“Old women and kids? What in the fuck would make you say that rotten bullshit? I ain’t never been about that type of garbage and damn showl wouldn’t endorse it. I mean, come on, youngin’. I know we out here breaking the white man’s law every fucking day. But it gotta be some sort of rules to this here game. Some sort of restrictions. And old women and kids is it.”
The young guy wanted to prove himself worthy of moving up the food chain in the organization while somewhat testing Ethan’s claims of boundaries. He saw Mr. E’s facial expression as he spoke and watched his mannerisms. But he’d learned in his young life what people said and did were two entirely different things.
“Look, sir, like I said earlier, I don’t mean any type of disrespect to you at all. And I give Li’l Ronnie props for turning me on to make that money sitting in the spot, but how he roll, that ain’t me.”
“What the fuck he done did now?” Ethan jumped up, not knowing what he was about to hear. He could tell the youngin’ was holding back but at the same time wanted to divulge a few things.
“Hey, I ain’t no rat, and I ain’t about dry snitching on my homeboy. But what he did was foul, and I can’t respect that shit. Fuck that. We all got or had a grandmother at one time or another.”
Ethan was confused. He was also exhausted from playing this cat and mouse game. With fury written all over his face, he demanded that this boy who ran with his nephew tell him what was or had jumped off before the tables turned on him.
“Listen, dawg, you better get to talking. I ain’t feeling all this extra-slick conversation we having about this or that. Now, what the fuck did that knucklehead do now?”
It didn’t take him long to put Ethan up on the latest stunt Li’l Ronnie had done and the fact that Li’l Ronnie had then called him and the others they ran with to brag about it.
Ethan’s reaction was heard way down on the corners he’d sent the other two packing to. Pounding his fist against the wall, he made a huge hole in the drywall. He prayed to God it wasn’t true. He hoped his sister’s son hadn’t been so dumb, so stupid, and so reckless to beat up an old woman. And to make matters worse, that old woman was Black Tone’s grandmother.
“Fuck, naw. Tell me you making this shit up!” Ethan ran up on the boy and yanked him by his collar the same way he’d done to Li’l Ronnie. “Tell me that ho-ass nigga ain’t do that shit!”
“He called us, saying he beat the blood outta her and found some cash. He said he was gonna go ball out tomorrow, after he go to the crib and rest his leg that was still hurting.”
Ethan couldn’t believe what his ears were hearing. If what was just said was true, then not only had Li’l Ronnie fucked up the connect for sure, but he’d also started what was about to be a full-blown war. He knew Black Tone and Amir were businessmen and tried to avoid the day-to-day hassles that came with the game, but Ethan also knew this was going to be personal. After all, it was the man’s grandmother. It had to be on. And cutting him off from the package was just the beginning. Now what Amir had claimed about Black Tone having a family emergency made sense.
Ethan was now madder than before. His nephew had to go if the team was to survive. If it got out in the streets that he condoned bullshit like that, then sooner or later no plug would fuck with him. He was pissed and started to scheme. He released his grip on the youngin’ and had him fix his shirt.
“Okay, then, I’m gonna put you onto something. Then I can see how you really move. Now, what did you say your name was again?”
“I didn’t,” the young guy announced as he stood with chest stuck out, ready to hear what was really good with Mr. E. “But they call me J-Blaze.”
Ethan was elated. He wished his own blood was as gangsta and smooth with it as this kid appeared to be. If all worked out, he’d just got him a young dog who knew how to run wild in the mean, cutthroat blocks of Detroit and come back home when he heard his master call.
“All right, then, J-Blaze. Here’s what I want you to do.” Ethan laid out his murderous plan before calling Amir back to let him know he was apologetic over what his nephew had done to Black Tone’s grandmother and to reassure him the boy’s days on this earth were numbered, blood or not.
* * *
Making their way up to the corners they were assigned to guard, one of Li’l Ronnie’s so-called friends decided to put his homeboy up on game. They knew it just wasn’t by coincidence them and J-Blaze, that lunatic, out-for-self ass, was just summoned to the boss’s hood headquarters. Something was about to go down. And after being slow grilled about the guy who had originally put them on, namely, Li’l Ronnie, it was easy to see he was going to have to pay for what had popped off at Detroit Live. Time and time again everyone had been warned about set tripping in public. Yet when Li’l Ronnie got drunk and high off pills, he broke every rule his uncle had put in place.
The one guy dialed Li’l Ronnie’s number, with the intention to tell him what they thought was poised to happen at the hands of Ethan, and his homeboy picked up, laughing. Li’l Ronnie smiled and joked before he got the news that his financial gain celebration was completely ruined.
“I’m not sure, dawg, but your uncle seemed like he was straight pissed. He had all of us standing up like we was about to get fucked up for even knowing your crazy ass! He had that look in his eye.”
“Oh yeah?” Li’l Ronnie schemed as his boy spoke, giving him a much-needed heads-up.
“Yeah, fam and that fool J-Blaze still in there, chopping it up with your peoples. Ain’t no telling what his grimy ass in there saying.”
Li’l Ronnie hung up the phone and decided that just like he brought the noise directly to Black Tone and hit him where it hurt, he’d fuck up his uncle’s world too, just like that.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
After regaining consciousness, Alexis scrambled to get her bearings. Hearing the thunderous noise of arguing voices, she fought to stand on her feet, though she was groggy. Nursing an extremely numb face, with a ripped T-shirt hanging off her shoulder, the young mother quietly stumbled from the rear of the store. With no lights on in the store, Alexis soon noticed Hassan and whoever the men were who had raped her. They now had several more candles lighting up the back area, near the door. As she scrunched down behind the potato chip racks, her fury intensified as she listened to the terrible things that were being said not only about African Americans as a whole, but also about her as an individual, thanks to Hassan. Weak, feeling dizzy again, she knew she had to get on the other side of the door with her brother if she wanted to live. It was apparent whose side her “baby daddy” was on, so from this point forward, Hassan was a non-factor to her survival.
Look at them eating food, drinking pop, and smoking hookah like they just ain’t violate me.
Leaving a trail of dark blood with every step she meticulously fought to take, Alexis was determined to make it out of the store alive, but not before making the disrespectful assholes pay for what they did.
Ain’t no sense in calling the police, because even if they were working, these rapist bastards’ family would pay their way out of it, or they’d just leave the country and go back to where they came from.
Alexis crept toward the shotgun that was propped over in the corner of the store. With Hassan and the two goons preoccupied at the door, arguing with Dre, Alexis searched the dim candlelit area and finally saw Mikey sitting on a milk crate with his face buried in his hands, rocking back and forth. Hearing what Hassan said about her and their baby was the last straw as she eagerly emerged out of the shadows, catching all four of them all off guard.
“I’m a nigga, huh? Is that right? Just another dumb nigga bitch you getting pussy from! It could be any nigga baby, huh? A toss-up?”
As the three spun around in shock and Mikey raised his head, they were met with Alexis standing tall, aiming the barrel of the gun at them.
“Alexis!” Hassan’s eyes grew wide, and he wondered where she’d come from and why she had a gun pointed in his direction.
Hassan took one step toward her and immediately knew his “baby mama” wasn’t playing when she recklessly let loose, striking one of her assailants in the stomach and the other in the chest area. Shocked that she’d actually fired the gun, he started to sweat, fearing for his own safety. He couldn’t grasp what was going on. Completely confused by seeing things go from zero to ten just like that, not knowing what to think, Hassan felt his heart race.
Watching both his cousins, who were now on the floor, begging for mercy, he started to sweat as Alexis got closer. When she was finally all the way out of the shadows, he quickly noticed the bruises on her swollen face and her torn shirt.
“Alexis, bae, what happened to you? What happened to your face?” Truly unaware of what had taken place, an innocent to the attack on his girl, Hassan tried taking a step closer and was met with the sound of another shotgun blast. This time the bullet hit Mikey in the neck.
“Ask your grimy-ass brother who stood there, watching them motherfuckers rape me.” Her arms shook as she held the heavy gun, and her voice cracked as she spoke. “He ain’t even help me. I know him and your father never liked me, but to let them motherfuckers violate me like they did, fuck that!”
Instinctively rushing to his brother’s side, Hassan was beet red, and his face was full of tears. “Rape? Huh? I don’t know what you talking about, I swear! Why you doing this, Alexis? Why? We gotta get my brother some help!” His hands were full of blood as he tried to cover the gushing wound. “We gotta call an ambulance!”
“Ambulance,” Alexis loudly mocked, feeling justified in her revenge and not caring about the consequences, which were sure to follow. “You mean the same ambulance your fake-ass brother called for me? You mean that one?”
“Bae, please. He’s dying.”
“And?” Her response was callous and cold as she still held the gun high.
“And we gotta get him some help quick, before he bleed out. Please, bae, please.” Hassan then started praying in Arabic while holding his older sibling, further infuriating Alexis.
“You know what, Hassan? Fuck him and fuck you, too, for sitting up here talking shit about me and letting them thugs rape me like I ain’t nothing but garbage!” The earsplitting sound of several shotgun blasts didn’t prevent Dre from continuing to bang on the door, trying to come to his sister’s aid.
As he continued to knock, Alexis was busy revealing to Hassan that she’d heard everything he’d said about her and their love child. “Did you not hear me say they raped me? Look at me face! Don’t you care about that?”
“Yeah, I do,” he yelled back across the room. “I swear for Allah I do, but my brother needs help right now, Alexis! Are you crazy or something! You acting like an animal! What’s wrong with you people today?”
“Wow. An animal? You people? Damn, Hassan. I thought you were different from your father and the rest of your prejudiced family.” Alexis grinned slightly, not really believing he had had the nerve to say that stereotypical bullshit directly to her face. “My brother was right about you,” she sadly announced while stepping over one of the barely alive twins. “When it comes down to it, Dre wasn’t lying. Bottom line, it’s us versus y’all!”
“I didn’t mean it like that. Alexis, you know I love you and the baby! I wanna marry you one day, be a family! You being black doesn’t matter to me. It never did. I swear,” Hassan pleaded and begged. “But please, we gotta get Mikey some help quick, before it’s too late. You right. Fuck my cousins. But not my brother. Alexis, please.”
Numb to what he was saying now, Alexis kept hearing the many ugly things Hassan had said earlier about her and their baby repeat in her ears. She reached her hand over to the silver heavy-duty bolts and slid each one to the side. Using the back of her body, she threw her weight onto the metal door, causing it to fly open. With the late evening daylight beaming in from the alleyway, Alexis now could get a full, clear view of the gunshot damage she’d done to both men who were helplessly sprawled on the floor, still asking for help, and to Mikey, who was now choking on his own blood. Thrown into some sort of shock, she dropped the shotgun to the floor as Dre and his homeboy seized their opportunity to get finally inside.
“Alexis! Alexis.” Dre grabbed her by the arm and spun her around. “What the fuck happened to your face? Who was shooting? You?”
Alexis didn’t mutter a single, solitary word as tears flowed from her puffy red eyes.
Full of fury, Dre removed his gun from his waistband, then cautiously stepped all the way inside the store’s rear entrance. Realizing the two oversize guys lying on the floor, bleeding out and praying to Allah for mercy, must’ve been the ones with all the mouth talking shit through the locked door and had to have played a major part in why his sister was looking like she was, Dre raised his gun. Without so much as a second thought, he immediately put them both out of their misery. “Fucking terrorist-ass motherfuckers come over here like y’all, running shit!”
Hassan had no emotions to spare for his newly deceased cousins or the claims of rape Alexis had made. His main focus and concern was to get his brother Mikey to the hospital. “Dre, dude, help me. Your sister done shot Mikey too! Help me get him to the car! He’s bleeding bad!”
“So fucking what? He leaking,” Dre replied coldly, glancing back over his shoulder at a zombielike Alexis. “If my little sister put something hot up in his bitch ass too, it must’ve been for a reason! Plus, why in the fuck you lie and say she wasn’t in here? You might as well say your prayers too, homeboy!”
“I didn’t know she was in here. I swear on the Koran, I didn’t! This is all a misunderstanding,” he desperately explained as Mikey’s eyes started rolling in the back of his head. “Please, Dre. Mikey needs help bad.”
“Yo, dawg. Take my sister back to the crib,” Dre calmly instructed his friend, as if he hadn’t just finished the job of murder that Alexis had started. “Then round up the fellas and come back up here!”
“Why you doing this, man? On everything I love, I ain’t know! I thought you was my boy! I thought we was family,” Hassan said.
“We ain’t family, my guy. You was just another dude from around the way that ran up in my sister and might be the father of what you call my nephew.” Dre smiled, not giving a fuck. “Oh yeah, that toss-up hood baby!”
“But—”
“But, my black ass! I ain’t blind. I seen Alexis’s face and her ripped shirt.”
“Dre, wait!”
“Naw. Time’s up. Y’all come over here, open up all type of damn businesses, don’t pay taxes or give back to the community, and treat our women like shit, especially my sister.”
“Dre, wait!”
“Peace! See you in hellfire, Hassan!” With those final words as a send-off, Dre shot his nephew’s father right between the eyes. As Hassan’s lifeless body slumped over Mikey, who’d died only seconds earlier, Dre felt some strange sense of resurgence of his family’s honor, knowing once and for good, Alexis and Hassan could no longer be together.
Don’t worry about nothing, li’l sis! I’ma collect your child support from this store! You ain’t have no business with that Arab, anyhow!
After dragging the bodies to the side, Dre opened the back door for his crew to come in and run wild. “Yeah, I already done ran all four of they pockets,” he told them. With no remorse, he stuffed the newly acquired diamond ring Hassan had intended on giving Alexis into his own pocket, not blinking an eye. “Now let’s start getting all this bullshit out this motherfucker and then torch this son of a bitch.” He stood proudly, like he was the king of Detroit. “Take y’all’s time and get the good shit. We got a damn night, because, after all, ain’t no damn police coming!”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Seeing dark, thick smoke pollute the air, Black Tone and Wild Child got closer to the house. They couldn’t quite tell where the fire wa
s from the vantage point they were at, but they knew for sure it was in the general vicinity of Tone’s house. Not knowing what to expect, Wild Child had attempted to call his mother several times and had received no answer. The fact that they couldn’t get through to her since her initial call begging for help for Granny made them panic and break every law there was, such as by speeding, running red lights, and turning down one-way streets.
Though he was known for being extra tough and hard as a rock in the streets, Black Tone’s heart was breaking in a million tiny pieces while he prayed that his grandmother was not hurt. Repeatedly, he kept asking himself why he had even left her alone when he did. Especially on a day like today, when anything was poised to jump off. Less than a few blocks away, the smoke in the air got thicker, and Black Tone’s worry increased.
What in the entire fuck? Oh, hell naw! He couldn’t believe what he was seeing. Amir’s family party store was up in flames. Random people were trying to dart in and out of the doors to take their chances against the flames and get whatever they could of value. Normally, Black Tone would have gotten out and checked to see where Mikey and Hassan were, since they were supposed to be posted, but at the time he had absolutely zero fucks to be given about anything that didn’t concern finding out what was going on at his own household.
Driving by Alexis’s house, he noticed her car parked in front of her house, which was unusual. One, because she always parked her vehicle in the driveway, afraid it might get sideswiped on the street, and two, because Dre was leaning on the hood, arguing with one of his boys. She would never allow her devious-minded brother even to come close to her prized possession.
As he and Black Tone made eye contact, Dre spit on the ground and folded his arms. Wild Child shook his head in disbelief that his older cousin and Dre were still carrying on the beef they had had since they were children growing up on the block. Black Tone didn’t have time for any of Dre’s petty games. He couldn’t entertain anything more than getting down the street to his own home as soon as possible.
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