"Your stupid grandmother gave it to me. Even the responsibility of raising a brat while she decided to get sick."
The doorway to the stairs opened and Lynne entered. Marvin smiled wickedly, "We did it baby. Now everything will be ours."
Nicole looked accusingly at Lynne as her mother went to stand beside Marvin. He kissed her check and neck sloppily then turned his attention back to Nicole. "I told you she'd come if we sent her a message from that bastard."
"You knew all along he planned on doing this?" Nicole asked Lynne incredulously.
"Knew?" Marvin exasperated. "She planned everything. When she was ready to leave that sorry bastard of a husband she knew she couldn't get a dime from him, so she decided we could both share the wealth Nanna had accumulated."
"Why? If you needed anything, Nanna would have given it to you, Lynne. She loved you still no matter how bad you treated her."
Lynne only pursed her lips tightly together and lowered her head to the ground.
"Who the fuck cared what Nanna would have given, it was a matter of what Nanna had that she wouldn't sell," Marvin said.
Nicole glared at the insidious man. "The business was Nanna's hard work and she didn't want to sell it. You knew this yet you still went behind her back and sold it illegally to Parker Mills."
"Then you went and bought it back with my money."
"I only took what was rightfully mine and Nanna's."
He cocked the gun and just as he pulled the trigger, Lynne knocked the gun to the right. Nicole felt the bullet whiz past her ear and a white hot pain shot through her temple.
Marvin whirled around from the force of the gun and Lynne. "What the fuck is wrong with you?" he bellowed facing her.
Lynne now stood holding Nicole behind her as Nicole clutched her forehead to stop the blood from oozing into her face. The bullet had nicked her temple and Nicole felt a little dizzy.
Lynne took a gun out of her coat pocket and aimed it at Marvin.
"Have you lost your damn mind woman?" Marvin exclaimed.
"No I've gained a conscious Marvin, which one of us should have done a long time ago before we even thought about bringing a baby in this world."
Nicole cleared her thoughts straining to hear what her mother was saying.
"A whore with a conscious, Lynne. That don't go together at all."