G STREET CHRONICLES PRESENTS
CHASING BLISS
by
Sabrina A. Eubanks
Copyright 2011 Sabrina A. Eubanks
Published by:
G Street Chronicles
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College Park, GA 30349
www.gstreetchronicles.com
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This is a work of fiction. It is not meant to depict, portray or represent any particular real person. All the characters, incidents, and dialogues are the products of the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any references or similarities to actual events, entities, real people, living or dead, or to real locales are intended to give the novel a sense of reality. Any similarity in other names, characters, entities, places, and incidents is entirely coincidental.
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Acknowledgments
God is great. He is first, foremost, and all things. God is always there. He is our one constant, never changing and always loving us. God is our non-judgmental very best friend. If you call to Him, He will answer. God brings water from the rock. He gets His very own paragraph in this. I love Him and I’m grateful way past this lifetime. Thank you, Father, for this wonderful journey.
Undying love and respect to my parents, Mary and Julius Sr., I miss you and wish you guys could have seen this—but I’m sure you do. Thank you for my foundation. Love always to my brother, Jay. You’ll probably never be able to wrap you mind around how much I care. Thank you. Thanks also to my wonderful, much loved son. Mommy loves you, D.J…you make me smile in the rain. You are my sunshine. Jayson and Joli, you are more light in my life. Auntie loves you. Stay on your grind.
Thank you to my small, intimate, circle of friends and family that hold me down and always have my back: Vera, Vickie, Brenda, Desiree, Karyn, Millie, Kim, Elias, and Levone. Love you all so much, it almost hurts to look at you. Thank you all for loving me.
Thank you to my publisher Mr. George Sherman Hudson and G Street Chronicles for putting me out there and seeing something special in me. Let’s get it! To Shawna Grundy, my VP, for doing such a great job, and for listening to me bitch and moan even when I say I’m not bitchin’ and moanin. Thanks, girl.
As always, I saved my last acknowledgment for all my readers. I wish you guys nothing but good things in life. Thanks for all the love and support. Mad love from me always. Okay, I’m takin’ a deep breath for your shout out… get ready…
GOD BLESS THE READERS!!!!!!!
Wow! That was loud… did you hear me?
Dedication
For everyone who ever had my back in my darkest hours
… and for D.J.
Prologue
Chase Brown had never been moved much by the power of prayer, but he was sure as hell praying now. There, in what were apparently the last moments of his life, he discovered the truth: You really do see your life flash before your eyes. His life story did not unwind like one of those grand and glorious old epic movies; rather, it was a jarring assault, just starkly vivid sparks of random memory. He saw hundreds of bits and snatches of everything he’d done: things he’d done right, things he’d done wrong, and things he should have done differently. Then there were the things he never should have done at all.
What should have happened in the blink of an eye, though, seemed to stretch out unnaturally in some sort of strange, revised measure of time. Chase wondered why his thoughts were so scattered, why he couldn’t think straight. Everything was flying around in his head with such swirling, blurring speed that it was impossible to get his thoughts to gel. He felt dizzy, and his heart hammered in his chest.
Violence had always been an abstract to him, and he always associated it with his older brother, Cyrus. That’s not to say he was a stranger to it himself. Chase had grown up around violence, had seen friends and family fall prey to it, and had inflicted a generous amount of it himself; though rarely had he been on the receiving end, unless it was from Cyrus. And, the violence he doled out himself was for Cyrus. The shit he did for Cyrus had niggas scared to death…but obviously not this nigga.
Objectively speaking, there really was no reason for the guy to be afraid of Chase. After all, the man holding the .45 on Cyrus Brown’s little brothers was Herc Mercer. He and his boys went back a long way with Cyrus, but as of late, most of their history was far from pleasant. They’d started out as friends and business partners when Chase was still in junior high. Chase knew Herc, Rome, and Khalid—knew them niggas well. He knew things were turning sour between them, but he never in his life did he think he’d find himself looking down the barrel of Herc’s infamous .45.
Herc waved the gun in front of his face a bit. “Stop daydreamin’ and answer the damn question. I swear, I ain’t never seen a man drift off with a gun in his face. Where’s Cyrus, Chase? Is that muthafucker hiding from us?”
Chase narrowed his eyes and licked his lips. He looked Herc straight in the eye when he lied to him. “I don’t know.”
They stared at each other, neither wavering for a second, and Chase felt sweat trickle between his shoulder blades.
Herc looked at him dubiously. “What did you just say?”
Chase squared his shoulders and held his gaze. He was scared, but there was no way he was about to let Herc see that. If he was going to shoot him, he wasn’t going to let him punk him first. “I said I don’t know,” Chase repeated, careful to keep his voice even. Raising up had no place here. He knew Herc, and he didn’t doubt for a minute he’d blow his brains out. His best bet was to try and smooth this dude out by keeping it even.
Herc was glaring at him with murder in his eye, but he spoke to him gently. “I don’t believe you, son. You know, a man can get in a whole lot of trouble lying to me. Come on, now. Tell me where Cyrus is, and y’all can walk away like this never happened. See what I’m sayin’? Be good, baby. Tell me where he is.”
“Fuck you, Herc!”
Chase and Herc both turned in surprise to see Corey standing there, bristling with outrage at the indignity. His sixteen-year-old manhood was offended, and he was full of piss and vinegar.
“How you gonna pull a gun on us, Herc? What the fuck is wrong with you, man?”
Chase put his hand on his brother’s arm. Things were about to get crazy; he could feel it.
Herc smiled grimly and turned his gun from Chase to Corey.
“Shut up, Corey. Don’t say nothin’,” Chase ordered in that same even voice.
Corey shrugged his hand away. “Naw, man! Fuck this nigga, Chase!” He turned his head and scowled at Herc, his young, handsome face glo
wing with indignation; his eyes were ablaze with it—with bright anger and naiveté.
Chase stepped in front of him to try to diffuse the already out-of-control situation, hoping he was not too late to change the ending of this story. He could understand Corey’s anger, but he also understood the fact that if Herc had the audacity to pull a gun on them in the first place, he most definitely had the nerve to follow through.
Herc grinned and spoke through his teeth. “Who you talkin’ to, boy?”
Corey pushed against Chase. He foolishly feared neither Herc’s size nor his weapon. “I’m talkin’ to you, you big, stupid, motherfucker! How you gonna pull a gun on us, Herc?” he demanded again.
Chase pushed him right back. Corey’s fast temper and big mouth were finally about to get him into something neither one of his brother’s could fix. “Shut up, Corey! Stop talkin’! Just shut the hell up!”
Herc reached past Chase and snatched Corey up by the front of his T-shirt.
“Let him go, Herc!” Chase yelled, pushing his weight against the big man who outweighed him by fifty pounds, easy.
Herc knocked him out of the way like he was swatting a fly and hit Corey in the face with his .45.
Corey yelped in pain, but it didn’t take the fight out of him; instead, it only made him angry.
Chase knew his brother well. He knew what Corey was going to do even before his hand went under his shirt. Corey might have only been sixteen, but he never left the house without his trusty .32. Chase’s brow furrowed in resignation. He was resentful about the unfortunate turn of events. All he wanted to do was go to the park with his brother and get in a simple pick-up game of basketball, but this fool had come out of nowhere with his flexing and his questions. He’d even felt brave enough to come alone, thinking he’d intimidate two teenagers. Chase smiled a sad smile as he watched Herc turn his gun to point at Corey’s head. He couldn’t just stand there and let that murderous fool kill his little brother. Just like everyone else, Herc had slept on Chase, paying him no mind,
Because Herc had his back to Chase, he didn’t see him slip his hand into his back pocket and pull out his own weapon of choice. Chase quietly put his foot between Herc’s feet and put his left hand on his forehead, pulling his head back to his shoulder in an oddly intimate embrace. By the time the look of surprise fully registered on Herc’s face, he was already wearing a broad smile across his neck. Chase wiped the blade of his silver-handled razor on Herc’s pants and stepped away.
Corey, who’d been down this road before, wrested himself away from Herc before the blood could touch him.
Herc didn’t care that Corey got away from his grip, because he had more important matters to consider at that moment. He instinctively clutched at his throat and unleashed the torrent. He watched in shocked dismay as his warm crimson life force jetted between his fingers, coloring the air with its spray and soaking the pavement. “Shit . . .” he gurgled.
Chase shook his head. “You got a couple seconds to find God, Herc. Maybe you should pray.”
Herc gurgled something unintelligible—maybe it was a prayer—and then he fell on his side in a growing pool of his own blood.
Corey leaned down and looked him in his dying eyes. “That’s what you get when you pull a gun on us, Herc. Don’t nobody pull no guns on us. Oh, and don’t worry…we’ll make sure we tell Cyrus you were lookin’ for him.”
Chase tapped his brother on the shoulder. “It’s not right to mock a dyin’ man, Corey. Let’s get the hell outta here and leave this nigga to his last breath.”
Out of the crooked timber of humanity,
nothing entirely straight can ever be built.
~ Immanuel Kant
Chapter 1
It had been ten years since the death of Herc Mercer. A lot had changed in that decade, but a lot had stayed the same. Cyrus had done a short bid on a gun charge—and lucky for him, that’s all it was for—leaving his two younger brothers to look after his interests while he was gone. There was a lot of in-fighting between Cyrus, Khalid, and Rome.
Herc turning up dead did nothing to smooth feathers. Khalid had accused Chase, right to his face, of killing Herc. He’d said he didn’t know of no other niggas walking around slitting throats instead of popping them with a pistol, other than Chase. He also said he didn’t know of anyone else who had big enough balls to kill Herc, except Chase. They had a meeting and decided to be decent, since they went back so far. Khalid and Rome gave up a third of their ill-gotten gains to Chase and Corey, for Cyrus, and they severed business ties.
Rome had gotten knocked by the Feds for transporting eight kilos of cocaine and four of heroin across state lines, concealed in a Benz with secret compartments. When he got busted for that load, fun time was over for him, and he’d likely be behind bars until he was a middle-aged man. So, Khalid took over as “head nigga in charge” of his own drug empire, ever expanding and always popular.
Cyrus had reclaimed the reins of his own narcotic kingdom, and he and Khalid had managed to keep their uneasy truce until very recently. Cyrus found new suppliers, stepped his game up, and started outshining Khalid. Slowly but surely, Cyrus began to erase the line they’d drawn in the sand, creeping into Khalid’s territory and turning many of Khalid’s loyal customers into big fans of his own product. While he didn’t speak of it often, though, Chase had the underlying sneaky suspicion that everything was not how it really seemed—like things weren’t going as smoothly under the surface as he thought.
Cyrus was a big fan of deception and window dressing. He had never been one to play things straight down the middle and had always leaned to the left. Chase sometimes thought the only people Cyrus was even halfway loyal to were Corey and him. Most times, even that was questionable, but they were brothers, and everybody knows that shit’s thicker than water.
Chase and Corey had grown into manhood, taking their lumps and bruises and holding things down until Cyrus got back. They were wet behind the ears when Cyrus got sent up, but he advised them well from upstate, and they were hungry, apt pupils. By the time Cyrus finished his bid, he was three times as successful as he had been going in.
Corey had channeled all his energy into being Cyrus’s right-hand man, a job Cyrus had originally intended for Chase. While he’d been doing his bid, Cyrus had groomed Chase for that spot. He’d taught him everything he knew, and Chase had natural business acumen. Unfortunately, Chase had proven to be too volatile and unpredictable, and his temperament was way too uneven for Cyrus’s liking. Though Corey was a hot-head himself, he was much more even than Chase and less prone to argumentative opposition. Corey didn’t have all Chase’s business skills, but he made a much better yes-man.
When Chase turned twenty-three, he’d gone to Cyrus and told him he wanted out of the family business. Cyrus had flipped on him, cussing him out and calling him all kinds of traitors; and he simply refused to let him go. At the time, Cyrus wanted to edge out a small-time guy in Bushwick by the name of Dante Taylor. Dante was giving him problems and wouldn’t go without a fight. He’d even sent some boys to shake down a few of Cyrus’s dealers. When Cyrus got Chase on the phone and told him how he needed it all to go down, Chase only agreed because he was sure it would be the last job he would pull for Cyrus.
Chase waited patiently, for three hours, for Dante to stop his Denali at the corner of Bushwick and Gates. It was August, so Dante had his windows down and his music thumping. His girl was in the seat next to him. Chase walked up to the truck, as calm as could be, and pushed an ice pick—old-school gangster style—right through Dante’s left ear. He did it so fast; Chase was in his car driving away before Dante’s girl even started screaming. Chase was done—or so he thought.
“Not so fast,” Cyrus said. After all, they were bound together by blood and money. “I ain’t never gon’ let you just walk away,” he explained.
When Chase asked him what he meant by that, Cyrus just smiled slow and gave him a benevolent look. Cyrus had taken care of his two brothers
every since their mother was killed when Corey was only ten. Chase thought maybe he said that shit because he thought Chase owed him. Cyrus had a side to him that was as black as midnight. For all Chase knew, it could have been a threat to kill his ass if he tried to walk away. Whatever he meant, it didn’t make a damn difference to Chase anyway. He told his brother he wanted out, and he damn well meant it.
“On one condition . . .” Cyrus said. Chase was, hands down, the best man he had for handling dirty jobs and wet work. He told Chase he’d finance anything he wanted to do and set him up nice, but Chase had to take care of whoever he thought needed taking care of—certain people he couldn’t trust to his regular boys. Chase was quiet, efficient, and never left a discernible trail. He was like a ghost, like smoke, there one minute and gone the next. Except for the corpse, people had to wonder if he’d even been there at all. Cyrus grinned at him and slapped him on the back. “Shit, Chase…when I need small-time niggas checked, I’ll use small-time killers. When I need a significant nigga gone, I gotta use you. You’re a goddamned assassin.”
Chase took the deal. He’d never had a real taste for the day-to-day of the drug business, but there was no question he was good at it. He was good at killing people, too, but that didn’t mean he was happy about it. Chase was a smart guy. He knew the deal. He realized that drug shit could only lead to one of two places: jail or the cemetery. He’d seen enough people go to jail and put enough in the cemetery himself, and he didn’t want to reserve a spot for himself in either one.
In the meantime, he took the money and played hit man for his brother Cyrus. Chase then went on to become a successful entrepreneur. He owned a supper club in Harlem, a club in Chelsea, and his most successful club, Cream, in the meatpacking district. Cream had become a major hotspot with a large celebrity fan base. It was hugely popular and profitable. Cream’s success only made his other two ventures, Delight and Shelter, bigger moneymakers.
Chasing Bliss Page 1