“Go pull up over there,” Dante said. “In the same spot where them niggas just was.”
“Man, okay,” Edric said, not understanding. “If you say so.”
Edric pulled the minivan over to the parking spot and parked. Dante looked up, seeing that there were only four apartments in each entrance. This made it easy to figure out which apartment belonged to Breon’s chick, as he’d been able to see her come from the left then down the stairs.
“Here’s what we gon’ do,” Dante said. “I’m not gon’ go chasin’ this nigga. I’mma make him come after me… make this shit easy, you know?”
Edric and his nephew Trell listened up as Dante talked about how they were going to go into that apartment building and get Breon’s girlfriend. “The quickest way to get any nigga’s attention,” Dante said, “is to fuck with his chick.” His words were laced with the hopes of sweet revenge.
***
When Nikki came back into the house, she quickly slid out of her coat. Her heart beat a little fast as she’d been caught up in the drama. This wasn’t anything new for her, per se, but it had certainly been a while since something so serious went down. At the end of each of her thoughts, though, she couldn’t help but think about the cut of the money she was going to get. That’s what made Breon different, even if he didn’t belong to her. There had been so many times in the past when Nikki had done so much for a man to only get nothing in return.
Nikki stepped into her bedroom and turned out the light. She undressed and was now alone in the bed. She’d thought she would be too tired to fall to sleep, but she was actually finding the opposite to be true. Quickly, she could feel her eyelids getting heavy. Something about stepping out into that frigid air made her want to crawl into the bed and go to sleep. She positioned her head so she was comfortable on the pillow, putting her phone directly next to her so that she’d wake up if she heard it ringing or felt it vibrating.
Ten or fifteen minutes passed with Nikki slowly falling asleep. Just as she was just about out, she could hear her front doorknob being fidgeted with. At first, she simply assumed that it was Gracelyn coming in from somewhere. She then remembered that she hadn’t heard Gracelyn leave since her little moment of being disrespectful out in the hallway. Nikki leaned up on the bed and looked toward her bedroom door. She waited to see if Gracelyn would get up and see what that noise was, but she realized that Gracelyn was probably too deep into sleep to hear a thing going down.
Quickly, Nikki slipped out of her bed and pulled on some pajama pants and a t-shirt. After grabbing her phone and dropping it into her pocket, she hurried out into the living room and around to the front door. Someone was definitely fidgeting with the door knob. And she knew it was definitely not Gracelyn, as her coat was still hanging in the dining room. Nikki, scared to her core, stepped up and looked out of the peephole. Just as she did, she looked into the eyes of a tall man she’d never seen before. A small scream slipped out of her lips, causing her to put her hand over her mouth.
“I hear you in there, bitch,” the man said. “Open this fuckin’ door.”
Just then, the fidgeting with the door was getting louder. It was becoming clear that the men were trying to force their way inside. Nikki, falling back and into the wall, realized she needed to jump into action. Just as she was heading out from the path of the door and toward her bedroom, the door was kicked in. Three men, none of which Nikki knew, caught up with her, as she was screaming and kicking from having fallen down. Before Nikki knew it, there was a hand over her mouth and another hand holding her arms together. Each man was so strong, even for as bad of a chick as she was. She trembled as the third man, who was taller and leaner, as well as a little more rough around the edges, leaned in. His voice was deep and scratchy.
“You Breon’s chick, huh?” he asked. “Just the person we was lookin’ for.”
Nikki’s heart beat so fast that she could have had a stroke. Against her will, she was carried out of her apartment. One of the guys made sure to pull the door closed as they left, another putting a gun to Nikki’s head and telling her that she’d better walk as if there wasn’t a problem or they were going to make a problem for her. Terrified and scared for her life, Nikki did as she was told. When she was thrown into the back of a green minivan, one of the men got in with her. He kept the gun on her and smiled.
“Where the fuck are you takin’ me?” Nikki asked
The three men ignored her as the minivan pulled off and headed out of the parking lot. All Nikki could think about was how she wanted to call Breon so he could put a stop to all of this. She didn’t even have anything to do with whatever money that was owed to him. Why was she being taken in the night?
SNEAK PEEK: The Wrath of a Side Chick 3
CHAPTER 1
Breon and Ray didn’t know that when they left the apartment community where Nikki lived, they were being watched. Every move they’d made, from getting the guns from Nikki to pulling out of the parking lot and turning left onto the main road, eyes had been on them. Their attention had been focused on one another, and they hadn’t noticed the green minivan parked to the right of the entrance into Nikki’s apartment complex. With Ray behind the wheel, and one of his back windows shot out , he quickly turned out onto the street. They headed toward the main street so they could hop onto the highway.
“Nigga, I can’t believe this shit,” Ray said, shaking his head and then biting his lip.
“What, you see how thick that bitch is or what?” Breon asked, thinking that his boy Ray was referring to the dimensions of Nikki’s body.
Instantly, Ray shook his head. “Naw,” he responded. “I’m talking about how my fuckin’ back window is blown out and shit.”
“Nigga, just be happy that one of them bullets ain’t hit us in the head or nothin’ like that,” Breon said. “Don’t worry, though. We gon’ fuck these niggas when we get back over here. I know he think he really did something with them couple of bullets he got us with, but the nigga obviously ain’t worth shit. I mean, think about it.”
“What you mean?” Ray asked.
“I’m talking about how that nigga clearly had the upper advantage on us with that being his block and shit,” Breon said. “I mean, think about it. It ain’t like we know our way around over there or nothin’ like that. He coulda just came out and got us, but no. The nigga had to do some stupid shit so that he can make sure that everybody hear and shit.”
His eyes bulging, Ray looked over at his boy. “Nigga, but that’s the shit I was thinkin’ about,” he said. “What if we get back over there and the block is full of fuckin’ police and shit. Nigga, I ain’t try’na get caught up in no dumb shit and be on the news tonight, ‘cause now we got these guns in the car with us and stuff, you know.”
“Yeah,” Breon said, in thought. Carrying semi-automatic handguns made them feel like more of a target, even if the odd police officer in the street wouldn’t know that they were carrying them. Suddenly, Breon felt as if he had bad luck. Grabbing his chin, he thought about it for a moment. “Okay, here’s what we gon’ do,” he began. “First, we can ride up whatever that street is and look down the side streets. You know how if there would be police cars back there, you know they gon’ have they lights on and stuff. We can look down from the stoplight them four or five blocks and see if we see lights and shit.”
“And if we don’t?” Ray asked. “I mean, man, they could be sittin’ back there with they lights off and shit, ducked off in alleys and shit to where we wouldn’t even be able to see them to begin with. Naw, nigga. I don’t like that shit. We gon’ have to come up with something else to do instead of that, man, ‘cause I ain’t feelin’ that shit that much.”
“Okay, okay, nigga,” Breon said. “I got another idea.”
For the next few minutes, as Ray drove his car back toward the south side neighborhood, Breon explained his idea. Ray listened intently, trying to push beyond the anxiety he was feeling from carrying a couple of semi-automatic handguns in his
car – a car that now had a backseat window blown out.
With the route that Ray took back over to the neighborhood, they were able to get off the interstate and quickly make their way to the main street. Riding up it, seeing that they were riding through one of the worst hoods on the south side of Chicago, Breon couldn’t help but look out the window as run-down houses and densely populated low income housing projects and communities seemed to zip past them. It was the middle of the night, in the middle of winter in Chicago. Everything looked so lifeless and eerie. He hadn’t even noticed how they were riding without the radio playing.
All Breon could think about was how he wanted to get revenge on Dante. It had all become too real, as Dante was clearly not playing with getting Breon back for something he didn’t even do. And it all came at the worst possible time – his anniversary and proposing to Trina. All of her father’s words played over and over again in his mind. He could hear it in Robert’s voice that he really didn’t want his daughter caught up in anything crazy. Breon bit his bottom lip as the apartments and houses outside of his car window became dark, snowy blurs.
“All right, nigga,” Ray said, pointing up the street. “We almost there and shit. Where you say this gas station is at and shit?”
Breon snapped out of his daze, feeling his arms pumped. He was ready to do whatever it took to get Dante before he made the situation any worse. “Okay, okay,” he said, trying to get his bearings. “Pull up closer to it and slow down and stuff so we can see if we can pull this shit off right here or not.”
Ray crossed the stoplight of the street that led back to the neighborhood. They looked down the street and didn’t see any lights. They looked at one another, knowing that not seeing any lights was practically worse than if they had seen lights. At least if they had seen lights, they’d then know where the police were. Without police, every alley or side street they passed was a potential risk for having a cop car ducked off in the shadows of the houses and buildings.
“Fuck it, nigga,” Breon said. “We gon’ have to do this shit like I said. Pull up into the parking lot of the gas station. And make the shit quick so we can get the fuck out of sight. You know how nights like these be. Niggas don’t really be out, but the cops and shit don’t give a fuck. They still lookin’ for a nigga to put in jail even if ain’t nobody out here doin’ nothin’.”
Ray checked all of his rearview mirrors before turning into the parking lot of a Circle K Shell gas station. He and Breon both looked around, particularly down the side streets that crossed at the intersection. Once they saw that no headlights were coming from any direction, Breon quickly lowered his window. He raised the gun and pointed it out, toward an abandoned house next to the gas station. He closed his eye as he pulled the trigger. Thundering gun shots, magnified by the dead silence of the winter night, rang into the night air. Countless booms rose into the sky.
Feeling his heart pumping hard, Breon pulled the gun back inside of the car and looked over at Ray. “Damn, nigga, what the fuck is you waitin’ on?” he asked. “Drive off and shit, nigga.”
Ray, still dealing with the gunshots ringing in his ears, looked ahead as he pulled out of the gas station parking lot. Breon looked back, at the road toward the direction in which they’d come, waiting to see headlights turn off of a side street. No such thing happened. Up ahead, there was a strip mall on the right. It wasn’t exactly the kind of place that he’d stop during the day, but there were enough fast food restaurants out in front of it that they could pull into the parking lot and get relatively out of sight.
Breon told Ray to pull into a Taco Bell parking lot. Once he did, they waited. Sure enough, just as they’d thought, the police came running when the sound of semi-automatic gunshots rang into the quiet air.
“What I tell you?” Breon said, hearing sirens in the distance. “They was just sittin’ back, waitin’ on somethin’ to pop off with niggas so they could come arrest somebody. Now, we just wait on them to ride through and stuff, and when they get up here, they gon’ be huddled down the street and shit, outside that house try’na figure out what is goin’ on there when ain’t shit goin’ on.”
“And then?” Ray asked, trying to be sure he understood what was going on. “Nigga, you betta not get me caught by no damn cops tonight.”
“Nigga, chill out,” Breon said. “We ain’t got time for all that shit. Tonight, I’m about gettin’ this nigga Dante. I already know that he prolly think he scared us off and shit, because we didn’t have the heat and shit when he was firin’ at us, but we gon’ surprise his ass… And whoever the fuck else is in that house with him. I already know that nigga probably ain’t thinkin’ that we gon’ come back and shit, but he ‘bout to see.”
The two of them sat there as they watched, sitting in the darkness of an empty Taco Bell parking lot, as two police cars zoomed by. Soon enough, just as Breon had said, they were sitting out in the gas station parking lot a couple of blocks down at the stop light. Once the coast was clear, Ray pulled out of the parking lot and turned at the stoplight up ahead. Turning right would bring them to the other end of the neighborhood. As they drove further in from the busy street, the neighborhood got darker. Street lights were shot out. Houses were unusually dark. Each and every alley they passed, both Breon and Ray looked down it to see if they saw any headlights mysteriously sitting in the middle of the alley. There were none.
Ray pulled onto Dante’s street and cautiously pulled down. When they got down to the stop sign before the block, where they could look down at the gas station, they did so. From there, they could see the lights of police cars parked down in the gas station parking lot. They were too far to see if anyone had come out of a house nearby to give any sort of statement, but the two of them doubted it. With that in mind, Ray pulled across the intersection and parked.
In the quiet, they looked at the house where Dante had come out of the yard.
“You ready, nigga?” Breon asked, taking his seatbelt off.
“Hell yeah, nigga,” Ray said. “Let’s get this nigga.”
Ray and Breon both hopped out of Ray’s car. They glanced over the roof at one another before heading toward the yard. They walked cautiously, the only noise outside at that moment was their feet crunching against the snow on the not yet shoveled sidewalk. The two of them paused just as they were crossing in front of a row of bushes that divided the property from the house next door. Breon looked at Ray, hoping that he really had his back. Without speaking, Ray simply nodded his head, letting Breon know that everything was a go.
With both of their guns drawn, the two of them hurried up into the yard. Their senses were incredibly acute while they walked, as they both were ready for any sort of ambush. Having had bullets thrown at them only an hour earlier had made them realize how real this was – a realization that would motivate them, especially Breon.
Breon walked up to the front door. Ray stood back, standing just off of the front porch. He looked up and down the street as Breon pushed his ear to the front door. He could hear giggling, but no men’s voices. In fact, it sounded like at least a couple of women. Breon tapped his foot to get Ray’s attention.
“Sounds like a couple bitches,” Breon whispered.
Ray nodded and shrugged, letting Breon know nonverbally that he was down to do whatever he thought was best. Breon took a moment to think before looking at the door. He motioned for Ray to come up onto the porch. Once he did, Breon stepped back. With all of his force, he kicked the front door in. Screams erupted from two women, who were sitting on the couch in tight t-shirts and white sweatpants. Judging by what was on the large flat screen television, they had been waiting on a movie to start playing.
“Shut the fuck up!” Breon said, pointing the gun at both women as they jumped back and jumped up onto the couch. “Shut the fuck up with all that screamin’ before I blow your damn heads off and shit.”
Both women looked at one another as they struggled to press their lips together. They shook uncontrollably, ho
ping to God that whoever these two niggas were, they did not decide to do something crazy.
Breon, with his nostrils flared and his eyes on the staircase, nodded. Standing tall in the living room, his presence was very dominating. The two women looked up at him with fear in their eyes. “What the fuck is goin’ on?” one chick asked.
“Where the fuck is that nigga Dante?” Breon asked.
“I don’t know,” one chick said. The other, who was plumper with a chest that looked like a double D, shook her head and said the same thing in response. “I swear,” she said, “I really don’t know.”
“Stop lyin’, bitch,” Breon said. “I know that nigga is here. He fired at us when we first pulled up like an hour ago.”
“I swear,” one chick said. “He left right after that. They all did.”
“They?” Breon asked. “They who?”
The two chicks looked at one another. They knew that if they said too much, they could be in just as much trouble as if they’d never said anything at all. “Please,” one chick said, leaning forward. Breon couldn’t help but notice her big chest and how her thighs pressed together. He then noticed the other chick and how she, from the side, looked as if she was sitting on an ass that was like two basketballs. “Bitch, I know y’all hear me,” Breon said, feeling as if time was of the essence. “Who is they and where the fuck they go?”
“Look, I don’t know,” one chick said. “Look, we just came over a couple hours ago to chill with them. We only know Dante. Please don’t hurt us.” The chick then noticed how handsome Breon was in the face. She also found his friend to be handsome, but not in the same way. His friend was more rugged, at least in comparison. “Look,” she said, softly. “I’ll suck your damn dick so you don’t hurt us.”
Wrath of a Side Chick 2: A Chicago Hood Drama (Side Chick's Wrath) Page 14