Loving a Colombian Cartel Thug 2 (Loving a Columbian Cartel Thug)

by K'Aliyah Knight

  Two bony prostitutes laughed as they sat in the bed, in their birthday suits, hair snatches and all.

  “I will kill you stupid bitches!” Santiago screamed, walking back into the room.

  Stepping inside, I handed them their clothes and tell them to step off because my brother will make good on his word. Laughing at him was a death sentence. If I had drawn my weapon on him in front of our crew, he would want to kill me too.

  Blood or not.

  My little brother didn’t have shit on me. He was a jealous muthafucka. But above all, he was a scary muthafucka, so how could he kill me in front of two bitches? Maybe in front of our goons he’d have some kinda way to get help…

  “Papa wants us to meet with the crew around noon, Santi. You want to get some coffee?” I glared at his pimply, young face, knowing he could never be a leader.

  Santiago turned up the boom box and starts to undress. I rolled my eyes and look away from his brown ass. Sweet baby Jesus; why did Santi not have any respect for the female race?

  ~

  When we got to the warehouse our people are out front, even though Papa has given Santi the lead, I spoke with our connect, and learned about the deal. The Mexicans had a vice grip on Los Angeles. Yet, the right price would cut them out. Something didn't smell right. I walked toward Santiago, and he was showboating his new gold plated guns. I rolled my eyes. Hustling is in my blood, not bitch ass modeling like he does.

  The blare of a ship on the Pacific coast pounded at my eardrums. The salty wind began to shift as the gang we’re supposed to meet pulled into the lot driving a little too slow for my taste.

  “Santi!” I screamed as guns went off. Seagulls squawked away. My gat was out of my utility belt in seconds as my boots pounded the pavement. Running toward my little brother, I shot at the tires of the cars. One of the Oldsmobile’s tires popped. It flipped over. The car rolled so quickly that it took out one of our people. Leaving a crunching thump sound and a swipe of blood in its wake. I shot at another one. These fucking idiots weren't even ready! They finally pulled out their guns. My brother’s second in rank fell, with a bullet to the leg. Santi finally ducked behind a multi-colored gray Mitsubishi van and I pulled out my other gun, shooting at the Mexicans who moved like roaches out of their cars.

  THUMP! My slug blasted into one’s chest. Another in the leg. Shit, they weren't even tryna retreat since I was the only one holding us down.

  Santiago's head popped up and his bullets sprayed everywhere and nowhere. This fool had his guns modified to let off multiple rounds at once. All air.

  BACA! BACA! Shit, maybe I even felt the gust of a bullet graze past me. We were finna have a boatload of Colombian bodies shipped home if Santi kept at it.

  “I’m out!” Santi finally plopped back down onto the ground, behind a gun-riddled Cutlass. I fell to the ground next to him. With a heavy sigh, I handed him one of my last two clips and kissed my brother on the forehead, knowing this dude wasn’t gon’ do shit but waste the bullets. But he’s fam. My only thought, I haven't even blessed mi Madre with grandchildren. ‘God, at least let me go out like a G.’ Getting jagged tiny rocks embedded into my palms; I quickly got up and started shooting again. The Mexicans duck down, knowing they had at least one contender. I busted one in his side. His gun fell. Another in the chest as Santi’s friend came over to help.

  “I'm out,” he said.

  “Me too,” Santi replied.

  Again? Ya think? “Fuck it. Me too.” I shrugged.

  One really bold Mexican came around the Cutlass and my knife periled his left eye, blood gushes around as he falls to his knees, shrieking–

  Let’s rewind.

  The man bowing before me, bleeding to death just had his gun trained on my brah. That very moment, Santiago Luis Medina Mendoza should have died. Why didn't I react after my brother was shot?

  ~~~

  Now I’m forty-three, wondering why I always go back to that very moment. That was the closest Santi ever came to death, helped by his loving, big sister. Stupid ass, me.

  When I see the plane descending into the clouds, through the tiny window, my heart gets heavy. Something ain’t right. We ain’t in Colombia, and my son woulda told me if there was going to be any extra stops. So, I pull out my phone and quickly dial Lorenzo. No answer.

  My mind is already on a plan of action as I step out the tiny bathroom. The pilot just fucking set us up. That’s the only possibility.

  “Mama Rita you ain't looking too good,” Rockwell speaks. I notice her frown, but I’m already stepping toward my seat, for my purse.

  Rocky continues to talk, but I’m not listening, “Rita, lemme get you some water. Or should we see if the pilot has any pills for flying–”

  “Nah.” I slip my knife into my utility belt and start pulling out my guns. “Lakitha, Toi! Take your sister and Lorenzo Junior to the bathroom and lock yourself in.”

  “That tiny bathroom? Moms!” Toi smacks her lips.

  Lakitha, my intelligent child, every knowing, is already scooping up Junior. Then she stirs chubby Lorenza awake.

  “Callate–! Shut up!” I scream. I need them all to listen. We don’t have much time before this plane lands and we cross paths with whoever made this request.

  Chapter 4

  BLU.

  Sixty-two days I’ve been dreaming that maybe this shit ain’t true. Maybe I am a good mama, and I’m at home with my four-year-old son, Phillip. I got the best husband in the world, at age twenty-three; I’m living the life with my husband, Popeye. Maybe I didn’t get strung out on drugs after giving birth to Phillip. Maybe I didn’t run away from home and not see Phillip grow.

  Funny thing is, in my mind, I could think it’s true. Because it doesn’t make sense that, after being gone for three years lost to the streets and lost to the drugs, I would finally come home. I had signed into a twenty-hour rehabilitation at the insistence of my family and Rocky, just to fuck it up. I had said if I wouldn’t make it out of rehab, then I might as well OD. But I didn’t make it out of rehab; I was fucking kidnapped by some psychotic ass Jamaicans. So now I'm daydreaming, having hallucinations of being home and a good mom… Well, it all means nothing, because for sixty-two days Keandre keeps me stuck in this nasty hotel room, with bold ass cockroaches and water spots on the ceiling. Keandre was supposed to sell me to Rockwell’s mother-in-law, Tamms, but nah. That nigga is content with me as his sex slave.

  Tamms has offered to take me off his hands so many times. Offered buku money, but Keandre still won’t accept. He’s obsessed with me.

  I'm posted in the bed with my wrists handcuffed to the headboard when the keycard slips into the door. So, I prepare my mind to go back to when my Phillip was…maybe two years old. Instead of me being MIA, I’m making homemade empanadas. Yeah, that’s a good look.

  But nope, Keandre doesn’t step inside. It's another one with dreads worming their way out of an Afro. He’s even uglier, and smells grimier than Keandre.

  Soon as he speaks, I know just who he is. Every once in a while, Keandre reminds me that he'd send me over to Tamms if I don’t suck the dick correctly. He calls this dude, and they chat on speakerphone. Uh…his name is Patrol. Sometimes Patrol even calls just to make sure Keandre is on top of his game. Patrol wanted to give me to the highest bidder while Keandre seemed bent on keeping me. The chatting that they’ve done in the past lets me know that Keandre is leader of whatever Jamaican mob or gang they got going.

  “You wan’ be Keandre's bitch? Only him gets ya fun-fun?” Patrol asks with black eyes, the whites of them are yellower than his teeth.

  “No.” I shake my head. The stench of his cigarette and beer breath would make me sober, even if I had just slammed some bomb ass heroin.

  “You only wan’ be Keandre's?”

  “No, Patrol. I don’t.” Because I’m in the worst situation ever–mind you having become as humble as pie, I ask, “Can you let me go?”

  “Nah, gyal.” Patrol starts unbuckling his pants. �
�We gon’ see what fun you is real quick ah lick than we gon’ get you to Tamms. Fuck Keandre, he doesn’t want to make no money. But I do.”

  Patrol’s dusty jeans drop to his ashy ankles. Patrol pulls down his baggy boxers. His manhood smells awful. I gag as his five-inch dick nears.

  Before he can snatch down my jeans, I hear this POP in my ears. Patrol is punched in the back of the head. My eyes widen to see Keandre shaking his bloody knuckles. “Patrol, don't fucking touch my gyal!”

  Patrol does a one-two step; this nigga is phased as he takes a hand to rub his head. He looks at his bloody fingertips, “Nah me brah. You gon’ clock me over ya bitch?”

  “Yeah mon!” Keandre throws a haymaker to Patrol’s nose, and his body goes limp as he falls back.

  “Aye gyal, you don’t let nobody but me touch yah!” Keandre screams, as if somehow he could believe that I would even want someone much nastier than him.

  “No,” I shake my shackles. He hates when I say something smart, so hopefully he understands this.

  “So, you miss me gyal?” He comes and rubs the hair from my face, and then tongues me down. My tongue twists and twirls with his thick, hot one, since I’m too afraid to be hit again.

  “You love me?”

  Silence…

  “Me little gyal, I said you love me? Blu, you love me?” Keandre asks while digging his fingers into my cheeks.

  “Yeah.”

  “That is good.” He pulls down my jeans and climbs on top of me. “Come on, Blu. Lemme get some of ya good-good.” His dick slips inside of me and he begins to grunt and work his hips. Before I can go into a happy place, Keandre falls on top of me, with dead weight and a knife in his side. Patrol pushes him on the floor, and kicks him.

  Patrol smiles at me. “Now we gon’ enjoy each other and then you meet Tamms. No mo’ games, gyal.”

  Chapter 5

  POPEYE

  If I stop searching for Blu, then my world ends. If I even pause, I feel like I’m fucking dying. You know that fucking Lil Wayne song… feel like dying… She was supposed to be my girl back in junior high. Hated on me because bitches was all over me. A chick like Blu, well, she was so used to Lorenzo busting on niggas for looking at her that she didn’t look no way. But she never gave a nigga a chance 'til we were 18 years old. Shit, I had to damn near slap her with the dick, just to make her look my way. Not like that. Blu was far from a hoe. She was just on a get-money tip, tryna work for her brother Lorenzo when the nigga didn’t want to be bothered.

  I was Lorenzo’s right hand in Illinois.

  I was her way in.

  And Blu was my muthafuckin’ dream girl.

  Been off my grind for so long; thought that getting married and having my son would be it. I'm a calm nigga. Not a bitch, but I prefer shit be simple. Didn't need no hustle, all I ever needed was a caramel chick with long, Latin hair and a fucking mouthpiece. True, I loved when Blu talked shit all the way from jump. That crazy ass broad with those lips, man I loved her. Then she does the very thing she knows I don't like.

  Life was good till my lil’ nigga Phillip was born. Same day he came into the world, I almost got took the fuck out. Some dudes did a drive by. Never knew who they were. That shit left me on one. For the first time, Blu got to see me as a bad nigga, the type of dude she been running after. When she was always just used to seeing me laid back, cool and level-headed. Money first, right?

  Phillip was a sick baby. I was in so much fucking pain that I wasn’t a good husband. Blu had postpartum depression. She ended up getting strung out on drugs. And then it was me and my lil’ nigga for almost four years. Now I know I shouldn’t… the bitch has turned into my own moms with that fucking heroin shit. Just like I loved moms… but I love Blu.

  Yet, it’s too late for my moms. Is it too late for my Blu?

  ~~~

  “Popeye, man, where you going?” My cousin Jaylen asks as she sits on the edge of her couch cornrowing her daughter’s hair.

  “Out.” I pull into my hoodie and rub the back of my neck. My cousin always got something to say. Some type of words of advice. If I could go home, live in the house that my granny owned, and I grew up in. I would. But I can’t live in that house. Don’t even claim it no more. My granny’s home is boarded up and the weeds are growing. That shit hurts every time I pass by and decide not to go in and clean it up. But it was either that or follow the Medina’s to Florida.

  “Man, go get some rest before work.” She shakes her head at me as I start for the door. “What you’re doing ain’t finna get ya granny back, you may never find…” Jaylen pauses. She supposed to be the hopeful one. Have faith. Pray.

  But every day I wake up, make sure my little dude is taken care of with his schooling and shit. Work as a basketball coach at the local after school program, and listen to the streets. Oh, I forgot; since I almost died, I had stopped working for Lorenzo. So, a nigga pretty much keeps to himself. Check in with Lorenzo’s cousins, Chuey and them every once in a while to see if they hear anything about the Jamaicans.

  Those muthafucka’s murked my granny and stole my woman, all because I got caught slipping. I was tryna be a family man.

  Won’t rest, won’t sleep. I’ma find my wife and bring her home.

  ~~~

  Redbull and M&M’s. I crunched on those all last night while thinking about these Jamaican dudes in the area. Somebody been spitting out the name Patrol all over the fucking place. From Chi-Town all the way to Hoover, saying that he’s tryna make a come up. Sound like a grimy ass nigga finna fuck over the hand that feeds him.

  When chatting up with people around town, they don’t know the name Keandre or too afraid to say so. I was busting on this one dude in the projects; thought for sho’ he knew something. Beat the shit out of him in front of his own kids. Emotions turnt the fuck off. Now my eyes are heavy as fuck, and I haven’t slept in 24 hours.

  It’s almost 4 pm when I step out my Caprice and walk toward the Jamaican restaurant on Rincon Way. Jerk chicken reminds me that I ain’t eat in a long time. My stomach noises sound like a fucking drive by as I step into the tiny ass restaurant. Don’t realize the few people chowing down and standing in line start to mash out, before I notice my Glock is gripped in my hand. Palm sweaty, I’ve been holding onto the trigger for a while.

  “Bitch nigga, your fucking brains will be splattered on that wall before you bust a muthafuckin’ move!” I shout at the dude at the cash register.

  His beady, black eyes keep shifting, that makes me want to blast off on his ass even more.

  “Wha…what you want?” he starts, tossing crumpled dollars and coins in my direction. Two seconds ago, ol’ boy was ready to run a 20-yard dash, now he’s throwing quarters.

  “Nah, brah, ain’t even here for that. You know a nigga named Keandre?” Why I always start with that dude? Nobody ever knows a fucking Keandre!

  “Nah, man.”

  “You sho’?” My gun is aimed across the greasy counter at his forehead.

  “Swear before God, I don’t know,” ol’ boy says.

  “But you hang out with a nigga name Patrol, right?” My gun is trained on him as he nods.

  “Yeah, brah.”

  “Where is that muthafucka?”

  “You finna shoot me?”

  My gun goes off and a slug thumps straight into his shoulder.

  “Ahhhh, Ahhhh,” the clerk he cries out and then drops to the floor.

  I walk around the counter. The cops ain’t nowhere near coming, so I got time. I kneel down and tip my gun to his chin. “C’mon, bro-bro, give up Patrol. I know that yardie is with Keandre. See, I ain’t stupid. Keandre got you too afraid to even say you know that muthafucka, but Patrol, I’m betting you could give a fuck about him. Tell me about Keandre.”

  “Man… They gon’ murda me,” his Jamaican accent becomes thicker by the second. “You muthafuckin’ blood clot,” he spits saliva, and grimaces at the pain like a bitch. “You don’t even undastand, brah, they finna murk ya, they finna
–”

  “Look at me, you pussy ass trick,” my fingers dig into his wound as I turn his head. This nigga is in so much pain that he starting to get delirious, talking bullshit. “My granny dead. Keandre and Patrol killed her. My woman, my muthafuckin’ wife is with these dudes. Look like I give a fuck, huh?”

  “A’ight, A’ight!”

  Chapter 6

  LORENZO

  When my plane touches down in Hoover, Illinois, I notice a missed call on my cell phone from Moms. So, I try to hit her up. It rings and rings. She’s probably handling a jet full of badass kids. Knowing her, Rita wanted to call and let me know she was pissed the fuck off. So, I dial the pilot. Fitz ain’t answering either. My pilot knows when I call, he better answer. And since they should be flying for a lot longer, I planned to call them before they made it to Colombia. But they might be in a no-reception zone.

  I start the message over and it's too bad to make out what Rita's saying. Getting out of the tiny plane, I nod my head at my cousins, Chuey and Sean, as they lean against a new black on black Charger.

  I started this set, shit I grew up here when my mom came looking for my dad when I was 12. They've been here cleaning it up while I got Rocky and them settled in Miami.

  “You came back to a war zone,” Chuey jokes. “Shit, if I was you, man, I wouldn't have come back.”

  “Never that cuzzo.”

  “Those Ganzas and Sicas keep getting put the fuck down,” Sean shrugs, “But they like roaches, just keep muthafuckin’ coming.”

  “There’s more where we come from too,” I warn, but I don't think Santiago would want to finance this shit. Hoover doesn't push as much as Chi-Town. Don't slang that rock like Miami and our stronghold in New York got that diamond rock that bought the city. So, I’ma stay outta Santi’s lane because this is my area. This shit is for Rockwell and getting rid of those muthafuckas that tried to kill my girl and keep my first-born son. My don.

  “Aye my moms call y'all?” I ask, still squeezing my phone in my hand. Moms ain't one to flap them gums. She only calls when need be. Maybe it was Rockwell with her multiple personalities these days, tryna baby me or see where I was or cuss me out? The message wasn’t clear at all…