Best Laid Plans

by Brick

  “She came from down the hall, yelling and screaming about something. I don’t know. She shot me then shot at Father. I grabbed her; the gun went off. I took the gun from her and she picked up a broken piece of glass. Ran for me with it. I shot her and then Father took her head off. It happened too quick for me to think rationally. I had no choice but to kill her or she would have killed me,” Tone said. He glanced up at his father. He too seemed to be at a loss for words.

  “I didn’t mean to shoot her,” Tone said once he looked back at me; only, he wasn’t looking at me. He was looking at our daughter who stood in the doorway of the house with a horrified expression on her face.

  “Oh, my God. Caitlyn, no,” Jewel cried. “No, no, no,” she kept repeating. She slowly walked to where the girl’s headless body was. Before kneeling beside it, she cradled Caitlyn’s head in her arms. It was as if Jewel were trying to magically attach her head back to her body.

  “Oh, Caitlyn,” she cried. “Keith told me you were dead, bestie. Daddy, why?” she cried then looked back down at Caitlyn’s lifeless body. “He did this to you. He did this,” Jewel said so low we could barely hear her. “It’s all his fault.”

  She rocked back and forth like she was rocking a baby in her arms. Jewel’s eyes fell on her father and, for a moment, I assumed she was blaming him. Tone must have thought the same thing because his eyes seemed to gloss over with the kind of grief that couldn’t be explained.

  Jewel laid the head of her best friend down and then stood slowly. Keith started laughing again.

  “You were always stupid, Jewel. Believed any- and everything I said, even after I brought your stupid ass here,” Keith rambled.

  “She’s your blood, Keith. She was your cousin. Why? Why would you do it?” Jewel asked him.

  “She wasn’t shit to me. Always thinking she was better than me. They all did but, in the end, I won,” he croaked out then laughed manically. “I won.”

  Jewel was trembling. She was facing her attacker, but she was trembling. Her emotions had the better of her. It was only then that Tone and I realized her anger wasn’t directed at him, but at Keith, the man who’d stolen what was left of her youth. She closed her eyes briefly then she turned as if she was about to walk away. In hindsight, we’d all probably say it happened too fast to stop it, but while it was happening, it all seemed to play out in slow motion. Jewel jetted forward and yanked her grandfather’s sword from his hand.

  Tone was quicker than she was, though. He quickly grabbed the sword from her while wrapping her in a protective embrace.

  This was the way of the Orlandos. There was a “one-drop rule” that applied to that bloodline: if you had even a drop of Orlando blood inside of you, you were tainted and could kill at a moment’s notice. All it took was that one flicker of fate to ignite the switch and Jewel had just flipped her lid.

  “Nah, baby girl. They don’t get to turn you into a monster. You keep your soul. Your mother and I have done away with ours for you,” he said to her.

  Jewel broke down. She was inconsolable as her father held her. Tone passed her off to me. He had the sword in his possession now. Keith never saw it coming. Antonio shoved the sword through his side and then petted the man on his head. Keith’s yells rumbled through the small room as blood poured down his sides.

  “You don’t get off that easy, you piece of shit,” Tone taunted. “Keep breathing, nigga. We ain’t done yet.”

  Chapter 27

  Antonio

  “String this bastard up,” Caltrone said with a tone so deadly it straightened my spine and chilled my bones. “I’ve reached my endgame.”

  Jewel stood trembling beside me. She had tried to kill the man who had kidnapped, raped, abused, and drugged her, all the while forcing her across the country while committing other foul acts against her. It seemed her best friend, who now lay dead and headless on the filthy floor, was also a victim of Keith’s madness.

  I pulled Jewel’s trembling body backward. “Take her back to the van,” I said, more like ordered. “I don’t want her to see this.”

  Before Kenya could respond Jewel spoke up. “No. You have to, Daddy.”

  My head spun around with a frown. “Have to what?”

  “You have to let me see you kill him,” she cried. “I want to see him die. I want to see him suffer.” There was a wild, panicked look in her eyes, one that told us she was no longer the innocent child we once thought she was.

  “Jewel, I don’t think so.”

  “Let her watch, Antonio. It’s her right to see her torturer tortured. Turnabout is fair play,” Caltrone dictated.

  “Pops—”

  “Let her watch, Antonio,” Caltrone said again, this time sterner than he did before. The old man’s eyes were glazed over and his evil had been unleashed.

  I stared at my father as if I wanted to challenge him. The air in the room had grown colder. The tension between father and son rippled around the place like static electricity. Although Kenya knew there was a devil in me, the one in Caltrone was bigger at the moment. The old man took breaths so deep that every time he inhaled and exhaled it looked as if his body bulked.

  The muscles in my jaw ticked and a scowl took over my features. I stormed around the mess of a room, kicking trash out of my way. Kneeling in front of the black duffle bag, I snatched out chains and ropes. “Daddy got this.”

  I didn’t realize I said that out loud as I dragged Keith behind me through the house. I was in my own zone when we strung him up. My father’s voice was in my mind and beside me, of course.

  “Tie him intricately like I taught you as a boy, mijo,” he ordered. And like the dutiful son I was, I complied.

  Silence was my friend. My gloved hands moved with precision while I worked. I was told I was the Picasso of surgeons. Tilting my head to the side, I had to agree. My rope work was on point. With a tap of my hand against his rib cage, I grinned. There was nothing to be said. He was about to die.

  Behind me was my baby girl. I felt her watching on in equal silence; however, there was this energy from her, a cocktail of rage, grief, and sadness. It saturated the air. It connected with my pain and Kenya’s pain and it flowed back to her in a sense of support through this madness. Once we got her home, we for damn sure were going to work on her healing with us as a family.

  “No worries,” I heard my father say. He grabbed Keith by his nuts. His muscles bunched in constraint as he pulled that nigga apart in glee. “Death is your companion,” he added then handed me the scalpel.

  Flesh fell at my father’s feet. I watched on as if I were an intern. As I held that scalpel, I then reached up to insert an IV that pumped fluid in him. It was a cocktail that forced him to stay awake and feel every pain we gave him. Now, it was my turn.

  “Damn, vato, do you feel that?” Gripping him by his chin, I stared into his eyes. “I pray that you do. Every time you touched my daughter, this is what she felt.”

  Somewhere in my darkness I heard the gagging of my daughter and Kenya. There was nothing but darkness in my soul while I gripped the neck of that bastard shaking him awake. Hate recognized hate, and a demon recognized a bitch who was trying to live the life of a monster. Something insidious crept in my heart. It made me laugh slowly. It made me assess that bastard’s face, memorizing every detail of him, until . . .

  Rippppp.

  Pleasure in the sensation of a surgeon’s forged steel slicing into the ribcage of my daughter’s attacker made me smile with malice. The tiny blade in my hand was cleaner than a motherfucker. I mean, that shit went in like butter with no damn protest except by Keith who began seizing when I cut into him. Mmm, shit. That was delicious, that pain, that fleeting moment of fear, that realization that maybe, just maybe, he fucked with the wrong Orlando. And that, right there, had my dick ready to stand.

  Rip. Rip. Rippppp.

  Blood washed over my hand, mixing with the red substance that ran down Keith’s face. His mouth formed an agonizing, huge O. That same ruddy essence
tinted his teeth while he screamed. I almost told him, “Thank you. Thank you for making this moment so precious for me,” but I didn’t. Instead, I said in a slick taunt, “Baby girl, do you think he loves this pain, or does he need more?”

  “He’s fading. Give him more fluids, niño,” Caltrone ordered. He held his chin with a clean glove, standing over my shoulder as if critiquing my work.

  While I fed the boy the juice, Jewel inched a little closer. She seemed so tiny and malnourished, like Dobbie from Harry Potter. Her hair was unkempt, lacking luster, and she was swallowed by a dingy, tattered shirt. It pained me. It angered me. From the corner of my eye I could see her leaning in to look Keith square in the eyes. Her once-warm eyes were dark like a true Orlando, iced over with cold hatred for the bastard in front of her.

  “Damn, Keith, you look so pretty,” she spat out as if trying to cut him with her words. “You look so good, nigga.” Her beautiful face contorted in a mask of hatred. “Damn, you want more, don’t you, you dirty slut-bitch? That sound you’re making says you want more. Give him more, Daddy.”

  Her words made a lion roar in me. He had to die. I gave her a nod, and focused back on Keith. He had a hanging flap of flesh from where I sliced his skin. I grabbed a handful and pulled.

  “Oh, shit. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. Please! Stopppp,” Keith screamed.

  I looked at Jewel and she shook her head.

  “Did you stop when she asked?” I paused legit waiting for him to answer. When he didn’t, we continued our show.

  Taking my daughter’s pound of flesh from Keith, then working on mine and then Kenya’s pounds of flesh, I could hear him laughing in between, in harsh drags.

  “Just keep dragging this out. My guest will shut this shit all down—”

  “Shut the hell up and die, boy,” I heard Kenya interrupt in a harsh shout behind me. “Take your fucking like a big boy and swallow that fucking tongue of yours, or he’ll rip it out.”

  I chuckled low. I took the bags that my father walked my way with, then set them out in front of Keith.

  “It appears you haven’t learned a thing, boy,” Caltrone spat out. He walked up on Keith and showed him a sizzling branding post that he had made. That thing was made out of wire hangers and shaped in a crude manner. Without a blink, or a care, he shoved it up Keith’s ass.

  We all watched as he shouted, tears running down his face. It was then that he screamed, “Stop. Stop!”

  But we didn’t. This was all about the levels of torture he had put on our daughter and the next was mental warfare. Unzipping the bags, I dug a gloved hand in the bag and looked up. Kenya was there. She held out gloved hands, and I handed her what was inside of each bag. She arranged some, looked at Keith, grabbed him by the head, as she jammed a scalpel into his gut. I realized that this was her way to show her help in this. She then walked away, and I chuckled, finishing putting down my prizes, slapping each item out in a nice circle.

  “Say hello to your little friends, ya? I mean family, cousins, friends, yes, that’s better.” I smiled with such glee.

  I chuckled while he struggled against his restraint. “Oh shit, you didn’t expect that I see. Interesting. Well, there she is. My beautiful partner helped with this one. Say hello.”

  He stared at me with such anger that I wanted to make it worse, which I did.

  Pulling the scalpel out without a care, I slammed it down against his thigh, pulled up, then slammed it down onto his right thigh. Staring up at him, I made the sign of the Holy Cross and moved to walk around him.

  “Fuck all of you. You all will burn just like me. I ain’t scared,” Keith roared out then sobbed, his body shaking from all the trauma we put on him. “I ain’t scared. This shit was worth it.”

  He said that over and over and over until I snatched his throat. That fear pumped up quickly in his eyes with each digit dug into his trachea. With a flash of metal glinting in the light he knew what time it was, and strange panic flashed across his face when that blade scored his throat.

  With a slight lean to the side, I whispered into his ear, “This house is next.”

  “No.” He garbled his words. “All I got.”

  I figured that much from what I learned in finding him. This house was the last place he felt safe and it reminded him of the people who actually gave a shit about his ass. Too bad he shit on whatever legacy they had. Fingers digging into his scalp, I twisted his head back and forth watching his carotid vein give him a bloody apron until there was nothing but his gasping.

  Patiently, I watched his slowly blinking eyes until the sound of a bullet whizzing into his skull sent me shifting backward. I turned to where it came from and was greeted by a five foot eight woman with almond brown skin, wing-tipped lined brown eyes, thick thighs covered in tight dark blue jeans, with hips for days. Long red-tipped locs with gold locs jewelry pulled to the side into a large bun and a face like that of a round-the-way girl turned model stoically stared at us. The elegantly manicured hand that held the Glock that took out Keith turned, and that was when my world fell apart.

  With swift effectiveness, another bullet escaped then slammed into my baby girl’s skull knocking her head back. I’d never, until the day I died, forget the frozen shock in my baby’s eyes or her last words.

  “Daddy. Momm—”

  Shouts rained out as I stared, stunned. I heard my father shout out in a mixture of Spanish and English. He stood over Kenya and my baby girl, in shock.

  “What grounds do you have to do this, Queen Yasmine? What fucking grounds?”

  Kenya seemed to be sinking into the floor. Her tears mixed with the red that covered her. Her pain shattered our souls and synced with mine. She held Jewel’s lifeless body against her chest, her words repeating over and over: “My baby. My baby. No.”

  “We came so far, only to lose our daughter to this . . . this . . . bitch.”

  I didn’t realize I said that out loud until I felt myself roar, with my arms stretched out wide, “Why?”

  “Knights’ order of fair exchange,” said the bitch. Staring me in my eyes, there was a note of sadness there, mixed with a subtle note of madness matching my own father’s. She turned to look Caltrone in the eye without even a blink. She dropped a set of pictures with a note, along with a photo of Caitlyn’s death. Just as silently as she’d arrived was how she left. She disappeared into the darkness of the hallway with a hulking brotha. I couldn’t register who he was.

  Her voice echoed to us, saying, “Now we’re even.”

  We heard the sound of a screen door opening then closing. A menacing smile was frozen on Keith’s face. It would be later when I realized that this was his plan all along: war.

  Chapter 28

  Kenya

  No.

  No.

  No.

  No.

  This couldn’t be happening. I knew what it was. It was all a dream. A nightmare. Somebody wake me up. Please. Wake me up. Antonio had to wake me up. In the nightmare, some woman had come from the blackness of the woods and shot my baby between the eyes. I sat, holding her in my arms. Her eyes were wide, fixated on me. Her blood and brain matter had been splattered on my hands, shirt, face.

  Please, my mind screamed. Antonio, wake me up!

  In my nightmare, Caltrone’s voice roared like a lion as he bear-hugged Tone to keep him from going after the woman who had shot our child. Even in the chaos, we figured out that Caltrone’s men had been taken down. We were out here alone. Caltrone knew that if Tone followed that woman out of the house and into the woods, he wouldn’t come back out alive. Caltrone couldn’t allow that to happen. He loved his son. Had just gotten him back. He couldn’t lose him. Not now.

  Tone’s yells and cries matched mine. I screamed in my nightmare. Slobber hung from my lips. Rage filled my lungs threatening to drown me. I screamed. I yelled as I rocked her. I rocked Jewel like she was that seven-pound, six-ounce newborn again.

  Yes, that was it. In my nightmare, she was but an infant. She was sle
eping. She was going to wake up any minute now. She was always hungry when she woke up.

  In my nightmare, I stood, struggled to pick up my baby. She was so heavy. Why was she so heavy? I needed help. I looked to my right to see Caltrone holding his son, still struggling to stop Tone from trying to go after that woman. Tone was angry. He was livid. Tears ran down his face in his madness. He let out a guttural roar that would make a jungle go silent in fear.

  Caltrone had to let him go. I needed help. I needed to lay her down. She was tired. She was so tired that she had fallen asleep right there on the floor.

  “Help me,” I cried as I looked at Tone. “She’s tired. She needs to lie down.”

  Why was Tone just letting Caltrone hold him? Why wouldn’t he come to help me lay her down? She was so heavy for an infant. So heavy . . .

  If I had been in my right mind, I would have realized it wasn’t a nightmare. I would have realized that my child wasn’t sleeping. It would have registered that she was dead, that some woman had come like a thief in the night and stolen her, again. We’d done so much, killed so many, set a blazing trail across parts of North America to find her, only to have her stolen once again.

  * * *

  Over the next week, my sanity would return. I’d realize my child was dead and that we needed to lay her to rest. My nightmare was real and it was never going to end. Jewel was dead and she wasn’t coming back. I knew that part would break Tone and me down, but the way Caltrone had handled it surprised all of us, even his family. For weeks, Caltrone shut himself in the basement. He locked himself away from everything and everyone.

  Father Rueben and Uncle Savoy had been flown in. Apparently, the Knights had prepared for a war. However, Caltrone hadn’t set the detonator off yet. While every Orlando faction was ready for whatever, Caltrone remained silent. The only people he would allow in to see him were Antonio, Carmen, and Father Rueben. No one else was permitted.