by Askari
As Marisol stormed out of the hospital room, one of Grip’s bodyguards appeared in the doorway. “Is everything okay in here?” he asked while looking around the room.
“Yes,” Olivia answered his question with tears pouring from her hazel eyes. “Everything’s fine.”
The large bodyguard looked around the room once more, and then returned to his post.
Olivia returned her head to Rahmello’s chest and wrapped her arms around him. “Baby, I’m so sorry. I should have told you about your dad, but I was too afraid.”
Rahmello’s body began to tremble and the bed shook violently. His breathing became erratic and his heart monitor beeped like crazy.
Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep.
Short breath. Short breath. Long Breath. Short breath. Long breath.
She lifted her head from his chest and looked him in the face. “Ay dios mio,” she blurted out, completely taken by surprise. She couldn’t believe it. His blue eyes were fixed on hers.
It was 8:35 p.m. when Sonny walked through the front door of his mansion. As he stepped into the foyer, he noticed that Daphney was standing on the balcony of their grand dual-staircase. She was dressed in a black Victoria’s Secret nightgown, and her curly black hair was pulled back into a single braid. A half empty glass of wine was grasped in her right hand, and her arms were folded across her chest.
Immediately, Sonny could sense that something was wrong. Aside from the fact she had a screwed up face, her eyes appeared to be a little puffy as if she’d just finished crying.
“Babe, what’s the matter?” he asked in a concerned voice. “Are the kids okay?”
“They’re okay,” she replied with an agitated undertone.
“What about my mom and my grandmom? They good?”
“Umm hmm, they’re good. They left about a half an hour ago.”
“They left?” Sonny looked at her skeptically. “Whatchu mean they left? Where the fuck is the twins? I told ‘em to keep everybody here until I got back.”
“I don’t know,” she said with an attitude and shrugged her shoulders. “They left, and them nut ass twins been left.”
“So, what’s poppin’? Why you standin’ there lookin’ all mad?”
“This ain’t about me,” she said with the snap of her neck. “It’s about you. So, what, you fuckin’ with the enemy now?”
Her question caught him off guard. “Yo, Daph, whatchu talking ‘bout?”
“Nigga, you know what I’m talking ‘bout?” She quickly replied.
Sonny sighed. “Actually, I don’t know, so what’s up?”
“I’m talking ‘bout Grip,” she barked at him, then shifted her weight to her left hip. “After everything that mutherfucker put us through, you’re gonna side with this nigga? Really?”
Damn, he thought to himself, she must have seen us on the news. By making it appear as though he was rocking out with Grip, he never even considered how the people around him would feel.
“So, what about Mook?” She continued to grind him up. “What about my daddy? He’s doin’ life behind that slimy mutherfucker, and you have the audacity to be makin’ moves wit’ him?”
“Hey, yo, Daph, I’m not in the mood for this shit right now. All I wanna do is get some rest.”
His nonchalant attitude pissed her off even more. She downed the rest of her wine, and then looked at him with squinted eyes. “Nigga, you ain’t self-made. Everything you have is because of Mook. And this is how you repay him, by siding with the mutherfucker who killed him? Nigga, you ain’t shit.”
“Yo, it’s not even like that,” he quickly shot back. He wanted to give her the full scoop, but in order for his plan to work, he had to keep his cards close to his chest.
“Oh, it’s not like that?” She pointed at the diamond ring on his right pinky. “So, why the fuck are you wearin’ his ring? And why the fuck are they callin’ you the new boss of The Moreno Crime Family? Nigga, you must think I’m stupid,” she shouted at him.
Sonny took a moment to calm himself down before replying to her outburst. The last thing he ever wanted to do was disrespect his wife, but she was really starting to cross the line. “Listen,” he spoke in a calm voice. “I had a long day and I’m tired as shit. All I wanna do is get some rest.”
“Well, you’re gonna have to get it somewhere else,” she vehemently stated. “Because your grimy ass isn’t welcome here, you fuckin’ traitor.”
Sonny chuckled. He was madder than a mutha’fucka, but still he remained calm. “Ay, yo, dig right, stop playin’ wit’ me, Daphney. I had a long ass day and I’m really not in the mood for this shit.”
As he stepped off and headed towards his man-cave in the basement, Daphney snapped out. She cocked back and threw her wine glass, missing his head by inches. “Pussy, ain’t nobody playin’. I want you outta my fuckin’ house.”
Sonny lost it. He darted up the right side of the staircase and got up in her face. “Bitch, is you crazy?” He snapped at her, inadvertently spitting in her face. “Who the fuck you think you talkin’ to?”
“Motherfucker, I’m talking to you,” she fired back, refusing to be intimidated by his aggression. She slapped him in the face, and before Sonny knew it, both of his hands were wrapped around her neck, and he was squeezing tightly. He pushed her against the railing and the top half of her body was spilling over.
“Get the fuck off of me, Sontino.” She tagged him in the head and shoulders with wild punches, and continued shouting. “Get off of me.”
Their Rottweiler, Rocko, ran up to the banister and began to bark and growl at Sonny. Roof. Roof. Urrrr. Roof. Roof. Urrrr.
“Rocko, shut ya stupid ass up,” Sonny shouted at him. He kicked Rocko in the nose, and the large dog scampered away whimpering.
“Sontino, I’m not playing,” Daphney shouted. “You better get the fuck off of me.”
He yanked her away from the railing and tossed her to the floor. In the corner of his eye, he saw Dayshon running towards Daphney, and Keyonti crawling up the hallway. Both of his babies were crying, and when they reached their mother, they wrapped their arms around her.
Embarrassed and disappointed in himself, Sonny tried to console his family, but Daphney pushed him away and jumped to her feet. Like a woman possessed, she rushed him and threw punches at his face and shoulders nonstop. “Get the fuck outta my goddamned house.”
Keyonti looked up at her parents and screamed at the top of her lungs. “Mama. Dada. No fight-fight.”
Daphney caught him with a nice blow to the side of his head, and he backed away before things went any further. While shaking his head from side to side, he back-pedaled towards the end of the balcony, and walked down the stairs. After storming out of the house, he climbed inside of his Porsche Spyder and banged his fist against the steering wheel. “Fuck.” He released his frustration. Everything that he loved and worked so hard for was slowly slipping away from him.
“What the fuck is goin’ on?” he asked himself, looking at his reflection in the rear-view mirror. As he reached under the driver’s seat to grab his car keys, his iPhone vibrated in his pants pocket.
Vrrrrrm. Vrrrrrm. Vrrrrrm.
“Yo, who the fuck is this?” he snapped into the phone, not recognizing the number.
“Sontino, it’s Oli.”
“Oli,” he stated in a nervous voice. “What’s wrong? Did somethin’ happen wit’ Mello?” His heart was racing and the last thing he needed was bad news stating that his little brother’s conditioned had worsened.
“You need to get back to the hospital,” Olivia stated with urgency. “It’s Mello. He woke up from his coma and he’s snapping the fuck out.”
“A’ight, Oli, I’m on my way.”
***
“Agh shit,” Rahmello shrieked when he tried to stand up on his injured leg. The last thing he remembered was the ambush at Easy’s funeral. Images of his family crouched down in the bullet-proof Sprinter Van flooded his mind, and his blood began to boil
. It was all coming back to him. His grandmother and step-mother were calling out for God. Daphney was down on the floor consoling his crying nephew and niece. And his team was fresh out of bullets.
“Sonny,” he shouted. “Where the fuck is my brother?” He snatched the oxygen tubes out of his nose and ripped the intravenous needle out of his left arm.
“Baby, calm down,” Olivia pleaded in a soothing voice. “Just calm down.”
Confused, he looked at his fiancé, and then looked around the hospital room. “Yo, where the fuck is my family?” he continued snapping. “And who the fuck is these niggas?” He pointed at the large bodyguards, giving them the look of death.
“Your grandfather sent them to watch over you,” Olivia quickly explained. Tears were dripping down her face and it was killing her to see him like this. He was confused and disoriented, and she didn’t know what to say or do. She looked at the bodyguards and shouted, “Don’t just stand there. Do something.”
The bigger of the two bodyguards approached Rahmello’s hospital bed and spoke to him in a calm voice. “Just relax, Little Brother. Your grandfather sent us here to protect you.”
“My grandfather?” Rahmello asked. He was sitting on the edge of the bed with a scowl on his face. “Hold up, you mean Grip?”
“Yes,” the bodyguard confirmed. “Mr. Moreno gave us specific orders to guard you with our lives.”
Rahmello picked up the heart monitor and threw the large device at the man’s head, causing him to duck and run out of the room. “Yo, where the fuck is my brother?” he asked Olivia.
“He’s comin’,” Olivia cried. “I just talked to him and he’s on the way.”
“Yo, we gotta get up outta here.” He scooted off of the bed and wrapped his left arm around Olivia’s shoulders. She tried her best to support his weight, but when he planted his left foot on the floor, his leg buckled under the pressure and he fell down. “Ummm fuck,” he winced from the sharp pain that shot up his leg. “Yo, this shit hurt like a mutha’fucka.”
Olivia reached down to help him up, and as she placed his left arm back around her shoulders, three security guards rushed inside of the room with two doctors right behind them.
“Sir, you need to calm down,” one of the security guards warned Rahmello as he grabbed Olivia by the arm and pulled her away. His two colleagues positioned themselves around Rahmello, and watched him closely as the first security guard escorted Olivia towards the door.
“Rahmello, just calm down, baby, please,” Olivia advised him as the security guard pulled her out into the hallway.
“Fuck that,” Rahmello yelled at her. “Go get my fuckin’ brother.” He tried to stand on his feet but the security guards tackled him back to the floor. As they struggled to restrain him, Dr. Levy looked at his understudy and gestured for the rookie to hand him a sedative. The young doctor reached inside of his pocket and quickly removed a needle that was halfway filled with Thorazine. He removed the cap and handed the needle to Dr. Levy.
“All right, now hold him steady,” Dr. Levy instructed the security guards as he gently pressed down on the dropper, causing a drop of Thorazine to trickle from the tip of the needle. The overweight black men adhered to the doctor’s order. The older one held Rahmello’s legs together, and the younger one placed his knees on Rahmello’s back and then forcefully pinned down his left arm.
“Get the fuck off me,” Rahmello shouted as he struggled to break free.
Dr. Levy approached them slowly, and then leaned forward to administer the shot. He buried the needle deep in Rahmello’s left arm and gently pressed his thumb on the dropper. Rahmello continued to struggle, and then suddenly calmed down as the Thorazine shot throughout his bloodstream like a ten dollar bag of heroin.
***
Police Headquarters
Police Commissioner, Monroe Jackson, was flaming mad. His phone lines were ringing non-stop, and every government official from the Governor on down had a few choice words for the top dawg of the PPD. The chain of murders in the last couple of weeks had attracted national attention, and the Commissioner was feeling the heat from all angles.
Sitting behind his desk with his face in his hands, he was pissed off, to say the least. About twenty minutes ago, his son-in-law, Detective Ronald Sullivan, sent him a text message claiming that he’d made a break in the case and that he was on his way to pay him a visit. Unfortunately for Detective Sullivan, he was walking face first into a shit storm. Like most organizations that operated through a chain of command, shit rolled downhill, and son-in-law or not, Commissioner Jackson was more than ready to tear him a new asshole.
A knock sounded from the door and Commissioner Jackson lifted up his head. “Come in.”
Detective Sullivan stepped inside of the office with Detective Phoenix close behind. He approached the Commissioner’s desk with the evidence bag clutched in his right hand. Looking at him, he shook his head from side to side, and said, “Dad, you won’t believe this shit.”
The Commissioner leaped out of his chair, leaned across the desk, and grabbed Detective Sullivan by the collar of his trench coat. “Do you have any idea what these sons-of-bitches are try’na do to me?” he shouted in Sullivan’s face. “Do you?”
Detective Sullivan was like a deer caught in the middle of oncoming traffic lights, stuck on stupid. He looked at his partner with pleading eyes, but Detective Phoenix lowered his head and took a step backwards.
“These motherfuckers are coming for my goddamned pension,” the Commissioner continued shouting. “The entire city has run amuck and they’re blaming me, Ronald. The Governor’s been coming down on the Mayor. The Mayor’s been coming down on the goddamned District Attorney. And now that cock-smoking son-of-a-bitch is coming down on me.”
“D-D-Dad, just cool out for a second and hear me out,” Detective Sullivan said with his hands held up in a defenseless posture. He’d always known that his father-in-law had a propensity to get goofy, but he never imagined that the commissioner would put his hands on him.
The commissioner pushed Detective Sullivan backwards, and then looked back and forth between him and detective Phoenix. He pointed at the evidence bag and ordered Sullivan to hand it over. “What the fuck is this?” he asked while examining the cell phone.
“It’s the break in the case that we’ve been looking for,” Detective Sullivan stated as he straightened out his collar. “While searching the suspect’s vehicle, Sabastian spotted the phone laying on the center console. I picked it up, and by happenstance, we received an incoming call. The caption on the screen indicated the name ‘Gangsta’, and right below the name, there was a telephone number that I partially recognized. Initially, I couldn’t put the pieces together, but when I answered the incoming call and heard the caller’s voice, I immediately knew who it was.”
“And who the hell was it?” the commissioner inquired with a scowl on his face.
“It was Terrance Long. He’s an agent with the DEA.”
The Commissioner gave him a funny look. “The DEA? Are you sure about this, Ronald?”
“A hundred and ten percent,” Detective Sullivan replied, nodding his head in the affirmative. He reached inside of his trench coat pocket and pulled out his personal phone. After scrolling through his rolodex and bringing up Agent Long’s contact information, he handed the phone to the commissioner. “The second I heard the caller’s voice, I compared the contact information from the suspect’s phone with the information in my phone, and the numbers were a match. Apparently, and this is solely based on the call log, Agent Long is somehow involved with this incident. As you can see, he was contacting the suspects prior to, and immediately after these murders.”
The commissioner rubbed his chin and sighed. Things were becoming more and more complicated by the second. “First thing in the morning, I want you to do a little fishing and have a conversation with this Agent Long. In the meantime, I’m going to get a subpoena for these phone records.” He placed the cell phone back in the evi
dence bag, and then slowly shook his head from side to side. “I need a goddamned drink.”
Chapter Seven
An Hour Later
After stopping by his house on Reese Street to take a quick shower and throw on some fresh clothes, Sonny returned to the hospital to see about Rahmello. Carefully avoiding any unwanted attention, he parked his Porsche across the street from the hospital, right in front of the deli on Old York Road. After climbing out the coupe with the fox-fur hood on his Sean John coat covering most of his face, he locked the doors, and cautiously walked towards the emergency room entrance with his left hand gripping the .10mm in his coat pocket.
When he stepped inside of the lobby, he was relieved to see that the media circus from earlier was long gone. There were no cameras, no bright ass lights, and most importantly, no nosey ass news reporters. Approaching the receptionist’s desk, he pulled down his fox-fur hood and politely addressed the red-head white woman who was sitting behind the desk, typing on her computer.
“Excuse me, my name’s Sontino Moreno. I’m here to see my brother, Rahmello Moreno.”
The receptionist gave him a weird look. The Moreno Crime Family was the trending topic throughout the hospital, and ever since the beginning of her shift, she’d been hearing stories about a federal agent being blown to pieces by a car bomb and a two-minute-long shootout in the middle of Broad Street. The stories were almost surreal. But the second she laid eyes on the two bodyguards posted up in front of Rahmello’s room, she realized that The Moreno Crime Family was from an urban legend.
Immediately, Sonny could see that he was making the woman uncomfortable. He expected as much. The woman began to speak, but he held his right index finger up to his lips, signaling for her to keep quiet. “Sshh.” He then reached inside of his pants pocket and pulled out a white envelope. “Here,” he slid the envelope across the counter and looked at her attentively. “It’s five thousand dollars inside of this envelope. Please don’t call any news reporters or alert anyone else to my presence.”