A Staten Island Love Letter 3

by Jahquel J

  “You nasty as hell. Why the fuck you held up in here anyway?”

  “Lib in rehab so I haven’t been in the mood.” Trac was one of the few people I allowed to get close enough. This nigga had a good vibe about him and in no time, he was on his way up.

  “Oh word? God bless, man. She gonna come out a different person.”

  “Yeah, I’m hoping that she does… shit hit me hard,” I sighed. “But, what up? I know you ain’t come over here to hear me complain about my life.”

  “You asked and I made it happen.” He smirked. “Found where your boy Zeek been hiding.”

  I clapped my hands. “My fucking nigga… where he at?” I needed to know so that we could handle his ass. He was the last piece of the puzzle and the only reason Ghost was sticking around. He needed to end Zeek before he could leave to start his life in Georgia with Free.

  “He staying at those condos by the ferry. I was over there getting my hair cut and saw him leaving the building and hopping into his whip. I jumped out the chair in the middle of my cut and followed his ass around the island. He looks like he’s closing up shop and shit. Right now, it seems like he’s trying to get rid of the work he got left,” he informed me. My damn mouth was watering with the information he had brought me.

  “Bet. We making a move on his ass today. Ghost is stepping down and leaving shit to me. I want to bring you on as one of my right hands besides Priest.”

  He made a fist and brought it to his mouth. “Deadass? Yooo, that’s what’s up, Staten!”

  “It’s all love, nigga.” I dapped him with my same ball scratching hands and he went to wash his hands again.

  “Nigga go wash your hands,” he laughed.

  “Shit, I’m in my crib right now. Besides that, what’s going on with you and Mariah?”

  A smirk appeared across his face and I already knew he was in too deep. You couldn’t help who you fell in love with. Shit, I was the main nigga who understood that shit more than anyone. “She special.” He couldn’t help but to expose all his teeth when he spoke about her.

  “You know her mom’s not with the shit, right?”

  “Yeah, so I be trying to keep my distance and shit, but man I really feel something for her fine ass.”

  “Be careful with that situation, man. Messiah isn’t one you want to have beef with. Feel me?”

  “Yeah, I hear you.” He nodded his head. “When we moving on Zeek?”

  “We? Nigga, this shit personal and between me, Ghost and Zeek. I don’t need you taking any bullets behind this.”

  “I hear yo—” he was cut off by my door chiming, alerting me that someone had just entered my crib. Trac had his gun out already, ready to put two in someone’s head.

  “Why the fuck you standing there like that?” Chanel came into the kitchen. She wore a pair of sweats, sneakers, and tight tank top with a jean jacket. For the first time, I saw her small bump.

  “You was about to be dead as fuck if you didn’t speak,” Trac said as he put his gun away. “I’m gonna holla at you,” he nodded and headed toward the door. He probably could sense that me and Chanel needed to talk.

  “Oh, what’s good? Bout time you showed up and spoke,” I went and grabbed a can of soda out of the fridge. We hadn’t spoken or saw each other since that day she was in my crib when I had got home.

  “I needed time to think. Your little girlfriend knows all about the baby. Why you keeping us a secret?” she smirked.

  This shit was amusement for her. Nothing she was doing I found to be funny. This petty shit may have turned other niggas on, but it made me hate a female who did that shit. A grown woman didn’t do the shit that Chanel had been doing.

  “Yeah, she told me, and we talked about it. She’s excited to be a step moms,” I decided to fuck with her head some. Since she thought shit was funny, then I was about to make this shit Kevin Hart funny.

  Her face dropped. “She’s not being around my damn baby.”

  “It ain’t only your baby. The fuck is good with you?” I questioned. “You been acting real different and the shit is making me not want to fuck with you.”

  “I love you, Shaliq. I want you and me to be a family for our baby,” she wiped away a tear. “Can’t you see that? Do you think I want to be raising this baby alone?”

  “See, that shit you’re doing isn’t fair,” I raised my voice causing her to jump. “You want to pick and choose when you want to be with me… that shit ain’t right. When I was single you didn’t mention shit about it, but now you want to be a family because you know that I’m with Liberty.”

  “I’ve always felt like that,” she protested.

  “I don’t want to hear none of that shit.”

  “You don’t want to hear how the woman who has been down for you feels? This bitch waltzes into your life and now it’s fuck me?” her tone changed real quick. It wasn’t about how she felt about me. It was because she couldn’t take me choosing Liberty over her. “You choosing Liberty over your baby?”

  I laughed because I had been waiting for her to throw in the baby. “Stop doing that shit, Chanel. I’m not fucking choosing a woman over my baby. I’m choosing love over your manipulating ass fucking friendship. I’ve been there for you through everything. Every time a nigga broke your heart, I was there. I never said anything, just held you and nursed you until you were strong enough for your next relationship. Not once have I ever tried to ruin your shit. Since you found out about Liberty you’ve been trying to fuck up what we have going on. That’s not a fucking friend. Lib doesn’t have a problem with us being friends. She’s actually cool with it. Why are you trying to make me choose when I can have both of you in my life?”

  “I don’t like her for you.”

  “And I didn’t like none of the niggas you fucked with. Did I tell you that or try and fuck up the relationship? Let me live my fucking life and try and be a father to my child. All your chicken head friends don’t have their baby daddy in their child’s life, and you have one that wants to be there, but you keep trying to push me away. You gonna push one day and I’m gonna be out your life for good. Stop trying to back me into a corner because you know what the fuck happens when I feel like that.”

  She grabbed her purse she had sat on the counter and turned to look at me. “Oh, and you’re having a daughter.” She felt the need to inform me.

  “See the fuck shit you do, Chanel? You couldn’t be bothered to tell me when the appointment was? That’s fucked up.”

  She shrugged her shoulders. “If you didn’t have your head in Liberty’s ass you would have fucking known,” she rolled her eyes and left out the door.

  I shook my head and sighed because Chanel was going to make me put a bullet in her head with the way she was acting. Not telling me about the appointment for our child was low as fuck. Then, to find out that she was having my daughter was something that had me excited. A little girl. God knew what he was doing when he blessed us with a girl. My daughter was about to be my karma for being out there chasing all these women. With the way Chanel was acting, I wasn’t sure if I would be able to have a relationship with my daughter if I continued to be with Liberty. It was fucked up, but I knew Chanel’s bratty ass behavior and I knew if she couldn’t have shit her way, she would make everything a living hell.

  I walked into Ghost’s crib and found him sitting in his office. He was looking over some papers and glanced at me entering his office. When I sat down and cocked my feet up on his desk, he put his paper down and appeared to be annoyed by my sudden presence.

  “Mama ain’t never taught you nothing?” He shook his head. “What you want? I’m surprised you out the house.”

  “I needed to take a step back from everything. You know how Lib doing?” I questioned. Free went to see her more often than Justice and Lolita, so I knew she probably was talking to Ghost about her visits.

  “She good, man. Skin looking good and thinking clear. But it has been a little over a week, so she still has her ups and downs.” />
  “Good. I just want to see her.”

  “Give her time. You accomplished one thing, so allow her the time to process everything,” he advised.

  “Yeah,” I replied. “Guess what I rode over here?”

  “What?”

  “My Ducati,” I smirked.

  “Oh word? I haven’t had time to ride my shit in a minute.”

  I smiled. “Well, you can ride that shit with me today.”

  “For?”

  “Got the drop on Zeek. Trac called me and let me know where he’s at. I got that nigga trailing him.”

  Ghost was all ears as he listened to me tell him Trac found out where Zeek had been. I was excited to go and get at that nigga. With all the stress I had in my life, it was going to feel good to squeeze a trigger and end a nigga’s life in one minute.

  “That nigga Trac might be a good part of the team,” he smiled.

  “He is a good add to the team,” I confirmed and stood up. “Let’s go and get this nigga,” I replied and left his office.

  When I walked out his office, I went into the kitchen and kissed my nieces and nephew on the forehead. Freedom was sitting at the counter with her laptop working. She smiled when she saw me, and I kissed her on the forehead too.

  “I’m sorry for the way I been coming at you lately,” I apologized. Free had as much emotion, if not more, invested in this whole Liberty situation. She was Liberty’s twin. They shared the womb and majority of their life together. So, I understood where her emotions were coming from.

  “You love her… don’t you?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You both are a good look. I just need you to understand that Liberty is like a puzzle. You’ll get frustrated, but she’s worth deciphering once you have figured her out. Even when she gets out of rehab, this isn’t going to be easy for her.”

  “I already got her figured out.”

  “Yeah, well I’ll let you believe that,” she giggled. “What you and G doing today?”

  “Riding our bikes,” I lied. It wasn’t a full lie. We were going to ride our bikes, but that wasn’t all we were about to do.

  I heard someone reeving their engine and went to the front door, cutting me and Free’s conversation short. When I opened the door, Pat was grabbing Maliah’s helmet and helping her off the bike.

  She had rode her black, chrome, and pink Ducati too. I had told Messiah the plan, so I knew she was going to either come or send one of the twins to come along. Zeek took something from her too; her god daughter and she couldn’t let anything happen to him without her or a piece of her, which was Maliah, present.

  “Your mama just couldn’t let us handle it, huh?”

  “Nope, she said she wanted to be there to see his fucking face, but since she can’t, she’ll send me to look at the fear in his eyes,” she laughed.

  “You ready for this?”

  “Bro, I been ready for this shit. You forget who I am?”

  “Where’s Mariah?”

  She shrugged. “Mariah be in her own world since she got her own place.”

  “And you don’t want your own place?”

  “For what? You’ve seen the damn house my parents own.” She laughed. “I can come and go as I please and if I need to get me some dick, my niggas will book a hotel or bring me to their mansion.”

  “Mansion, huh?”

  “Yeah, I don’t fuck with anybody that has less than that.” She screwed her face up like a nigga with a condo was a bust down.

  “Trac ain’t got a mansion and your sister feeling him.”

  “Yeah, that’s my sister. Plus, Trac gets a pass because I feel like he’s coming up,” she added.

  “You right. He is.”

  “Good for him. Anyway, you gonna grill me about my life, or we gonna head out?”

  Ghost was in the kitchen kissing his kids and Freedom when we entered the crib. “Messiah sent you, huh?”

  “You know it, Unc. She knows the job will get done, but that nigga took something from us, so she wants to be sure she has her hand in ending him one way or a another.”

  “Bet.”

  “Please be careful, babe. I need you to be home by ten because we have to finish watching New Amsterdam on Hulu with the kids,” Free reminded him.

  “I wouldn’t miss it for the world,” he kissed her once more before we headed out the crib. He went into his six-car garage and pulled out his motorcycle. He pressed down on his engine for a few more moments before he put his tinted black helmet on and rode out of the gates.

  I put my helmet on and popped a wheelie on the way out the gates. Maliah followed behind me and popped a wheelie too. I laughed because she was such a show off. We sped down the hills of Todt Hill behind Ghost. He was gunning it down the hill. This shit was something that he wanted to do more than breathing. Maliah sped in front of me and waved her hand, alerting me that there was a big ass Target truck approaching, she swerved to the right and I followed behind her. We stopped at a red light at the bottom of the hill. She lifted her helmet up.

  “Keep up, old ass,” she joked.

  “Yeah, shut the fuck up… I ain’t rode in a minute. You strapped?”

  “You already know,” she said before putting the helmet back down over her face. She put her Fendi sneaker with a sock covering the front of it back on the bike and sped up.

  We drove through the island heading to the ferry. Trac said that Zeek had just got back to his crib, so it was now or never. God knew we needed to send this nigga to hell because everything was lining up perfectly. It took us twenty minutes to make it to his condo. We sat on our bikes by the coffee shop a block down from his crib. Trac was in his Lamborghini when we pulled up on him. Mariah was in the front seat with him.

  “Nigga, didn’t I tell you to be careful messing with this one?” I shook my head. These young niggas never listened, I swear.

  “I’m grown, Staten. Mami swear she knows what is best for me,” Mariah tried to defend herself. “Don’t you dare tell her uncle G,” she looked out the window at Ghost.

  Ghost had been quiet the entire ride over here. He made the zipper motion over his lips as he focused his attention across the street. “Thanks. And Maliah, mind your business too.”

  “I ain’t saying nothing, damn.” She sucked her teeth. “Oh, look. There go that nigga,” she switched subjects.

  He held the door open for a woman and then got into the other side. I laughed because this nigga was more concerned about pussy than his own life. We waited ten minutes for him to pull off and when he didn’t, we grew suspicious. Maliah pulled off and sped by real quick and then circled the block.

  “That was reckless, Maliah,” Ghost finally spoke.

  “Yeah, well we needed to find out the reason for him to be waiting. He arguing with shorty in the car, so right now would be good,” she advised, and I pulled my gun out, cocked it back and sped off with everyone following behind me.

  Ghost went to the passenger side, Maliah pulled in front of his whip and I pulled up on the driver’s side. I never opened my helmet’s glass, I pulled my gun out as he struggled to pull his out and dumped my whole clip into the window, hitting him every time. Ghost did the same thing too, and Maliah hit them from the front. Shorty was innocent, but when you fucked with trash, you got what was coming from them. I looked to my left and saw that Ghost had stopped shooting and was staring. I couldn’t see his face because his helmet was covering his face. Maliah made the signal for us to roll out and we sped up, splitting up. As much as I loved my motorcycle, I already knew it was going to be chopped up into a million pieces and sold.

  We arrived at the auto shop that we owned. Pulling into the garage, we took our helmets off and sat our guns on the wooden table. Mooly, worked in the shop and already knew what to do – no questions asked. Ghost took his helmet off and sat it down on his bike. He seemed different.

  “What’s good? We got that nigga, we should be celebrating.” I punched him softly in the chest, hype that we had fu
cking got that nigga while he was slipping.

  “Yeah, we fucking filled that whip with fucking holes,” Maliah laughed as she clapped her hands. “Murder makes me happy,” she added.

  “First of all, your mother fucked you up in the head,” I told her and laughed.

  “Yeah, well… I’ve heard of mothers doing worse,” she laughed and pulled her phone out. I heard her telling someone to come scoop her in an hour. We knew the island would be locked down after this, so we needed to move smart.

  I turned my attention back to Ghost. He was sitting on the grease stained leather couch and looking down at his hands. “Yo, what the fuck happened?”

  “The woman in the front seat was Shakira,” he revealed.

  “How the fuck you know? The passenger’s window was up and tinted.”

  “Nigga, after I shot as many shots as I did into that side of the car, you don’t think the window would break? She stared me right in the eyes as I continued to shoot before I realized it was her. I killed Rain’s mother.”

  10

  Priest

  I sat in the living room holding the pregnancy test I had found in Justice’s bathroom. It wasn’t like I was snooping around her room or nothing like that. My original plan for going into her room was to put these roses I bought her on the bed. I didn’t have time to stick around because Reese said he needed me to meet him to talk about something. After what went down with Zeek, we closed everything down. The alphabet boys wasn’t playing the fuck around with anyone. Hella trap houses had been raided from other dealers. Thankfully, it was none of ours. They were trying to find out who would shoot up a car and kill two people in broad daylight near the ferry. The good part of the news that I watched was that Zeek was dead. The part that fucked me up was that Shakira was killed too. Her parents were on the news crying and pleading with anyone to come forward with some answers so they could make peace with their daughter’s death. I laughed because Shakira’s pops was crooked as fuck. He knew with the life his daughter was living she would end up caught up soon. What shocked me was that she hadn’t been caught up sooner.