The Black Widow Clique

by Genesis Woods

  When I looked over, the time on my dashboard read 8:45 p.m., which meant I had been sitting in this spot for six hours now. My stomach was growling, I was thirsty, and I needed to pee bad. Cowboy was going to let me in this house today, or I was going to shoot the hinges off the door and let myself in. I responded to a text from April, placed my phone in the cup holder, took my keys out of the ignition, and got out of my car. The cool evening breeze hit my face the minute I stepped out and closed the car door behind me. Autumn leaves in orange, yellow, and red hues decorated the ground. Kids rode down the street on their scooters and bikes, laughing and having fun before their parents called them in for the night. I loved the residential area Cowboy lived in, but I had always wondered why he moved out here. For someone who was so low key and was such a stickler about his privacy, you would think he’d have moved to a kid-free and secluded area.

  After walking up the two steps that lead to his screen door, I rang the doorbell and waited to see if I would get an answer. Five minutes passed, with me just standing out there, before I began to bang on the door, the mail slot, and the adjacent window. The loud noise I was making did draw a bit of attention from Cowboy’s neighbors, but I didn’t give a fuck. Like I said, he was going to let me in today, or I was going to let myself in.

  “Excuse me, honey. Are you related to the young man who lives here or something?” his old-ass neighbor asked as she walked across her lawn to the fence that separated her and Cowboy’s houses.

  “Why do you want to know?” I wasn’t trying to be mean to her, but I hated nosy muthafuckas.

  “Oh, honey. I meant no harm. I just wanted to make sure he was okay. Max normally pulls my trash bins to the front on trash day, but he hasn’t done it in weeks. I had to pay one of these little bad fuckers around here to do it. Do you think he’s okay? I haven’t seen any type of movement or lights on in a while. So unlike him.”

  “I’m sorry, ma’am, but what goes on over here shouldn’t be your concern. But thanks for the information. Now, take your nosy ass back in your house and go knit a sweater or something.”

  She grabbed her chest as if she were clutching some pearls. “I was just trying to help you, little bitch, but you don’t have to worry about me bothering you anymore. I will tell you this, though. I’m in charge of the neighborhood watch in this here neighborhood, and if he doesn’t answer the door for you in the next couple of minutes, I’ma make sure the police know a suspicious figure is lurking around.” She turned on her heels and marched away from the fence. “Tell me to go knit no damn sweater. I ain’t even that old,” her ass mumbled before she walked back into her house.

  After waving her off, I went to knock on the door again when I saw the same curtain next to the door move.

  “Cowboy, I know you see me out here. About to get arrested and shit. Open the fucking door before I have to kill your police-calling neighbor next door.” I waited for a few seconds for some kind of response but didn’t get one. “Cowboy, I know you hear me out here. Open the door, damn it.”

  I stood there for another two minutes before I went back to my car and pulled my gun out from under my seat. After making sure no one was paying attention to me, I screwed the silencer on the gun and walked around the side of his house to the back door. Before I used any type of force, I checked the knob to see if the door was unlocked, but it wasn’t. Standing a few inches back, I raised my gun and shot three bullets in each hinge and one in the lock. A small push had the door falling straight back to the ground with a loud thud. I walked over the broken glass and entered the kitchen of Cowboy’s house and had to hold my mouth to keep from throwing up. The smell of week-old garbage, rotten food, and cigarette smoke lingered in the air. The dishes were piled high in the sink and on the counters. Maggots were feasting on old Chinese food and half-eaten burger meals. Empty alcohol bottles were everywhere. My stomach turned even more at the sight, and I couldn’t help the vomit that spewed from my mouth and onto the floor. After what felt like puking my entire soul out, I walked farther into Cowboy’s house, looking for him.

  If I thought the kitchen was bad, the living room was even worse. Clothes were everywhere, along with half-empty take-out and pizza boxes. All of Cowboy’s electronic shit had been thrown all over the place and was in pieces. I picked up one of his laptops and dropped it just as fast when a family of roaches ran across it.

  “What are you doing here, Fee?” Cowboy asked from somewhere, but I didn’t see him. I cursed myself for leaving my phone in the car and wished like hell that I hadn’t. Squinting my eyes, I tried to find him somewhere in this mess but couldn’t.

  “Can you turn on a light or something? I can’t see shit in here, and I don’t wanna fall,” I said.

  “Then get the fuck out.”

  “Not until you tell me where you’ve been. I’ve been calling you for weeks now. So much shit has happened, and I needed your help, but you’ve been nowhere to be found. April’s ass decided to resurface and has been causing all kinds of havoc. Then you will never believe the shit I found out about her, Shaunie, and Benji’s mother, Julia. Shit is crazy. Where are you? I can’t see you.”

  “Fee, just leave please. I’m not ready to be around anybody right now.”

  “Why, Maxwell? What the fuck happened that you are hiding and shit? I mean, I know you used to have these little episodes when we were younger, but I thought you got over that shit.”

  The room became quiet and stayed that way for what felt like thirty minutes. Finally, I decided to speak again.

  “Cowboy, what the fuck, man? Get up and come to my house, and we can talk. I’m not about to stay another second in this dirty-ass shit. I’m surprised your nosy-ass, police-calling neighbor hasn’t called code enforcement on you. This shit looks worse than them crazy muthafuckas on that hoarders show.” As I inched my way farther into the living room, I tripped over something wet on the floor and screamed. “What the fuck, Cowboy! Let’s go now.”

  I didn’t know if it was instinct or not, but the second I heard a whooshing sound in the air, I ducked my head, just in time for the glass that Cowboy had thrown at my head to crash into the wall and shatter. I raised my gun and pointed at nothing.

  “I can’t see your ass, but I have half a clip and another full one ready to shoot this bitch up until I hit your ass. Throw something else at me, Maxwell, and brother or not, I will put a hot one in you.”

  I could hear Cowboy moving around somewhere and swung my arm in the direction the noise was coming from. After I heard a few clicks—which was him turning something on—a small house lamp went on and illuminated the area he was sitting in. My eyebrows furrowed from confusion as the sight of my brother registered in my brain. Cowboy looked bad. His hair had grown out and was matted as hell. The thick beard on his face was no better. There had to be bugs in that shit. He had old noodles and everything hanging from it. His eyes were bloodshot, and his lips were as white as snow. My brother had always been a stocky guy, built like a pro football player, but now his body was as thin as a string bean. I tried to blink back the tears that were trying to fall, but I couldn’t. I didn’t recognize my own brother, and my heart broke.

  “Maxwell . . .” My voice was barely above a whisper. “What’s wrong, brother? Why are you living like this?”

  He took a swig from the bottle in his hand. “Fee, you’ve seen me now. I’m okay. So please . . . leave.”

  “Why? So you can sit here and continue to kill yourself? I’m not going to let you do that to yourself . . . to me. You’re the only family I have.”

  “I’m sure Proof, Mel, and the rest of the clique will be there for you.”

  I bit my bottom lip. Cowboy and Proof had their differences when it came to Melonee, but they were just as close as we were. “Um, I don’t know about that.”

  “Why? Mel found out what you did?”

  “No,” I snapped. “And she’s not going to find out, because I got plans for that bitch.”

  Cowboy laughed. “When wi
ll you ever get over that, Fiona? Melonee did not cause our father to go to jail. Nor did she steal from you any type of silver-spoon childhood, which you wouldn’t have had, anyway.”

  “She stole everything from me, and you know it,” I said, my voice cracking as it rose. “The bitch deserves everything that has happened to her and is about to happen to her. Believe that.”

  Cowboy stared at me for a minute before shaking his head and taking another swig of his drink. “You need to get over it. You know if Proof finds out before she does, he will kill you. He’s still in love with Mel. Always has been, always will be.”

  “Well, I doubt Proof will be killing me anytime soon.”

  He raised his eyebrow. “Why you say that?”

  “Because he’s already dead.”

  “Wait . . . what?”

  “Him, Mouse, Wiz, and Banks. They’re all dead.”

  “What?” Cowboy’s eyes squinted, and he licked his dry-ass lips. “How?”

  I tucked my gun in the back of my sweatpants and pulled my jacket down over it. Pulling my hair back in a ponytail, I carefully walked over to the ottoman in front of Cowboy and sat down.

  “April. I called a meeting to tell everybody about the new target, and things got a little heated when they found out it was Melonee.”

  Cowboy opened his mouth to say something, but I held my hand up, stopping him.

  “Before you say anything, let me tell you what this bitch did,” I said.

  After I explained to Cowboy my reason for picking Melonee as the next target, he didn’t say anything. Just shook his head. I then told him about the plan that Julia and April had come up with and everything I had found out about them. I wasn’t surprised when Cowboy admitted to me that he already knew a little bit about what our mothers had done back in the day. Said that was one of the reasons why he had started to get into that computer geek shit. Our mother had planted that seed in his head.

  “So now the BWC are kidnappers?” Cowboy asked and laughed. “You got me fucked up, Fee, if you think I’ma let y’all harm my seed.”

  “Your seed?” I muttered. “Max, what the fuck are you talking about? Melonee’s baby doesn’t belong to you.”

  The minute the scowl appeared on his face and his eyes darkened, I knew I wasn’t talking to my brother anymore. “Who the fuck you think got her pregnant that night?” he yelled.

  “They did a DNA test on—”

  Before I could get the words out of my mouth, Cowboy slapped the shit out of me, causing me to fall off the ottoman and onto the dirty-ass floor. I tried to pull my gun from the back of my pants but couldn’t when Cowboy grabbed me by the throat and slammed me against the wall, knocking down the picture hanging from it and exposing the hiding space of another family of roaches.

  “Let . . . me . . . go . . . Maxwell,” I barely got out. He was crushing the fuck out of my windpipe.

  “Who do you think went with Uncle Dro that night to the beach house? Wasn’t no way I was going to let him and that white muthafucka get what belonged to me.”

  “Wh-wh-what?”

  Cowboy yanked my body forward and then slammed it back against the wall. My head took the brunt of the hard blow. I tried to focus my eyes on him, but all I saw was stars.

  “Melonee always has and always will belong to me. Now that, that bitch-ass nigga Proof is gone, we can live happily together with our little family. Me, Melonee, Madison, and li’l Max. Have you seen your nephew, Fee? Huh? Isn’t he the cutest thing you’ve ever seen?”

  “You . . . you . . . seen the baby?” My vision was a little clearer, and I could see this deranged look in Cowboy’s eyes.

  After taking the last swig from his drink, he threw the empty bottle on the floor, next to the others. His eyes had become a little misty. “My son was so small, Fee. Barely hanging on to life. I had to go see him and make sure everything was all right. I saw that cracker asshole there a few times and wanted to murk his bitch ass, but I couldn’t without being seen. I thought me tapping into his business accounts and doing that shit with the IRS was going to send him away, but I guess I didn’t do a good enough job.” His voice cracked, and he shook his head. “That bitch-ass nurse wouldn’t even let me hold my son. I had to sneak in between feedings and when I knew Melonee or bitch boy wasn’t stopping by for a visit. Seeing him in that little incubator damn near broke my heart.”

  As if he had just thought about something, Cowboy’s eyes cut toward me, and his grip around my neck became tighter. “Fiona, I better not find out that it was you or your fucking mama that caused Mel to go into labor with my baby so early.”

  I shook my head no, honestly not knowing if it was I who had caused it or not. I mean, I had put a couple of crushed-up Plan B pills in all that extra tartar sauce she had on her fish sandwich, but I hadn’t thought it would work that fast. “I would never kill a kid . . . not even the one in my belly.”

  At that admission, Cowboy released the hold he had on my neck and stepped back. “You’re pregnant? By who?”

  Rubbing my neck, I took a few moments to get my breathing together before I answered his question. “The baby is Proof’s.”

  “You gotta fucking be kidding me.” Cowboy laughed. “For someone who hates Mel so much, you sure do want to be like her so bad.” After walking over to the spot on the couch that he’d obviously been sitting in a lot lately, Cowboy picked up a new bottle of Jack, opened it, and gulped some down. “Fiona, get the fuck out of my house, and I mean that shit this time. Come back, and I’m going to feel the same way you do about me. Sister or no sister, I will kill you.”

  Walking backward, with my gun now aimed at him, I used the wall as a guide back to Cowboy’s kitchen, and then I turned and trotted out his back door. I guessed April was right. Family was what you made it. Because right about now, the only family that I had thought I had was dead to me.

  * * *

  “So do you think he’ll be a problem?” April asked.

  “Nah. I don’t think so,” I said into the phone. “He’s too busy self-medicating with alcohol and drugs to do anything. All his equipment is broken, and he seems pretty satisfied wallowing in his self-pity on that dirty-ass couch of his.”

  “But still . . .”

  “But still nothing. Even though Cowboy is dead to me right now, he’s still my brother, and my father told us to always look out for each other.”

  “Maxwell was always one of those muthafuckas who didn’t like to practice what he preached.”

  “Bye, April.” I didn’t even give her time to respond before I hung up in her face.

  Telling her about Cowboy seemed like the right thing to do, seeing as he thought Mel’s baby belonged to him. I didn’t think he would interfere in this plan, but with him, you never knew. A week had passed since the day I went to Cowboy’s house, and I couldn’t lie and say that I didn’t still miss my brother, but we needed some space right now. After we got this money, maybe I’d try to reach out to him again.

  For now, I needed to get my head in the game and find out some info on Mel and where she’d been hiding out. When April had a few members of her crew break into Melonee’s houses, they said it had seemed as if no one had lived in them in months. Furniture, clothes, toys, and basic household things were there, but the fridge and cabinets were bare, and the mail was piling up at both addresses. I had tried calling her old phone number, but that had been changed; and I had even stopped by Ms. Regina’s house, but she had tried to act like she didn’t know where Mel was staying. The only option that was left for me was to try Bree’s house. The last time she and I had talked was at her place, and I was pretty sure that was where she was going to be. This was the type of shit Cowboy and Rocko were useful for, but with both of them out of commission, we had to do this shit old school.

  * * *

  I pulled up into Bree’s driveway and noticed the fly-ass CL65 Benz parked next to her rented shit. Wasn’t the type of family car I would’ve copped, but Mel and I had always had differen
t taste. Checking myself in the mirror, I made sure that my makeup was on point and my bone-straight purple weave was still in place. The white-on-white J’s on my feet went perfect with my Pink by Victoria sweat suit, while my MCM backpack did what it was supposed to do. Let these bitches know that I was out here, gettin’ it.

  After zipping my jacket up all the way to try to hide the hand marks that were still on my neck, I walked up to Bree’s door and rang the doorbell. A minute or so passed before I could hear the locks start to turn. Expecting Bree’s mean ass to be the one answering the door, I mustered up the most remorseful look I could get on my face and even had a tear ready to drop, if need be. But when I turned around, I came face-to-face with one of the finest men I had ever seen. Since he had nothing but a towel around his waist and a phone at his ear, I quickly took in his muscular frame and rich cinnamon-brown skin.

  The water droplets still trickling down his chest and shoulders told me that he must’ve just hopped out of the shower and come straight to the door, while the bulge poking through the thickness of the fluffy towel told me that he was packing something serious between those muscled thighs. His dark eyes scanned me from head to toe before he cocked his head to the side. A sly smile played on his full lips as he continued to stare me down. The cocky asshole knew that I was checking him out, but I didn’t care. Whoever he was could definitely get it. Especially if his pockets were as fat as his dick seemed to be.

  “Aye, Cai, man, let me call you right back,” he said to whomever he was talking to on the phone. Voice deep and raw like honey. He licked his lips, and I damn near fainted. “Can I help you?”