Pawns & Kings

by D D Bridges

  “Yeah, but you should just cut your losses now, baby girl,” he told me. “You don’t need to be with a nigga like me. You can do way better.”

  I stared at him for a moment and I was sure that he could see that I was slightly confused. “Terry, what are you talking about? What do you mean by that?”

  “Just a few months ago I wasn’t nothing but a drug dealer,” he said. “All I used to do all day was stand on the corner and sling dope. And if it wasn’t for Darius, that’s what I’d still be doing.”

  “So,” I said. “There are worst things than dealing drugs.”

  “Oh yeah? Well I been to jail before too,” he told me. “And I’ve killed niggas before.” He sat there and looked at me as if he expected me to run for the hills. I could see in his eyes that he wasn’t proud of his past. It was obvious that he had been expecting it to always follow him and that he would always be judged by his mistakes. Maybe I was crazy for not being concerned about the fact that he was a killer. But the Terry that I had gotten to know over the past ten or so days would never hurt anyone unless he had to. I would never understand the world that he came from so it wouldn’t be right for me to judge the decisions he’s made.

  “Are you trying to make me not like you?” I asked after letting his confession settle.

  “I’m just being real,” was all he said.

  “Would you ever hurt me?” I asked and noticed how all the tension left his body and face before he answered.

  “Nah, baby,” he said as he cupped my chin. “I would never hurt you. And if anybody ever tries to hurt you again then I will kill them.”

  I believed every word that he said and all of my feelings were confirmed when he leaned in and kissed me. It was a soft, gentle kiss that contradicted his bad-boy persona, but I enjoyed it nonetheless.

  “So does this mean that I can come with you?” I asked once he pulled back just enough to look into my face.

  “Nah, little troublemaker,” he said with a smile. “I’m sure your parents are already pissed off enough.”

  I pouted as he pushed the button to open both suicide doors. He got out of the car and then grabbed my suitcase out of the trunk before coming around to help me out of the car. Once I was out, he wrapped his arm around my waist and pulled me in for another kiss that lasted just about as long as the other one did. When he pulled away this time I was still pouting, but a little less.

  He simply smiled at my disposition and then said, “Call me if you need me. And don’t be mad at me. I promise I’ll come up with a way to see you.”

  Just then, Jeremiah came out of the house and joined us in the driveway.

  “What’s up, T,” Jeremiah said as the two of them slapped hands like they were old friends.

  “What up, J. What you up to, man?”

  “Nothing much. I just got back from class a little a while ago,” Jeremiah told him before turning his attention to me. “Mom and dad have been worried sick, sis.” I texted Jeremiah the night before and told him where I was so that he wouldn’t be too worried.

  “I know,” I said. “You didn’t tell them where I was, did you?”

  “No, I didn’t but you know they’re going to grill you tonight when they get home.”

  “Yeah, I know,” I replied nonchalantly. I guess my moment of reckoning wouldn’t be able to be avoided much longer.

  “Well, I’m gonna get out of here,” Terry said. Looking at Jeremiah he said, “The doctor gave her specific instructions to get plenty of rest, so make sure you take care of her.”

  “Doctor? What happened?” Jeremiah asked as he looked back and forth between Terry and I.

  “I’ll let her tell you. I’ll holla at y’all later.” Terry handed Jeremiah my suitcase then looked at me and said “See you later, Tinker Bell.” I smiled as I watched him walk around to the other side of the car. I was actually beginning to like his nickname for me. Terry hopped in the Maserati and sped away.

  “Tinker Bell?” Jeremiah said with disgust as we turned to go into the house. I just tapped him playfully on the arm and told him to shut up.

  “You really like him, don’t you,” Jeremiah said as he followed me into my room. Everything was just the way that I left it and it actually did feel good to be home.

  “Yeah,” I replied as I sat down on my bed. “He’s a really cool guy.”

  “Yeah, he is,” Jeremiah said matter-of-factly as he sat beside me.

  I turned toward him and gave him a skeptical look. “You mean that you actually don’t have a problem with me being with him?”

  “No, not at all,” he said. “All of Darius’s boys are great guys. Terry is a little rough around the edges, but he’s still a good guy. I tried to explain that to mom and dad, but they didn’t want to hear it.”

  I rolled my eyes at that. “I still can’t believe that dad went off on him the way that he did. Our parents can really be hypocritical at times.”

  “They’re just worried about you, sis. I am too.”

  I sighed as I tried not to look at my brother. I really didn’t want to tell him or my parents about my latest encounter with Allen. I figured that it was in everyone’s best interest if I kept the events of that night to myself. But I never kept things from Jeremiah. Most of the time he was my only true confidant in this cold world.

  “Why did you have to go see a doctor?” he asked.

  “Because I had to have a tetanus shot,” I told him.

  “A tetanus shot?” he said, the already concerned look deepening on his face. “What happened?”

  I sighed and said, “I went to see Allen the other night.”

  “You did what?! Are you crazy?!” he said raising his voice and eerily reminding me of our father.

  “Jeremiah, please. I already feel bad enough about it,” I said, putting my elbows on my knees and dropping my forehead into my hands. Now leaning forward, my top had risen up slightly, exposing my lower back.

  “Oh my god, Leah.” Jeremiah’s mouth hung open in shock as he lifted the hem of my shirt so that he could see more of the bruising on my back. He let the hem fall when he couldn’t take it anymore and then looked away with a pained expression on his face. A tear rolled down his cheek just as a few escaped my eyes.

  “Jeremiah, please don’t cry,” I said gripping his arm and leaning my head on his shoulder. “I need you to be strong for me.”

  He was silent for a moment and even though I couldn’t see his face I knew that he was trying to compose himself. My little brother was truly my rock and I didn’t know what I would do without him.

  “I just don’t understand how Allen could do this to you,” he said, achieving the feat of not allowing his emotions to alter his voice.

  Jeremiah wrapped his arm around me and pulled me in for a hug. I was glad that he didn’t lecture me even though we both knew that I had messed up big time. What we also knew was that there was only one solution to this problem: At all cost, I had to stay away from Allen.

  Part 3

  Sacrificial Pawns

  Chapter XIV- Darius

  I arrived in Miami after a quick flight on the company’s private jet. I rented a white Lexus coupe convertible and it was waiting for me at the private airport when I landed. I drove myself into the city and headed for the Four Seasons. Not even the night-sky could conceal the beauty of this city. I had heard a lot about Miami and how awe-inspiring it was, but there was nothing like seeing something for yourself. I couldn’t wait to see this place in the daylight.

  I checked in to the presidential suite at the Four Seasons and as expected they had the concierge to escort me up to the top floor along with my luggage. As we rode the elevator, the bushy-haired white guy told me about all the popular tourist sites nearby. Honestly, all I wanted to ask him was where the best strip clubs were, but something about his banal persona told me that he probably wouldn’t know.

  I went into my suite first while he brought my bags in after me. At first glance everything seemed to be to my liking. The
living area was plush and had a huge flat-screen hanging on the wall. It also had a kitchenette and two huge windows that exposed an amazing view of downtown and the coast. The bedroom hosted a king-sized bed and also had a view of the city and coast as well. After checking out the luxurious bathroom I came back into the living room where the concierge was waiting.

  “Are you pleased with your suite, Mr. King?” he asked politely.

  “Yeah, everything’s cool. Thanks,” I said, tipping him with a fifty dollar bill.

  His tone was even more up-beat when he said, “Thank you, sir, and enjoy your stay at the Four Seasons!”

  Once he left and the door closed behind him I took my bags into the bedroom. I pulled a tank-top and pair of shorts out of my suitcase to change into. I took a long shower, washing the day and the flight off of me. Once I was clean and refreshed, I stepped out of the shower and wrapped one of the towels around my waist.

  I came back into the bedroom and located the small carry-on case that I had been keeping close by. Its contents were very important to me considering the nature of this trip. I was here mostly out of curiosity, but also out of a desire for resolution. I wanted to meet the family that I’d never known and see what answers they could offer me. I also thought that there were probably a few questions that they’d want to ask me as well. According to D.J., the discovery that I was my father’s first-born had torn their family apart. Originally, I thought that expecting them to welcome me with open arms was a long shot. But I took it upon myself to give my father’s wife, Marcia, a call a couple of days ago. Though she was surprised to hear from me, she said that she was also relieved. We talked for about thirty minutes and she was just as eager to meet me as I was to meet her.

  Plan A was to go to Marcia’s home tomorrow for lunch. She said that we’d have an opportunity to talk before her other children came home. I saw this as a good thing because if they felt the same way about me as D.J., then I was going to need to win Marcia over before meeting them. But I also had a plan B. Plan B was the whole reason that I decided to come all the way to Miami by myself. All I was doing was simply baiting my prey. I knew that coming here alone was the perfect way to get who I wanted exactly where I wanted him. The person that I wanted was my brother turned foe.

  D.J. had no idea that I was well aware of the fact that he had my house and car bugged. That was one of the advantages of having a computer genius living in my house. It didn’t take Derek long to figure out that something wasn’t right. After doing a sweep in a few key rooms in the mansion it was determined that D.J. had bugged the house with video and audio surveillance. I told Derek to leave everything in tact though. I wanted D.J. to think that he was running things. It was going to make it that much easier to lure him out of Atlanta. He wasn’t going to like the fact that I was coming to visit his mother. I was willing to bet that he was on a plane headed to Miami right now.

  I reached inside the case and pulled out both of my guns. The weight of the steel pistols in my hands provided the same confidence that I had when my boys were at my side. But that wasn’t the case this time. It was just me and my guns. And when I got my face-to-face opportunity with D.J., I was going to settle our score once and for all.

  Chapter XV- D.J.

  I had to get to Miami as soon as possible. I don’t know who the hell Darius thought he was or what he was doing, but he was crazy if he thought that I was going to stand by and let him have some special meet-and-greet with my family. I was tempted to call ahead and warn my family to stay away from him because my gut was telling me that this was all a set-up. It was no secret to Darius now that me and Allen had been plotting to kill him. For all I knew Darius could be headed down to Miami in order to get revenge by killing my whole family. But some things weren’t adding up. Why would he be going all the way to Miami by himself? Darius had boarded his private jet alone and I was currently standing over my computer monitor watching the surveillance footage at the mansion. All of his boys and his girlfriend were still at the house. This shit wasn’t making sense, but all I knew was that I had to get to Miami as soon as I possibly could.

  My thoughts were interrupted by the sound of my front door opening and closing. I immediately grabbed my gun off my desk and stormed out into the hallway to see who was walking up in my spot without knocking first. My gun was already cocked and aimed when Allen came around the corner and headed in my direction. He didn’t even look the least bit startled.

  “You almost got yourself shot,” I told him before tucking the gun away at my waist.

  “I guess you were going to shoot me the same way you did Darius, right,” he said snidely. If I wasn’t focused on other things I would have knocked his ass out for getting smart.

  “You’re late,” I said as he took a seat in one of my three swivel chairs. “You were supposed to be here thirty minutes ago. I gotta leave town tonight and you’re putting me behind schedule.”

  “Leave town? You can’t leave town right now,” he said. “What about the cop?”

  “What about him? I thought you handled that already,” I said showing no sign of anxiety.

  “My man did the best that he could, but it looks like we’re gonna have to move on to plan B.” I knew what Allen’s plan B was and I still wasn’t down with it, but he seemed to be pretty convinced to go through with it. “Besides, I got some bad news,” he told me.

  I sighed as I pulled my gun out of my waist and laid it in front of the computer that was closest to the door. I sat in one of the other chairs and turned so that I was facing Allen.

  “They found some DNA at the crime scene that didn’t match the victim,” he told me as he pulled out his iPhone and began to go through it. He tossed it over to me and when I looked at the screen I saw that it was a news article about the case.

  “They say that they found the DNA of three other people,” he began to fill me in. “Two men and one woman.”

  “That means that somebody got out clean,” I said. Other than Mathieu, there were three men there that night.

  “Yeah, but it wasn’t you,” Allen said.

  “How do you know?”

  “Because Darius had your nose leaking all over the place,” he reminded me. “Now we know who the female DNA belongs to. The only other question is who is the other male; me or Darius?”

  “If the other DNA belongs to Darius then it will be easy to frame him,” I said. “It won’t be hard to fabricate a good story that the police will believe. All I need is to know exactly what they found at the scene.”

  “Can’t you just hack into the records? I’m sure they probably digitalized all of the evidence.”

  “You can’t have digital DNA,” I said as I rose to my feet and began to pace the floor. “Anything that they have in their digital archives would only be back-ups. The bottom line is that there is now physical DNA that ties us to that murder scene.”

  “No, there’s DNA that ties you to the scene,” Allen said as he stood as well. “For all I know I could be the one who got out clean.”

  “Think about it, man,” I said as I approached him. “You and Mathieu were in a scuffle so they probably got your DNA from under his fingernails or something like that. And even if they didn’t, when they tie Leah to the scene as the one female, she’s going to tell them everything that happened that night. That means we both go down.”

  “Leah won’t talk,” he retorted less confidently. “Besides, she wasn’t there when we killed him. But at the end of the day, there’s only one way to make this go away. You know what we have to do.”

  I looked away from him. I was dreading the fact that we were at our last resort and that I had no other choice but to agree to Allen’s plan to kill Detective Willis. It seemed that with each passing day I was getting deeper and deeper into some shit that I hadn’t even imagined.

  “I got somebody that can take care of him,” Allen said. “And in the mean time I can make my way into the police department and steal the DNA evidence so that we can destroy
it. My guy in the local police department was able to pull some strings to force them to keep the evidence at the police station instead of sending it to the FBI headquarters.”

  “So that means that Detective Willis can’t get to the evidence anyway. So why do we have to kill him?” I asked.

  “Because its only a matter of time before he gets his hands on it,” Allen stated. “He’s not going to stop until he’s able to get full access to that evidence. That means that this case doesn’t die unless he does.”

  Reluctantly I said, “Fine. Do what you gotta do. But I’m going to Miami tonight and there’s no telling when I’ll be back.”

  “That’s cool. I’ll take care of this, but only under one condition.”

  I turned and my gaze bore into him. Darius tried to warn me about this snake and it looks like he had been right about him all along. I already knew what he was about to ask for and I was already fixing my mouth to tell him no.

  “After I put my ass on the line to take care of this little murder case, and once we take care of Darius, I want half of the company,” he said.

  “Half?! Nigga, are you crazy?”

  “No. The question is, are you crazy?” He took a step toward me and he obviously thought that we were doing the same ol’ two-step. I had been letting him punk me for all this time because I thought that I needed him in order to get my company. But I was beginning to realize that I didn’t need him to help me get what’s mine. But unfortunately I had allowed him to convince me to pull the trigger that night and kill Mathieu Baptìste. That meant that if he wanted to, he could rat me out and I’d be serving a life sentence. I needed him to make this new situation go away, and after he did that I was probably going to have to kill him because there was no way that I was giving him any piece of my dad’s company.

  “I’ll give yo’ slimy ass five percent stake in the company if you come through, but that’s it.” Even five percent was a stretch if you asked me.