by London Starr
“Naw man, I know exactly what you want to do; be mad with Ajoni for doing you dirty and think about how to return the favor later, but you should be thanking her.”
I let my anger for Raw’s constant defense of Ajoni swell in my chest as I open the safe and snatch two stacks out of it-five grand in c-notes wrapped in bank bands. I reach in my pocket and grab my phone before tossing it inside the safe so I cannot be tracked by it during the commission of the crimes that I am about to commit. I slap the door closed on the safe, then replace the board and stand up to face Raw.
“You know I’ll kill a motherfucker about you Raw, but you’ll be the motherfucker that I kill if you say I should be thanking her again. At what point did you miss where Ajoni cheated me out of meeting my daughter when she was born?” I ask as I stuff a stack of money in each front pocket.
“I love you too, King, but did she really cheat you or did you cheat yourself?” He pushes off the doorframe and walks over to me. I stand in the middle of the room waiting for him to say whatever else is on his mind, and it better be good or it may just be the last thing he says to anyone.
“I need you to stop and think for a minute. When Ajoni’s grandmother took her to the hospital, she could’ve gotten the morning-after pill and avoided single-parenthood or gotten an abortion later on. She didn’t, and didn’t have to tell you about Anjuwan period. It isn’t her fault that you decided to trap her in a tin can and knock her up either. Take some responsibility for your actions that brought you to this point, King, and then take it easy on Ajoni. You did eight years in the pen, but she’s doing life as a mother to somebody that has your DNA. That has to make every day double the goddamn challenge to get through,” he jokes, or maybe he is not joking.
“Raw, you have a fucked up sense of humor first of all. Second, is Ajoni a celebrity or some shit ‘cause you’ve been sounding like her number one fan since I landed on free ground? Do I have to worry about you turning on my ass for her?” I’m starting to think that maybe I have lost Raw’s loyalty to Ajoni of all people.
He frowns. “No, I’m as neutral as Switzerland in this situation between you two at this point, but I had a part in what was done to her that brought all this shit about. I don’t mind talking for you to Ajoni either, and I’m on the sidelines where I can see a hell of a lot more than you can. Granted, you were cheated out of your daughters’ first years but—”
“Thank you,” I snap, feeling justified in wanting to snap Ajoni’s neck.
“But it’s your own damn fault, King. You chose a reality that is not conducive for your offspring’s welfare, and Ajoni identifies with that.”
What the fuck did he just say?
“Motherfucker, speak English and stop talking over my damn head!” I yell.
Raw cracks up laughing. “Your child shouldn’t have to wonder when the cops will come knocking on the door to take you away again or visit you in a cemetery, and Ajoni is not going to let any of that happen, or she would’ve told you about your daughter before now.”
It annoys the hell out of me that he is spitting the same words at me that Ajoni was earlier, but both of them are forgetting something. “This life chose me, Raw.”
“And you embraced it. You had to. Now let it go if you want a family with Ajoni unless you want to lose her and your daughter this time.”
“She doesn’t want me in her life or Anjuwan’s,” I admit on a sigh. This life is all I will have left when I finally find the strength to let Ajoni walk away. I just do not think I ever will find it though, and something has to give, or rather someone.
“Ajoni doesn’t want King’s crabby ass in her life or her child’s. Calen Kingsley might have a shot though.”
I laugh this time. “How the hell do you figure that? She can’t have one man without the other.”
“It wasn’t King’s name she was moaning that night at the warehouse. Trust me. We heard y’all making love all the way outside. Did it ever occur to you to listen to who Ajoni calls you sometimes?”
“What the fuck is you talking about, Raw? She does not call me anything but King.”
He shakes his head. “I didn’t think so. Ajoni calls you by whoever is in charge of your body at the time, but she does not want King, bruh.”
“I can see that she does not want me, Raw. Is there a point to you rubbing that shit in?”
“She wants Calen, King. Goddamn! Do you have slab of concrete in your head?”
“I am Calen, Raw.”
“Not right now you’re not. You’re King, a ruthless motherfucker that will dead his grandma if she tests him.”
Suddenly, what Raw is trying to put down makes sense to me, and the rage bubbling inside me simmers down to a low boil. When I asked Ajoni who is Anjuwan’s father, she did not say King, but Calen Kingsley. King is that man that ran Mecca back in the day with an iron fist. The same one that needs to keep people from fucking over him like his mother did, and needs to dead a couple of people before letting Ajoni and Anjuwan anywhere near Calen, but Ajoni is going to have to accept that I am both men.
“I hear you, Raw, but I can’t split myself in two and I still need to lay some bodies tonight.”
He frowns. “Some bodies? I thought it was only Hankin that… Lea,” he adds as an afterthought, making me nod. “Yeah I figured she was going to be a problem too. It’s going to be a shame to dead that bitch. She has some strong head game. I thought she was going to suck my balls out through my pole.”
“Raw, you screwed Lea?” I ask disbelievingly, and wonder if the Raw that I knew eight years ago is the same man that is standing before me now.
“I said head game King, not cockpit. She caught my ass slipping down in the basement while I was sleep. When I woke up, I was already about to bust in her mouth. There was no point in stopping her when I was already that far gone, then I ran her ass back upstairs to Nina and moved to a hotel the next day. So what happens after tonight? Same old shit with the same old results tomorrow?”
Raw’s questions confuse the hell out of me; a gangster for life does not ask if it is business as usual.
“You’re not into this life anymore, are you?” I already know the answer though.
He shakes his head. “Nope. I only need to lose seven years and fifty one weeks of my life to the penal system one time to learn my lesson. My loyalty will always be to the Blue Kings, but I don’t like motherfuckers telling me what to do that ain’t paying me good for it.”
“So what you saying, Raw?” I need to hear him say he wants out of the Blue Kings.
“This life ain’t for us anymore and you have a decision to make, King. Either dead my ass right now or let me go live my life the way I see fit with a real future. Don’t get me wrong. I was blessed when it was you that found me in that alley when you were twelve, but we ain’t kids anymore. You’re thirty and not a kingpin anymore. It’s time to grow up and raise your daughter. You love that woman downstairs whether you want to admit that or not, and she’s not going to keep putting up with King’s bossy ass. She’s going to pin it to a wall eventually. Trust me on this when I say she can. She just took down two bitches with mace and hasn’t called the cops yet, which she can because she still has her phone and I’m not taking it from her. We both have taken enough from her, but I am wondering why you haven’t taken her phone yet when she can pin all of our asses to the wall in a jail cell again with it, except mine. I’m not going down when the boys in blue show up this time.”
At this point, I am supposed to kill Raw right where he stands for wanting out of the Kings, but I know he is right; being a kingpin is not a way to live if I want to see my child grow up. Suddenly, I need a future too, and even want one. Before now, I did not care if I did not have one.
Now, I wonder why I did not take Ajoni’s phone when I think she has no loyalty whatsoever to me, which means I subconsciously want her to prove that she feels something for me, and I believe that she planned on telling me about Anjuwan when she arrived here. She did say we
needed to talk while riding with Lea and Nina. I just never imagined that a seven-year-old, my seven-year-old, would be the subject of the conversation.
“I’m not going to kill you, Raw, because you want a future, and I do too. Besides, you never kill the motherfucker that has your back if you can help it. Ajoni’s taking me to Anjuwan tomorrow, but she may try pinning my ass to wall with a phone call to the boys in blue after that.”
I watch relief bloom in his eyes before he drops his head, then shakes it and smiles.
“Damn, I can’t believe you have a seven-year-old either. I hope Ajoni does have some type of loyalty for both of our sakes, or all of this will be mine.”
I realize I had spoken my thoughts aloud again.
He spreads his arms wide. “Because if she doesn’t, I’m taking your money, selling your house, and running. Anjuwan will have a benefactor that she’ll never get to meet unless she comes to the Cayman Islands looking for me.” Then he laughs. I make a decision to risk everything on getting Ajoni to see something in me that makes her want to get to know me again and accept the part of me that is King somehow, after I get past not wanting to strangle her every time I see her. If she does not want me after I forgive her, I will respect her decision… somehow, but her future lovers are a different story-no other man will raise my child with her.
“Well if you can’t figure out how to forgive Ajoni, we can start our own cruise ship line or yacht business in the Islands and Anjuwan can have two benefactors. You can have the island girls. But if your ass stays here, you’re going to be laying down a lot of bodies if Anjuwan looks anything like her mama.” Thinking about a man just looking at my child makes me feel a rage that I have never known, and I need to stop thinking in front of Raw; my thoughts keep coming right out of my damn mouth.
I dig the picture of my beautiful baby girl out of my front pocket and hand it to him. “I don’t care if Anjuwan looks like Harriet Tubman. Nobody is dating my daughter.”
He takes the photo and shakes his head over it, then gives it back. “Then pray that she grows up to look like Harriet Tubman, bruh. From that picture, she is the much prettier version of you and she will be visiting her pops on death row as soon as she hits high school. Now let’s go. I need to lay a body down myself. You don’t realize how addictive that shit is until you can’t do it and get away with it. I need something to assuage this bloodlust.”
Assuage?
“Raw, I swear if you don’t stop with the big words, I’m gon’ lay your body down anyway.”
He laughs, turns around, and disappears into the foyer. “How the hell you can’t follow what I’m saying when you have a GED? It’s harder to get one of those than a diploma.”
“How the hell would you know? You didn’t get a diploma either,” I retort then follow out behind him, making sure all the lights upstairs are off, and will leave the downstairs and outside flood lights on. When I top the stairs about to walk down them, Raw runs in the front door, stopping at the bottom of the steps, looking pale. He does not have to say a word for me to know that Ajoni is missing.
CHAPTER ten
Ajoni
In the first level bathroom that is under the staircase and bare of all decorations, if there ever was any, I flush the toilet then hear feet pounding the stairs on their way down.
Somebody knows I’m not in the truck anymore, I think then smile to myself before standing up to push my skirt down under my coat. As I turn to wash my hands in the sink made like a console table with porcelain front legs and matching mirror hanging above it, the bathroom’s door flies open. I laugh; was expecting that to happen way before now.
I turn the water on and start to wash my hands as Raw falls against the doorframe with sheer relief on his face and breathing like a bull. He slides down the doorframe then scoots around on his behind to sit with his back against the wall between the empty living room and bathroom, then rests the back of his head on it.
“Holy fuck, Ajoni, you could’ve told me you needed to use the bathroom. Who the hell knows what King would’ve done if you had come up missing?”
“What were you going to do, Raw?” I ask as I turn off the water, hear more feet pounding the stairs on their way down, and shake my hands over the sink. “I hope you were not going to cup your hands between my legs then wipe my bottom for me too just to keep me in the truck. Plus, you two were talking so I didn’t interrupt, and I said I’d stay in Mecca tonight, so I’m staying.”
Then King steps in the doorway, making the bathroom seem even smaller, and sucking all the air out of it with just his presence. “You heard us talking, Ajoni?”
I look at my reflection in the mirror and drop my hands on the edge of the sink. “I heard enough, King. Are you going to lay my body down too?” I ask in a blasé manner, very much afraid that he will try after I overheard his plans, but I am willing to see if he loves me as much as Raw claimed he did when their voices were carrying through the empty house to me standing at the bottom of the staircase. I was not intending to eavesdrop, but while the opportunity was there, I took it until my bladder started demanding that I go to the bathroom as I was intending to do when I got out of the truck.
“Ajoni—” he starts.
“Save it, King. I understand your lifestyle and how much respect matters in it. I’m just asking that you keep your lifestyle away from me and Anjuwan. If you’re never going to change, then just leave us alone after tomorrow.” I do not think Seeri will let him near Anjuwan anyway. I just hope that my daughter’s heart does not break when he enters her life then disappears. She will learn that everyone that should be in her life sometimes will not be, and some people are not worth the risk of hitting rock bottom right along with them when their way of life drags their asses down. Seeri was worth it. I am not so sure that King is, but I want him to be. I realize that has more to do with my own selfish reasons than for Anjuwan’s sake.
King turns around in the doorway, placing his back to me. “Then let’s go, Ajoni. I want to get to Hillcrest early in the morning and it’s almost the weekend. Hotels fill up fast around here,” he says nonchalantly, then walks away.
I force myself to accept that he will not give up this lifestyle to be in either of our lives and follow him out of the bathroom, feeling like my heart weighs a ton in my chest. He stops at the front door and waits for me to step onto the porch. When he slams the door closed behind us, I cannot help but feel like the closing of the door is symbolic of any chance I had of being with Calen, because of my own actions.
I walk down the stairs quietly behind him. At the truck, he opens the passenger’s door for me. I turn sideways to get inside. He places a hand on my upper arm, and sends chills up my spine then slams the door shut on me again. The squealing of tires erupts on the main road and is hard to hear through the well-insulated interior of the truck. The sound is out of place in Mecca County where violent crime is rare, but I remember the resonance from years of hearing it in Mecca. I could never forget it, and know what is coming next even if I wanted to; a drive by.
I look over to the driver side window before instinct kicks in and warns me to get down. The window explodes inward. Real time slows down as pieces of glass fly at me. I raise my arm to cover my face and collapse against the door, trying to take cover, but there is none.
“Get down, everybody,” Raw yells from somewhere close by. The passenger’s door opens suddenly. I start to fall backwards out of it immediately, and I am glad to. The ground is the best place to be when someone is busting their guns in your direction.
Hands catch me around the waist before I land on my head, drag me the rest of the way out of the truck, turn my body in the air, and soften my landing to my knees before soft popping sounds fill the air in rapid succession. A body wraps around mine, covering my head with its arms while the driver’s side of truck takes the bullets probably meant for King. I realize just how much I do not want Anjuwan or me to lose him, again.
Even in the midst of being shot at, King’
s scent permeates my senses, and his body heat radiates through my clothes. The popping sounds stop. The squealing of tires fades off into the distance until it is dead quiet in his yard again. I try to get up from the cold concrete scratching up my knees, wanting us all to get away from here before the shooter comes back.
King’s arm circles my waist and pulls me into his body. I comprehend this is exactly where I have wanted to be for eight years, and it is going to be hard to give up this closeness.
“Wait, sweetheart,” he whispers by my ear. “They may not be gone yet. Let me look first then I’ll tell you when to run for Raw’s car.”
I do not want him to look either, and maybe take a bullet meant for him.
“Just wait, King, and listen for idling engines before you stand up.”
He lifts his head. My blood starts to pound in my ears, making it hard for me to hear anything but my own heartbeat, so I look around. Raw is sliding around the front end of his car on his ass. He shifts to a crouching position, then runs to the Suburban and kneels in front of us.
“Damn, King, you didn’t even get to drive the new whip before a bitch nigga and that hoe Lea tried to kill you from the old one. Must have been an intervention because your ass was about to drive with no license,” he quips, and then has the nerve to laugh.
“Shhh Raw, I can’t fucking hear,” King hisses while trying to look over the hood of the Suburban without being seen.
“They’re gone, bruh. The dude driving had on a black hat with a white A in the middle of it, and must really hate you if he bust on your ass in broad daylight. He was shooting from the driver’s side then turned around and came back, but it was Lea who was shooting from the passenger’s side with the same nine and silencer on it. I knew those gunshots were popping off too quietly to be coming from just a gun. But I guess we know who the better shooter is. Lea killed the truck instead of y’all asses, but dude’s aim was true cause he shot only one time. I didn’t recognize, but maybe somebody we know besides Lea does. Oh, and Ajoni has glass in her face.”