Chapter 3
A cloud of smoke filled the air around Sir, and his eyes were lower than usual. He sat alone in the master bedroom of the apartment, and the intake of the purple haze rolled neatly inside his Blueberry Swisher Sweets had him on his level. He was completely mellowed out as he waited for Sugar, Spice, and Strawberry to return home. He was eager to get the money they were bringing to him, and he already had found the perfect spot to move. The house had four nice-sized rooms, and that meant everyone could have their own, even Strawberry. True, there was once a time where he enjoyed lying next to her, but that was before she’d sampled half of the dicks in Memphis. It was time for him to put her all the way in her place and let her know that she was not superior to anyone in the house. History meant nothing to him. There would be no bottom bitch. They were all just bitches where money was concerned. And what he was concerned about was that he needed more bitches. Each room in the new house would be able to fit two women, so that meant he could add three more to his roster. Sir figured that if he could turn out Strawberry, who had been a scholar with a strong mind, then he could do it to anyone. She had come from a home with a loving mother and a little sister who looked up to her. When she noticed her daughter changing, Strawberry’s mother gave her an ultimatum. Sir, or her family. Of course, Strawberry chose Sir, which made it easier to make her depend on him and only him. She was weak. He didn’t even need to taint her body with drugs to control her. All he had to do was remind her that he was all she had. He made her cut all ties with her family, and if he even thought she was in contact, he would beat her with whatever he could find.
Although she was already his property, he would never tell her that he lied about the first time he had her sell her pussy for him. It was true that the dude had wanted to sleep with her, but it wasn’t true that Sir’s life was in danger. At first, Sir wasn’t into sharing pussy, but when he was offered five stacks, he couldn’t turn down the offer. He staged the whole thing to make it look like he got beat up because he knew Strawberry wouldn’t do it if she didn’t feel like it was a need. It was a harsh thing to do to anyone, but he didn’t care then—and he didn’t care now. He finished smoking his blunt and had thrown the roach in the trash can when he heard the front door open and shut.
“Daddyyy,” he heard the singsong voice of one of the new girls call out. “I got some goodies for you!”
He jumped up and followed the voice all the way to the living room. Sugar was standing there fanning money his way with a big smile on her face. Spice looked like she came right in and passed out. However, the money she brought in was lying spread out on the coffee table. Both women were still in last night’s club attire and smelled heavily of cigarette smoke and alcohol. Their hair was slightly disheveled, and their makeup was smeared, and Sir made a mental note to have a conversation with them about their appearance. They were to be dimes always, but they had come through on where they needed to, so he would save that conversation for a different day.
“Together, we brought in $4,000,” Sugar boasted. “Are you happy, Daddy?”
“Very.” Sir took the money from her and scooped up the bills from the coffee table. He counted it, knowing that he already had more than what he needed for the house deposit. He handed Sugar a few bills back and tossed a few at Spice’s sleeping body. “Where’s Strawberry?”
“I don’t know, Daddy.” Sugar shrugged her shoulders and yawned. “The last time I saw her she was smiling all up in some pretty nigga’s face.”
“Was this ‘pretty nigga’ paying for her time?”
“Not from what I could see,” Sugar answered sleepily, not realizing that she had just woken the beast in Sir. “But she was talking to him all night.”
Sir’s eye twitched, and he felt his high going away already.
This bitch wants to die, he thought to himself. It’s almost noon. If she ain’t been out there making my money, where the fuck has she been all night?
Sir let Sugar go to the room and go to bed, and he sat patiently down at the dining room table to wait for his star ho to walk in the house.
* * *
Yawning big, Strawberry trudged up the stairs that led to her apartment on the second floor. She couldn’t wait to give Sir his money so she could take a long shower and snuggle deep under her blankets. After the club, she didn’t find a john to stay the night with, but with the money Javier gave her, she didn’t need to. Instead, she caught a ride to a nearby motel and decided to stay the night there. Except she didn’t sleep a wink. She kept thinking about the exchange between her and Javier and couldn’t understand how she let him slip away. She hadn’t even gotten his phone number. But then again, a man like him would never be interested in a woman like her. Although they had started in the same place, where they finished was completely different.
Using her key to unlock the front door, she peeked inside. The first thing she saw was Spice lying on the living room couch snoring like a grizzly. She smacked her lips and sighed deeply.
“That’s what a bed is for.” She told herself she would have a talk with the girl when she woke up about sleeping on her couches.
“Where have you been?”
Strawberry jumped, startled, and swiveled around to find the source of the voice.
“Oh my God, Daddy, you scared me!” Strawberry said placing her hand over her heart.
“Where you been, Strawberry?” Sir repeated his question, a little louder that time.
“I was out working.” Strawberry didn’t know why she lied, but still, she hadn’t done anything wrong.
The coldness in his voice made the hairs on the back of Strawberry’s neck rise. She studied Sir and could tell that he was obviously high as a kite. His bloodshot red eyes were low and watching her like prey.
“Workin’, huh?” he asked and looked at the clutch on her waist. “I don’t see how you could have been workin’ if you was smilin’ in the same nigga’s face all night.”
He banged his fist on the table and got to his feet. Strawberry backed up and fell over onto the couch Spice was sleeping on.
“What’s goin on?” Spice grumbled, trying to figure out why she had a body on her.
“Go to my room and get that gold metal belt out of my closet.”
“No!” Strawberry screamed and tried to prevent Spice from getting up. “No!”
“Be a good girl, Spice,” Sir told her, “or else you’ll get the same thing as Strawberry. I gotta teach this ho a lesson.”
Spice looked apologetically at Strawberry and did as she was told. Strawberry was shaking so much that she couldn’t get a grip on her clutch to show him the money inside.
“No, Daddy! I got your money! It’s right here!” She tried her best to twist the knob on the small bag, but she couldn’t. The fact that she was still hungover and terrified to death didn’t mix very well.
Spice returned with the belt, and Sir instructed her to stay and watch.
“This is what’ll happen to you if you ever walk in this house without my money!”
“I have your money!” Strawberry cried, but Sir snatched the clutch and threw it out of the way.
She kept repeating herself, but he ignored her and stripped her completely naked. Tears streamed down Strawberry’s pretty face, and her chest heaved. She kept trying to explain to Sir that she had his money, but he didn’t seem to care about anything she was saying.
“Bitch!” Sir swung the belt with so much force that when the metal spikes hit Strawberry’s face, she got an instant deep gash. He swung again, that time even harder. “Bitch!”
Strawberry’s screams filled the entire apartment, and she tried to scoot away. Sir grabbed her by the hair and proceeded to whip her viciously until drops of blood dripped from the belt. Her body had gone limp way before he stopped swinging the belt. Finally, he released her hair, letting her drop to the floor with a loud thud. Spice had been frozen in place watching the horrific scene before her. She had been too scared to move. But when Sir stopped be
ating Strawberry, she crept to the corner that Sir had thrown Strawberry’s clutch and knelt to grab it. Opening it, she choked on her own tears.
“Daddy! She really did have the money, Daddy,” Spice told him, showing him the contents of Strawberry’s purse.
Truth be told, Sir didn’t care if Strawberry had the money. He’d just wanted to hurt her. She’d been too lippy the past couple of days, and he needed to bring her back down to reality. He leered down at the deep gashes on her body and watched as a small pool of blood formed under her and a sick smile came to his face.
“We have to get her to the hospital, Daddy,” Spice’s tone was frantic. “Daddy, she gon’ die if we leave her here. You gon’ go to jail, Daddy!”
Her words must have snapped him out of his daze because the next thing he knew, he was grabbing his car keys and a blanket to wrap her up in . . . so she wouldn’t ruin his leather seats.
Chapter 4
Money was something that could do one of two things. It could either make the person with it humble, or it could make them greedy, and for Mike-Mike and Laron, it was the latter. The two boys had been running the streets together from the day they could walk since their mothers lived right next door together in their public housing apartment complex. They shared just about everything, women being the most common, and when the opportunity arose to be street soldiers for Javier Jackson, the king of Memphis, they jumped at the chance. Straight out of high school they were making enough money to get their own homes and even take care of their mothers if they had to, but they didn’t.
The allure of the fast life was too much for their young minds. In school, although both boys were handsome with smooth baby faces, they were often made fun of for their ragged attire. Mike-Mike’s hair was never braided, and Laron’s was never cut, simply because their mothers couldn’t afford it. Now, all they cared about was being flashy and having the baddest bitches around them. They often would blow thousands of dollars on material things to keep up with the times and quiet as kept, the two were always in competition with each other. Who had the newest released shoes? Who had the most expensive Gucci belt? Whose rims were chunkier, and whose car was faster? The mind-sets that both men had were the reason they stayed broke and always available to put in more work. It was nothing for them to pull up and body an enemy of Javier’s, and it was nothing for them to flip a brick, but eventually, they knew the little dollars that Javier was throwing wouldn’t be enough. And when that time came, Mike-Mike approached Javier’s right-hand man, Teezo, about upping the prices for their services.
“You want more money for a job that I could have another nigga do for less? You trippin’, mane. Fuck out my face.”
Teezo didn’t know that he lit a fire in both boys’ minds with his answer. It was true that it wasn’t wise to bite the hand that fed you; however, what about the hands that prepared the meal? The issue with men in positions of power was that they got so comfortable in their seats that the chair would have an ass cheek imprint if they stood up. Powerful men treated their employees like dirt because they could, and they knew they could replace them in seconds, if need be. It was a never-ending cycle, one that never came with a pay upgrade unless you became the head man in charge. However, that wasn’t anything that Mike-Mike or Laron wanted. They just wanted some quick cash that came in a big bulk. What other way to get that than to rob the nigga with the most money?
Mike-Mike and Laron had many jobs under Javier’s camp, but the main one was the pickup and drop-off they had to do every Sunday. They were to pick up the product from one of Javier’s trap houses in East Memphis and distribute the load among the other street runners to get off that week. But that Sunday, there would be a change in plans.
“Nigga, I can’t wait to get that money in the basement,” Laron said in the passenger’s seat of Mike-Mike’s 2016 mustard-yellow Mustang.
“On God,” Mike-Mike agreed and glanced in the backseat of the car. “I don’t know about that little-ass sledgehammer, though, that you brought. What wall is that mothafucka gon’ knock through?”
“Nigga, the walls in that old house are frail as fuck. Trust me, that bitch gon’ get through.”
“If not, I brought a bigger one in the trunk. Teezo gon’ regret talkin’ to me like he was fuckin’ crazy.”
“Mane, that nigga talk to everybody crazy, like he won’t get chopped down out’chea.”
“He gon’ learn, though, after today. That nigga gon’ feel me.”
Laron studied Mike-Mike’s dark face and recognized the look of savagery all too well. It was the look he made right before he ended the life of anyone on the opposing side. Whereas both young men were goons, Mike-Mike was the most ruthless out of the two. Laron had seen him murder an entire family because the man of the house hadn’t paid his monthly dues to Javier. If Mike-Mike could do that for another man’s business, Laron could only imagine what he would do for himself.
“You gon’ body him?”
“Is that a question?”
Laron didn’t respond. Instead, he checked the clip in his gun and made sure he had two more in the pockets of his black hoodie. He checked the laces on the new black Air Force Ones he’d just bought that day and made sure they were tied. Feeling the car slow to a stop, he looked out of the window and saw that Mike-Mike had pulled to the back of the house and parked by the garage.
“Hand me a mask,” Mike-Mike told Laron, who pulled the black mask from his pocket.
Instead of putting it on his face, Mike-Mike put it in his own pocket and tucked his gun on his waist. He pressed a button and popped the trunk to his whip so he could get the bulky backpack from it and waited for Laron to exit the car too, with the sledgehammer in tow.
“Put that shit in here,” Mike-Mike instructed holding the opened backpack out to his friend, and Laron did as he was told.
Beep! Beep!
Mike-Mike’s car was his pride and joy. Although they would probably need to make a clean getaway and having the doors unlocked would have been a better move, he just couldn’t leave his baby wide open like that. Once strapping the bag, he led Laron around the house to the front door and knocked once.
“What’s one plus one?” a male voice on the other side of the door asked.
“Shit, a million, if you do the math right,” Mike-Mike answered the coded question correctly.
The door swung open and Bentley, another one of Javier’s main street goons, stood there with a smile on his face. His low haircut was freshly lined up, and he stood before them in a vintage Coogi fit. The rope chain he wore around his neck gleamed in the light, right along with the big diamonds in his ears.
“What’s good, my niggas?” he said, dapping both men up and allowing them entrance. “On time as always.”
“Always. Punctuality is a way of life,” Mike-Mike said casually. He looked around the house and only saw three other bodies. “Y’all the only niggas here today?”
“For now,” Bentley told him. “It’s some other niggas supposed to come later. We s’posed to be getting them cameras set up around this bitch today. But aye, let me go grab this shit for you.”
He shut the front door when Laron was all the way in, bolting it back up before he headed toward the basement stairs. The basement’s entrance was in the living room of the fully furnished house. At first glance, the dated furniture made the house look like it belonged to an old woman. Even the kitchen smelled naturally of fried chicken like a grandma would cook it. Sitting on the couches were three other young soldiers that Mike-Mike never took the time to really get to know. He only knew one of them by name, Roger. He was a cool dude, quiet for the most part, but he got his work done. He was the type of nigga that got in, to one day, get out, but Mike-Mike couldn’t guarantee he would make it out that day. From the smell of the herb in the air and the redness of their eyes, it was obvious that they were high out of their minds, expecting that day to be just another easy Sunday.
“Here you go, my guys,” Bentley said, bringing
the goods back up the stairs. He noticed that Mike-Mike and Laron hadn’t taken a seat, nor had they hit the weed like they usually did when they came over. Another thing that he peeped was that they both were wearing black hoodies . . . like it wasn’t almost a hundred degrees outside. “What y’all finna go do, gotta make a move? Shit, do I need to pack a fire and ride out too?”
“Something like that,” Mike-Mike told him with a chuckle, opening the backpack to put the product in it.
“Who y’all finna move on?” Bentley asked and watched the sick smile form on Mike-Mike’s face.
“You.”
Before Bentley could comprehend what he meant, Mike-Mike pulled the small sledgehammer Laron brought out of the bag and hit Bentley on the head. Bentley’s body crumbled to the floor with a stream of blood spilling down his face.
“Nope,” Laron said when the other three men jumped up from the couch.
Pop! Pop! Pop!
He fired his gun with the expertise of a marksman and dropped all three of the men on the couch when they reached for their fires. He stood over their bodies and put another bullet in each of their skulls for good measure before kneeling and running their pockets.
“Get them gold chains too, my nigga,” Mike-Mike said while he was taking the one from Bentley.
“What you want to do with him?” Laron pointed at Bentley’s body.
“I can’t send him to the afterlife yet,” Mike-Mike said, rummaging through the kid’s pockets until he found what he was looking for. He held the touchscreen smartphone up and waved it at Laron. “I need him to make a phone call for me. Tie him up!”
* * *
“This a stop we shouldn’t have had to make,” Teezo said to Javier. “I need to tell these niggas they need to straighten up!”
Teezo wasn’t just Javier’s right-hand man, he was the general of the streets. He wasn’t that handsome in the face. Some girls would say his eyes were too far apart, but he still kept an array of them around him. His dark skin and athletic build made him look intimidating, but his ruthless mind-set made him lethal. He did everything that Javier didn’t have time to do, like keep the money and product flowing smooth in the streets. The day after the party, Teezo got a call from one of his young goons saying that two kilos of cocaine were still sitting in the same spot and nobody had come to get them to be distributed. That was unusual, being as everybody knew product wasn’t supposed to stay in the same spot for more than three hours. Since Javier was with him at the time, he decided to ride along and see how his streets were moving those days.
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