by Bri Noreen
“She?”
“Yes, she. And don’t even get to trippin’. She’s an investment; nothing more, nothing less.” I heard her smack her lips before she continued.
“So what do you need me to do?”
“Get some of your doctor people to come take a look at her. I’ve had someone remove the bullets and her health is straight. She’s healing nicely, but I need the burns gone. She’s definitely going to need plastic surgery. Tell your buddies I’ll pay whatever.”
“So let me get this straight. You want to hire a soccer team worth of doctors for a bitc…um…for a chick you claim you’re not feeling like that? Remember, I have a medical degree. I’m far from stupid.”
“And remember, you’re not my bitch. So you jumping to conclusions and attempting to check me about what I’m doing is just going to piss me off. This is business. Now if you’d rather me call another doctor to assist me and lose out on a paycheck because you’re in your feelings, that’s on you.”
The line grew quiet. I knew that her little feelings were hurt, but fuck all that. I needed to know whether I should solicit help elsewhere or if she was going to man up and do me this favor.
“Fine. But you don’t have to be so mean,” she snapped.
“Apparently, that’s the only way you’ll get it. We’ve had this discussion too many times to count, and the result is always the same. We can stop sexing if you can’t remove your feelings from the equation, but you shouldn’t let that stop you from getting this money.”
“All right, Roman. Damn. I’ll reach out and I’ll be in touch.” She quickly hung up.
I knew she was mad, but she would get over it. I didn’t care one way or another, but I needed to know if she could help me out. I needed Nakami back in A1 condition for what I had planned. Yeah, I know. I had just asked her name like I didn’t know who she was, but I needed to see where her head was. Her silence let me know that she wasn’t even sure if she wanted to be the person she was before. That was a good and bad thing for me. It was good because if she was willing to let go of who she was, she would be more willing to become who I needed her to be. It was bad because if she wanted to forget who she was, she probably wanted to forget the people from her past. That was the problem.
I had saved her because I needed her to get to those same people that had put her in my path. I had some wrongs that needed to be righted and Kendrick ‘Grey’ Summers needed to pay for destroying my family. I had been waiting almost two years to put my plan into action. Finding Nakami had been a bonus, and I was going to use her to my advantage. The best part was that Grey wouldn’t even see it coming. He had no idea how his past actions had fucked up my life, but I was going to make sure that he felt every bit of pain that I’d felt by the hands of his betrayal.
The buzzing vibration pulled me from my thoughts. My cell phone danced across my desk a few times before I reached for it and answered.
“What’s good?”
“Everything is copasetic this way. I got your package.”
“Good. You know what to do then. Call me when it’s done.”
“Fa sho.”
I disconnected the call and leaned back in my chair. I was practically salivating at the thought of what I had planned. My biggest asset was going to be my patience. I was meticulous with my planning and methodical with my approach. I knew what I wanted and I was willing to wait until I had everything in place to get the result I needed. Once I had all the right tools, I would be able to move forward and start bringing my plan to fruition. At this point, I just needed one more weapon in my arsenal, and then I was ready to go to war.
Blu
May 2015
I stepped back, took a deep breath, and raised my arms. I gripped the gun tight enough for my body to be able to absorb the kickback that was sure to come and aimed at the target. Through the protection of the plastic white googles, I squinted, making sure I had the target lined up with my gun and took one last breath.
Even though my ears were protected by the ear pro’s, the sound of my gun going off couldn’t be ignored. All nine rounds exited the gun and shot through the paper target. I set the gun on the counter and pressed the button on the adjacent wall to bring the paper closer to me. Once it arrived, a wide smile crossed my face as I saw that all of the bullets had landed right in the center or very close to it. Lifting the goggles from my face, I turned around and faced him, giddy as hell. His smiled matched mine as he swaggered closer to me. His hands wrapped around my waist and his lips met mine. His kiss was filled with so much passion that I had no choice but to return it in the same fashion. He pulled away and then pecked me on the lips one more time.
"You've got this, ma." He smiled. "You're a natural."
I wouldn't say that I was a natural, but it hadn't taken much practice for my skill level to improve. We had been coming to the gun range every week for the last month, and I had tested five to six different types of guns, but the Smith and Wesson 9 millimeter I had just used was by far my favorite.
"Thanks, Daddy." I kissed his lips once more.
"Girl, you better stop before I pipe you down in front of all these fucking people. You know I can't resist you when you call me that." He bit down on my lip and grabbed a handful of my ass.
Quickly, I removed the goggles and grabbed the gun so that we could return it. I knew that his ass wasn't playing about giving me the D right here and right now. I wouldn't have turned him down either, even knowing that we would’ve probably gotten kicked out and been shot hella side eyes. He was an exhibitionist, and I couldn’t resist his freaky ass.
Who knew that this was where I would end up? Falling for the nigga who had saved my life and trying to return the favor by being his ride or die? I was now his rider, and he was my roller. So whatever he wanted, I would give him, and he would do the same for me without hesitation. In the short amount of time we’d known each other, he’d proven to be loyal and trustworthy. As I watched him hand the guns back to the attendant, I was reminded of the night we met.
I just wanted it to stop. All that fucking beeping and humming. It was mad annoying especially since I didn’t know where it was coming from. Fighting to open my eyes, I tried to wake up my body, but nothing seemed to work. After a slight struggle, my eyes fluttered open, and a strong burst of light caused me to close them back. I waited a few minutes before I opened them again, and when I did, he was right in my face.
“The fuck?” I grumbled. I immediately closed my mouth because talking hurt like hell.
“You want some water?” he asked in his deep baritone voice.
Unsure of him, I just stared, trying to put the pieces of the puzzle together in my head, but nothing fit. I couldn’t identify him and I couldn’t understand why I was in what appeared to be a hospital. Instead of waiting for a response, he walked out of the room and returned a few moments later with a Styrofoam cup of water and a bendable straw inside. He put it up to my lips, but I didn’t budge. Yeah, it looked like water, but this nigga was a stranger, and there was no telling what was really inside.
“I ain’t trying to poison you.” He laughed lightly, reading my mind.
He pushed the straw back toward my lips and this time I accepted it. I took a few sips to ease the scratch in my throat and pushed it away. Setting the cup on a nearby tray, he came back and sat on the bed. I looked him over again and had to admit he was rather handsome. With honey brown skin, chinky brown eyes, perfect lips and teeth, and just a hint of a mustache and goatee, he was more than just a little attractive. He was fione. But who the hell was he, and why he was here?
“Do you know me?” he asked.
“No. Should I?”
“Not really. My name is Israel.” Even his name was gorgeous.
“Okay…what is that supposed to mean to me?”
“Nothing I guess. Do you remember what happened to you?”
I opened my mouth to answer, but closed it quickly. My mind raced as I tried to figure out the events that had led me h
ere. I sat there looking like a dummy for a few minutes until Israel spoke again.
“What’s the last thing you remember? The clearest image in your head?” he asked.
“I… uh…the last thing I remember is coming home after meeting my best friend for dinner.”
“What year is it?”
“What?” I looked at him like it was the dumbest question on the planet. “2014,” I answered.
He nodded. “I’m going to go grab the nurse, okay? I’ll be right back.”
Israel hopped up from the bed and walked out of the room. While he was gone, I stared a hole in the wall trying to figure out why I felt so weird. So empty. My hands roamed toward my stomach, and tears spilled from my eyes and rolled down my cheeks. What the fuck was wrong with me? I couldn’t make sense of any of it. I was in a hospital, unsure of how I’d gotten here, feeling hella strange under the care of a man I didn’t know from Adam. My breath became short and staccato as I began to panic, and the beeping on the machine went haywire. Israel and a nurse came rushing into the room moments later. The last thing I remembered before I fell asleep again was looking into Israel’s eyes and seeing genuine concern in them. Then everything went black.
When I woke up, I received the rundown of the events that had taken place, which had landed me a bullet to the stomach and arm. Israel had explained how he’d played captain save-a-hoe and brought me to the hospital. The nurse let me know that if it hadn’t been for him, I would have bled out and died where I laid, and for that, I was eternally grateful. I would do anything I could to pay him back, and that was the reason that we were visiting the gun range in the first place. He had a problem and he needed me to help him solve it. We'd only known each other for a few months, but he had proven to be a savior, and I was going to put my life on the line to get to the people he was looking for.
Kimani
June 2015
“Another drink, sir?” a sweet voice spoke into my ear. I turned my head slightly to see Morgan, one of the waitresses, standing beside me with an empty glass on her tray.
“Yeah, a double shot this time.”
“You got it, boss.”
Kitty on fleek, pretty on fleek
Pretty gang, always keep them niggas on geek
Ridin' through Texas, feed him for his breakfast
Every time I whip it, I be talkin' so reckless
He said "Damn Nicki it's tight," I say "Yeah nigga you right"
He said "Damn, bae, you so little, but you be really takin' that pipe"
I said "Yes, Daddy I do, gimme brain like NYU"
I said, "Teach me, nigga, teach me. All this learnin' here is by you"
I watched her petite hips sashay away and then turned my attention back to the stage. Brownie was currently up there doing her pole tricks to Beyoncé and Nicki Minaj’s joint, “Feeling Myself.” I peeped her as she used her muscles to climb up the pole, flip herself upside down, and do a split on the ceiling. She bounced her ass a couple times, and dollar bills swirled around the stage like a mini hurricane. Quickly she slid her body back down the pole, still upside down, and before her head hit the glossy black stage, her body flipped right-side up, and she landed in a split, still bouncing her round, chocolate colored ass. The niggas went wild.
“Here you go, Kimani.” Morgan set my drink on the table in front of me and disappeared.
Without much thought, I tossed the drink back, fully anticipating the burn of the liquor against my throat. But I felt nothing. And that statement was more indicative of my life than the drink. I was numb to everything and everybody. Nothing affected me anymore, and I didn’t have the ability to care if anything ever would. Life wasn’t fucking fair, and I was tired of losing people who were important to me. After that bitch had shot Blu, I'd rushed her to the hospital and waited four hours for the doctors to come back and tell me she didn't make it.
After losing Blu and the baby, I sank into a deep depression. I stayed locked up in my house for weeks at a time and kept my phone off. Grey came around a couple of times to check on me, but I wouldn’t answer the door. Shit, I could barely move off the couch. The shit had hit me hard. The next time Grey dropped by, the crazy nigga shot up one of my patio doors and stormed through the broken glass like he was a black superhero or some shit. He came and sat next to me for hours, just staring at the wall with silence passing between us. And at some point during that silence, I broke. That was the first time since Blu had died that I cried. I cried like a bitch too. I just knew it was all my fault that she was gone. If I had tried to hear her out when she came through, she wouldn’t have had to go to Grey or run away, and Nakami would have never thought she was fucking around with my brother. The shit was unreal.
The whole thing had played out like a bad episode of Jerry Springer that I couldn’t turn off and I couldn’t wrap my head around what had happened. It took me a long-ass time to get my shit together, but get it together I did. My brother and I may have lost touch for a while, but he had always been a motivator. It took a lot of persuading, yelling, screaming, and even some more crying, but he managed to pull me out of my grief stricken haze.
After Hero died, Grey bought out the strip club that Blu used to manage and basically handed it over to me to run just to give me something to do. We had decided to change locations to put it a block down from Grey’s club, South Beach, and had also decided to completely update the place. Grey also had opted to open a little restaurant in between the two clubs so niggas would be getting money from four o’clock in the afternoon until five o’clock in the morning five days of the week. That business degree he’d received definitely hadn’t gone to waste. He was a smart nigga making smart moves, hopefully planning for the day when he would leave the game alone for good. We had planned to have a grand opening for the restaurant and a grand re-opening for Clappers during Labor Day weekend that was sure to go up.
On top of that, once I finally returned my agent’s calls, Steph had been able to land me a spot on a new reality show, Almost Famous. It was a show that shadowed six up and coming stars on their rise to fame. It was a dope way to build my brand, and the marketing alone had already proven to be lucrative as I had two scripted TV shows in a battle to get me to co-star in a new pilot being shopped to two major networks. The first episode of Almost Famous was set to air the week of the strip club’s grand re-opening, so that night was gon’ go dumb, to say the least.
I was glad that my career seemed to be moving in the right direction, no doubt. But in reality, I was still struggling day to day with losing Blu and my seed. That was the reason for me trying to drown my sorrows in a glass of D’usse right now. I took another sip from my glass even though there wasn’t really anything left, but a few drops and was about to get up when I heard her.
“How did I know I’d find you here?”
I knew her voice anywhere and even though in most cases it would sound like nails against a chalkboard, tonight it sounded like music to my ears. She was just what I needed to pull me out of the funk I could feel myself slipping into tonight.
“It is my club now. So why wouldn’t I be here?” I responded with my back still to her.
“Still the smart ass I fell for, huh?”
“Ain’t never going to change.”
I stood up from the booth where I’d been chillin’ and turned to greet her. Once I laid eyes on Vicious, my tongue compulsorily ran across my lips before I smirked. Dressed in a pair of white, high waist cut-off shorts, a skintight body suit that I could see her silver nipple rings through, a white military style blazer with gold buttons, and a pair of beige thigh high boots, she looked every bit of the rebellious superstar she was becoming. I instantly wanted to swipe my thumbs across her protruding nipples and hold her D cups in my hands.
Vicious, whose real name is Selena Demoyan, was as gorgeous as she was wild. With skin the color of spiced rum, her signature diamond encrusted, gold fang grill and long, wavy black hair that reached her hips, she put you in the mindset of the
singer, Kelis, but even prettier. She was dope in every sense, but she was more than a handful.
“I see you shinin’,” I commented as I looked her up and down. I couldn’t deny that she was a bad mothafucka.
“Oh, now you see me?” She smirked. She waved off her bodyguards and they walked away. “You on the clock?”
“Not anymore.”
With that, I took her hand and led her to the back of the club where the false exit door was. The door led to the back offices and the locker room where the dancers got dressed. I pressed on the handle twice, unlocking it, and hurried through the doors letting her walk through first. I couldn’t keep my eyes off her ass that was peeking from under her short shorts, and before I could stop myself, my hands were on her. I squeezed both of her ass cheeks, and she squealed. She attempted to open the door to my office, but became distracted by my tongue and lips grazing her neck. She paused, and I took the opportunity to turn her around to face me.
Always a good multi-tasker, I had my lips covering hers, one hand unleashing her perky breasts from her top, and the other down the back of her shorts, grabbing a handful of ass. She moaned in my mouth as our tongues battled one another for dominance. Breaking the kiss, I leaned down and flicked my tongue over her erect nipple and felt her body jerk in reaction. I twirled my tongue around her piercing and then pulled her whole nipple into my mouth and sucked on it like it had nutritional value. Her hands were roaming underneath my shirt, her fingernails grazing my six pack. She pulled my lip into her mouth and sucked on it, knowing that I loved that shit. I could feel my manhood rising against my jeans, and knew I wasn’t going to be able to hold out much longer. I pulled my hand out of her shorts and swiftly open the door. We nearly tumbled inside, still intertwined. Pushing the door closed with my foot, I ripped her jacket off, and her purse fell to the floor along with it.