Return to Flint

by Treasure Hernandez

  The next morning her stepmother was up and out of the house before Tiana had awoken. Tiana got up and felt like her world was over. She stayed in her room for days, not bothering to eat, brush her teeth, or anything. She didn’t even remember her new clothes and sneakers. In fact, she never wore the sneakers she’d gotten that day. Tiana thought of them as a bad omen.

  After her father’s murder, Giselle, Tiana’s stepmother, kept the house for close to four months but she kept telling Tiana she no longer felt comfortable in it. Giselle hadn’t even removed the yellow police crime scene tape from the outside until almost a month after Marquez had been buried.

  Giselle eventually opted to stay with friends back in Flint. She claimed that she was scared that her husband’s killers might return to their house in Grand Blanc. Tiana had thought of that living arrangement as temporary and assumed that one day they would return home and attempt to live a normal life again. Giselle had been in her and her father’s life since she was twelve and she was the closest thing to a mother she had, so she figured the best thing for her to do was to go along with whatever plans Giselle had for them. She had figured wrong.

  One day her stepmother came and told her they weren’t ever going back to their old house and were staying in Flint permanently. It wasn’t until they’d gone back to their estate, packed, and were ready to abandon the house that Tiana discovered that they were moving in with Lobo, her stepmother’s best friend who was “like a brother to her.” Tiana was shocked and angered to learn that all of a sudden he was her mother’s new love interest.

  “It didn’t even take you six full months before you started fucking other people, huh?” Tiana had said, throwing a verbal punch at Giselle that morning. Giselle had rushed into Tiana like a bulldozer and slapped her so hard she’d left finger marks on Tiana’s cheek. That was the first of many explosive fights between Tiana and her stepmother.

  Within six months of moving in with Lobo and Giselle, Tiana missed her father so much that one night she went into the bathroom, said three Hail Marys, and slit both of her wrists so deep she had exposed the bone in one. She had narrowly missed successfully committing suicide. Lobo had found her swimming in a pool of her own blood just in time to save her life. Giselle wasted no time committing Tiana to the psych ward at Rollins.

  White, hot, bitter tears sprang to Tiana’s eyes and anger flared in her belly so fiercely that she could hardly breathe just thinking about all that she had been through since her father’s death. Drake touched her hand gently.

  “I know you miss him, Tee, but you know wherever his soul went he is watching over you,” Drake comforted her, giving her hand a reassuring squeeze.

  Tiana closed her eyes and inhaled. Her father’s face played out on the backs of her eyelids for a few quick seconds; that infectious smile that Tiana loved so much brought back so many good feelings. She could no longer hold back another round of tears as they fell in streams down her cheeks.

  “You ready to do this?” Drake asked as his car slowed to a stop in the leaf-littered circular driveway.

  “Yeah, but I need to go in alone,” Tiana rasped, her mouth cotton-ball dry.

  “Tee, let me go with—” Drake started.

  “Drake.” Tiana threw her hand up, halting his words. “I need to do this alone. I know he died in there. I know that memories of good and bad times are in there. I know all of that, but there is something I need to do, and I need to do it alone,” Tiana said softly but firmly enough for Drake to understand.

  He put his palms up in front of him and his eyebrows went into arches on his face. “Okay. Okay. If you say so. I’m out here waiting,” Drake gave in, his expression letting her know he wouldn’t protest any further.

  “Thanks,” Tiana replied, giving him a quick peck on the cheek. “That’s why you my dude.”

  Tiana scrambled out of the car. Her legs were moving, but she didn’t feel like she had control of them. Tiana wobbled and bobbed, looking like the Scarecrow from The Wizard of Oz, the result of every nerve in her body being alive and either pulsing or jittering.

  Tiana kicked through the piles of dead leaves and tree branches that littered the porch. She inhaled deeply and slowly turned the knob on the front door. Surprisingly, the lock clicked, and the door creaked open. A tornado of emotion swirled around Tiana and her heart galloped. As she stepped inside, the terror she was feeling suddenly congealed into a sizzling ball of fury.

  “They fucking shot you down like a dog in your own home, Papi. They won’t get away with it,” Tiana said through her teeth. Her anger propelled her forward, and the cold, empty, hollow, abandoned house no longer scared her. Tiana navigated through the expansive property like she still lived there. She rounded corners and descended steps like she had come home to stay. When she made it to the basement, she waved her hands in front of her face and swept away several thick tangles of spider webs. The basement was dank and dark except for a small rectangle of light coming from the tiny ground-level window.

  Standing at the end of the steps for a few seconds, Tiana could still picture the pool table that used to sit in the center of the room. It was a big hit with her father’s coworkers, who would crowd around throwing money down, placing bets on games. The pool table was often the instigator of a lot of friendly disputes among the guys.

  Tiana turned to her left where the tall Ms. Pac-Man arcade game used to sit. It was her father’s favorite game. He once told Tiana that when he was a kid, they didn’t have video games in the house; they had to go to the arcade and pay a quarter to play the big stand-up games. So, when her father purchased the house he had bought the actual arcade game, too.

  Tiana smiled now, thinking about the time she had beat her father at Ms. Pac-Man. “Pay up, Papi. You owe me now. You said nobody in the world could beat you,” Tiana had demanded playfully, extending her open palm. Her father had gone into his pocket and slammed a one-hundred-dollar bill into the palm of her hand.

  “Damn, mija, you ain’t going to give your old man a break,” her father had said, laughing. Now that Tiana thought back, he had to have let her win.

  Tiana didn’t even realize how hard she was crying until she felt her shoulders quaking and her legs shaking. Sucking in nostrils full of snot, Tiana slowly walked over to the wall where her father’s desk used to sit. She placed her hand up against the wall.

  “Ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four . . .” Tiana counted down, pressing her hand against the wall with each count. “One,” Tiana huffed. The wall was a tad softer at that spot, just like she remembered.

  Tiana used her foot to kick the spot. The first kick didn’t even dent the wall. Tiana huffed and grunted. This time she reared back and shot her foot forward with so much force pain shot from her foot all the way up to her pelvis. Plaster and paint crumbled to the floor. Tiana kicked the wall again but, this time, she turned around, bent her leg at the knee, and backed the bottom of her foot into the wall. The kick was more effective than any of the others. The wall gave way.

  Tiana turned toward the hole, bent down, and used her hands to dig away the remaining plaster. She spotted the long black bag behind the wall and suddenly felt like she didn’t have enough strength to keep digging. Tiana sucked in her breath and raised her hands to her neck as she felt like she was being choked by the memory that invaded her mind.

  The Caldoron Home

  Four Years Earlier

  “What is it, Papi? What’s the surprise?” Tiana asked excitedly as she followed her father down the stairs to the area of the house that he used for his office. It was where he held meetings with businessmen and hung out with his crew, the Los Asesinos, a crew of hired hit men.

  “Shhh, mija. I don’t want your stepmother to hear. This has to stay between just us,” her father shushed her. Tiana followed him, watching his long jet-black ponytail swing at his back with every smooth step he took.

  Tiana’s father walked to a far wall a few steps from his custom mahogany desk. She watched him with
her face crinkled in confusion as he bent down, pulled a perfect square of sheetrock from the wall, and set it aside.

  “Ven aca,” he summoned her. Tiana walked to her father’s side and bent down in front of the opening in the wall.

  “Everything I’ve been teaching you is for your own good. I don’t want you to be like me when you grow up, but I want you to be able to protect yourself,” her father said seriously.

  Tiana nodded. He had given her this same speech many times before. She knew her father was hired to kill people and he knew that she was aware of what he did. He had spent years showing her how to think like a trained killer, but he had also made it clear that he never wanted her to be a killer for hire.

  “So, this is for you if you ever need it,” he said, pulling a long military-style Blackhawk bag from the wall.

  Tiana’s eyebrows went into arches on her face, and she held her breath as her father unzipped the bag. Wide-eyed, she looked at the contents of the bag and then looked up at her father and back down into the bag.

  “This is called a war bag. If ever you have to go to war to protect yourself or your family, this will be here. Our secret,” her father assured her, handing her a beautiful . 40-caliber Glock with a shiny silver handle. The gun was almost too big for her hands. “This I had made just for you. You remember how we practiced shooting the forty, right?”

  Tiana nodded.

  “Very good. Your protection is right here. Our secret.”

  She watched her father stuff the black bag back into the opening in the wall. He put the piece of sheetrock back up to the opening in the wall and got to his feet.

  “Tomorrow when you come down here you won’t see this hole. It will be all closed up and painted. Here is how you find it when you need it,” her father said, walking away from the cutout in the wall. Tiana watched him with rapt attention as he walked to the opposite corner of the wall.

  “One, two, three, four,” he counted until he was standing at the wall behind his desk. “It’s ten steps from the end of the wall to the spot. That won’t change. Now you try,” he told her.

  Tiana did as she was told, moving her hand along the wall just slightly. It was a perfect ten when she reached the cutout in the wall.

  “Good. You found the spot,” her father complimented her, kissing the top of her head. “I will always try to be here so that you never need that war bag,” he said as he wrapped his arms around her and gave her a warm hug. “But just in case something happens to me—”

  “Nothing will happen to you. I love you, Papi,” Tiana cooed, squeezing her father as hard as she could.

  Tiana blinked away the tears and the memories. She forcefully tugged on the bag until she pulled it through the hole. She coughed from the white cloud of plaster dust that blew into her face. Without bothering to brush the dust from the top of the bag, Tiana unzipped it. She parted a sly smile when she saw that the contents were just as she had remembered: a .40-caliber Glock 23 with a customized silver handle, a .357 Sig Sauer with a black slip-proof rubber grip, two silencers, and her father’s collections of six stainless steel hunting knives that varied in size.

  In another small compartment on the front of the bag, Tiana found two rubber-banded stacks of money. Her father hadn’t mentioned anything about leaving money in the bag for her, but she sure was grateful for it. She didn’t have time to count it now, but she was sure it was enough to help her get some things she needed and to also help her carry out some of her plans.

  “Thank you, Papi. I promise I won’t let you down,” Tiana whispered, hoisting the bag onto her shoulder and rushing toward the basement stairs.

  Tiana hurried straight to the trunk of Drake’s car and knocked on it. He had been so engrossed in a phone conversation he hadn’t even seen Tiana exit the house. He waved, acknowledging her, and used the automatic button to pop the trunk for her. Once her bag was in the trunk, Tiana jumped into the car.

  “You good?” Drake asked, one eyebrow raised.

  “Yeah, you know me,” Tiana replied. “I take it on the chin and bounce right back, Drake.”

  “That’s what I like to hear.” He smiled. “Listen, Tee, I gotta drop you to the apartment that I got set up for you. Sorry I can’t hang out tonight. Some shit is going down on the street, and I gotta make an appearance,” Drake told her.

  “What’s up?” Tiana quizzed.

  “Somebody made a hit on my boss’s family,” Drake said, shaking his head in disgust. “It was some real horrible shit. He’s out for blood, and he’s making all his distributors have a roundtable meeting. His loyal soldiers are trying to figure out if we are at war. The hit came out of nowhere. There will definitely be bloodshed behind this shit. I might have to get my hands dirty this time. Somebody killed the heir to the throne so I’ma take this opportunity to show my boss I’m loyal and down for my peoples. If he sees how I do my work and take care of shit, you might be looking at the next prince of the streets. I’m about to blow up!”

  Tiana swallowed hard and tried to keep her heart from coming up out of her mouth. Suddenly she was thinking about the explosion and how fast everything had happened. It was her first real kill, and she still felt good to think that Dr. Syed was dead but she couldn’t stop thinking about that innocent little kid who was murdered along with him.

  Tiana snapped out of her thoughts. “Well, you be careful, Drake. I’d be fucked up if something happened to you.”

  “Yeah, this shit is not a game right now. S. Gates ain’t no fuck boy. We talking about one of the most dangerous motherfuckers in the game,” Drake said with feeling. “He’s going to fucking torture whoever is responsible before he kills them and their entire family. He is nothing to fuck with, and he has major connections all over the city. He’s pissed as all hell and he ain’t gonna stop until he finds the people who murked his son. The streets about to be lit like a motherfucker.”

  Chapter 10

  “Help me! Oh, God, help me!” Manuelo bawled, the veins in his face and neck cording at the surface of his skin. Blood mixed with his tears made a mess all over his face, neck, and chest. His legs trembled, and his teeth chattered.

  “Oh, Manny, God can’t help you right now, my friend.” Eric chortled as he circled Manuelo like a buzzard over a carcass. “Only you can help yourself right now, Manny. Only you.”

  “Ah, I told you everything I know,” Manuelo cried, his chin falling to his chest. He was exhausted. It had been six hours since he’d been snatched from his bed in the middle of the night. It had been five and half hours that he’d endured Eric’s torture.

  “I’ma ask you one more time. Who ordered the hit on Gates’s family?” Eric growled, his two large gold teeth glinting at Manuelo like evil eyes. Eric had been S. Gates’s number one enforcer for eight years and so far he had a 100 percent confession rate.

  “I . . . I swear I don’t—” Manuelo cried, but he never got to finish. “Agh!” Manuelo howled, his words tumbling back down his throat like hard marbles when Eric cut a deep gash into the skin and muscle of his left bicep this time.

  “C’mon, I hate to do this to you, but I need the answer. Who ordered the hit?” Eric was relentless. He was going to get something out of Manny one way or another.

  Manuelo shook his head left to right. “Agh!” he squealed again, this time because Eric twisted the knife in circles, digging farther into his arm muscle.

  Eric let out an exasperated breath and stood up. He stepped back a few paces and examined the mess of a man in front of him. He turned his head to the side and spit on the floor next to Manuelo. “You playing tough, huh?” Eric grumbled. He turned around and grabbed a box of iodized salt from the small metal table behind him and smiled evilly.

  “Now, Manny. Be a good little boy and tell me if it was Los Diablos who sent the bomb that killed that little boy,” Eric snarled, shaking the box of salt menacingly. “He was my boss’s only son. He was the next in line to take over the business. Which means somebody is going to die over this
for sure.”

  “I don’t know about a hit.” Manuelo panted out each word, drool leaking from his lips.

  “You are just so fucking loyal, aren’t you!” Eric barked, his eyes hooding over with malice. With that, Eric emptied the entire box of salt into the open wounds covering Manuelo’s body, taking time to crush some of the salt down into the huge, gaping holes on Manuelo’s right thigh.

  “Agh! Jesus Christ!” Manuelo squealed, his body bucking so fiercely against the chair and restraints that the chains binding him cut farther into his skin.

  Unfazed, Eric moved close to Manuelo’s downturned head so that he could whisper in his ear. “Tell your boss that S. Gates will keep taking his men one by one until he finds out who killed his son and his brother. The only reason you live today is to send the message; but next time, a Diablos dies. Consider yourself lucky to be alive,” Eric hissed like a venomous snake. Manuelo hung his head in so much pain he wished for death.

  S. Gates stood behind the double-sided mirror watching Eric inflict torture on one of his rival’s men. Gates hadn’t taken his eyes off of Manuelo, one of René Rodriguez’s top earners among the Diablos.

  S. Gates took great satisfaction in watching the pain and suffering in the man’s eyes and hearing his screams. It was all he could do to console himself after the loss of his brother and son. S. Gates couldn’t believe his little boy was gone forever. He lived for his son, and everything he did was for him. Now that he was gone, S. Gates’s number one priority was to avenge his son’s death. He didn’t care how many enemies he made or how many lives he had to take until he found his son’s killer.

  He knew torturing the Los Diablos men would thrust him and his crew into a war once it got back to René, but he had nothing left to lose so he couldn’t care less what happened from here. He was also feeling the loss of his bother Peter. It was messed up they used him to get to his son.