Bonded by Blood

by Cash

  Khalil was peeved with B-Man, and it was clear that he couldn’t count on him to ride once he and Q found out who had violated. It wasn’t a question of whether or not the shit would be avenged. Whoever had touched Rapheal, Khalil figured, had to know that he was fam. If the streets was tryin’ Rapheal, they were tryin’ them, too!

  Q was feelin’ Khalil on that, but he wasn’t letting B-Man’s callous disregard for their pops condition stress him. Rapheal had made his bed, if B-Man refused to soften it, well, a hard bed is what their pop had to sleep on. Q knew firsthand how coldhearted B-Man could be. If you wasn’t paying B-Man, you couldn’t count on him for shit. One good thing had come out of it though. As far as Q was concerned, Persia had come back home.

  The night Rapheal got shot, Q called Persia and informed her of his pops condition.

  “I need you by my side now, shawdy,” he said.

  In a rare moment of concern for what anyone, other than herself was going through, Persia sat aside her anger over Q’s infidelities and drove to the hospital to be with him while he worried over his pops condition. At the hospital he hugged her as if he never planned to let her go again.

  “I need my baby back,” he’d said, kissing her face.

  Persia was ready to come back for sure, but she had to let Q’s side bitch know her place!

  Q was crashed out in Corlette’s bed; he had been up for a couple days straight, without sleep, worrying about Rapheal, and stressing over what had went down with Persia at the hospital. Plus, he had taken one of the strong sleeping pills he now kept with him 24/7. The sleeping pills had been suggested to throw off the polygraph test whenever Fazio summoned him out to his crib to be tested.

  Q had told Khalil about the shit that had gone down at Fazio’s estate, and that Jimmy, Fazio’s nephew, had told him that one day soon they all would be polygraphed. It occurred to Khalil that if anyone would know how to outfox a polygraph exam, it would be that lawyer bitch, in MIA that Cha Cha tricked with. Cha Cha made the call to Eva Padevoni and posed the problem to her.

  “Well, strong sleeping pills will slow your system down. Your heart rate, blood pressure, all of that—which can screw the test results up some,” the attorney explained.

  Cha Cha passed the scheme to Khalil and he put his brother on point.

  Q knew a pharmacist, who hooked him up with the proper pills in exchange for a little cocaine. Now Q kept the prescription pills with him at all times. When that fateful day arrived for him to be polygraphed, he would take a triple dosage of the sleeping pills and hope like hell the scheme deceived the tester.

  Today, he had taken a pill just to put himself to sleep for a minute. He was sleeping hard, and dreaming good, when he was awakened by a loud banging on Corlette’s door. He jumped up, groggy, but definitely awake. Can’t be no jack boys them stick up kids don’t knock. Sound like po-po! Shit!

  “Corlette, who da fuck bangin’ on your door like dat?”

  “I don’t know,” she replied, frowning as she got up out of bed and stomped to the door.

  “Who is it?” she asked with mad attitude.

  “Tell Quantavious I said to bring his ass out here . . . right now!”

  Corlette couldn’t believe her eyes when she snatched open the front door to confront the crazy bitch who was banging on her goddamn door.

  Persia stood in the doorway, arms folded across her chest like she planned to stay rooted in that very spot until her man brought his ass outside. Corlette started to slam the door in the disrespectful bitch’s face, but she knew that would lead to a scene, exactly what Persia wanted. Corlette wasn’t going to give her the pleasure.

  “Who da fuck is that?” Q asked when Corlette returned to the bedroom.

  “That’s your wifey, or whatever you wanna call her,” replied Corlette even-toned. “You better go handle your business before she creates a scene and some fool calls the police.”

  Q quietly stepped into the Iceberg jeans he’d thrown across the bedroom dresser before crashing out. Then he pulled a baggy jersey over the wifebeater he was wearing, and stepped into the crisp new LeBron’s at the foot of the bed. He wasn’t about to go to the door half dressed and give Persia more ammunition.

  “You asking me to come back home to your ass and you over here laid up at your bitch house?” Persia ranted as soon as Q stepped out onto the porch.

  “I was visiting my daughter.”

  “Nigga, please! Do I look like Suzy the Fool?”

  What could Q say to that?

  “Who you want, Q? Me or your bitch?”

  “Why you gotta call her a bitch, baby?”

  “I call it like I see it! What, you defending her honor or something?”

  “I’m just saying, Persia.”

  “No, I’m just saying, Quantavious! Who you want, me or your rat BITCH?”

  “Girl, you know I want you,” Q whispered.

  “Well, let’s go tell your bitch that.”

  “We ain’t even gotta do it like dat. Believe me, shawdy already know what time it is,” Q tried, not wanting to be forced to clown Corlette. But Persia insisted.

  Q started to get in his whip and drive off; Persia could follow in her car if she wanted, or she could stay there and have it out with Corlette since she was so intent on starting drama. Just as Q was about to follow his mind, Miss Jean pulled up. If Q left now and Persia confronted Corlette, she was sure to get her ass whipped. Miss Jean, alone, would probably get on that ass.

  “Good morning, Quantavious,” Miss Jean spoke, eyeing Persia with instinctive dislike. Dressed in tight capris and a t-shirt Miss Jean pushed on into the crib.

  “Let’s go home, boo,” Q reached for his Persia’s hand.

  “I wish I would nigga! Get your hands off of me,” Persia snatched away from him.

  “Damn, baby, why you gotta be so difficult? Ain’t it obvious who I love? Who pushin’ a tricked out SUV? You! Who I rest at the condo with? Who I shed tears over, huh? You, girl! Now, damn, why you don’t know who it is that I want?”

  “Never mind all that,” Persia snaked her neck. “I wanna hear you say it to your bitch, point blank, period, nigga.”

  Reluctantly, Q led Persia to Corlette’s bedroom. Corlette lifted her face up off the pillow when she heard them enter her bedroom. Tears streaked her face but Persia had no sympathy.

  “I’m going to need you to tell your rat bitch what time it is!” she demanded of Q who didn’t want to diss Corlette. But neither did he want to lose Persia again.

  Swallowing hard before speaking and feeling a little punked, Q said to Corlette, “Shawdy, you know Persia is wifey. I told you that from the jump.”

  “Tell her you’re done fuckin’ with her! And you better mean it!” hissed Persia at his elbow.

  After Q said those words, Corlette held in tears and simply replied, “It’s all good. I would appreciate it if y’all would leave now.”

  When Q and Perisa left, Corlette laid across her bed and cried her eyes out, holding baby Alize in her arms. She knew Q’s wifey came before her, but it hurt like hell for her baby’s daddy to do it like that.

  Khalil drove through the spot where Elisse had told him she and Rapheal had picked Sophie up from. He called the first smoker he spotted over to his whip. “You know Sophie?” he asked with a twenty-dollar bill in hand.

  “I might,” the crackhead replied, sensing a bigger bribe if he held out for a minute or two.

  “Check this, old school,” Khalil said. “I ain’t got time to play games. Go inside and get Sophie and I’ll bless you with fifty.”

  “What if she ain’t inside?”

  “Tell me where I can find her.”

  “She ain’t inside, but I’ll tell you something I bet you’re interested in.”

  Khalil handed over two tens, which the crackhead clutched in his palm in a death grip.

  Then he promptly sold Sophie out.

  “Man, that ho ain’t around no more. I heard she done hit a lick for a whole lotta mo
ney—thousands! And dope, too! She ain’t rob you, did she? Oh well, I don’t owe that bitch nothin’. She ain’t sharing her riches wit’ me!”

  Across town B-Man had been smoking his back out. For a couple days he and Gwen had been doing the Bobby and Whitney like crack was going out of style. But today he’d only smoked a ball. He hadn’t intended to get high today, but Gwen kept on pressing him. I’ma have to cut this junkie bitch loose or I’ma end up a goddamn Junkie, he told himself now. I gotta get back on point.

  B-Man knew he was slippin’, and not just by smoking crack. The recklessness he’d shown with his chips had him desperate and doing dope-fiend shit, just to keep up the appearance that he was handling his business. Of the ten bricks Q promised him, B-Man had fucked up the money off of four of ‘em. Two other bricks had been flipped to cop the Chevy drop he had parked out front. Some niggas Bed-Stuy had vouched for had got ghost with another two bricks B-Man had fronted them. I know Bed-Stuy was down wit’ dat shit, he’d said to himself. I’ma check dat when the time is right.

  That was eight of the ten bricks. The last two, Q hadn’t given him, yet. That, in itself, had B-Man pissed the fuck off. Had his money funny! So, like the jackboy he was, B-Man picked up the steel and got his pockets right. Just the night before he and Bed-Stuy had jacked Shawn, the weed man. It was their second lick in the past week, and B-Man had fifty racks to show for it.

  Three nights later he and Bed-Stuy was up in the strip club partying like rap stars. Teaser’s was packed. VIP was off the chain. B-Man was making it rain in VIP, tossing bills up, letting the money shower down on the strippers who were entertaining him and his man.

  Two strippers were poppin’ pussy two inches from B-Man and his man’s faces. The deejay was playing Jeezy’s whole CD Let’s Get It. The whole VIP room got crunk when “Soul Survivor”, the fourteenth track from the CD started thumping through the club’s speakers. Sinnamon walked past in a g-string, pasties and stilettos.

  “Dayum! Look at the fleas on Fluffy!” he remarked.

  B-Man was mesmerized. He wanted to hit that. He saw her dancing for another nigga in VIP. As he watched Sinnamon slow grind her hips he recalled how she rode Khalil’s dick in the limo. When the record ended he intercepted her as she strutted across the VIP room.

  “What it do, Sinn?”

  “Hey, B-Man. You ballin’ ain’t you?”

  “You know how I do it.”

  “Live it up,” encouraged Sinnamon, ‘bout to push on and get after them dollars other niggaz had in their pockets.

  “Hold up, baby girl,” B-Man stopped her. “Come over to my booth and serve a nigga a little love.”

  “We’re kinda fam, baby boy, but you gotta be spending for me to serve you—you know how it goes.”

  “I gotcha.”

  Sinnamon hit B-Man off with a lap dance that had his shit boned up like a muthafucka.

  “Say, lil’ mama, what it gon’ take for us to cut something.”

  With no hesitation Sinnamon asked, “How you tryna do it? We can go out to your car, if you got tinted windows. That won’t cost you but this much.”

  She held up three fingers.

  “Three hundred?” B-Man clarified.

  “That’s all, baby boy.”

  “Let’s do it.”

  “What you riding in, and where are you parked?”

  B-Man told her.

  “Give me fifteen minutes, I’ll meet you outside by your whip.”

  Down in the dressing room, pulling on her street clothes, Sinnamon called her man on his cell phone to tell him how it was going down. She wanted to make sure Khalil didn’t have a problem with her tricking with his fam.

  “Hell, no, I ain’t trippin’ it,” Khalil reassured her. “My brother’s money spends, too. Get that money, baby.”

  “Okay, daddy. I was just making sure.”

  “How it poppin’ tonight?” Khalil inquired.

  “Stacks on deck, daddy,” she replied.

  B-Man went outside in the parking lot. He sat on the hood of his whip, zoning. Besides the crack he had smoked today, he had smoked a coupla woos, then before heading to the club he had popped an X pill and a Viagra. Add to that, he was on that bubbly and that Hypnotiq. With the mix of all that, it’s a wonder the boy was as lucid as he was. Though that wasn’t saying much, ‘cause he was high as a giraffe’s pussy.

  B-Man was anticipating the feel of Sinnamon’s wet walls. There was something about fucking his brothers’ bitches that stroked B-Man’s fragile ego, even if he did have to pay for the pussy. He couldn’t wait to stick that cobra head up Sinnamon.

  Instead of reveling in the anticipation of running up in Khalil’s ho, reminiscing about cutting Q’s wifey, B-Man should’ve been paying attention to the shit going on around him—the niggas inside the club, and their movements.

  Inside the club, a couple of nemesis had been paying much attention to the shit going on around them. They had peeped B-Man in VIP making it rain, poppin’ bottles, stuntin’ hard.

  Outside they spotted B-Man chillin’ on the hood of his whip. It didn’t look like he was about to mash out. A little while later, from inside their whip, they spotted one of the strippers get into the car with B-Man. The driver crunk up his engine, planning to follow B-Man. Fifteen minutes passed and B-Man’s car had not moved.

  “Drive by that nigga’s shit, shawdy. Let’s see what the business is,” instructed his accomplice.

  They drove pass B-Man’s whip, but could not see through the limo tint. They noticed B-Man’s Chevy slightly bouncing up and down.

  “I think they off in that bitch cuttin’ something, shawdy,”one said to the other. “Drive around the lot, let me see where Security at.”

  “Hurry up, baby,” cooed Sinnamon.

  “Turn over, let me hit it from the back,” said B-Man.

  “Un-uh,” she refused. Tricks got it straight missionary style, fuck doing acrobatics for three-hundred dollars. She was a pro, not some part-time ho tricking just to add a little spice to her life. If she was going to do acrobatics, the nigga needed to spend a stack or more, anything else would be disrespecting the game.

  B-Man was on that X and shit, so his staying power was incredible tonight. He was gettin his money worth. He was tryna break the elastic up in that pussy, when the front door of his Chevy snatched open.

  “Nigga, you know what it is! Let me see ya hands!” barked the burner-toting intruder.

  “Bitch, don’t move or say a word or I’ma slump ya ass!” Sinnamon was threatened.

  B-Man, with his naked ass in the air, recognized the twins right away.

  “Y’all doing it like dat, my niggas?”

  “Shut da fuck up, pussy nigga fo’ I split ya wig!”

  They robbed B-Man of his money and jewels, and the burner he had stashed under the front seat. Sinnamon got jacked for three hundred dollars B-Man had paid her and a few pieces of jewelry she’d been wearing. The robbers also took B-Man’s and Sinnamon’s clothes, leaving them butt ass naked so they couldn’t hop out the car and run to security for help.

  B-Man quickly used his cell phone to call Bed-Stuy, who was still partying inside the strip club, and told him to come out to the car. His next call was to Khalil.

  “Fam, those bitch niggas DeShawn and DeWayne just jacked me and one of ya girls!” B-Man uttered excitedly as soon as Khalil answered.

  “Yo, calm the fuck down and tell me what happened.” Khalil was already heated and B-Man hadn’t yet given him any details. He got even hotter once his brother told him how the robbery had gone down.

  “Is Sin okay?” he asked.

  “Yeah, she good,” B-Man informed him.

  “Aight. Just chalk it up for tonight, we’ll get at the twins in due time. Right now I’m with Q; we’re going to visit Rapheal. I’ma hit you back.”

  Khalil hung up and told Q what had happened.

  “Them niggas must think this shit is a game,” Khalil said to Q as they rode in Q’s whip, on their way to
Georgia Baptist to visit their pops.

  Q was laughing as he imagined B-Man getting jacked and left butt-naked, trying to run up on some pussy.

  “And he say I got a tender head on my dick!” Q quipped.

  “That shit ain’t funny,” Khalil said, laughing nevertheless. “They robbed my ho, too. They gots to pay for that.”

  “What B-Man doing trickin’ with Sinnamon, anyway? That nigga be on some other shit,” Q remarked as he pulled into the hospital’s parking lot.

  Rapheal, who had suffered a punctured lung and damage to his stomach in the shooting, had been moved from ICU to a private room. As soon as he was off the ventilator the cops had questioned him about the incident, including the identities of his assailants. Rapheal wasn’t brand new nor was he some model citizen wanting to cooperate with the police. He threw the two detectives who questioned him, curve ball after curve ball. To their question, “Do you have any idea who shot you?” Rapheal had answered, “Not the slightest.”

  That was a lie.

  “What it do, pops?” asked Khalil.

  “Caught a hot one,” Rapheal made light of the incident, though inside he was seriously asking himself if it was possible that the person he suspected of shooting and robbing him could indeed be the culprit. If so, shit was more serious than the slug he took.

  “What don’t kill you can only make you stronger,” Q added.

  Sophie could’ve set up the robbery,” Khalil said with anger etched on his face.

  “No, she ain’t have nothing to do with it,” Rapheal said with certainty.

  “We gonna check it out anyway,” Q said.

  “You’ll just be wasting your time.”

  Unbeknownst to them, he had a damn good reason why he didn’t suspect Sophie.

  “When you gettin’ up outta here?” asked Q.

  “Doc says it’ll be a week to ten days.”

  “I already told Elisse to look for y’all a new spot to lay y’all heads,” Khalil said. “Me and Q gon’ handle the finances, don’t worry about that.”

  “And don’t worry ‘bout paying me for that last bird I dropped in ya lap, pops. Just build ya strength back up. I’ma fuck wit you again,” Q promised.