Face Off--The Baddest Chick 4

by Nisa Santiago

  Denise nodded, and Terri lowered the gun and took a few steps back, his eyes on Kola.

  “Thank you.” Kola focused on her mother and continued with, “I went to Nichols’ grave earlier. I had to. It’s been too long now.”

  “Why?” Denise asked.

  “Why? Are you serious? Have you been to her grave since it happened?”

  Denise remained quiet.

  Kola sighed. “With a fuckin’ mother like you, it’s no wonder why we all turned out the way we fuckin’ did. We never had a chance. Look at her. Look at us.”

  “So all this is on me now?”

  “It might as well be. You were always a selfish bitch, Ma. Always! I remember growing up, we were just a fuckin’ burden for you in the projects. And then you started showing off your twins off like we were toys, like we were little fuckin’ trinkets. Yeah, we dressed nice, but that’s all you ever gave us, nice things from the men you used to fuck, and who would sometimes try to fuck us.”

  “I always defended my daughters.”

  “Only when you felt embarrassed by it. The only time you would care about us is when it benefited you. You treated a nigga wit’ a big dick and some cash better than you did us. And now look at her.” Kola pointed to Apple. “And look at where Nichols’ is at, Ma. We all fucked up, and now you have the audacity to sit by Apple’s bed like you really fuckin’ care. What? You plan to benefit from us now, huh?”

  Denise locked eyes with Kola, and her tears started to fall. She knew Kola was a hundred percent right. Even though she was a changed woman, there was no hiding from her past. But was it too late?

  Kola continued to chastise her mother. For so many years, she had been holding the anger and pain inside, and now it had been unleashed in the streets and at her mother like the perfect storm. She was tired of fighting. She had accumulated so many enemies and contributed to so many deaths, she just wanted to disappear for a moment, start fresh somewhere. But where? Her foes were everywhere, and they had connections far and wide. One slipup, and it was lights out.

  Denise took the tongue-lashing from Kola. She knew it was the hard truth. “I’m sorry,” she said, tears trickling down her face. “I know I wasn’t the perfect mother, but I’m tryin’ to do right by y’all right now.”

  Kola rolled her eyes. “You almost lost your life to some killers, so now you wanna have a change of heart? You just scared. Ain’t nothin’ changed wit’ you.”

  “Is it too late for us, Kola? Huh? Do you hate me and your sister that much?” Denise asked in a trembling voice.

  Kola glared at her mother. “I don’t know anymore.” She wanted to go off and punch the bitch in the face, but she kept her cool.

  Kola looked at Apple and realized she could have been the one lying in that bed. She’d escaped death so many times, she was like Houdini in the streets.

  Kola and Denise were silent for the moment.

  “I can’t do this shit,” Kola said.

  She turned and started to leave, but Denise called out to her, “Kola, no. You stay. I’ll leave. If you can’t accept my apologies for the sins from my past, then fine. But, as a mother, I don’t want to see my daughters fighting wit’ each other anymore. It stops here, Kola. No more of this shit between y’all.”

  Kola was somewhat taken aback by her mother’s straightforwardness. “Oh really?” she snapped back.

  “Yes. Someone tried to murder y’all both. Now think about it. The both of y’all are more powerful together than apart. I know you’re alone, Kola, but you don’t have to be. And I know you hate me for many things . . . for Nichols’ death, the way you was brought up, and that’s your choice, but I don’t hate you. I love you, and I will always love you. But I made amends with myself for the things I’ve did.”

  “Amends?”

  “Yes. As I confessed to Apple in her coma, I was responsible for havin’ someone throw acid in her face. I was jealous of y’all, and it pains me that I had that done to my own daughter. Whatever punishment haunts me for my sins against my own flesh and blood, then I’m okay wit’ it. But you don’t hate her anymore. If you want to hate someone, then hate me. But y’all two need to fix this. If the two of y’all are dead, then there is nothin’ left, and Nichols’ death was in vain. You know Nichols wouldn’t want this shit happening between y’all. She loved y’all both, so, for her, you and Apple fix this.”

  Denise was done talking. She walked by Kola and made her exit. It was the first motherly speech she’d given to her daughter.

  Kola looked intently at Apple lying in the coma. She clenched her fist and tried to fight her emotions. But the tears were trickling down her face, her mother’s words lingering in her head.

  Twenty-seven

  Chico stared at the beautiful baby girl in the crib. Shaun was right. The baby resembled Apple in so many ways. Her light brown skin and big walnut eyes were hypnotizing. Chico reached down and picked up the sleeping infant. As he cradled her in his arms, his goons were rummaging through the affluent home in San Antonio, Texas, treating themselves to the treasures inside.

  It was a three-day drive from New York to San Antonio. And once arriving in San Antonio, they met up with Shaun, who gave Chico the information he needed to find the family and the child, and it was as easy as one, two, and three.

  Shaun had sold Peaches on the black market for babies, and the family paid a tidy sum for the healthy newborn. But he’d always kept tabs on them, knowing that one day he might need to come back for the infant.

  As Chico held Peaches in his arms, Shaun entered the room. Chico looked at him, and asked, “What now?”

  Shaun replied, “Now we have some fun.”

  ***

  The team of doctors followed Apple’s condition closely. For fourteen days, they observed her vitals thoroughly and continuously checked for swelling in her brain. But she was healing fine. On the seventeenth day, she started to show signs of recognizing voices once again—her mother and her sister.

  Apple finally awoke from her coma to see Kola standing over her. She gazed at Kola silently. At first she didn’t recognize her own twin sister. It was like she was seeing a stranger for the first time.

  Denise was smiling, but Kola remained pensive and somewhat uneasy. This was the first time Apple had emerged from a vegetative state.

  By the twentieth day, Apple was responding to simple commands, such as, “Show me two fingers.”

  On the thirtieth day, she was no longer in need of intensive medical care, and was transferred to a rehabilitation center in Long Island, with a team of physical, occupational, and speech therapists, as well as a psychologist to help with her long recovery.

  The situation was awkward for Kola. For so long, Apple was the enemy, the raging bitch in Harlem, but seeing her sister weak and vulnerable felt unreal. It almost became a brand-new world for her, learning to walk and talk again one painful step at a time.

  Kola was there to assist her sister. At first she was reluctant, but then this transformation came over her, and she wanted to see Apple get better. Despite their horrid relationship, this was still her sister; they shared the same blood and suffered the same loss. She wondered, though, once Apple regained her full strength, would she revert back to her old, deadly ways and turn on Kola once more?

  The streets were quiet for now. Chico had been MIA for several weeks, and their foes had been dormant. But Kola knew their enemies were still a threat to them, still looming about somewhere in the shadows. These two sisters caused havoc and death on an unprecedented level in the streets, and they owed a debt to too many major figures in their world who weren’t just going to allow them to walk away so easily from the game. Kola knew this was only the calm before the storm.

  Terri became a major help with Apple’s recovery. He cared for Apple and wanted to see her heal. Whatever the sisters needed, he got for them. He also gave Guy Tony continuous updates about Apple’s condition. Guy Tony refused to fly into New York to see Apple. He tried to distance himself from
her, convinced the feds were about to come down on her like a shit storm.

  Guy Tony was ready to save his own ass and testify to a grand jury. It was his revenge against that bitch. Death would have been too easy for her. He’d rather see her rot and die slowly in a federal prison. He was smiling in her face while slowly pushing the knife in her back. The shooting did put any indictments on hold, but the feds and detectives were sniffing around Apple’s criminal affairs and watching her recovery.

  Kola knew it would only be a matter of time before word got out about Apple’s true condition. The wolves were out there pounding the pavement, and one whiff of the sisters’ vulnerability would bring them around. And they would like nothing better but to tear these twins apart. Their safe haven was only temporary, and the doctors would be ready to release Apple soon.

  Denise was with her twins almost twenty-four/seven, and she had become a different woman, behaving like a mother, not a ghetto girlfriend. She helped feed Apple, brushed her hair, and gave her daughter sponge baths.

  But the miracle came when Apple and Kola started to communicate with each other. Apple was becoming her old self, and her memory was coming back to her. She was haunted by the shooting, though. And Terri informed her that Ion was dead, but Chico was still alive.

  As Apple’s rehabilitation continued, the twins had a heart-to-heart with each other. Kola made Apple realize that if they didn’t stand tall together, then it was inevitable that they would die separately. Kola was the first to apologize.

  “That thing wit’ you and Cross, I’m sorry. I know what he meant to you, and I shouldn’t have taken it there. But if it pleases you to know, he wasn’t shit anyway, and he ain’t gettin’ out of lockup anytime soon. Muthafucka got what he deserved. And I’m sorry about what happened to you in Mexico. No one deserves that type of punishment. No one,” Kola said genuinely. “I was really hurt over Nichols’ death, and I hated you for it . . . for sleepin’ wit’ the enemy, for being stupid. But that’s a while ago, and things have changed.”

  Apple remained silent. She never took her eyes off her sister. For too long, the demons controlled her, and revenge was the only way she felt fulfillment. She needed to confess her part too.

  “I didn’t have anything to do with your stabbing in Miami, and that’s the God’s honest truth. And I’m sorry about my relationship wit’ Supreme. That bastard had me brainwashed somehow, but I dealt wit’ him. Had him shot down while he slept,” she told Kola. “How did it get so hard for us?”

  Apple and Kola talked out their differences, putting everything out into the open. And then they started to make a list of all their enemies—Shaun, Chico, Cross, OMG, Copper, Nikki, and Eduardo. They began plotting against their foes, deciding if they fell, then they would fall together.

  Twenty-eight

  Denise sat slumped in the passenger seat of the Ford truck, trying to keep a low profile. Samson, the driver of the truck, was also her muscle. He drove into New Jersey with a screw face and armed with a Glock 17. She felt uncomfortable being back in the hood, even if it was East Orange. But the phone call she’d gotten from Yandy sounded really important, and Yandy insisted that she had to speak with Denise in person. Denise owed Yandy that favor and decided to leave the comfort of Long Island and drive miles away to New Jersey.So Denise was a nervous wreck, because she barely went anywhere unless it was important.

  Samson came to a stop in front of the elegant pre-WWII apartment in East Orange. It was early evening, and the block was quiet.

  “You ready?” he asked.

  Denise nodded.

  Samson stepped out first, and Denise followed. He played her closely, his eyes darting back and forth. With his dark shades on and clad in a black T-shirt that highlighted his muscle, he looked like an intimidating figure.

  Denise followed him into the building, and they took the elevator up to the fifth floor to Yandy’s apartment.

  “I wonder what’s so important that she gotta see me about,” Denise said to Samson.

  Samson kept quiet. It wasn’t his business to know. He was there for only one purpose—protection. He was one of Terri’s trusted soldiers in the game, and he had bodies on him like a small cemetery. “Shoot first, fuck questions” was his motto.

  Denise stood outside the apartment door and knocked twice.

  “Who?” she heard Yandy shout from the other side.

  “It’s Denise.”

  “Okay.”

  The two could hear the door being unlocked from the other side. Samson kept his hand close to his gun.

  Yandy opened the door and smiled. “Hey,” she greeted. “I’m glad you came,” she said, opening the door wider.

  Denise stepped inside first. Samson wasn’t too far behind her. Once Denise was in the foyer, she hugged Yandy.

  “What’s goin’ on, Yandy? Talk to me.”

  “I’m in trouble.”

  “What kind of trouble?”

  Yandy walked into the living room with Denise, and Samson followed behind them. But when he stepped into the clear, a gun was thrust to the side of his temple.

  “Oh shit!” he uttered.

  Boom!

  Samson’s brains splattered across Denise, the walls, and the floor, and his body dropped. Denise screamed.

  “Shut the fuck up, bitch!” Chico shouted. He pushed his gun into her face and threw her to the floor. “You know what we here for,” Chico continued.

  Denise was wide-eyed with pure panic, and Yandy stood frozen by the window. Her tears started to trickle down her face. Bad grabbed Yandy by the arm and pushed her into the chair.

  “I’m sorry, Denise,” Yandy cried out. “They beat me and raped me, and they were going to kill me.”

  “What y’all niggas want?” Denise shouted.

  “Ya fuckin’ daughters, bitch,” Chico replied through gritted teeth.

  “Fuck y’all!”

  “No. That’s what we gonna do to you, if you don’t play ball, bitch! I hated ya ass for a long time, but now it’s my turn to have some fun wit’ that ass.” Chico glared at her. “This is too easy.”

  “Fuck you!” Denise hissed.

  “You know what?” Chico said, “We gonna make things fun. But before the games start, you need to know somethin’, you dumb bitch.”

  Shaun walked out the bedroom holding baby Peaches in his arms. The child was crying. Denise looked at him with bewilderment as she hugged the parquet floors, shivering with fear. She didn’t know what was going on. Who was this baby?

  “Say hello to your granddaughter Peaches.” Shaun squatted down closer to her, so she could get a look at the baby. “Oh yeah, ya slut daughter Apple, she had a baby while in Mexico. Ain’t that a bitch? But, yeah, look at her. This ya granddaughter, your one and only.”

  “Oh my God!” Denise cried out. Tears started to stream down her face. She wanted to hold her.

  She reached out for the baby, but Shaun pulled back.

  Chico shouted, “Nah, you don’t get that fuckin’ pleasure.”

  “What do you want from me?” Denise screamed out.

  “Your daughters and your life,” he replied.

  Chico grabbed Denise by her hair. She kicked and tried to fight him off, but he was too strong. And he had help from his thugs in subduing her. They placed duct tape over her mouth, beat her, and stripped her naked. Then they tied her to a chair and watched her squirm and cry.

  Chico said, “Now, your daughters . . . where are they?”

  Denise remained quiet.

  “You wanna be stubborn, you stupid bitch?” Chico looked at Torrez and nodded.

  Methodically Torrez walked toward Yandy, who tried to ward him off. Her small fists were no match for the trained killer. His massive hand grabbed a handful of her hair, yanked her head back, and then slit open her throat. She let out a quiet gasp before succumbing to her injury.

  Denise began to tear up again, and her eyes registered complete fear. She mumbled something incoherent underneath the duct tape. She
gazed at the baby Shaun was still holding. Her grandchild was in the arms of a killer, and she felt helpless. It was a nightmare she wanted to awake from. With all her strength, she tried to free herself, but her restraints were strong.

  Chico, towering over Denise, lit a blowtorch, and the blue flame came to life. Denise’s eyes grew wide. She fidgeted in her seat like it was the electric chair.

  He told her, “You gonna talk to us one way or the other.”

  Then he placed the burning flame to her exposed nipple, and the excruciating pain that followed almost made Denise faint. But her screams were muffled by the duct tape over her mouth.

  As Chico tortured Denise for information on her daughters, her teary eyes stayed fixed on her granddaughter in Shaun’s arms. She wanted to hold and feel the child. It wasn’t going to happen, though. It was the worst kind of torture, not being able to hold her granddaughter, and dying right in front of the baby’s eyes. Death was coming for her, and there was no escaping it.

  She felt her skin dissolving under the intense flames, and her body started to go into convulsions as the hot blue flame from the blowtorch ate into her skin like acid. But Denise wasn’t going to give up her daughters. She was willing to die for them. It was her last chance to be the mother they needed.

  As the torture continued, she kept her eyes on Peaches, knowing this was the only time she would get to see her granddaughter.

  Twenty-nine

  The messenger came to Terri and whispered the news into his ear.

  “Shit!”

  Kola and Apple were in the room talking, but when they turned to look at Terri after he received the message, his expression said it all to them.

  “What happened?” Kola asked.

  Terri walked toward the twins. There was no easy way to deliver the message, so he just came right out and said, “Your mother is dead. They found her body in a city dumpster.”

  “What they do to her?” Kola asked, gritting her teeth like a madwoman.

  “They burned her alive. She was naked, cut up, and barely looked like a woman.”