He admired the car’s exquisite detailing and the plushness of the fine, autumn colored, bull hide, leather seats. It was like sitting in the cock pit of a G5 Jet.
As he navigated the streets in route to his destination, Mox repeatedly glanced up at the rearview mirror, catching sight of the patch that covered his eye. He was trying to get used to it, but with each brief look, his heart grew heavy and cold.
When he reached his destination, he valet parked the car and then walked into the apartment building on a surprise visit.
“Who is it, goddamn it!” Earl shouted when he heard someone knocking on the door.
“It’s me, Unc, open up.”
Earl caught wind of the voice and smiled big. “I know that ain’t who I think it is,” He unlocked the door and could have sworn he was dreaming. “Nephew!” he grabbed Mox’s shoulders and brought him in close to hug him. “Man, you don’t know how much I missed yo’ ass boy.”
“I missed you too, Unc.”
“Yeah man, c’mon in here.”
Mox looked around at the stylish, yet modern set up Wise Earl had. “This is nice, Unc. I’m proud of you.”
“Thanks man, glad you like it. Sheeiit, goddamn rent two thousand dollars a month. If you ask me, they need to have a few more amenities in this muthafucka.” he chuckled.
“I see you on your Don Juan Chino shit, huh?”
Earl smirked, rubbed his beard, and fixed the belt on his silk robe. “A lil’ sumptin’ sumptin’. Have a seat, I wanna introduce you to somebody.” He swaggered off to the back room.
Mox took a seat on the leather sectional couch that was in the middle of the living room. He surveyed the wall hangings, and one picture in particular caught his attention. He quickly hopped up and went over to give it a closer look.
Earl appeared from the back room. “Nephew, meet Baby G, my fiancé.”
When he turned around, he was shocked.
Baby G wasn’t a baby in any way, shape, form or fashion.
She was 5 feet 2 inches tall, dark chocolate skin, long black hair and cake that could feed a party of a hundred.
“Hi Mox.” She said. Her voice was soft and prissy.
“Wassup.” He couldn’t help but to stare. “I see you got you a young one, huh Unc?”
Earl poured himself a shot of Cognac from his mini bar next to the dining room. He sniffed the yak and swirled it in his glass. “Yeah, she may be young, but goddamnit she ain’t dumb, ain’t that right baby.”
Mox took his seat back on the couch. “So wassup Unc. What the streets lookin’ like?”
“You know how these streets is, Mox.” Earl sat in his leather recliner chair directly across from his nephew and lit a cigarette. “These young niggas fuckin’ up the game, right now. They out here shootin’ everything movin’.”
“Word, it’s like that huh? I got a plan though, Unc, the perfect plan.”
“You know as well as I know, ain’t no such thing as the perfect plan. You gotta get what’s yours and get the hell out. It’s that simple.”
Earl reached under the recliner and pulled out a Gucci messenger bag. He tossed it to Mox.
“What’s this?”
“A lil’ token of my appreciation for all the love you showed me through the years.” He blew smoke into the air.
Mox unzipped the bag and pulled out a black jewelry box. He opened it.
“Ohhh, this is nice.” He eyed the white gold and diamond pinky ring. “This for me Unc?”
“Yeah. There’s something else in there too.”
He put his hand back into the bag and came out with a stack of one hundred dollar bills. “This what I’m talkin’ ‘bout.” he said, holding the stack of bills in front of him. “This shit right here rules the world. They say it ain’t everything, but I’ve come to learn that you can’t do nothin’ without it.”
“You right about that, nephew. So what you gon’ do? I see they got Priscilla’s face all over the news. How’s the baby girl?”
“I gotta get a spot so she can lay low. I need to make some moves, Unc. I don’t trust these niggas no more. I need your help.”
“You gon’ find Priest?”
Mox stuffed the cash back into the bag. “You know I am, but first, I wanna find that nigga Cleo.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
SUMTER, SOUTH CAROLINA
“It’s dark as fuck out here, Chris.” Cleo looked to the passenger seat and Chris’ head was tilted against the window. He was snoring like a bear. “Yo, Chris.” he tapped his leg. “Chris wake up, we here.”
Cleo made the right into the driveway of 1648 Radical Road and put the car in park.
The house was a single story flat, built on three acres of land and it was right next to the woods.
He sat in the pitch blackness debating whether he should go in or not. The pit of his stomach was rumbling and his palms were building up with sweat by the second.
What if she didn’t even live here anymore? he thought.
“You goin’ in?”
He jumped when he heard Chris’ voice. “Don’t scare me like that.” Cleo turned the car off. “Yeah, wait here while I go see wassup. And get in the driver’s seat. It’s your turn.”
Cleo got out the car, fixed the gun on his waist and walked down the driveway to the front of the house. He could barely see in front of him, and he nearly tripped climbing the four steps leading to the front door.
The sounds at night time in the country were much different than sounds after dark in the city. Cleo wasn’t excited about being in town for too long.
He knocked on the door loud enough for someone to hear it, but there was no answer. He knocked a second time, and again, there was no answer. He went to leave, and a latch opened on the door.
It was a woman’s voice. “Who you come here to see?”
Cleo spun on his heels and looked at the woman wearing a night gown, standing in her doorway.
She looked exactly like the pictures, beautiful.
For a second, Cleo got lost in her loveliness. He couldn’t believe how much he resembled her. A thought ran across his mind and he wanted to become a kid again, so he could leap into her arms, give her a great big hug and tell her that he loved her, but in actuality, his heart held a massive amount of hate towards her.
“It’s me, ma, your son.” Cleo said.
The woman pushed the screen door open and stepped onto the porch to get a better look at this man claiming to be her son.
“I ain’t got no son. You at the wrong house now get off my porch.” she replied.
Cleo knew she was lying. She looked exactly like the woman in the picture he had in his hand. “So, your name ain’t Vivian?”
“No, my name ain’t Vivian, now I ain’t gon’ tell you again.”
Cleo held up the picture. “This ain’t you?”
She squinted her eyes to get a better look at the picture. The way she reacted told the truth. “Where’d you get that from?” she questioned.
“Sybil gave it me.”
Silence settled in.
“I’m sorry Cleo,” she finally admitted.
He screwed his face up. “Yeah, you are sorry, a sorry excuse for woman.”
“Cleo don—”
“Don’t Cleo me. How the hell you know my name anyway?”
Vivian fixed her gown and sat in the wicker chair that was on the porch. “Sybil and I kept in contact until you were three years old. She would send me pictures every Christmas. Listen, Cleo, I know you’re upset and you have every right to be, but we’re here now and we can start over.”
“Start over?” Cleo laughed. “Lady, you musta bumped yo’ goddamn head. You abandoned me. Left me wit’ one of your friends and never came back to check on me, not even once.” his eyes started to get glossy and his lip quivered. “You wanna start over? We never started anything to begin with.” The tears slid down his face. “The day I found that letter was the worst day of my life, and from that day on, I capsuled so much anger, tha
t after a while, I just exploded.” He mimicked an explosion with his hands. “People say I’m losin’ my mind,” Cleo’s grin turned sinister. “More and more I’m startin’ to agree wit’ them.”
“Well, if you don’t want to start over, why are you here?” she asked.
“I’m here for closure.” Cleo turned his back on her and walked away.
“Cleo, come back,” she called out, but he kept walking.
When he got back in the car he laid his head back on the headrest and let his eyes close.
“You alright?” Chris started the car.
Cleo opened his eyes, sat up and looked at Chris. “Nah, hol’ up.” He pushed the door open, walked back to the house, and knocked on the door.
“Cleo, is that you?”
“Yeah.”
When the door opened, Cleo lifted his gun and pointed it at her face.
She opened her mouth, but nothing came out.
He gripped the weapon tightly, keeping a steady aim. “You the reason I’m not able to love. You fucked my life up.”
He closed his eyes and squeezed the trigger.
Three shots.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Mox sat patiently on the couch and waited for Frank to give him a reasonable answer.
“I’m waitin’ Frank.”
“Mox, I told you, I was busy.”
“Busy? You was too busy to come see me in the hospital, that’s what you tellin’ me?”
“I got a business to run.”
“Fuck your business Frank!” Mox was furious. “I was dyin’ in that muthafucka and you niggas was sittin’ back countin’ money!”
Nate tried to reason. “It wasn’t like that Mox.”
“Well what was it then, tell me, because from what I see, ain’t too much work been getting done. Where the fuck is Cleo?”
“Mox, we been looking for him,” Frank explained. “Even put the young kid, Tyrell on him, nothing.”
Mox paced the rug in Frank’s living room. “I expected more from y’all. We supposed to be a union, a team. What happened to that?”
“Nothing happened Mox. We still are a union.” Frank replied.
Mox picked his leather jacket up, put it on, and opened the door. “Are we?”
The feelings Mox had toward his brothers were bittersweet. He was unsettled and disturbed at the fact the he’d been hospitalized for months and they hadn’t taken the time to see if he was okay. He felt like when things took a turn for the worse, the only people by his side were Priscilla and Uncle Earl, and those were the people he least expected.
There was still plenty of unfinished business to be handled, but Mox was no longer relying on anyone other than himself to take care of it. He would handle things on his own from here on out.
He jumped in the Audi, hit the ignition, and stepped on the gas.
__________
Light snow flurries descended from sky and the brisk February winds tugged at Tyrell and Six’s face as they stood in front of the building.
“You fucked shorty last night?” Tyrell was being nosy.
“You know I did.” Six laughed. “Her and her friend.”
“Yeah right nigga, you lyin’.”
“Scouts honor.”
Tyrell didn’t believe him. “Man, fuck a scout’s honor, put that shit on yo’ momma so I know it’s real.” He didn’t realize what he said until seconds later. “Ohh shit. My bad. I ain’t mean nothin’ behind that.”
“It is what it is Rell. She gone now, ain’t shit I can do about it.” Six passed Tyrell half of a cigarette.
“You a strong ass nigga, B. Even though me and my moms don’t get along, I think I might fuckin’ bugg out if I was to lose her.”
“I feel you. Yo, who this nigga?”
A man in a black flight jacket approached them. “Excuse me, Tyrell?”
“Yeah, wassup?” Tyrell had his hand on his gun.
“I’m Leo’s father, Mr. Smalls.”
He eased his hand off the weapon. “Oh yeah, Mr. Smalls, I remember you.”
“I’ve been looking for you to ask you if you’ve seen Leo since he came home?”
“He’s home?” Tyrell played the dummy role.
“Yeah, my mother put up her house for him to get out. He has court in the morning and no one has seen him.”
Tyrell and Six looked at each other.
“Nah, I ain’t seen him around here. If I do, I’ll let him know you’re lookin’ for him.”
“Thank you. I appreciate it.” Mr. Smalls stepped off.
Six turned his head to Tyrell. “You fucked up.”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Mox let the hot water run on his back while he pondered his next move. Uncle Wise found out that Priest had been released from prison and was back to his old ways, so it wouldn’t be too hard to catch up to him. He also discovered that Cleo was hiding out in the south somewhere, trying to blend in with the country folk.
Mox envisioned the day he would finally get the chance to see his father eye to eye. He could feel his hands wrapping around his throat, choking the life out of him.
The memories hadn’t gone anywhere, and Mox’s hate towards his father only grew stronger.
He pulled the shower curtain back when he heard the bathroom door open. “Who is that?”
Priscilla walked in, dropped her towel and stepped in the shower with him.
She wrapped her arms around Mox’s neck and stuffed her tongue in his mouth.
Her saliva was warm, savory, and sweet like honey.
He reached down and slid his middle finger into her saturated kitten and tickled her clitoris with his thumb.
“Ohh Mox, I’m ‘bout to cum!”
She revolved her hips on his finger until her cream dripped down the side of his hand.
Mox pulled his finger out and licked the juices. “Umm you taste good.”
Priscilla reached down and brushed his manhood until it was solid and then guided him into her wetness.
The hot water beating on their bodies was soothing and sensual.
Mox pinned her back against the tile and submerged himself deep within her love.
He stroked her kitty slow, long, and hard.
“Yes Mox, ohhh…”
She felt his body stiffen and his muscles jumped.
“I’m cumin baby.”
Priscilla compressed her vaginal walls and pulled the cum out of Mox.
“Oh sheeiiit!” He grabbed her by the waist tightly, and let it all go inside of her.
When they finished, they washed each other and went to get in the bed.
Priscilla’s head was on Mox’s chest. “Do you love me Mox?”
He smiled. “Of course I do. Why would you ask that?”
“Because…” she was afraid to say it.
“Because what?”
Priscilla didn’t want to start an argument, and if she said something, that’s exactly what would happen. But this particular issue had been on her mind for a few days now and she wanted answers.
“Who’s Jasmine?”
Mox was surprised to hear her name.
“That’s the nurse that was lookin’ after me when I was in the hospital.”
“Why do you have her number?”
Why you goin’ through my shit?”
Priscilla was getting upset. “Mox I asked you a question.”
Mox knew the question she really wanted to ask, and if so, he was prepared to lie.
“So you not gonna answer me?”
“What you want me to tell you Priscilla?”
She sat up against the headboard. “I want you to tell me the truth Mox. Are you fuckin’ her?”
Mox shook his head. “Nah.” he lied.
Since his return home, he had been to see Jasmine twice.
“You lying Mox.”
“You asked me a question, I told you the answer, and now I’m lying?” He pushed the covers off and got out the bed. “You know, it hurts me to think that you don’t believe
me.”
The Union II Page 14