by Ca$H
“Fuck you.” Kiam spat.
“No. Fuck you.” The voice came from behind him, exclamated by a loud click-clack. Then Kiam felt cold steel press against the back of his head.
Wolfman laughed. “Don't kill him, Simon,” he said. “It's time for me and Kiam to have a man to man conversation without any violence.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes,” he replied coolly.
When Kiam felt the gun being removed from against his head he turned around and looked in the face of a man that he had seen on the local news countless times. Chief of Police, Simon Hubbard, lowered his gun but kept his finger on the trigger.
“I have friends in high places,” stated Wolfman as he leaned forward and re-lit a half smoked cigar that was sitting in the ashtray.
The woman, who was a ten year veteran with the police department, got up off the floor scowling at Kiam. She gathered up the items that had spilled out of the bag and set them on the table then she took a seat in a chair to the left of where Kiam stood.
Kiam looked around him at all of the cool faces. He wanted to let loose on all three of them. Wolfman saw it in his eyes.
He took a puff of his cigar, leaned his head back, and watched the smoke leave his mouth and float to the ceiling. Staring at the ceiling fan, he spoke with a calmness that belied all of the pain that he and Kiam had caused each other.
“You know, Kiam, I respect you,” said Wolfman. “You never back down no matter the odds against you. But in this game you have to bend or you'll break.”
“Save the muthafuckin’ sermon,” Kiam spat. “It ain't necessary. I'ma kill you, your man gonna kill me, and who knows what the bitch gon' do. Point blank period.”
Wolfman shook his head. “Nah, what's the point. Your beef is no longer with me. I lost two sons because you thought that I had Faydrah killed but I didn't and that's on my word.”
“Nigga, your word don't mean shit to me,” Kiam spat, ready to fill his chest with hollow points.
“Maybe it doesn't but it means something to me.” Wolfman looked him in the eye. “Without his word a man ain't shit. My word and my reputation means more to me than my life.”
“Right now your life ain't worth nothin' because I hold that bitch in my hands.”
“And I hold yours in mine,” Simon reminded him. His gun was pointed at Kiam's spine.
“Kiam,” Wolfman continued unfettered. “I just want you to know that all of this talk in the streets that I sicced the feds on you is hater shit coming from the mouths of broke muthafuckaz that don't have nothin' better to do than hear themselves talk.”
“It don't even matter. Everything is about to get settled right here, right muthafuckin’ now,” said Kiam. He didn't give a fuck.
“Oh, it matters,” Wolfman disagreed. “You have muthafuckaz gunning at you right up under your nose. If you'll calm down and listen Simon will tell you about it. Have a seat.”
“I never sit where I know I'm not really welcomed,” spat Kiam. “If he has something to tell me I can listen just fine standing.”
“Have it your way,” said Simon. Then he told Kiam who the snake in his den was.
Kiam was floored. But it all added up. “That deceitful ass bitch,” he grumbled as he turned and walked out of the door.
He was about to go floor her muthafuckin’ ass.
Chapter 37
Confessions
Lissha opened the door with her gun down at her side. Kiam came in and she closed and locked the door behind him. She sat the Nine on the dresser and gave Kiam a hug.
He hugged her back with little affection. Lissha noticed it but chalked it up to the tremendous amount of stress that he was under. She stepped back and looked in his eyes. They were darker than the inside of a tomb.
“You look tired, baby. Let me give you a bath and then I want you to get some rest,” she said tenderly.
“A'ight, but let's take the bath together,” said Kiam.
“Umm.” Lissha smiled in anticipation of some much needed stress relief.
As she darted off to the bathroom Kiam quickly searched the room for police bugs. “Where's Treebie and Bay?” he called to her as he lifted the lamp and ran his hand across the bottom.
“They're in a room around the corner,” she answered, testing the temperature of the water with her hand. She adjusted it with more warm water and began removing her clothes as the tub filled.
When Lissha turned around Kiam was standing in the doorway staring at her. She jumped. “Ooh, you scared me.” She giggled.
“Did I?” His face was stone.
Kiam pulled her to him and roughly ran his hands up and down her body, not missing a spot. When he felt under her arms Lissha looked at him with a raised brow. “Baby, why are you acting all weird?” she asked.
His hand shot up and he grabbed her by the throat and slammed her back against the sink. “Bitch, you're five-o!” he gritted and stared at her with pure hate in his eyes.
Lissha couldn't breathe, she tried to pry Kiam's hand from around her throat but his grip was like a vise. She kicked and squirmed as her lungs screamed for oxygen.
“Let me explain,” she gagged.
“Bitch, ain't shit you can tell me.” Kiam punched her in the eye, knocking her unconscious.
Lissha slipped out of his grasp and fell to the floor. Kiam bent down and slapped her awake. Lissha held her hands to her neck and started coughing and crying. “Kiam, just allow me to explain,” she begged. “Please, baby.”
Kiam chuckled and pulled out his knife. As he took it out of the sheath Lissha's eyes bucked out and she began scooting away. Kiam grabbed her by the hair and snatched her up to her feet. “Bitch, you working with your punk ass father to bring me down? You got my li'l nigga killed and your punk ass probably killed Eyez.” He yanked her forward and ran her head into the mirror above the sink.
Blood poured down Lissha's head as she wobbled and fell to the floor on her face. Kiam rolled her onto her back and straddled her body.
“I swear, Kiam, it wasn't me.”
“You're a muthafuckin’ lie,” he spat. “I got that from the horse's mouth.’Big Zo's daughter is working with the feds'. Y'all muthafuckaz tryna trade my freedom for his.” He raised the knife over his head, ready to plunge it in her neck.
“Wait, Kiam!” Lissha screamed. “But I'm not Big Zo's daughter.”
Kiam's arm froze in midair and Lissha blurted out the truth. “Big Zo isn't my father, he was my man.”
Kiam looked down at her with shock.
Tears poured from her eyes and the truth spilled from her lips. By the time she told it all the tub had overran and water flooded the bathroom floor.
Kiam stood up and stared in the mirror. She and Big Zo had played him like a fiddle.
Lissha got up on wobbly legs. She came up behind him and wrapped her arms around his waist. Her head was light from the blood loss but her heart was heavy. “Baby, I love you. I know I fucked up but I tried my best to fix it. I swear to you I didn't kill Eyez and I never met with the feds. You have to believe me,” she pleaded.
Big Zo's daughter is working with the feds. The chief of police had sworn on that.
Kiam didn't know if Lissha was lying about Big Zo not being her father or not but he knew that the bitch had violated. It didn't matter that she had tried to fix it, betrayal was irreversible. It was like ringing a bell—once you rung that muthafucka you couldn't unring it.
Kiam turned around and looked into Lissha's bloody, deceitful mug. She was crying and telling him how much she loved him. When she reached out to hug him Kiam plunged the knife in her stomach and warm blood ran down his wrist. A whooshing sound came from Lissha's mouth as she staggered back with her hands wrapped around the handle of the knife, trying to pull it out.
Kiam watched with no compassion as she sunk to her knees. He walked over and snatched her up. She looked at him with love in the one eye that wasn't swollen shut. Kiam drew his fist back and closed that eye too.
>
Lissha's back smacked the floor as her life began to flash before her in still pictures. So many sins— so many lies.
Kiam picked her limp body up and dragged her over to the tub. “This is the price you pay for disloyalty,” he said as he threw her in the tub and held her head underwater until she stopped kicking.
Breathing heavily Kiam walked back into the sleeping area, grabbed his phone and dialed the number that Wolfman had given him.
“Yeah.” Wolfman's gruff voice came on the line.
“Nigga, y'all assured me it was Big Zo's daughter that is working with the feds. I just killed Lissha—”
Before he finished Wolfman cut him off. “What you do that for? Lissha isn't his daughter, that's his bitch.”
“Well, who the fuck is his daughter?” Kiam snapped.
“I don't know and Simon says his source wasn't able to get her name. But I know who would know and I can take you to her,” said Wolfman.
“I'm on my muthafuckin’ way.” Kiam hung up the phone and cleaned himself up. Then he locked up the room and went to find the final piece to the puzzle.
Chapter 38
The Price Of Deceit
Kiam sat in a rickety chair across from the woman who had just been introduced to him by Wolfman as Tracey. The small, dank efficiency was barren of furniture except the tattered sofa that she sat on, a coffee table, the chairs that Kiam and Wolfman occupied, and an old box-style television that sat in a corner on two milk crates that were stacked one on top of the other.
The lighting in the room was bad and Tracey looked like life was stomping a mud hole in her ass. But the more Kiam studied her face as she talked, the more he saw her resemblance to Lissha. They had the same mouth structure and they probably had the same brown eyes, once upon a time, before Tracey had seen how truly cold life could be.
Lissha and Big Zo's betrayal must have rocked her world, Kiam thought. When he asked about them Tracey's pain came out in a flood of tears and curse words. When she was done spewing Tracey grabbed the bottle of cheap liquor that Wolfman had brought her off of the table. She unscrewed the top, put the bottle to her mouth and turned it up. When she sat it back down on the table it was half empty.
Kiam looked at her and shook his head in disgust. But his distaste was not for Tracey it was for Lissha. He thought back to the time that he had seen them wrestling in the parking lot of a gas station. When he asked Lissha who the woman was, that bitch had lied.
“So Lissha is your daughter?” he reconfirmed.
“Yes, if that's what you want to call a tramp that stole her mother's man,” spat Tracey.
“Does Big Zo have any children?” Wolfman cut in.
Tracey cut her eyes at him. “I'm not answering shit for you. You're not much better than that muthafucka.” She leaned forward, grabbed the wine and finished it off.
Kiam went in his pocket and placed a stack of money in front of her. Tracey's eyes grew big. She looked up from the money on the table into his face, wondering what the fuck she would have to do to get her hands on that wad.
“I have some questions I need answered,” he said, holding her stare. “Whether you can answer it or not the money is yours.”
Tracey grabbed the loot off of the table and clutched it tightly. “What do you want to know?”
Kiam stood up. “Does Big Zo have a daughter?” he asked, looking down at her non-threateningly.
She didn't even have to ponder the question. “Yes,” she said. “He has a wife and a daughter that lived somewhere out of state, the last I knew. That little girl should be about twenty-two or twenty-three years old now.”
Kiam nodded his head but that didn't tell him much.
Beside him Wolfman sat up on the edge of his seat in anticipation of more.
“Do you know the daughter's name?” Kiam delved further.
Tracey shook her head no.
Kiam's shoulders slumped.
“Think hard,” prodded Wolfman.
Tracey shot him an ice dagger. She turned back to Kiam and said, “It's been a long time and I never met that muthafucka's wife and daughter but I know that he loved them.” Resentment of the favor he’d shown them was present in her eyes. “Let me think.”
Kiam began pacing back and forth with his hands shoved down in his pockets. When he passed by Tracey for the third time, she reached out and grabbed his pants leg.
“Wait a minute,” she suddenly said. “That girl's name was uh—uh—B-Bay something or another. Damn my mind is going bad.”
Kiam’s eyebrows creased and his hands got hot. “Bayonna?” Kiam assisted her.
Tracey's eyes lit up. “Yep, that's it,” she said. “Bayonna. That's her name. She's his only child as far as I know.”
Wolfman looked at Kiam. Kiam's eyes were as red as hot coals.
“That dirty, cold-hearted little bitch!” he spat as he turned and headed for the door.
Kiam didn't wait for Wolfman, he hopped in his car and almost stomped the gas pedal straight through the floor. His chest heaved in and out as he bent a few corners and jumped on the interstate with the most vicious type of murder on his mind that he ever contemplated.
Bayonna was the last person that he would've expected to be the betrayer. But now it made sense why she had been able to get away from the gas station that day when JuJu was killed without being arrested. “Punk ass ho,” he belted. “Crossed my li'l nigga out and he really loved her.”
That shit brought hot tears to Kiam's eyes.
He replayed all the events in his mind and now the pieces to the puzzle fit. Big Zo had known Lissha better than anyone; he hadn't trusted her to go all the way with his plot so he had used his daughter as a backup.
Another cold realization hit Kiam in the chest and almost knocked the wind out of him. Isaac had said that before Faydrah had died in his arms she had muttered, “Bay.”
All of this time Kiam had assumed that Faydrah had been trying to say “baby”. But she had been trying to tell them who her killer was, he realized now.
Big Zo had me running around looking for Lissha that day so that I wouldn't be home with Eyez. And as soon I picked JuJu up Bayonna rushed out and murdered my world.
They had devised the most devious plot imaginable, knowing that he would turn the city into a killing field over Eyez' death. The more murders he committed, the more eager the feds would be to bargain with Big Zo.
Kiam was seething. As he got further down the interstate he had to decrease his speed almost to a crawl then to a stop. A seven car pileup up ahead had traffic at a standstill.
Kiam couldn't believe that shit.
“Fuck!” He pounded his hands on the steering wheel in frustration.
The last thing he wanted was for Bayonna's bitch ass to slip away. Fuck that, she was going to pay with her life for what she had done!
**********
Bayonna stood over the sink watching the water run down the drain as she processed everything that had taken place in the last few weeks. JuJu was gone and that truly crushed her heart. She hadn't expected him to make the police kill him.
Before Bayonna agreed to set JuJu and Bones up, she had worked it out with the feds that after everyone was taken down JuJu would be offered a light sentence if he would turn on Kiam, Treebie, and Lissha. She had known that it wouldn't be easy to convince JuJu to flip, but she believed that the little life growing in her womb combined with their love would sway him in the end.
But everything had gone wrong when JuJu refused to surrender and chose to go out the same way he had lived. Bayonna could still see his bullet ridden body sprawled out on the ground in a pool of blood. The mere thought made her shiver.
She shook her head trying to dislodge that awful memory from her mind. But it was etched there forever. A constant reminder of the utter treachery that came from her hands.
Bayonna was so fucked up in the head, she hadn't been in contact with the federal agents since that day. Why did I do that? she asked herself with dee
p regret.
Bayonna knew the answer to her question. She had done it to free Daddy. She had loved JuJu but in her heart she was forever a daddy's girl. In addition, she had done it for her dying mother whose one wish was to have Big Zo hold her in his arms one last time.
Bay ran water over her face and looked at her reflection in the mirror. She hardly recognized the image that she saw. There was dark circles around her eyes and they were redder than her Blood Money contacts. Her face was gaunt and her mouth was turned down at the corners. Nothing was as it was before and not even a miracle could restore it back to normal.
Bayonna jumped when she heard the door to the room open and close. She reached for her gun but realized that she had left it in the outer room. Her heart raced with panic.
She relaxed when she heard Treebie calling her name. “I'm on my way out,” Bay called back. She took a few more minutes to get herself together, then she came out of the bathroom in fake ass bitch mode, something that she was good at by now. “Damn that smells good,” she said, forcing a smile.
“Hell, yeah. I'm about to fuck this up.” Treebie said as she pulled back the lid from her Fettuccine Alfredo and Salmon. Then she handed Bay her order.
Bayonna widened the smile on her face as she uncovered her steak smothered with onions and mushrooms and two big baked potatoes with sour cream and chives. She sat down closed her eyes and prayed for the food to be blessed and that it stayed down.
Treebie had just smoked two blunts and her meal tasted like a slice of heaven. She was smacking and slurping.
Bayonna scrunched up her face. “Well, damn you wasn't lying, you're eating like that shrimp talked about yo mama.”
“He did, this nigga gotta go,” Treebie joked as she popped another one in her mouth.
Bayonna chuckled and shook her head as she cut into her tender meat.
“I can't wait for this to all be over,” Bayonna said, taking a fork full of potatoes into her mouth.
“I know this shit is getting stressful. But hey, it's either be on the run or be stuck in a box.” Treebie stated, continuing to dig in. She had already decided that she was gettin' in the wind in a few days.