She walked toward the lobby but stopped in her tracks. Her jaw dropped when she saw YB standing just a few feet ahead of her with blood on his shirt and jacket.
“YB?” Danielle said in shock.
YB smiled and said, “I’m back, baby.”
“Oh my God!” Danielle ran to her man, threw her arms around him and hugged him tightly. Tears of joy and relief flowed down her cheeks.
“I didn’t know if you were dead or alive! But you’re here. You came back!” Then she remembered the blood on his shirt and pulled away from him. “Baby, what happened?”
“We’re good, baby. We’re good. I took care of everything. Harlem and Crown are dead,” he informed her.
“What . . . what you mean?”
“They can’t touch us anymore, I made sure of that,” YB said proudly.
Danielle didn’t know what to think. She looked into his eyes and saw the love she’d been looking for all her life.
Dawn was soon breaking and Danielle held onto her man in confusion. He had gone to war with dangerous men from Philly just to protect her and the baby. She loved him but knew something was wrong.
YB hugged his girl as the sun began to rise. He cried as he held Danielle in his arms. He cried, thinking about family members he’d loss. He missed his people from Philly and wished that he could bring them back but he knew a new life awaited him in New York.
Danielle felt safe in his arms. She grabbed his T-shirt, not caring about the blood on it. “I’m so sorry, baby. I’m so sorry. But I think it needed to be done.”
“What needed to be done?” YB asked.
She hesitated and continued to hug him a little bit longer. Then she said, “I called the cops and confessed to everything that went on in Philly. They know about the murders and the money,” she admitted.
YB’s heart stopped. “Baby, you did what?”
“I told them about the murders. I was scared and didn’t know if you were coming back home so I talked to a detective and gave up everything.”
For some reason, YB wasn’t mad at her, though. He had just escaped a shootout, killed two men, and his boy, Ray-Lo, was probably dead. A jail sentence was inevitable.
“We gonna be a’ight, baby. We gonna be a’ight,” YB said.
As the sun continued to rise, YB heard the sirens piercing the morning air. He knew that they were coming for him. He knew his time with Danielle was over and it was time to pay for his sins.
He continued to hug Danielle, blocking out the sounds of his fate. He closed his eyes and shed a few tears while the police came nearer.
“I love you, Danielle,” he proclaimed.
“Baby, I love you too,” she replied.
Two police cars raced up the block and stopped abruptly in front of the loving couple, holding each other as the sun rose above them.
Officers jumped from their cars with their guns drawn and shouted, “Get down on the ground now! Get down!”
They had their weapons aimed at every part of YB and Danielle and were ready for anything. YB ignored them for a short moment, holding his woman in his arms. He knew it would probably be a long while before he would be with Danielle again.
The cops continued to shout out their commands and kept their guns trained on the couple. YB squeezed Danielle and said to her, “I’m glad that I took that chance with you. You gave me hope and a future. Whatever happens, I will always love you.”
Danielle didn’t want to let him go, but knew it was safer to do so. She could hear the chaos going on around her and knew that a normal life sometimes felt impossible. At this point, her life felt like a movie playing in her head.
YB gently released Danielle, raised his arms in the air, and slowly got down on his knees. By now the block was flooded with cops and the sirens woke most of the neighbors as they observed the arrests from a short distance.
YB was quickly subdued and put into handcuffs, while Danielle was detained for questioning. For Danielle it felt like since the day she was born, the nightmare would never end for her. Her life was chaotic; her mother definitely gave her the right middle name, because it fit her life so well.
Epilogue