by Noire
Pearl was speechless.
Cole Jackson was from a Brooklyn political family that had tight connections and deep pockets. Although they’d both come up in boroughs of New York City, they’d met during FBI training in Virginia and worked together out of the D.C. field office. Pearl was on a hostage rescue team and Cole was an agent who investigated gangs and criminal enterprises. Pearl’s family came to visit her in D.C. all the time, so she rarely came back to Harlem anymore, but there was a lot to celebrate this weekend, and her mother had wanted her to come home. Since Cole had a little surprise of his own planned for her, he’d offered to drive her to New York so she could spend her twenty-second birthday with her family.
But Pearl’s twin sister Diamond hadn’t shown up for their birthday dinner. Pearl had sent her a text the night before and Diamond had texted back promising to be on time for their family dinner, but by seven o’clock Diamond hadn’t shown her face and was nowhere to be found. Pearl thought it was strange since Diamond’s boy Menace had shown up with gifts for both of them.
“That damned girl,” Irish had said with a worried look on his face. He sat at the head of the dinner table grimacing and drumming his fingers nervously as they waited for Diamond.
“It’s all good, Daddy,” Pearl said. She reached over and rubbed his arm. She hated to see her father pressed out about anything. “Y’all said Di’s been doing better lately, right? I mean, her hands are all healed up and she’s almost back to normal, right?”
Irish had grimaced.
“What the hell is normal when it comes to your sister, Pearl? Who knows what normal is for her! If getting both your damn thumbs and all eight of your fingers smashed up don’t slow your stroll, what the hell will?”
Pearl’s hands had actually throbbed and cramped up when she thought about how, a few months back, some thug niggahs had knocked Diamond on her ass and then slammed both of her hands in a car door. Every one of Diamond’s fingers had been broken in at least two places, and both of her hands had stayed in casts for almost two months.
Pearl could definitely feel where her father was coming from. Loving Diamond was hard, and all of them suffered for that love. Pearl knew Irish took great pains to keep her as far removed from her sister’s drama as possible. From the time Pearl had left for college, Irish had deliberately kept her in the dark about a lot of shit that went down, both with the running of his center and with Diamond’s street capers.
“If you wanna work for the government one day then you can’t be involved with all the shit that goes on around here, Pearl,” Irish had told her. “You might get in a position where you need one of them top-secret clearances one day. Them folks will dig into your life and sniff out everything you did since kindergarten, baby. The less you know about the niggahs on these streets the better. That’s why I want you to stay outta Harlem, Pearl. Ain’t no telling how far you gonna go with your career, baby. Me and your momma want you to be able to go all the way to the top.”
Pearl didn’t always like being kept in the dark about what was happening at home, but when Irish made a decision about something it was almost impossible to budge him. It had been Zeta who had called to tell her that Diamond had gotten hurt, and Pearl didn’t even wanna imagine the kind of pain and agony her twin must have gone through as those niggahs left her laying in a gutter with over twenty broken bones in her hands. Somebody had rushed over to No Limitz and told Irish that Diamond had been taken to Harlem Hospital by ambulance. Zeta had sounded like she was having a heart attack when she called Pearl and told her that her twin had been brutalized by a posse of street nigs.
Zeta had begged Irish to go to the cops, but Diamond had nutted up and played dumb and pretended not to know who had fucked her up so royally. Even Pearl, who only got bits and pieces of the story down in D.C., knew that was a lie. She figured her sister had finally stolen something from the wrong niggah, and breaking her fingers was his form of payback.
Pearl had really been looking forward to seeing her twin for their birthday celebration tonight, but with dinner getting cold, Zeta had insisted they sit down and eat, and said she would fix a plate and wrap it up just in case Diamond showed up hungry later.
It had been a long time since Pearl had eaten her mother’s home-cooked Louisiana-style seafood, and she had dipped everything in butter and slobbed it down. And after dinner, when Cole announced that he wanted to take her out to get some ice cream, Pearl had been surprised as Zeta practically pushed her out the door.
“Gone, Pearl,” her mother had insisted, grinning her ass off as she switched toward the door in her sexy little jean skirt. At thirty-nine Zeta was still beautiful and her body was fitter than most women half her age. She worked at a rape crisis center and could have passed for Pearl’s sister instead of her mother, although she was wise and mature and had obviously come up on the streets. “Let that man buy you some ice cream, Pearl! Hell, that boy’s daddy is paid. Let him buy you any damn thing he wants!”
“But Sasha and Chante might want some ice cream too,” Pearl had protested, thinking of her young daughter and her niece. The two little girls looked and acted so much like her and Diamond when they were little, and like their mothers, they had also been born on the same day. “They can go with us, and I’ll bring you and Daddy back some butter pecan in a cup too, okay?”
Zeta had waved her out the door.
“Nope. Sasha and Chante don’t need no ice cream and they ain’t going nowhere but to bed. This night is for you and Cole. Go ahead, Pearl. You can bring me and Irish back a whole butter-pecan cow if you want to, but you and Cole are going outta here by yourselves tonight.”
And that’s how Pearl ended up sitting in Baskin Robbins with the stupid look on her face as Cole Jackson slid a crazy-phat rock onto her ring finger that glinted under the lights and damn-near blinded her.
“Me?” Pearl asked like she was hearing voices. “You wanna marry me?”
“Hell yeah, pretty girl,” Cole said quietly, and at that moment something about the way he was holding her hand with his hard dick all in her face was sexy as hell. It made Pearl feel truly wanted. “I love you, Pearl. And I wanna marry you and make you mine, and only mine, forever.”
Pearl couldn’t even answer as that big hunk of ice glinted on her finger. Like every chick from the hood she had grown up dreaming about falling in love and being swept off her feet by a strong, handsome man one day. And the fact that Cole had an education and a bomb career and didn’t want to just bang her as a wifey, but had felt enough to put a ring on her finger, signified love and a whole lot more in anybody’s book. But giving him an answer was still hard, because Cole didn’t really know her, he only thought he did. When he looked at her all he saw was the wavy hair, the gorgeous skin, the dimpled face, and the sexy, round ass that most dudes saw. He only saw what Pearl allowed him to see. The big fat front that she put on for the world so she could hide who she really was.
Cole mighta been from Brooklyn, but he didn’t know the hood like she did. He had no clue that Pearl had spent her early years timid and afraid and living in a rat-infested homeless shelter while her father pulled a bid in a cold upstate prison for committing vile acts of violence against his fellow man. He didn’t see her as a scared fourteen-year-old guttersnipe who hid her fears and anxieties by running up and down the streets, wildin’ with thugs and hoods until she messed around and got pregnant by a local drug dealer. Or the crazy young chick who, a few months later, found the heart to beat the shit out of her twin sister when she too had popped up pregnant by the same grimy drug dealer, a man who Pearl had later chased down and sliced up with a 007 flick knife.
The person Cole saw sitting before him today, the beautiful, confident, well-cultured, educated sister with the banging ass that he liked to ride deep in the middle of the night, was the reformed version of Pearl Baines. He saw the smart chick who had turned her back on both her drug dealer boyfriend and the streets of Harlem, and found the courage to leave the hood life far beh
ind.
What Cole saw was a fighter and a survivor. The new-and-improved, strong, capable, and fearless Pearl Baines, totally reborn.
Cole was staring at her with a funny look on his face, still waiting for her answer. Pearl’s lips moved but no sound came out. She had mad love for Cole and she really dug what they had going on. Even though Carlita swore all out that he was nothing but a controlling-ass future stalker with a big dick.
And in some ways Carlita was right. Cole was spoiled and possessive. He was a pretty boy, and he liked to throw his weight around when shit didn’t go his way. But none of that mattered because Pearl had only met one man in her life who she even considered committing her heart and her life to. One man who had the street cred of her father, the intellect of her mother, and the courage of a thousand gorillas. And even though that man had once fucked around and betrayed her, no other man, not even Cole, could stack up to him in Pearl’s heart or in her mind.
“I-I … umm, I—” She was struggling to give Cole an answer but couldn’t find the right words, then suddenly she didn’t have to bother as her cell phone rang and she snatched it off the clip, flipped it open, and pressed it to her ear.
“Hello?”
It was Menace.
The sound of his voice made Pearl’s heart bang in her chest.
It had been crazy sitting across from him at the dinner table earlier that evening. Pearl always stayed as far away from Harlem as she could, so she hadn’t seen him in a minute. She had shot him mad shitty looks over dinner and flirted with Cole like his dick belonged on a hot dog bun. Menace tried to act like he wasn’t sniffing her vapors but Pearl knew he was bent. That gaming-ass nig had had the nerve to bring her a gift that looked professionally wrapped, and Pearl had smirked as he held it out to her with a smile on his face.
“Happy birthday, Pearl,” he’d said, and even though her eyes were flashing daggers at him, Pearl’s heart had swelled up like a balloon in her chest. They had moved in different directions in their lives, with Menace leaving Harlem after graduate school and going to work for a major financial management firm before opening his own company in Philly, and Pearl booking out of Harlem for good as she headed off to college to study pre-law. She hadn’t thought about him in a long time, and she told herself that she hadn’t missed his low-post ass neither. She remembered her father mentioning that Menace came back to Harlem a few times each month to put in work at the center, and according to Irish and Zeta, the young man could do no wrong.
Pearl knew different, though. That nigga could be as wrong as two left fuckin’ feet. But no matter how hot Pearl was with Menace, being in his presence still gave her a thrill. He was a physical bomb. Tall and fine, he still smelled good and wore his gear like it had been designed especially for him. Standing there looking like a chimmee-chimmee-cocoa-pop, Pearl could tell Menace’s hard, dieseled body was still as black and hard and swollen with perfect muscles as she remembered.
“You gonna take your present or what?” he’d said as she left him hanging with his gift extended in his hand.
Pearl smirked and heat flashed in her pretty eyes. This stunt had a lot of shit with him, giving her a gift. When she was a kid he used to surprise her with something dope for her birthday every year, but ever since she’d cut him off and stopped speaking to him he’d stayed away on her special day.
“Um, you sure that’s for me? You sure you ain’t mistaking me for Diamond, right? I mean, we are sisters,” Pearl said, stressing the relationship. “Twins, remember?”
Menace had brushed her shitty act off his shoulders like dust. “I got a gift for both of y’all. I figured since your moms was nice enough to invite me to your birthday dinner it would be cool to bring y’all a little sumthin’.”
“I gotcha damn sumthin’,” Pearl had muttered, taking the gift and throwing that shit under the table. She didn’t know what was in the pretty box and she didn’t give a damn, neither. All she was gonna do was toss it in the trash without opening it anyway.
Menace had been real quiet during dinner, but Pearl had shown her ass. She’d sat right across from him and made sure he saw her leaning all over Cole, laughing in his face and rubbing her big titty on his arm. She’d let Cole cut her steak and shrimp scampi into small pieces, then she’d slid a few bits into his mouth and squealed real loud when he sucked and tongued her juicy fingers.
Menace broke out the door the moment they were finished eating, and Pearl couldn’t help grinning as she helped her mother clear the table and load the dishwasher. That niggah had looked real jealous in the face watching her rub all over Cole and lick his earlobes, and she had laughed stupid loud as he jetted off their porch like he was mad as fuck.
And now, an hour later, Menace was on the phone, in her ear, yelling something crazy that didn’t make a bit of sense.
“My what?” she shrieked. “My house is on what? On fire?”
Pearl had no memory of running the three blocks back to the house her parents had lived in for the past eighteen years. She had been a state-champion sprinter in college and could run just as fast or faster than most of the men in her class at the FBI training academy.
Today she ran in a designer skirt and spiked heels, with Cole galloping along like a puppy, faithfully by her side. Fire trucks and police cars were already rolling up on the front lawn as they arrived, and an ambulance was speeding toward them with its lights flashing wildly.
Smoke billowed from the roof and the windows as Pearl ran right up on the lawn, her eyes darting around the crowd of onlookers, anxious for a sign that her family had made it out of the flaming house.
“Where’s my baby?” Pearl screamed to nobody in particular as firefighters and police took up their positions and got ready to do their jobs. “Where’s my daughter? My niece? Where are my parents?”
A line of firemen were running past her carrying hoses, and one grabbed Pearl’s arm and shook his head.
“Stand back, ma’am. Please wait across the street. If there’s anyone in there we’ll get them out. It’s too dangerous for you over here.”
Pearl heard an eerie sound and froze. Every mother’s nightmare had suddenly become her reality. From deep inside the house, beyond the smoke and flames, Pearl could have sworn she heard a plaintive cry, softer than a kitten’s meow.
Her knees sagged as she imagined the worst, her child trapped inside the smoking box of flames, calling for her, wanting her, needing her.
The muffled cries rang out again and Pearl’s whole body strained toward the house.
She fought against the fireman’s arm. “D-d-did you hear that?”
He shrugged and tightened his grip, manhandling her as he tried to turn her around and push her across the street. “I didn’t hear anything. It would be impossible to hear anyone in there anyway. Please stand back!”
Pearl dug her heels into the ground. “I heard my daughter crying! My baby is in there!”
“Stand ba—”
“Sasha!” Pearl broke free and darted toward the house at full speed, determined to get to Sasha and Chante. The young fireman lunged forward and snagged the back of her blouse and Pearl went straight gorilla.
She whirled around and side-kicked the man below his right knee, cracking his shin. The blow was so powerful and unexpected that his lower body halted as his upper body continued moving forward on momentum. Two fingers jabbed in just the right spot between his jaw and neck finished the job, and the firefighter went down like he’d been shot in the head.
An overweight veteran police officer noticed the action and lunged for Pearl, catching her by the shoulder. She rolled swiftly with his motion, using the hand-to-hand-combat techniques she’d excelled at in the Academy, then lightning fast she slid her fingers down his arm until she clenched his hand in a firm grasp, then twisted his thumb sideways while cocking his wrist and snapping it backward before he knew what had hit him.
The cop yelped and swung on her wildly with his other hand, and Pearl blocked the blow and
drove the flat of her palm deep into the meat of his throat. He coughed and grabbed at his crushed Adam’s apple and staggered a few steps before bending at his knees and gasping for air.
Pearl ran toward the house like a speeding train, and she didn’t even see the smoke or the danger that stood between her and her family. Her baby. Her niece. Her mother and her father. Every fuckin’ body she loved was trapped in there. All she knew was that she had to get inside to save them.
Pearl had almost made it up on the porch when another cop rushed her. This one yanked her by her hair and Pearl screamed and lifted her chin fiercely, snapping her head back so hard she broke his pointy nose and temporarily blinded him.
Three steps later Pearl was at her parents’ front door. The outer screen door was still intact, but the wooden interior door had been kicked in. Smoke was pouring from the house and the heat on the porch was way past intense as it nearly drove her back. Pearl’s lungs felt like they were bubbling and the skin on her cheeks and forehead was getting scorched. She had just reached for the blistering screen door handle when it hit her.
A spiny Taser barb was launched. It bit into her left shoulder and the pain of fifty thousand volts of electricity shot through every inch of her body. Pearl lost control of her physical functions as her back arched and her muscles stiffened in shock.
“Pearl!” Through the fog of her pain she heard a man’s voice screaming out her name, and it wasn’t Cole’s, but Menace’s name that rose to her lips. But then another trigger-happy NYPD officer got in on the action and hit her with his stun gun too, and this time Pearl fell face forward into a painful oblivion, with only the sound of her daughter’s phantom cries echoing in her ears.
Mookie Murdock leaned back on the sofa as the pretty young hooker planted a trail of wet kisses along the sagging skin on his neck. They were alone in the living room of the phat penthouse apartment Mookie rented off Central Park West, but as usual, a crew of his manz were on guard just down the hall.