by BlaQue
I shook off the visions and walked up the stairs towards my room. I stopped in my tracks when I heard noises coming from Neko’s room. I slipped my hand in my purse and pulled Chase out of it. I pressed my back against the wall of the hallway and moved silently. I didn’t know what to expect, but I knew no one should have been in my house.
Once I reached Neko’s room I mustered up all the courage I could find and pushed the door open. I froze in horror watching my father’s most loyal employees rummaging through our shit. They were bagging up anything they could find valuable. I reacted to the betrayal and let off round after round into the two men’s bodies. I didn’t need to ask questions. There was no honor among thieves. They surely would have taken me out to steal from me. They knew Oscar was out of commission and they also knew that I was supposed to be held up in a hotel under the careful watch of Epps. They must have never suspected that I would return home, and even if I had returned they would have been long gone with anything that wasn’t nailed down.
Jew Jew, the bigger of the two men I had just shot was still moving on the floor. I stood over him. I am sure he could see the anger and hurt in my eyes. “Jew Jew, why would you steal from us? Who sent you here to take from my family? You ain’t smart enough to come up with this shit on your own.”
He laughed and coughed blood. “Bitch, where you are going you ain’t gonna need none of this shit anyway. We don’t work for you. We worked for your father not you.” He groaned. I kicked him viciously in his side with my Red Bottoms.
“Why would you steal from me? What were you looking for in my brother’s room? You might as well tell me because you are going to die either way! You might as well die with a clean conscious.” I laughed as the insanity of everything had gripped me and wouldn’t let me go.
“Bitch, I ain’t no snitch, so you might as well kill me and figure that shit out on your own ‘cause I ain’t telling you shit.” He muttered.
I kicked him violently in the spot where I saw the blood flowing from his wound. He groaned and tried to laugh as though it didn’t faze him that he was going to meet his maker. The poor bastard had the nerve to recite Psalm 23:4.
“Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me. Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the LORD forever.”
I had had enough of him preparing to die and I surely wanted him to rot in hell. I didn’t want him to repent for his sins in enough time to make it to heaven. He needed to burn and I was gonna make sure he was going to do just that. I laughed, being that the whole scene was hilarious to me. A big ass goon was now bleeding to death on my floor and praying for his salvation. At least he knew the end was near. Before I could even deliver another blow to his wounded abdomen he tried to speak. I couldn’t make out what he was saying.
“Speak up you piece of shit!” I yelled. I was furious.
“Bitch, you are going to die and if she gets her way, you will join me in Hell real soon!”
I stepped up to Jew Jew’s massive body and placed the stiletto of my Red Bottoms right in the wound that was gushing so much blood. I was sure he was going to die of blood loss at any moment.
“Arggghhh!” He screamed as I pushed the bullet further into his body causing him to gasp. I had to admire the fact that he didn’t – not once during the whole ordeal – beg for his life. He simply prayed and talked shit waiting for me to finish him off. Now that is the heart of a real killer and the essence of a real goon! I almost admired the scum bag piece of shit. He had a lot of balls. I guess that is why my father employed him for the past ten years. I stopped thinking of what he had said. I looked down at him again. His eyes were rolling to the back of his head. I kicked him again.
“Oh no you piece of shit. You ain’t gonna die just yet.” He convulsed and his eyes opened wide like a deer caught in headlights. “What did you mean by, “If ‘she’ gets her way? Who the fuck is, she?’” I quizzed.
He laughed again; this time it was weak and I knew I was losing time. His life was almost finished and I feared he would never tell me what I needed and wanted to know. Obviously he knew who was trying to hurt me and my family; and apparently it was a ‘she.’ I aimed my gun right at his temple.
“I was going to leave it so you could have an open casket funeral, but now I ain’t so sure they are going to even be able to identify your remains when I am finished fucking talk!” I screamed.
He started talking in circles. “Keep ya friends close and your enemies closer. Everything ain’t always what they seem.” He whispered and just like that, he was gone.
I was so furious that he didn’t tell me who was after me, that I emptied the rest of the clip from my gun into his dome; splattering brain matter and bone fragments all over the place. I pulled the trigger until the gun just clicked letting me know the cartridge was empty. The clicking sound brought me back to reality; letting me know I needed to get what I had come for and get the fuck out of there.
I backed out the way I had come in, and I noticed the other goon, Timmie, was holding something in his hands that I hadn’t been aware of when I had first come blasting into the room. I stooped down and pried it from his dead hands. I couldn’t believe he was trying to steal Neko’s birth certificate. What the fuck did he want that for? I looked over the document trying to see why it was so important to whoever was trying to off my entire family. There was nothing out of place, until I got to the line where it named the father on the birth certificate. It said Darnell Clayton. I knew that must be a mistake because I was Daddy’s only child. Surely Christa would have told Daddy that he had another child. Especially that it was a boy. I knew I was Daddy’s pride and joy; but he would have loved to have had a son. There was no way the birth certificate was real.
At that moment, I had way more questions than I had come with. Why hadn’t Neko told me that he knew Daddy was his father? Why hadn’t anybody told me that Neko and I shared both mother and father? Most of all who the fuck was walking around that knew all of that shit? I started to let wild thoughts consume my head. Maybe Christa wasn’t dead and was making sure she got me back once and for all. I had to find out what the fuck was going on before I ended up in Saint Elizabeth’s mental hospital. I was almost ready to check myself in at that point.
I stuffed the paper in my purse and walked out of Neko’s room and headed to my own room. I gathered as much stuff as I could because I knew I would never be coming back. I made several trips to the car packing the trunk. I made a trip back to Neko’s room stepping over the bodies that lay dead on the crimson carpet that was white at one time. I grabbed anything that looked important to him and shoved it into a luggage bag. Exiting his room again, I saw a picture of Christa on his nightstand. She was smiling, like she knew I was slowly going crazy and she was enjoying it.
I picked the picture up and threw it against the wall; watching it shatter to pieces. I marched back down the spiral stairs and headed to Daddy’s office. I knew Daddy kept a large amount of money in his office, enough for me and Neko to get the fuck out of DC for good and never look back. Only problem was, I wasn’t sure about the keys to the safe.
I figured Daddy thought our house would never be the source of an invasion so I figured the combo would be right there in his office. His desk was locked and I didn’t know where the keys were to get inside. I picked the letter opener up off the desk and popped the lock to the desk drawer. After sifting through tons of paper and trinkets, I came across a set of keys that were pushed to the back of the mahogany desk. I clenched them in my fist and headed to the safe that was built into the wall of the shower in the bathroom that was housed in the corner of his office.
I slid the stained glass doors and removed the tiles on the wall revealing the safe. I dropped the tiles to the floor and tr
ied each of the keys. After trying the first five I was starting to get antsy, like none of the keys would work. I tried key after key until I came to the last one on the ring and it slid in the chamber and turned effortlessly. I pulled the door open and my eyes were as wide as a six-year-old kid at Christmas. Inside the steel vault there were stacks and stacks of money. I ran from the shower and went straight to Daddy’s closet and pulled out two bags and drug them into the bathroom and began filling them up with the stacks of cash. Once I was done stuffing the bags with the cash I saw a few documents that were at the bottom of the vault. Something told me to leave the papers right there, but whatever was in there Daddy didn’t want anyone to have easy access to, so it must have been important to him. Grabbing up the papers I took them back into his office and sat down on the Italian leather sofa that was adjacent to his desk.
I began to read what looked like insurance policies. Not only had Daddy had hundreds of thousands of dollars in the walls of his shower he had his Last Will and Testament and insurance policies for me, Neko, and someone named Pajay Clayton. I had no idea who that was. Maybe it was a distant relative. I didn’t know and didn’t care. The policies were each for a million dollars in the event of his death. The strange thing was that the policies were effective and dated for years earlier which left me with a sour taste in my mouth.
Daddy knew Neko was his son all along and he never mentioned it to me! I felt betrayed. He had kept my brother away from me. He knew Christa had borne him a son, and he never even told me. My heart was breaking. My perfect father who had always kept it real with me had hidden so much. I was stunned. The day was officially turning into the worst day of my life.
I had to pull myself together because it was not the time to sit and wallow in my own self-pity. I still had two dead bodies in my brother’s bedroom to deal with. I rose to finish the shit once and for all. Two pieces of paper had fallen to the floor. I bent to retrieve them from the floor and my heart damn near stopped. There was a hand-written letter from an unknown sender.
I began to read it and I am sure I lost all sense of reality.
Daddy,
All that you do in the dark will come to light. That precious daughter of yours is in for the fight of her life. You thought all of your secrets were safe and that you could keep running from them. Life as you know it is over! I plan on taking her pretty head, after I destroy your entire world, just like you did mine! How’s that for Karma Daddy Dearest? I’ll see you in hell!
Hate Always,
Pajay Clayton
Instantly I had a flashback. I knew that the letter had to be the one that Daddy had received the day we ran into each other a few weeks back. It was starting to make sense. Niggas weren’t gunning for me for the shit I had done. They were after him! They were just using me as bait to get whatever it was that they wanted from Daddy. Whoever that Pajay bitch was, was the person Oscar had mentioned; and the “she” Jew Jew was talking about before I left him smeared on the floor upstairs.
I kept re-reading the letter in amazement; fear and panic started to take over. I jumped up, stuffed the letter and policies inside the bags and moved to the front of the house. I put the last of our things in the car and went back into the house by way of the garage. I found what I was looking for, the gasoline can. I was gonna burn that bitch to the ground. It was no longer a home. It was a lie. I ran from room to room making sure I poured gas on whatever I could until the can was empty. I made sure I bathed Timmie and Jew Jew real good because I didn’t want any evidence of me doing them in. I lit a Djaram and took a few pulls and dropped it on Jew Jews stocky body before turning and walking down the steps and out the front door.
I had to move just like it was an ordinary day, even though the adrenaline was pumping through my veins. I had to force myself to walk to the car and pull out of the driveway as though nothing were going on. I got halfway down the block and heard what sounded like an atomic bomb go off. I didn’t even bother to look back to see my life burned to the ground because at that point I simply didn’t give a fuck! Oscar had some serious explaining to do. Game on!
Chapter 25
The Fur
Patterson Street
NE Washington, DC
Instead of going back to the hotel where Epps and whoever else may have been involved in the bullshit was, I headed across the Woodrow Wilson Bridge into Alexandria, Virginia. I had already decided that I had to lay low. I called Neko and told him to meet me in Old Town and to make sure no one knew where he was going. I had to stay out of DC because not only had I killed several people, but I had burned down my million-dollar home and had some unknown sibling out for blood too.
I knew I had to try and visit Oscar to find out all he knew about this Pajay person. He knew something. He was, after all my, father’s best friend and confidant. As I sat in a Starbucks waiting on Neko, my phone interrupted my thoughts. I looked at the caller ID and saw it was Caesar. I hadn’t talked to him since my father had passed. I didn’t even know if it was still a good idea to do business with him with everything going on. For all I know he could be tied up in this mess and I definitely didn’t want any beef with a Columbian drug lord. I still answered my phone, not caring what he had to say just because I would be gone in under a week’s time and out of his reach, or so I hoped.
“Hello.”
“Good afternoon YaYa how are chu’?” He said dragging his words in his thick Latin accent.
“I am well, all things considered. What can I do for you Caesar?” I asked not really caring what he wanted because whatever it was, I wasn’t interested. Business was the furthest thing from my mind.
“I was wondering when chu’ would be returning to work?”
“Caesar, it hasn’t even been a full two weeks since I had to bury my father. Surely you can give me a little more time to get things in order with my family.” I responded as I sipped on my latte trying to keep an eye on the door for Neko. It had been over twenty minutes since I had spoken with him and he should be coming in at any minute.
“I know chu’ got a lot going on, but we have money to make out here. If you don’t work, a lot of people on my side don’t eat. I would hope it will take no longer than a few days. We have some catching up to do. Shall we say next Wednesday we meet?” He was doing more telling me than asking me.
“Sure next Wednesday is fine with me.” I said knowing full well that that was one appointment I had no intentions on making.
“Good, so Wednesday it is then.” Then the line went dead.
Fuck. Now that greasy dude had an attitude. I half ass wanted to laugh at the way he was talking about business as if we worked normal nine-to-five jobs. Just then I saw Neko walk in the door. He removed his shades revealing something I had never really seen before. He really did resemble my father. He looked like Christa more, but I could see my father intertwined. We made eye contact and he joined me at my table.
“So, wassup? Why couldn’t we just meet at the hotel. Why did we have to meet all the way out here?”
I swallowed hard because I had to find out if he knew all along that Daddy was his biological father.
“I know we never talked about it much but, do you know who your father is and where he is?” I asked. Neko looked like he was caught off guard.
“Christa told me it was some dude that she met after she and Pop stop fucking with each other. She never really told me too much about him except that they didn’t work out and after they split she found out she was pregnant with me. I never really cared to know because it wasn’t like he was gonna’ be bothered with me just because Christa was off the hook.” He said sadly.
I felt horrible having to ask him all of that shit, but there were some things that just had to be done so we could find out what was going on. I took the birth certificate out of my purse and slid it across the table.
“I found this in the house today. There were some guys going through your room and I found one of them holding this in his hands. I was wondering did
he find it in the house or was he bringing it to the house?”
“What do you mean there were some guys in the house?” He asked while unfolding the paper and growing quiet while reading the text. He slammed the paper back on the table. “What kind of sick shit is this? Who were these men who had this, and when did you go to the house? When did you leave the hotel?” He asked me question after question.
“Neko, did you know that Daddy was your father? Did Christa ever mention him before you met us that day at the park?”
He shook his head back and forth. Something deep inside told me he didn’t know anything. He was just as clueless as I was. I knew Christa was in hell laughing for all of the chaos she had left us to sort out. Neko had a far-a-way look in his eyes. He slowly let his head lower and for the first time since I met him he looked defeated. He looked like he had been cheated.
“I know this is a lot of stuff to digest, but have you ever heard the name, ‘Pajay’ before?”
“No. Who is that?”
“I don’t know who it is. I was hoping you knew who it was. After I found Timmie and Jew Jew ransacking your room, I broke into Daddy’s safe and found three life insurance policies. One for me, one for you and one for someone named, ‘Pajay.’ Each one is worth over a million dollars a piece. Each one of them has been effective since 2003. Daddy knew about you, but he never spoke of you. I had never heard of this “Pajay” person until I found the policies and I also found this.”
I handed the letter written by Pajay to Daddy to Neko. He scanned the letter and looked more confused than ever. “We need to go back to the house and try to find out what we can that our father hadn’t told us!” He said beginning to stand.
I grabbed his hand and looked him in his eyes. “There is no house to go to.” I said. “I burned that bitch to the ground after I shot Timmie and Jew Jew. I cleaned out the safe. I grabbed what I could and torched it. I had to. I left two dead bodies in your bedroom and niggas is already trying to pin murders on me that I ain’t commit. I didn’t want to have to try and explain to the police that I found two of my father’s associates trying to rob us and that I killed them. They would have never understood. They are already gunning for me. They would not have wanted to hear that self-defense shit.” I said truthfully.