by London Starr
I turn around and put my back against the door to look back at a redhead female with dry, flaky skin around pink lipstick that is crusting over her cracked lips above green, dull eyes-the same physical symptoms my mother exhibited as a drug addict that was drying out in the wrong way. Then the woman raises a gun over the seat and points it in my face.
Natalie smiles at back at her and says into the phone, “King, this is Lea. Me and Nina got your girl and on the way to you.”
As my blood freezes in my veins, I accept that the time had come to face my past, and I’m still not ready; I had brought mace to a gunfight that King is surely going to kill me in.
*Mecca, Georgia*
King
“Don’t touch one hair on her head, Lea, or do anything else stupid, or you and Nina both are dead! Do you fucking feel me?” I holler heatedly into my new cell phone. Raw and I went it got along with some bigger clothes for me from the closest mall before I got home and found my house filthy as hell. Lea and Nina were still asleep in my bed at one o’clock in the afternoon. I have to shake off that image, or risk getting more pissed off about it, when I need to focus on the new problem at hand—not letting Ajoni be put through a repeat of what happened the last time someone brought her to me.
“Everything is fine, King,” Lea chirps back, then coos, “She’s sitting here like a good girl, aren’t you, Ajoni?”
“Fuck you, Natalie,” Ajoni spits in the background.
Lea laughs. “I guess she’s big mad with me for conning her ass, and she cusses like a damn sailor. I hope you don’t think this bitch is quality ass or worth the effort you put into getting her here, King, or you need your dome checked, bruh. You can take the girl out of the hood, but you can’t take the hood out of the girl, and this Burberry she got on is fake as fuck,” she says snidely, as if I give a damn about Ajoni’s clothes.
“Bitch, who do you think you’re talking about like that?” I ask, temper rising anyway. “Only quantity ass like yours would’ve left my truck and house in the shape I found them in. Now, let me talk to Ajoni.” Continuing to hear Lea’s voice is making my blood pressure rise. Just thinking about how my house looked when I walked in the front door makes me want to throw my phone across my living room into the kitchen, and risk making a fresh hole in the wall after just having the others patched up.
The house is clean now and almost empty of furniture. A local construction company and cleaning company managed to work in sync to restore my home to some of its former glory—it’s still tainted with Lea’s and Nina’s presence. Their belongings are packed up in the same sheets I found them asleep on, and sitting at the front door waiting for them to grab and go the hell away from here.
As I stand in the middle of my living room waiting for Lea to give Ajoni the phone, a couple of men from the construction company are bringing the last of the few pieces of furniture from upstairs that I bought along with the house, and they will toss that shit into remodeling dumpsters sitting in my front yard below the front windows.
“King, I thought I had made that up to you when I conned Ajoni’s ass into coming back to Mecca,” Lea whines into the receiver instead of doing as I told her to. “You don’t need this bougie bitch, if you ask me. I’ve been taking care of you for eight years and you haven’t complained.”
“Nobody fucking asked you, Lea,” I yell, as a throb starts to develop in my temple. Nobody seems to have much respect for my position anymore and says whatever the hell is on their minds to me, but that is going to have to change—and soon. Lea is about to be the first that I remind of who she is fucking with.
“Put Ajoni on the phone now, Lea, or I’m going to finish breaking your damn neck when you get here!”
“K—King,” Ajoni says suddenly, stuttering with her voice coming through loud and clear; so is the fear and anger in her husky tone that makes my temper simmer down immediately. While she waits for me to respond, I listen to her breathing.
“King, I know you’re on the phone… and we need to talk, but I’m going back home.” She sounds afraid and angry, just like she did the last time we talked when she twisted my head and made me think that she would be mine after I jumped her into the Blue Kings.
“Dammit, King, don’t do this,” she begs softly.
“Don’t do what, Ajoni? Make you pay for breaking your oaths to the Kings, or for making me think you was feeling me like I was feeling you?”
“Larkin gave me no choice, King, now let me go home,” she answers.
“Do you remember what happened the last time I let you go home?” I ask calmly. Ajoni would soon learn that she would not have a choice in leaving my eyesight again either.
“King, you can’t keep me in Mecca, and I never meant for you to go to prison. I would have stopped that from happening if I could, but if I had…”
When she does not finish what she was about to say, I start to feel like she is keeping secrets from me, and I hate it. “But if you had what, Ajoni?”
She says nothing.
“Fine, you can finish what you were saying when you get here then.”
“King—” I hang up before she can finish. I am not interested in hearing anything else she has to say or not say until she is in my presence and I can make her tell me the truth. Hopefully, she will remember how bad she wanted me the last time we were face to face, skin to skin. I grow semi-hard just thinking about touching her again, and shove the phone in the back pocket of my dark True Religion jeans before they get any tighter around my erection, then walk through the living room with a mahogany staircase going up the right side of it to the bedrooms, just to clear my head.
When I reach the open kitchen, I turn to the left and stop in the middle of sliding glass balcony doors in the rear corner of the house overlooking a figure-eight pool filled with green water and trash. It cannot be cleaned until a professional pool company arrives tomorrow. I did not trip when none of the pool companies that Raw called was able to show up for my emergency due to previously scheduled contracts they already have. I did not want too many people coming here today anyway, or take the chance of have someone still working when Ajoni arrives—the less witnesses to her arrival the better, until I can convince her that with me is where she wants to be. But no matter how many people are called to clean my house, I still feel stupid for not letting the state of my truck prepare me for what I would find when I opened my front door.
I walked into a goddamn tragedy and about eight years’ worth of dust and clothes strewn everywhere. I found at least one hole in the walls of each room as I walked through them. Residue from cocaine was on every surface and countertop, including the bathrooms. All my furniture was scratched up and had tears in the cushions. I would not have been surprised if Lea and Nina told me that they threw a party here every weekend, fucked on top of every flat surface that would hold up what is left of their too skinny bisexual asses wasting away from snorting cocaine, and then they forgot to clean up every time afterwards.
But the bitches did not tell me anything.
I found them together where Raw said they would be, in the master bedroom. When I kicked the bed and hollered for Lea and Nina to get their nasty asses up, they opened their eyes slowly. I was sure they were still under the effects of a coke binge.
When they finally realized who was standing over them, both women jumped up to their knees, and crawled across the bed toward me standing at the foot of it. I stood still and let them get close enough to wrap my hands around both of their throats. I do not normally abuse women for the simple fact there is no fucking point to it, just like pitting an ant against a boot heel. Yet, I must admit that I started to feel better about what they had done to Ajoni’s home as I watched both women struggle to breathe while kneeling on the bed before me. Raw took that satisfaction away from me when he reminded me that I just got of prison and did not want to go back. I was intending to strangle them then have their bodies hauled away like the trash they are.
Instead, I pushed both bit
ches away and told them to get dressed. Raw mentioned Ajoni’s name to distract me while they scrambled around naked, searching for their clothes thrown around the room. I asked him what the plan would be to get her back here. He thought calling her up, telling her something happened to her pops, and that she was needed back in Mecca pronto would do the trick. Lea volunteered to be the voice on the phone and Ajoni’s ride from the airport, and then she drafted Nina as a ride along that would make sure everything went as planned.
I was with it, and wanted to kill both women again when Lea almost fucked up the whole operation before we could get it off the ground; she offered Ajoni her phone number when she knew she did not have one to give after having to use Raw’s phone to call Ajoni in the first place. Raw averted that fuck up by snatching the phone away from Lea and gave her his number to give to Ajoni.
I could not stop myself from grabbing Lea’s neck from the back and choking her again while she was still talking to Ajoni. Nina had to grab the phone and cover up the mouthpiece while Raw grabbed me; I was about to make Lea squeal like an anorexic pig into it. He pushed me to the back of the living room that opens into the kitchen and gave Lea his phone number to give to Ajoni.
As Lea played off the reason for the interruption in the phone call, I gave Raw orders to call cleaning crews and find new cars for him and me, then I went upstairs before I killed Lea’s ass anyway and fucked up the plan myself. I looked for the cleanest bathroom that I could find and took a shower before letting the crews into the house. While I bathed, both women found somewhere else to wait for Ajoni’s plane to land, wisely. It was easy for me to tell the construction crew to dispose of the furniture that has been here for eight years waiting for Ajoni to keep it or throw away. I would rather she bought some more anyway.
Just as I decide I do not want another lowlife bitch holding me down or anywhere near me ever again, I hear my front door open, and turn around to meet Raw, who is coming back after being gone for awhile to cop cars for us both.
A black chick with thick glasses and a short wig cut into a bob that has seen better days walks up to the half-moon staircase in front of the house in a white-collared shirt and khakis, looking into the doorway nosily. I assume that she is the car saleswoman that Raw probably conned into selling him the cars under false identities or her real one, and then paid her a large fee to doctor the paperwork so the government does not get suspicious of the large cash purchase. We have done this for every car and house we have bought.
Raw will have to deal with this chick until the titles for the whips arrive, then we will buy the cars again for a dollar and transfers the registration to our names. I make sure to get a good look at every woman that does this for him. Some of them get big mad when he stiffs them on the sex they hope to get from him in between selling the cars to us twice.
“Have you heard anything from old girl while I was gone?” he asks then stops in the middle of the living room, handing me two sets of keys with alarms.
An employee of the construction crew walks in the front door and stops beside him. Raw lets the conversation drop until the man in a hardhat hands me an invoice. I reach into my front pocket and shoot the guy a stack of bills two times the amount of what he charged to take the furniture away and repair the holes in the walls, then tilt my head backwards, thanking him for coming and getting the job done on short notice. I would have paid whatever to keep Ajoni from seeing the house looking like it did when I first got here, and the money still would not have made a dent in the cash that I have buried in the warehouse’s floor or in my bedroom’s floor safe that Lea and Nina do not know exists.
When the man walks back out the door, I pick up where Raw left off. “Yeah, I just talked to stupid ass and my girl, who is hiding something from me, Raw.” I speak quietly to keep everyone that is working around the house from overhearing me while stuffing the keys in my empty front pocket.
Raw exhales loudly. “Damn, she really did fall for the banana-in-the-tailpipe trick.”
When I get the feeling that he hoped Ajoni would not come, he shakes his head and walks closer to me.
“Listen to me, King. It’s been eight years and she has a whole new life now and runs her own business. This shit that you’re pulling again didn’t work out for you the first time, and I don’t think it will this time either.”
“Raw, having her brought to me didn’t work the first time because I had incompetent motherfuckers doing the job and fucking up everything before Ajoni got to the warehouse, but you know this already.”
What he does not know is that Ajoni kissed me first in the warehouse. He did not feel what I felt when her fingers dug into my back as I pushed inside of her. I experienced the first shiver up my spine that did not come from badly insulated windows in the many childhood homes I lived in with my moms, or the vents that blew cold air down on me in prison. But I do not kiss and tell, and I am not about to let Ajoni walk away from me again for a second time—until I am sure she is coming back.
Raw laughs out loud suddenly. “Man, I knew your ass was sprung!”
I realize that everything I was thinking to myself, I had actually said out loud. I raise my hand and cover my mouth before blowing air and my frustration into it, giving him time to stop laughing at my fuck-up and get serious again. The owner of the cleaning crew calls my name and approaches me from the backside. I turn around to take the invoice from her hand in a latex glove. Raw gives her three times the amount of money for her services, mainly to keep her mouth shut about the drug residue she found in the house, then he looks back to make sure each woman in red buttoned-up shirts, black khakis, and sensible shoes that works for the maid-for-hire company is leaving in their van right behind the construction crew.
When they are all gone, Raw swipes a hand down his face then turns back around. “For what it is worth, King, I thought your girl was sprung off your ass too after all y’all did in the warehouse that night, but that doesn’t mean she wants to come back here or be with you. All I’m asking is that you give her a choice, or we’re all going to wish you did later when this plan of yours goes south again. Shit, your boy just got done doing time for that quality piece of ass and I didn’t even hit that, but you know I wouldn’t go behind you anyway. I’m just saying consider the rest of us this time before you go all caveman and drag her to the basement by the hair and chain her up.”
Obviously, he is not trying to go down for my obsession again, and I do not want to either for that matter, but all my common sense seems to go right out the window whenever it comes to Ajoni. I still wonder to this day how the hell I managed to stay away from her until she turned eighteen.
“I’mma be honest with you, Raw. I don’t know what the hell I’m gonna do when I see her… but I gotta see her,” I admit as my old truck rolls past the opened door of my house. I walk around Raw, then onto the porch that is cold though it is in the direct path of the sunlight. I do not feel the winter breeze that has been blowing towards the front door since I got here either.
The Escalade turns into the circular driveway. I develop tunnel vision, seeing nothing but the silhouette in the passenger’s seat of the truck as it follows the curve of the driveway, then parks behind a heavily-tinted Camaro and Suburban sitting side by side on custom rims in front of the steps.
Raw walks around me and approaches the broad that came with him. He ushers her into the passenger side of the black Camaro trimmed in chrome, then he jogs around to the driver’s side. The Escalade sits idle behind the pearl white Suburban on twenty-six inch rims, waiting for the Camaro to pull away with a potential dead witness if the car saleswoman sees anything she should not before Raw can get her away from here.
As the Camaro cranks up quietly and peels tires out of the driveway, it takes every ounce of strength I have to keep from rushing the Escalade and dragging Ajoni’s ass out of it. I do not know if I am going to shove my tongue down her throat or wrap my hands around it. Suddenly, I am angry as hell; Ajoni split us up for eight long
years because she could not keep her mouth shut like she was supposed to, but no man wants to appear desperate. I signal for the women to get out and come to me, still worrying about how I will react when Ajoni is standing in front of me.
The doors swing open on the truck. Lea steps out of the driver’s side and stops by the front bumper with a grin on her face. Nina walks around the back door she is getting out of, then opens the front passenger’s door with one hand. The sun reflects off of something in her other hand; a gun. She waves it at Ajoni, motioning for her to get out. My chest swells with blind rage; I seem to have even more incompetent motherfuckers bringing Ajoni to me than I did the last time.
Raw was right. I need to stop this shit before I get her hurt again or dead because motherfuckers are too loyal to me.
Ajoni gets out slowly, but stays concealed behind the door that is taller than she is. Before I can think of what to do next, my feet are already carrying me down the steps toward Nina, who cuts her eyes to me before they open wide in her face; she knows she is about to die.
“Nina,” I yell on my way to her. “Bitch, didn’t I tell you not to do something stupid around Ajoni? That means not pointing a gun and anything else at her!”
Nina looks down at the chrome nine in her hand, tosses it on the ground between us, and starts backing away. “King, I just wanted to make sure we didn’t have any problems out of her on the way back here. There are no bullets in the clip or chamber. I swear,” she explains, then puts her hands in praying form in front of her and drops to her knees in shredded jeans on the concrete.
“King, please, listen to me,” she begs, just as Ajoni steps around the truck’s door into the sunlight, pointing something at Nina.
I stop dead in my tracks, forgetting about Nina and everything else surrounding Ajoni. Somehow, she has gotten even more beautiful. Her face has rounded out from the perfect amount of weight gain. Her coat cannot hide the wider hips and thicker ass under it hugging her frame like a lover would.