant! She was fuckin’ pregnant!” Chaos exclaimed, staring at Rufus.
“Yo, YB, we need to be out soon. So let’s just get this nigga’s shit and bounce.”
YB agreed, knowing that there was nothing that they could do for Sweet. She was dead. Chaos continued to hold her friend’s lifeless body in her arms realizing that the two of them had almost been away from Crown. They had come so close only for her life to be snatched away.
YB and Rufus ransacked Crown’s entire crib and came up with $75,000 cash, jewelry, and minks. Rufus threw everything into Crown’s Escalade and YB had to pull Chaos away from Sweet’s body.
“We gotta go,” YB said.
Chaos didn’t resist. She knew that there was nothing that she could do for Sweet. She stared at Sweet’s body on the cold floor for a moment longer and then rushed outside with YB and Rufus.
“I’ll take the Lincoln and y’all bounce in the truck,” Rufus said.
Chaos quickly got in on the passenger side and YB jumped behind the wheel. He peeled out of the driveway and sped down the block, Rufus right behind him.
Chaos rested her head against the passenger window, still upset and crying over Sweet. She looked lost for a moment. YB drove down City Line Avenue. He knew that in a few hours, cops would be all over the gruesome crime scene that they left behind. Word would soon spread about the home invasion and Crown’s death. He knew that the best and only thing for him to do was take the money he had stashed plus the shit that they took from Crown and leave town for a while. It felt like he was running away from his beef, but he heeded Magic’s advice. YB knew that he had to live for today so he would live to fight tomorrow.
He glanced at Chaos and said, “We gonna do this. I’m sorry about your friend. She was cool peoples.”
Chaos turned to YB, her eyes puffy and red from crying. Her face was still wet with tears. “Just get me the fuck outta Philly,” she said a hoarse tone.
YB nodded.
24
It didn’t take long for word to spread about the shooting at Crown’s home. Numerous cop cars with their blaring lights were parked outside Crown’s house, alarming the neighbors. Uniformed police combed the area, looking for shell casings and searching for any evidence.
Homicide detectives were inside examining the crime scene and trying to reenact what had happened.
“We got two dead, sir . . . and one in critical condition,” a uniform cop informed Detective Lemur, the lead detective.
“Where’s my survivor?” Detective Lemur asked, studying the crime scene with hard eyes.
“He was rushed to Thomas Jefferson University hospital with three gunshots to his chest. A male victim, in his mid-thirties and the owner of the house,” the cop informed him.
Detective Lemur sighed and took in the scene carefully. “City’s going to fucking hell with the murders. A’ight, I want everything bagged and tagged and an I.D on the female victim. I want to know if they have any priors and send a cop to the hospital to see if our guy lives or dies. I want a statement from him as soon as he opens his eyes, if he survives. To me, this looks like a home invasion gone wrong and our female victim got caught in the crossfire somehow. By the looks of things, our male victim was caught up in a very bad business and it probably came back on him.”
Everyone nodded and went about their business. The news reporters were camped outside, waiting to get a statement from the detectives. The neighbors were gathered behind the yellow police tape, talking among themselves and concerned about the shooting. No one witnessed a thing but the cops still asked around and got nothing to go on.