“D.C.!” I turned around to see Quinton jogging in my direction. “Hold up, man!”
“Yeah,” I responded, the blankest of looks on my face, once he was standing directly in front of me.
“Yeah? Like that, D.C.? You can’t be serious. Come on, man. It’s me.”
“I mean, dude . . . what do you want me to say? What the fuck can I say without coming all the fucking way apart? My whole fucking world just crashed and burned. It’s still crashing and still fucking burning. My focus is making sure Chanel . . .” My voice trailed off. “Do you know that Rai was almost with me? Almost. He chose to go to my aunt’s instead, man. Can you imagine if he’d been here?” I bowed my head, hurt filling my entire being. “She’d better be okay, Q. She’d better be—”
Quinton reached over to touch my shoulder. “There’s not a part of this that you have to do by your fuckin’ self. You know I got you. You know that,” he whispered. “You don’t have to do shit by yourself,” he repeated. “No part of it, man.” He released my shoulder. “You know that, right?” He pulled back and looked around, cautiously, before continuing. “You tell me how you wanna move with this and where you wanna start and I’m there.”
I stood in silence for a few minutes, looking directly ahead at all of the movement of the officers, and a still-distraught Tracie. I looked over and saw Chanel’s car and I felt the burning sensation behind my lids that wanted to release tears of fury for my woman. This was all too surreal and too much to take in. I’d seen her just this morning, made love to her, kissed her . . . told her I loved her . . . and now she was gone.
After reflecting on everything, I broke my silence.
“I don’t want any help from the cops. I want to come up with something that removes them from the equation altogether. I don’t want them asking me shit, I don’t want them coming back and forth with false hope. I don’t want to deal with them at all. Because what I have planned for these motherfuckers is above the law.”
Quinton nodded his approval, as I spoke. I knew that he got every bit of what I was saying.
“I want . . . their heads,” I continued. “I don’t even want fucking souls left when I’m done with them.”
“I feel you, man. Trust me . . . I feel you.” Quinton turned to look over his shoulder, then turned back to look at me. “We just gotta move swiftly with this because they’re over there busy as hell.”
“And I appreciate that. I just wouldn’t be able to live with myself if the police got to these fucks before me. Just wouldn’t feel like justice. Not real justice. All I know is that not a hair on Chanel’s head better be touched. It’s bad enough they—”
“I know,” Quinton consoled. “Let me get Tracie squared away, because she’s all fucked up behind this. As soon as I do that, I’m on it.”
“Thanks, Q. I have a stop to make, and then I’ll call you and we can hook back up. I think I might know where to start.”
“Huh? What do you mean? You know—?”
“No, I don’t know for sure. I just have a strange feeling. I’ll be in touch in a few.”
“Sounds good, man. Take it easy. Need you in one piece, when we tear a hole in this fuckin’ town.”
Chapter 25
Wayne
At the request of the person on the other end of his phone, Wayne stared, in shock, at the dark-haired woman speaking on the local news. It was a ‘BREAKING NEWS’ piece. Wayne couldn’t believe what he was seeing and hearing. He felt the strength in his legs beginning to give, and quickly took the seat nearest to him. There was no way he could process what was playing out before him. What he knew for certain, was that shit was about to hit the fan. It was going to hit the fan, and not in a good way. Catastrophic, deadly even.
Wayne’s mouth hung open, as he watched the news reporter detail how earlier a woman was abducted from a shopping mall parking lot in the heart of the city:
“. . . Police are not confirming the identity of the woman, but that she is believed to be Chanel Norwood, the fiancée of recently-retired, Bay Area, heavyweight boxing champ, Dario Caivano. Police don’t yet have details in the case . . .”
“Wayne!” the caller yelled into his ear.
Wayne couldn’t form any words, not even a gasp. He was speechless. He was afraid. He was very afraid. Not just of them but of what Dario would do—or what he was already doing.
This shit isn’t going to end well, Wayne said, to himself.
“Shocked, right?” he taunted on the other end of the line.
Wayne had only suspected when he called Dario, but now the writing was on the wall. He called to warn Dario that he thought something was about to happen. He wanted to finally tell him why he had been so consistently persistent about the meetings, and about returning to the ring. He wanted to be able to tell Dario in his own way. He thought he had time to do that. But now . . .
“Is it sinking in yet, Wayne? Do you get that we mean business?” the guy asked him.
“What the fuck did you do?” Wayne forced out. “What in the fuck did you do?!”
“You don’t get to ask questions anymore, Wayne. I tried dealing with you the civilized way, and you took shit for a joke.”
“What the hell do you mean?! I tried to—!”
“You didn’t try hard enough—or quick enough. I told you a long time ago that this shit was time-sensitive. And now that I’ve had to take matters into my own hands . . .”
The rest of what was being said went over Wayne’s head. He was fucked and he knew it. The heart palpitations and the perspiration forming over his brows, down his chest and underneath his arm pits were telling signs that his end was near. His body felt as though there was a burning inferno raging from the inside and trying to set him ablaze. It was the effects of knowing there was no turning back.
“Where is Chanel?” Wayne asked, slowly, his voice quivering.
“Did you miss the part where I said you don’t get to ask fuckin’ questions, Wayne? Or are you still as fuckin’ retarded as you were at the beginning of this shit? All you get to do is what the fuck you were supposed to be doing in the first goddamn place. So, now since you couldn’t, shit got turned up a few notches.”
Wayne wanted to explode. But he couldn’t—especially now with Chanel’s life in the balance. He wouldn’t risk her safety by putting ego first. He’d already done enough . . . or not enough, apparently. There was so much he wanted to say and do for that matter. He wasn’t a fighter by any stretch of the imagination, but in that moment, he saw blood—and not just his own.
“I just want this to all go away in the quickest way possible and with the safest outcome . . . for everyone.”
“I hope that wasn’t a subtle threat on your part,” the caller warned.
“No, that’s not what it was at all. I’m just saying. This has gone too far. Is Chanel hurt in any way? Please, just at least let me know that!”
The caller laughed out, menacingly. “We just covered this, Wayne. I mean, not even two seconds ago. You should have less questions and more answers, at this point. Get your boy on board or shit is gonna go from bad to way muthafuckin’ worse. We clear?”
“Listen . . . I’m—”
“No, muthafucka, you listen. I’m done having this discussion with you. You’re at the bottom of the totem pole. I tried to make shit happen through you, now you need to get me to the source. Take too long and his lady’s done for.”
Before Wayne could respond, the line disconnected.
“No! Don’t hang up!” Wayne yelled, desperately.
With all his might, he hurled his phone into the nearest wall. By the time the device connected and splattered into pieces, Wayne was out of the room.
“Motherfuck!” he hollered, the sounds ricocheting throughout the large hallway of his home. “Fuuuckk!”
His thoughts immediately went to Dario. He had never seen Dario with a woman like he’d seen him with Chanel. Women never made it even halfway to his heart. She had made it all the way in—in reco
rd time. If Dario’s rush to San Francisco was because of her, right about now, he was in a gorilla-type rage and any and everybody in his path . . . Damn.
I need a drink.
The sooner Wayne got a drink flowing through his veins, the clearer his thoughts would become. Coming up with plans was his thing. Plans that generated millions of dollars. He was the thinking man who always had a plan. He needed a plan now. He needed to formulate and make all this shit go away. On Wayne’s way to the bar, he shut his eyes tightly and rubbed his temples. He was trying his best to magically summon a solution.
I have to try to turn this around. I have to make . . .
In the middle of his panicked thought-storm, Wayne was startled by an extremely loud banging noise coming from the front of his house. The banging was coupled with the repeated chiming of his doorbell. It didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out who it was.
The only thing Wayne could do was prepare himself.
Chapter 26
Dario
I took a two-second pause, when Wayne opened his door. I had to. My first instinct was to hit him so hard he would wonder if he was asleep or awake, if he was coming or going. That’s what I wanted to do to him. But I needed answers. Answers that I was positive that he could give me. It all made sense now. All his weird fucking behavior. The constant questions, about whether or not I was sure, retiring was what I wanted. It all made sense!
I drove over 80, all the way to his house. Ripping through my brain were thoughts of how he kept approaching me about not retiring. Questioning my decision—all the time! Then, there was him trying to force meetings on me with motherfuckers I didn’t know. And then, that stuttering and shit that he was doing when I talked to him on the way to San Francisco!
If what I thought was true, and Wayne had gotten mixed up in some bullshit that he let trickle down into my life, affecting the home I was trying to build, he was as good as dead. His life wouldn’t mean shit. I’d beaten enough men just short of their permanent demise, so I had it in me to take a life if I needed to—especially, if it had to do with my family. Chanel is my family.
When his eyes met mine, there was fear and a whole lot of fucking uncertainty in his glare. I knew right then that he knew something. I saw it as clear as daylight. He didn’t know whether to run and hide or accept whatever punishment was going to be handed down. I saw the exact moment he read my face, my whole vibe, because I witnessed the lump in his throat jump when he tried to swallow. I saw his heartbeat hitting against the blue, V-neck shirt.
Wayne took slow, cautious steps backwards, once the door was opened. And as he did so, I took steps forward in his direction.
He was scared. He needed to be. I wasn’t completely in control of my impulses. I knew that I wanted to remain calm. I knew that I wanted him to be secure enough to tell me what the fuck I wanted to know without being in fear of dismemberment. Those were the things that I knew; and I knew for any of that to happen, I needed to keep my cool.
The tug of war going on inside of me was strong, though. The sides of ‘reason’ and ‘fuck caution’ were battling it out royally. Lay him the fuck out, was the louder voice in my head. However, what the fuck kind of answers could I get from an unconscious motherfucker? Not any. So, my desire to know about my baby, had to outweigh the deadly things I wanted to do to this person that I’d called a friend for so long. The man that I’d trusted like a brother. If I did anything to him, then all the answers I needed would be lost forever. That would only make me want to dig him up and kill his ass over and over again.
“I’m itching to beat the fuck out of you, Wayne,” I blurted out. “But you already know that, don’t you?”
His mouth moved but nothing came out.
“The fact that you have that pussy-ass look on your face, and the fact that you’re backing up, and probably about to shit your fucking shorts, tells me that you’re guilty of something, Wayne.”
He couldn’t maintain eye contact. Whenever he tried, his irises grew, and he blinked overtime, like a chick trying to get the wrong kind of fucking attention.
“Dario . . .” he started, his voice shaking.
“Make sure the only thing you’re opening your mouth for . . . is to say where the fuck Chanel is!”
“I-I . . . honestly d-d-don’t know.” He shook his head and reached up with both hands to massage his temples. “Man, I—”
Before I knew it, my left hand flew out and gripped the front of his neck, causing him to choke out a cough. His hands flew away from the area that he was massaging and grabbed at my hand, his eyes bulging. He clutched and tugged, trying to loosen the grip I had on him, his face turning a shade of pink in the process. As much as I didn’t want to, when I saw him starting to weaken, I released him. I stood in his space for a few, long seconds, watching him catch his breath, contemplating whether letting him go was the right thing to do.
He leaned forward and rested his palms on his lower thighs, using that time to take a few deep breaths before gathering himself. After his breathing was leveled, he said, “I really don’t know where she is, D.C. If I did . . . you gotta know I would tell you.” He looked up at me and then stood back in an erect position. “I just . . . honest to fucking God, I don’t know.”
My effort to control my anger was proving to be difficult as fuck. What I really wanted to do was end him. As bad as that sounds, I wanted to end him.
“What the fuck do you mean you don’t know?! The way you’ve been acting tells a different fucking story, Wayne! Tell me right fucking now or you die right fucking here!”
He released a duo of quick, heavy sighs, before closing and then reopening his eyes. “D.C., as long as we’ve known each other, you think I would . . .” He paused to catch his breath. “I swear I’m telling you the—”
“That day I had to put my hands on you at Wicked for making that disrespectful-ass comment. Do you remember that?” I asked him.
“Yeah, man, yeah. I remember it,” he responded, reluctantly, his eyes glossing over.
“So, when you claimed that you were just making a last-ditch effort to make sure that I was sure about leaving boxing . . . that was a lie.”
“What do you . . . mean?” he asked, slowly. “That’s what it was. I really . . . I really . . . was just making sure.”
“You’re a fucking liar, Wayne!” I roared, once again closing in on his personal space. I was so close to his face that I could smell his fear. “You know more than anybody how much I hate a fucking liar! You have these people in my life so deep that they can touch it, and you don’t have a goddamn problem standing in my face and still lying about it!”
“W-w-wh . . . what do you mean?”
His playing stupid caused me to blackout, momentarily. So much so, that it was only hearing the crackling noise that emitted from his jaw that brought me back—kind of. In that exact moment, that drilling could no longer qualify as a blackout moment. It was completely deliberate. I didn’t stop and couldn’t stop, even if I wanted to.
“Do you wanna die today?!” I lashed out, punching him, again. “Huh?! Do youuu?!”
He stammered backwards, trying to get to some sort of relief, but I was right there to make sure he didn’t recover.
“Who are they?!” I yelled, as I brought my fist in and out of his face, in a fury of punches.
He tried to put up a good fight, but his attempt at landing anything failed. Honestly, I hadn’t gone there to beat the shit out of him, because I knew that as pissed as I was, I could do real damage. However, as I rained a succession of blows on him, I realized that it wasn’t me who was in control.
“Where! The fuuuck! Is my goddamn woman, Wayne?!”
“Dario . . .” he spat, blood splashing from his mouth, as he tried to get his words out. “I . . .”
Seconds after feeling his weight give beneath me, the fight in him subsided, and I relented. It was then that I felt badly for what I’d done. His desperate fight back, along with my assault, had weakened him
and he barely moved when I finally put an end to my reign of terror.
Out of breath, but feeling somewhat lighter, I crawled off of Wayne’s battered body and sunk to the floor near where he lay.
“Who . . . the fuck . . . are they, Wayne?”
He struggled to roll over onto his side, trying to lift up on one elbow for leverage. Even with the little bit of remorse I felt, I couldn’t bring myself to help him. That little bit of regret that I did have, was as far as it went.
“The persons . . .” He paused. “The main person . . . is Dex. Dex Jackson.”
At those words, I rose from my position on the floor and began to pace in the same area. I fell into deep thought, praying for the answers to hit me. I folded my forearms across my forehead. My head was pounding. After a few minutes, I lowered my arms and looked down at Wayne.
“Main person?! What the fuck does that even mean?! There’s layers of these motherfuckers?!”
“I’m not quite sure, D.C.” I don’t know what caused the shift, but I finally heard honesty in Wayne’s voice. Maybe it had been there the whole time and I was just too enraged to see it. “I just know that I’ve been dealing with a single person on what started out as something not-so-serious.” He brought his hands over his face and began to sob, loudly. “Then, shit just spiraled. I didn’t see any of it coming. I . . . would’ve . . . told you.”
“And so, this person, Dex, is the one you’re saying is pulling all the strings?”
“I’m not sure. I just know that the tone of the conversations changed. They started out as playful banter about whose fighter could beat the other one’s fighter.”
“And who’s his fighter?”
“Hit Man.”
“That bitch-ass Wilder?”
“Yeah.”
CHAPTER 27
Chanel
Please, God, when I open my eyes, let this all be a dream.
Shit, I’ll even take it being a nightmare. Just let it not be my reality; because if it is, I don’t know what I’ll do. I’ve been through enough, God. Please. Just please don’t let this be real.
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