The Cartel Deluxe Edition

by Ashley

  * * *

  Zyir sat in front of the thick glass that separated him and his mentor, Carter. He watched as the guard escorted Carter to the seat. Carter wore an orange jumpsuit, and Zyir noticed that being incarcerated hadn’t changed a thing about him. He still had the same confident swagger he possessed the day he went in. He had grown a small beard, but besides that, Carter looked the same.

  Carter sat down and looked across at the young man that he had molded into his likeness. Zyir picked up the phone and placed it to his ear. Before picking up the phone, Carter paused and smirked as he looked at Zyir.

  “Good to see you, my nigga,” Carter said after he finally picked up the phone.

  “Good to see you too, Carter. How you holding up?” Zyir asked with sincerity all in his voice.

  “I’m good. Ready to see that outside, feel me?” Carter said with intensity in his eyes.

  Zyir nodded his head, already knowing what Carter was getting at. “I feel you. I just been waiting for the word, fam,” he replied as his adrenaline began to pump.

  Their former comrade had turned snitch, and was set to testify against Carter in the upcoming trial, which was set to start a week later. The authorities let Zyir go in aspirations of catching the big fish, which was Carter. The judge had let Zyir out on bail, but held Carter after the DA had informed him of Carter’s kingpin status. They saw him as a potential flight risk because of his international drug ties and his unlimited finances, so he was forced to remain behind bars.

  “I want you to start putting everything in motion. We un’ let them have their time to shine. Now it’s my turn,” Carter said, referring to the media and the District Attorney’s Office. They had made it a big deal in the local and national media that they had captured the head of one of the most treacherous drug rings in the south: The Cartel. They had news conferences displaying the drugs recovered from the bust, and acted as if they had Carter’s conviction in the bag, but little did they know.

  Carter was just holding his cards for the right time, and since the trial was approaching, it was his turn to make his move. The only thing linking Carter to the drugs was the testimony of Ace. Ace was once Carter’s right hand man, but folded under pressure and cooperated with the law; wrong move.

  “Everything’s taken care of. Mecca is on it now,” Zyir said as he slightly grinned.

  * * *

  Mecca looked down and watched as his shaft disappeared and reappeared at the expense of Sheila’s head game. He placed his hand on the back of her head as he tried his best to stay hard as she pleased him. He was in no way attracted to the girl that was going down on him, but it was all business, and he had to do what he had to do to get his brother, Carter free. He was back in Flint, Michigan, Carter’s old hometown, and also the hometown of Ace’s snitching ass. Ace was in the custody of the FBI, under the witness protection program, so he had to lure Ace to him, rather than go after a federally protected man.

  “I can’t believe this shit!” Mecca mumbled under his breath as he looked at the rolls that hung out of Sheila’s halter-top. He didn’t mind being with a girl with a little meat on her bones, but Sheila was straight up sloppy. She let herself go after Ace got her pregnant, and a couple months after she got knocked up, Ace left for Miami with Carter and Zyir.

  Mecca had been dealing with Sheila for over a month and played the role of a man who was falling in love, but in actuality, he couldn’t wait until Ace slipped up and contacted her. His time was running out because of the upcoming trial, at which Ace was scheduled to take the stand. Carter was sure to get life on the drug trafficking charges if convicted.

  “I want some of this dick,” Sheila seductively said as she rose up and began to slowly take off her clothes.

  Mecca stood up with his tool in his hand and watched attentively. He wasn’t at all fascinated by her body, but when he saw juices dripping from her pulsating womanhood, he got hard as a missile. His pole grew two inches longer as he stepped out of his pants and slowly stroked himself as she got completely naked. The veins in his rod began to show, and his blood began to flow to his tip. Mecca reached for a condom out of his pants pocket and gave it to her so she could do her trick, which was putting on the rubber without using her hands. He watched and threw his head back and prepared for the ride Sheila was about to take him on. Once Mecca was protected, Sheila straddled him and let him ease into her wetness.

  “You like that, Chris?” Sheila asked as she called Mecca by the wrong name.

  Mecca almost didn’t answer, forgetting that he told her a fake name to conceal his true identity. “Yeah, I like that, ma,” Mecca answered just before he took her left breast into his mouth and palmed both of her big cheeks.

  Sheila rotated her hips in slow circles while moaning loudly and throwing her head back in pleasure. The sounds of skin smacking echoed throughout the small apartment, which must have awakened the baby, because crying erupted from the next room over, interrupting their sexual flow.

  “Ooh shit!” Sheila said as she tried to get as many strokes in as possible before she had to go check on her infant baby boy. “Let me check on my baby,” she said as she stopped moving and hopped off of Mecca, leaving him with a stiff one.

  Mecca watched as she walked away, and stared at the tattoo that was on her lower back that read “Ace.” The thought of Ace made Mecca furious, as he held his rod in his hand.

  Just as Sheila got the baby to stop crying and laid him back into his crib, her house phone rang. Mecca looked at the caller ID while alone in the bedroom, and saw that the call was from a blocked number. He quickly sat up and called to Sheila, “Want me to get your phone?” he asked, knowing that Sheila wasn’t going to allow that.

  Sheila hurried back into the bedroom so that she could pick up the phone. She didn’t want Ace to call and find out that she had another nigga in her house. She knew that the money would stop if he knew her little secret. “I got it!” Sheila replied anxiously as she picked up the phone. “Hello.”

  “Hey, baby,” Ace said on the other line in a low calm voice. He was at a payphone in Wyoming right outside of the motel where he was being held until the upcoming trial. He looked around to make sure that the federal agents didn’t see him at the pay phone. They weren’t supposed to allow him to use the phone at all, but he snuck out while they were asleep to talk to his baby mother. “I miss you,” he added.

  “I miss you too, baby,” Sheila said as she walked out of the room and gave Mecca a signal to be quiet by putting her finger on her full lips. “Where are you at, Ace? I have been worried about you. I haven’t heard from you in months,” she said as she stood in the kitchen with one hand on her hip.

  “I can’t tell you that right now, Sheila. But anyway, how my shorty doing?” he asked in concern as he kept looking over his shoulder to check and see if the coast was clear.

  “He’s fine. He’s in there sleep right now. He misses his daddy though. I have been worried sick about you. I can’t get a phone call or anything, huh?” Sheila asked with obvious irritation in her voice.

  “I’m in some heavy shit right now, but everything is going to be okay in a couple of weeks,” Ace said, thinking about how he would start a new life in Wyoming under the witness protection program. He planned on taking his ’hood rat baby mama and settling down so they could raise their son together. He thought that neither Carter nor Zyir knew about his son, but the streets were talking, and it didn’t take much for Zyir to find out Ace’s little secret. When Zyir found out about the baby, he quickly put Mecca on Sheila.

  “I hope so, because we need you here with us,” Sheila responded as she smiled at the sound of Ace’s voice. She almost forgot that “Chris” was in the back waiting for her to have sex, and she peeked back toward the back of the apartment and saw him opening the refrigerator. She slightly tensed up. She didn’t even hear him creeping up behind her while on the phone. She placed her finger on her lips once again to remind him to remain silent. She looked away from him and
continued to listen closely to Ace.

  “Have you been getting that money I’ve been sending you?” Ace asked.

  “Yeah, I—” Before Sheila could finish her sentence, a loud blast erupted and her brains were all over the kitchen wall. Mecca stood behind her with a smoking gun as he watched her body collapse and the bloody phone fall to the floor.

  “Sheila!” Ace yelled as he jumped at the sound of the blast through the phone. “Sheila! What was that?” he yelled into the phone as his eyes began to shift nervously while he gripping the phone tightly.

  Mecca let off another round in Sheila’s twitching body for good measure, and reached down to pick up the phone. He had been waiting for Ace to call for weeks, and his wish had just been granted. “What’s going on, playboy?” Mecca said with enthusiasm as if he was greeting a friend.

  “Fuck!” Ace scoffed as he took the phone from his ear and put it on his chest. He already recognized Mecca’s voice and his heart rate sped up. He hoped to God that the second gunshot wasn’t for his son. He slowly put the phone back to his ear.

  “Listen real close, okay? Your bitch is already gone to meet her Maker. Now it’s your choice if you want me to send li’l Ace right behind her,” Mecca said as he went to the back, set his gun on the dresser and picked up Ace’s baby boy. “Hey, li’l man!” Mecca said in a playful voice while still holding the cordless phone to his own ear so Ace could hear him clearly.

  Ace sat and listened to the giggles of his own son, and regretted not taking his own flesh and blood out of harm’s way. “Don’t touch my mu’fuckin son!” he seethed in between his clenched teeth.

  “Whoa, whoa! Hold up! You are not in the position to be barking orders, homeboy. You listen to me, and I’ma tell you what you are going to do,” Mecca commanded as he held li’l Ace in his arm and rocked him gently. “You aren’t going to testify against my man. You are going to get up there on that stand and catch amnesia, feel me?”

  “Yeah, I hear you. Just leave my kid out of it, man,” Ace said in a pleading tone.

  “Should of thought about that before you got to singing like a mu’fuckin’ bitch. Snitch-ass nigga!” Mecca yelled, getting upset just at the thought of Ace being a rat.

  Ace remained silent, knowing that he couldn’t possibly snitch on Carter and The Cartel anymore. Too much was on the line. He would rather face federal charges himself than leave his newborn son at the mercy of a nigga like Mecca.

  “If Carter gets convicted, say good-bye to your son. It’s all on you,” Mecca threatened just before he hung up the phone and dropped it. He held Ace’s baby up and blew on his stomach playfully, making li’l Ace laugh and squirm. Mecca smiled and hoped that he wouldn’t have to send the baby to the same place he had just sent Sheila. He didn’t want to be a killer, but snake niggas like Ace left him no choice. He stared down at the baby in his arms and whispered, “It’s all up to your daddy, li’l man. It’s all up to your snitching-ass pops.”

  Chapter One

  Miamor

  I’m trapped . . . stuck in between my past and my future, and I don’t know which one to choose or which way to go. I remember everything that happened to me. It’s so vivid in my mind. I can still feel my heart beat rapidly for the love I have for Carter, and at the same time I can feel my temperature rise at the thought of his brother, Mecca. I remember Mecca fucking me up. I can still feel the whip of his chain as it ripped through the flesh on my legs. I can still hear the menacing sound of his voice. How in the fuck he caught me slipping, I don’t know, but I can’t let him beat me. He can’t win, but there’s nothing I can do when I can’t even open my eyes. No matter how hard I try, I can’t seem to wake up. I can’t speak, I can’t move, I can’t do anything, and everything around me is black. I know how I got here, but how the fuck do I get out? For the first time in a long time I’m afraid.

  I wish I had my girls with me, because with them, nothing is impossible. With them, we run through niggas like Mecca, collect our paper, and keep it pushing to the next job. But our difference of opinion on The Cartel broke us apart. I did what I thought I would never do. I chose a nigga, Carter, over The Murder Mamas.

  I can see the light that so many people talk about before dying, but in my case, it is more like a fire that is waiting to consume me. I’m standing between the gates of hell and my childhood, but they are equal to one another. Either way I go, the pain will be too much for me to handle. My past is something that I don’t want to remember. I forgot about it for a reason. I gave myself amnesia so that I wouldn’t have to relive it, and I left it behind a long time ago. I don’t want to have to repeat it, but I don’t want to die either. I have a choice: I can walk into the light right now and let it all end here. I can submit myself to God’s mercy and face my judgment in that light, or I can face my past and figure out how my childhood affected me and made me into the woman, the killer, the bitch that I am today. Those are my options; face death or face life. That’s a hell of a choice, but I guess it’s my destiny. I’m not ready to meet my Maker. I still have too much to do, and there are so many things left in my life unsettled. There are so many debts that I still have to collect on, and so many that I still owe.

  So, I’m going to introduce you to my past. I’m going to let you meet the innocent little girl I used to be before the corruption, the money, the bodies, and the bullshit. Don’t judge me, just rock with my story as I tell it all . . . the ’hood, the bad and the ugly. This is me, Miamor, the life of a Murder Mama.

  Chapter Two

  Miamor 1995

  Sitting in the bottom of my closet, I shook uncontrollably. The stench of piss was strong in the air, and my hands covered my ears trying to block out the screams. I was terrified. My heart beat uncontrollably and I closed my eyes from fear. I wished I could disappear and avoid the tragedy that was my life, but I couldn’t. I relived this nightmare every night.

  As soon as my mother left the house, I knew what would take place: The molestation; the screams; the feelings of helplessness. It always happened at the same time. Like clockwork at 1:00 a.m., he came like a thief in the night. No matter how much we avoided it, no matter how many times we begged our mother not to stay the night away from home, nothing ever saved us. She always said no. The bitch made us stay there with him, and even though we cried and pleaded, her answer was always no. If she did not know what was going on, she should have. The shit was happening under her own roof, so I could never give her the benefit of the doubt. Fuck her too! She invited him into her home and unknowingly into her daughters’ bed. He was always there, with a fucking grin on his face. We were trapped, and our fates were inevitable.

  My sister, Anisa was the victim, and our step-father, Perry was the bastard who shattered our childhoods. Lollipops and daisies were never a part of our world. All we knew was pain and corruption. It seemed as though abuse and neglect were the only constants in our lives. All we had was each other, and whenever he snatched Anisa from her bed, I always felt her pain.

  “Please stop . . . please, it hurts!” Anisa screamed.

  Tears stained my cheeks. I could hear my sister crying, but I couldn’t do anything. I wished that we could switch places; that was how much I loved her. I knew the pain that she went through, and would take it all for her if I could, but I couldn’t. He never chose me. It was always her. She was fourteen, and budding into womanhood early, while I was only twelve and still composed of all elbows and knees. There wasn’t a curve to my body, so he ignored me mostly, but he violated Anisa, which meant he violated me.

  I could hear the bed creaking from the other room, the headboard banging against the wall as a constant reminder of the atrocity that was happening behind closed doors. We wanted to tell someone, but who would believe us? Perry was smart. He made sure that he never hit Anisa. He never even left a mark. The sucking he did on her premature breasts was done lightly as to not leave any sign of trespass. We were scared, always walking around on eggshells and feeling like strangers in our own house.r />
  The knocking of the headboard against the wall stopped, and I knew that it was finally over.

  I waited in the bottom of the closet just as Anisa instructed me to. She always told me to hide and not come out until she came for me. The closet door creaked open and there stood my big sister. Her hair was wild and her eyes were red from crying. I took her hand and led her into the hallway bathroom. I was used to this routine. She never liked to talk afterwards, and she never looked me in the eye. I knew she was ashamed, but what she didn’t know was that I was ashamed too, because I just sat there and let it happen to her. I locked the bathroom door and ran a tub full of steaming bathwater. Anisa got right in, ignoring the sting of hot water against her bare skin. She hugged her legs to her chest, and I rubbed her hair gently while we both cried silently as she scrubbed her sins away.

  The next day when I awoke, Anisa was already out of her bed. I knew our mother was home because I could hear the sounds of Teena Marie blaring throughout the house. Walking into the bathroom, I saw Anisa leaned over the toilet, gasping for air. “What’s wrong, Nis?” I asked.

  “Nothing, Miamor. Get out . . . go and get ready for school,” she said. She barely got the words out before she was throwing up again.

  “I’m going to get Mama,” I said. I had never been one of those tattle-telling little kids, but I didn’t know what else to do. I could tell from the way Anisa was sprawled all over the toilet that she needed more help than I could offer.

  “No!” she yelled, grabbing my arm to stop me from leaving the bathroom. She wiped her mouth with the back of her sleeve and began to cry.

  “Anisa, what’s wrong?” I asked.

  Anisa couldn’t stop crying. The deep sob that escaped her lips was a cry that was too mature for such a young girl. The cry signified what she had endured and the things her young eyes had seen before their time. She lifted up her shirt, and I noticed a slight bulge in her belly. It wasn’t big at all, but my sister was naturally skinny. Her stomach had always been pancake flat, so the bump seemed out of place on her. I wondered how I could’ve missed it. I had seen Anisa naked plenty of times, and I had even noticed that she had gained a little bit of weight, but the thought of pregnancy never ever crossed my young mind. I was naïve and green to the game. For months, Perry had been raping my sister, and neither of us ever thought of the possibility of a baby.