“You shook, my nigga?” I said aloud and started my car.
I waited for his limo to pull off and started to follow it, forgetting I was supposed to be waiting for the others. I couldn’t let my window of opportunity slip away though, it was now or never. I made sure that there was always a car or two between us while I tailed him, but I also made sure that I never lost sight of the limo. I followed him for about thirty minutes until I saw his limo pull into the parking lot of a nicely hidden abandoned warehouse. If I wouldn’t have followed them I would have never known it was there. I kept driving so as to not draw attention to myself, but prepared to double back around. My phone started to vibrate in the cup holder and I answered as quickly as I could.
“Hello?” I asked.
“They got Loon, ma,” Tyler’s sad voice came through the receiver.
“I know,” I said sadly. “I’m sorry, Ty. The police are all over his body. The hotel is being searched as we speak. Did everybody else make it out safe?”
“Yeah, we all good,” Tyler said, and I sighed my relief. “Where are you at?”
“I’m following Khiron right now,” I told him and gave him my location.
“All right, I think I know where y’all are at,” Tyler said. “Crazy . . . that’s where he’s picking up at?”
“I’m not sure; I just know this is where this nigga is now.”
“A’ight, ma, wait for us, we forty minutes away. We had to double back and swoop Dev and A.”
I told him okay, although I knew I was lying. My trigger finger was itching, and the fact that my cousin’s murderer was so close is what drove me to park my Hummer a few feet away, hidden under a low hanging tree. I made my way to the warehouse, strapped with three guns and two grenades. I was ready. I screwed the silencer on my pistol right before I got to the entrance of the building, and double checked my surroundings before I quietly opened the heavy door to the larger building. It was dim inside the building, and it smelled like sawdust. I held my pistol in front of me as a precaution, ready to bust on anybody who jumped. I passed several different machines that looked like they hadn’t been used in years. Letting my gut instinct guide my feet I put the hood to my all black hoodie over my head. I quickly maneuvered my way through the building until I came across an old elevator. Stepping inside and shutting the gate, I pressed the red down arrow and it shook at first. I was about to get off, not wanting the rope to break, but it then began to move smoothly and my worry evaporated. Once I was on the lower level I knew I had gone the right way because I heard voices; one I instantly recognized as Khiron’s. They were in a room far down the hallway, and I crept slowly toward the half way opened door. He was speaking with somebody of Dominican heritage, saying words that I couldn’t quite make out. I peeked through the door and saw that Khiron had five men with him, one a Dominican man.
“Don is feeling as if you set him up,” she heard the voice say. “He is not very happy.”
“You have my word that I had nothing to do with that. I don’t even know who those people were. Nobody knew the location of the meeting. Except you, Al.” Khiron said bluntly. “Who did you all inform we were going to be there?”
His question was ignored as the man continued.
“However, Don saw you kill one of them and decided to give you the benefit of the doubt,” the Dominican voice continued. “Your product will be arriving shortly.”
At the reference to Looney, I lost it. I opened the door and opened fire. I had never shot my gun so quickly, but I was fueled by pure rage. In a matter of six seconds I fired six deadly shots. The Dominican connect fell back with a neat hole in the middle of his forehead as Khiron whipped around and saw me just before I sent a bullet into his shoulder blade.
“Ahh!” he said, falling back and dropping his own weapon. “Who are you?”
He was panting and in the dimmed light he couldn’t make out my face. He gripped his wounded shoulder and staggered where he stood.
“Who am I?” I asked, removing my hood. “Your worst nightmare”
I wished I could have stood there forever, drinking in his look of shock mixed with confusion that turned into pure rage.
“H-how?” he asked. “I killed you!”
“Umm,” I said pointing my gun at him. “Clearly you didn’t. You should have, though.”
I let out a crazed laugh.
“I don’t know what’s funnier. The fact that you thought you would get away with it, or the look on your face right now since you know you’re about to die. What do you think?”
“How? I watched you die.”
I lifted up my shirt and exposed my chest to him so he could get a good look at the scar from the bullet there.
“My heart is on the opposite side, bitch!” I let my shirt down, and when I saw him make another grab for his gun I shot my weapon at the space between the gun and his hand. “Ah, ah, ahhh,” I waved my finger at him and took a few steps so that I could kick the gun further away from him. “Did you like the show my niggas put on for you on the rooftop? Shit was real classy, huh?”
“Yea . . . as classy as that nigga falling thirty feet, huh?” he laughed and then grimaced at the pain from his shoulder.
I sucked my teeth.
“The disrespect,” I shook my head at him.
“Bitch, just shoot me,” Khiron said. Sweat had started to fall from his curly head inside the non-air conditioned building, and I saw his eyes flicker quickly behind me. “That’s what you came here for, right? To kill me? To get your revenge for me killing Ray? Well, do it then! You ’bout it, right?”
It was my turn to laugh. He was trying to goad me, and I must admit it was working.
“Okay,” I said, applying pressure to the trigger of my gun. Unfortunately for me, somebody had other plans. I felt something come crashing down on my head before I got the satisfaction that I so craved. “Oomph!”
I fell to the ground with a loud thud, and just before everything went black, I heard a chuckle.
Chapter 21
My ears focused on the sound of dripping water in the distance when I finally started to come to. I kept falling in and out of consciousness, but when I focused on the sound of the water I was able to stay awake. Slowly but surely, my memories began to come back to me, but with the memories came the physical pain. My whole body ached and I didn’t know if being awake was a good thing after all.
“Mmmm,” I groaned.
My vision was blurred, but that didn’t matter, I couldn’t see anything. I tried to move my body but it wouldn’t budge. It was clear at that point that I was tied to a chair in a pitch-black room. I heard footsteps walking toward me.
“Wake up, bitch,” I heard a voice say.
I didn’t have time to respond before I felt hot water get thrown on me. At least now I knew why I heard the sound of water dripping.
“Ahhhh! Ahhhh!” I cried out at the searing pain.
“That should wake you up,” the voice said again. “Hit the lights.”
Suddenly there was light, and I had to squint for my eyes to adjust. After some seconds I was able to make out the room I was in. From the look and smell of things I was still in the warehouse. My head nodded, but I forced myself to glance up at the person who had just thrown the water on me. My heart stopped when I saw that I was once again at the hands of Khiron. That time, though, he had a room full of his soldiers to back him. His arm was in a sling, and he stood over me sneering. We had only one thing in common, our hate for each other.
Khiron stared at me and I saw the monster in his eyes. He despised me before he even met me, because he was never able to compete. He hated me because he wished he was me. I hated him because he was a snake. He was a fake while I was the real thing, and that was something he was never able to accept. When he thought I was dead he had a better chance at life as a hustler. Now that I was alive he would have to kill me for real, otherwise I was going to take everything back that he thought was his. I would never quit coming after him. We
both knew this.
“Good looks, Brandon. You came just in the nick of time,” Khiron said to somebody standing behind me. He turned back to me and leered down at me. “This time, I’m going to make sure you’re dead. I want to watch the life leave your body.”
“Fuck you,” I spat at him.
He stepped forward and punched me in my face with his free hand. My head was knocked to the side and the chair I was tied to almost came off of its legs. I immediately felt my cheek swell and I grunted at the pain.
“What did you say, I didn’t quite hear you,” Khiron bent down and whispered in my ear.
“I . . . said . . . fuck you. Bitch,” I panted with tears in my eyes.
He punched me in the face again and again. Khiron commenced to beating me while I was helplessly tied to the chair. I knew I was going to die in that room. Even if Tyler and the others were able to reach me, it would be too late. They would probably die, too. There were just too many enemies there. I had failed. It wasn’t supposed to be like this. I was supposed to come out on top this time. Instead, I had let my team down. With every punch Khiron laid on my weak body I felt more of my life being taken away from me. I spit up blood all over myself since I couldn’t bend and spit it on the floor. Although he could only use one hand to punch me he was still doing me in pretty good.
“You thought you were going to win bitch? Against me?” Khiron stood back, laughing, and wiped the sweat from his face. He looked to where his men had thrown all of my weapons and got angry all over again. “You came in here prepared. You just knew you were going to kill me, huh? Grenades and shit, were you going to blow me up? You are weak and that’s why I always win. This is my city now bitch, I won it when I killed Ray. And because you thought you would come in and take what’s mine, I’m going to make you suffer.”
Khiron held his hand out to one of his goons and they handed him a pair of pliers.
“Finger by finger.”
* * *
Mocha pulled quickly to her house and was followed by Tyreek. He had been on the phone in his own car, but as soon as he pulled into her driveway he ended the call. Not being able to contain his happiness he jumped out of the car and ran to the house. Once inside the house, Mocha jumped into his arms.
“We’re free!” she said into his neck.
“Are your bags packed, shawty?” Tyreek asked shutting the front door.
“Yes,” Mocha told him letting him go and running to get her Louis Vuitton luggage.
“Cool,” Tyreek said. “We need to hurry up and get to the airport.”
“What about Khiron?” Mocha asked as they were on their way back out the door.
“He’s not worried about us right now, ma,” Tyreek said.
The way he said it made her feel like he was leaving something out.
“What’s wrong?” Mocha asked stopping in her tracks. “Tell me, Tyreek.”
Tyreek sighed.
He had just gotten off the phone with Khiron. He had told Tyreek he needed to come to the spot he was at to watch him handle some unfinished business. The unfinished business was Mocha’s old best friend . . . Sadie. Khiron said that somehow she had survived his bullet wounds and had come back to retaliate. It made sense to Tyreek. It all clicked. That’s why the Italians wanted the information about the meeting, for Sadie. He looked at Mocha and his selfishness guided him to give his response.
“Nothing, I’m just ready to go,” Tyreek said. “I don’t want him to know shit, even when we’re gone.”
Mocha smiled, knowing that he didn’t have to worry about that. She knew Khiron would be dead soon. Sadie would handle that.
“Okay,” Mocha went up to him and kissed him sensually. “Let’s go.”
* * *
Tyler drove like a mad man trying to get to Sadie. He knew her, and he knew she hadn’t waited like he had asked her to. When he was on the phone with her he heard the hidden rage in her voice, she was just like him. He was worried something bad had happened to her. There was something about the whole situation that wasn’t sitting right with him. He would have never continued business with a man after being attacked in his city. That was certainly a set up. But Don was still going to give Khiron more work. What made it even more unsettling was the location that Sadie had given him. Only two people knew about that building, and Tyler was one of them. How did the Dominicans know it existed? And even if they did somehow know of its location, why would they choose it as the pick-up spot? Tyler shook his head trying to make sense of all of his thoughts.
“Say should have waited for us,” Devynn broke the silence, knowing that Sadie had gone in solo. “She would have called us by now asking where the fuck we’re at. . . .”
She let her voice trail because fear was coursing through her chest. She prayed that Sadie was okay. That was her sister; blood couldn’t have made them any closer.
“She’s okay,” Adrianna said, but when she turned to Tyler her voice cracked, betraying her. “Drive faster!”
Adrianna had already lost Ray, she couldn’t lose Sadie too. Losing Ray had broken her heart and Sadie was her only living and breathing link to him. When she looked into Sadie’s eyes she saw Ray, that’s how she was able to move on. She had a bad feeling that something horrible had happened to their little sister, and everybody that could help was sitting there in that truck. Devynn was right, Sadie would have called by now complaining about how they needed to hurry up. Adrianna didn’t know that Sadie’s judgment would be that clouded, but if the tables were turned, Adrianna knew that she would have dived in head first as well. Still, that knowledge didn’t make her feel any better, especially knowing what kind of evil she was up against.
“Hold on, mama,” Adrianna whispered. “We’re coming for you.”
Chapter 22
Khiron walked slowly toward me with a sick smile on his face. My eyes were swollen and could only open in slits. The way my head throbbed and swayed, I was certain I had internal bleeding. When he was close enough to touch me again I clenched my hand around the arm of my chair, but he pried it free.
“Don’t worry, shawty,” Khiron said smoothly. “This will be very painful. Feel free to scream.”
I felt the plier clench my pointer finger tightly and I bit my lip at the growing pain, knowing my finger was about to be gone.
“Enough!” I heard a voice say loudly, and instantly the pain lessened.
Weakly, I held my head up and tried to focus on the source of the voice. What I saw was a man dressed in a two-button suit who was clearly of Dominican descent. Behind him was his own small army of Dominican soldiers, all with their weapons drawn.
“Don,” Khiron started seeing the loaded guns. “No disrespect, but this bitch is the one who sent the shooters to the roof. She has to die.”
Don Rivera looked toward where I sat barely conscious and I struggled to keep his eye contact. There was something very familiar about his eyes, but before I could put my finger on it. He turned back to Khiron. I sat in the chair, breathing rigidly trying to hold on to every little bit of life still within me. I knew that if I didn’t get a grip on things I would pass out again. I had too much trauma to my head and needed medical attention badly. My vision was going in and out and blood kept seeping out of my mouth. I was sure that I looked like shit.
“Like I said,” Don said briskly, almost angrily. “Enough. You are here to conduct business, instead you are wasting your time torturing a woman.”
Don studied Khiron’s anguished face.
“You hate her that much?” Don looked at Khiron and shook his head.
He walked past Khiron to where I sat in the chair and studied my bruised face. I could barely focus on him since he was so close, but I thought I saw a concerned expression make its way to his face. If I did, it exited as quickly as it came.
“I know who you are,” he said to me in a low smooth voice. “Your cartel is one that even the highest of cartels envy. For that, I have to give you my respect.”
“If y
—if you’re going to kill me,” I said weakly, “I—I don’t need to hear you pay me your respects.”
My head nodded, but I kept trying to focus on his face.
“Why are you here?” Don asked me calmly, like I wasn’t sitting before him fading in and out of consciousness.
“I,” I panted, “was going to kill him before you hit me in the head like a bitch.”
“I, my dear, just got here,” he said, kneeling down before me. “It was not me who knocked you out. But someone of your stature should have known coming in here alone was a bad idea. Khiron had the place crawling with his men. Right, Khiron?”
He turned his head to Khiron, who was standing
“I am not going to kill you,” Don said. “In fact, I am about to spare your life.”
“What, nigga?” Khiron said, forgetting who he was speaking to. “You’re just here to drop off my work.”
“This is business,” Don said to him. “She is connected to the Italians, which means she is my problem to handle. You, my friend, have your own problems to deal with.”
“No,” Khiron said. “We have some unfinished business to tend to.”
“And I am telling you that it is finished,” Don said in a tone that suggested that the conversation was done. “Cut her loose!”
I felt the ropes around my arms, legs, and torso being cut, and I fell onto the ground on my hands and knees. I threw up everything in my stomach, and when I was done there was nothing but a bloody mess on the floor. My arms shook, and right when I wasn’t able to hold myself up anymore I felt my body get scooped up off of the ground. Whoever held me was muscular and strong and they cradled me like a baby. I looked up and was staring into the face of a handsome man with sleek hair. He stared back down at me and studied my face. Sadness overcame his eyes. He wasn’t rough with me at all, he was surprisingly gentle and held me delicately.
“Take her to my car,” Don instructed and looked at me in my current state. “I will be there shortly. I have a deal to wrap up here.”
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