Tied to a Boss

by Jhon Rose

Chapter One

  Two Weeks Later

  Fingers printed, pictures taken, and then escorted across the lobby to booking at the county jail, Dante found himself being led to a steel holding cell. “What’s up with the phone?” Dante asked the female correctional officer who was unlocking the holding cell door. Running her eyes quickly over the freshly booked inmate from top to bottom, her eyes met his light hazel-green eyes that stared right back. His six-piece gold bottom grill gave off a sexy vibe that coupled nicely with the one he naturally gave off. The officer looked back over to the wall at the three phones, and seeing they were all being used, she turned back to him.

  “Blackwell, give me a minute. I’m going to get you on a phone.”

  Nodding his head, Dante turned and entered the holding cell instantly catching the smell of piss and must. Hearing the cell door close behind him as he stood looking around the packed holding area, the odor grew stronger, and Dante was just about to find a wall to lean against when he heard, “Here you go, playboy.”

  Looking to his left, a dark-skinned, heavyset man with thick nappy dreads sat against the wall on the concrete slab that he was using as a bench. The man scooted over to make room for him to sit, and as he nodded to the heavyset man, Dante walked over and sat in the vacant spot. Ignoring the looks he received, Dante laid his back against the wall behind him catching himself. Remembering the stagnant smell in his nose, he snapped his head up. “Where do I know you from dude?” the homeboy beside him asked.

  “Believe me dude, you don’t know me,” Dante replied, which only kept the fat man staring at him.

  “Yeah I know you playboy,” he reassured him nodding his head and keeping his scowling smile up. “I remember where I know you from. You were at Club Bass with this big big-as-a-house looking motherfucker. You got into it with that clown ass nigga, Prince. A woman told me you were one of them stickup boys.” Not bothering to respond, Dante turned his attention forward only to hear the fat man continue. “They call me Big Worm. You ever get at that clown Prince for tryna shine up the club the other night?”

  “Look Big Wave, or Worm, no disrespect, but I really don’t know you and I’m not discussing my…”

  Cutting him off, Big Worm said, “What would you say if I told you I could help you get at that bitch nigga Prince?” Big Worm proceeded. “But, I’ma need you to do a little something for me in return.” Big Worm still maintained his scowl of a smile.

  He began to speak again but this time was interrupted by Dante, “Understand something before you say anything else. If you plan on fucking with me, make sure we completely understand each other.”

  “Relax killa; everything is good on this end,” Big Worm said smiling.

  $ $ $

  Three hours later, Dante walked out of the county jail after being bailed out on a first-degree misdemeanor that he received after being pulled over and caught with an ounce of weed. Dante walked to the sidewalk from the jail’s front entrance and looked up the street when he heard a car horn blow behind him.

  Turning his head behind him and looking down the street, Dante stood watching the metallic black and chrome Chevy Avalanche slowly drive to a stop in the middle of the street in front of him. “What’s up, fam?” Dre called out from the driver side of the truck. Dante could hear the click sound from the vehicle doors unlocking as he walked up.

  Opening the front passenger door, Dante climbed into the truck. “What’s good bra, you good?” Dre asked his best friend who he considered to be more like his brother.

  “Shit’s good,” Dante answered as Dre pulled off from the front of the jail.

  “Yo, this nigga Tony T told me to tell you to get at him once got out and that clown Vegas said he will check you out later on tonight. He said he’s got some business that we’re handling ourselves tonight.”

  “Nah, fuck all that. I got some business that we need to handle first.”

  “What’s up fam?” Dre asked. Looking at Dante and smirking. Dante began telling Dre about Big Worm. He told him about Prince and how the fat man in the holding cell broke down some information about Prince to him. Just before that, the fat man made a call and bonded Dante out. “Fam, come on, that bitch nigga who was at the club popping that gangster shit with his boys?” Dre asked trying to confirm his recollection of this “Prince” dude. Dre continued, “The one who had all those thirsty bitches around him?” From the head nod that Dante gave him confirming his memory of Prince, Dre focused back on the road only to ask, “What time we hitten that fuck boy?”

  “Homeboy gets home around ten so he’s already at the crib, but were hitten him up when he leaves to go to his spot down south. The motherfucker Big Worm say’s that every Friday morning around four, Prince leaves the crib with two duffel bags and two gunmen.”

  “So we’re pulling an all-nighter?” Dre asked.

  “Pretty much,” Dante answered, and then added, “But first, I need something to fuckin eat.”

  $ $ $

  “So what is this dude talking about, Alinna?” Vanessa asked her girl, looking from the road over to Alinna and into the passenger side of her new Lexus truck. “Does Kenny K have the re-up?”

  “His ass is still with that little boy,” Alinna replied. “He talked about coming to the spot and then his ass hung up in my face.”

  “It’s time to leave that dude, Alinna – or rather kill his ass,” Vanessa said, glancing over her.

  “We can’t do anything until we find a better connect,” Alinna told her girl. “Once we find a new connect though I’m gonna make sure Kenny K’s ass feels it for playing these stupid games with me.”

  Still heated and thinking about the bullshit with Kenny K, Vanessa pulled the Lexus in front of the Kenny K’s trap house. Seeing his Benz E63 parked out front of the yard alongside a Chevy Impala, Alinna waited until Vanessa parked the Lexus and they both climbed out. Walking through the yard heading towards the front door, Alinna watched the front door open. She heard the comment Vanessa mumbled as Kenny K stood at the front door watching them approach.

  “What took you so long?” Kenny K asked, staring directly at Alinna as her and her sidekick stopped in front of him.

  “I was driving,” Vanessa said, staring hatefully at Kenny K who completely ignored her and continued to stare at Alinna as if Vanessa wasn’t even there. “We’re here now, so you got the weed or what? I’ve got business I got too handle,” Alinna told him making sure to get straight to the point. “You got my money?” Kenny K replied.

  “You got the work?” Vanessa asked, speaking up once more.

  Cutting his eyes over to her sidekick, Kenny K said, “You need to learn when to open your mouth or else I might just put something in it, bitch.” He grabbed Vanessa’s arm, and just as Vanessa flinched forward, two of Kenny K’s boy’s appeared behind him, staring out past Kenny K and straight at the girls.

  “What’s up? You got the work or not?” Alinna interrupted to offset the drama.

  “I got three of them. Now, where’s my money?” Kenny K asked, shifting his eye back toward Alinna.

  “What happened to the five we’ve been buying?” Alinna questioned.

  “I said I got three of them,” Kenny K repeated, and then added, “You either want three or you and this tall he-she bitch you got here can get the fuck off my off my shit. Decide now.”

  Slowly shaking her head as she locked eyes with Kenny K, Alinna responded. “Where’s the shit, Kenny?”

  $ $ $

  Seeing Prince and two more of his boy’s enter the trap house, Dante and Dre calmly walked the two blocks up to the parked Ford Explorer. Walking through the front yard of the house that Prince had been using as a trap house, Dante kept up his pace as Dre jogged towards the front door of the trap house. He pulled out a pair of Glock .40’s just as Dre slammed his size 13 foot into the front door sending it flying open against the wall so hard that the doorknob broke through the sheet rock embedding itself. Dante calmly stepped past Dre wi
th his muscular 6’5” and 260-pound frame. They stepped inside the front door of the trap house and swung both of his glock’s to the right.

  Boom! Boom! Boom! Letting both hammers ring out and catching one of the two gunmen that entered the trap house with Prince, homeboy was just hopping up from the couch and swung his left arm towards the other dude who was leaning back against the sofa seat caught off guard. Just before one of the two rounds of the .40-cal blew through, his surprised expression and his face were wiped clean off.

  Hearing the cannon-like explosion coming from his left and shifting his eyes to the direction of the sound, another explosion from Dre’s .45 automatic sung out through the house. Dante looked back at the bodies on the couch and then turned and started after Dre who moved towards the frame of the bedroom door. “Let me in, braw,” Dante urged. As big as he was, his wide body blocked the entire doorway. Dante stepped inside the bedroom after Dre calmly and smoothly slid to his right of the doorway inside the bedroom.

  Seeing Prince’s expression change as soon as he saw him, Dante flashed a sarcastic smile. “My nigga … Prince, we meet again.”

  “Man, come on, let’s not,” Prince said fearing the worst from Dante.

  “Looks like I am right on time,” Dante interrupted, looking over to the two black leather bags that Prince had entered with. A grey gym bag also sat atop a king size bed that was free from sheets and blankets. Walking past Prince and completely ignoring the other two guys that were by him, recognizing one as the gunmen who came with Prince to the trap house, Dante stopped in front of the foldout table, tucking his left hand burner inside the front of his jeans, then reaching out and opening one of the bags, and then the other two. Smirking when he saw that the contents of the gym bag was money and the other two contained three bricks of coke, and finally the last contained multiple pounds of weed. “Prince, you must have known this were coming. Good looking out with these gifts,” Dante said cheerfully.

  “Just go ahead and …” Prince started, but he was interrupted again by Dante.

  “Braw go ahead and handle that for me,” he said, gesturing to Dre. Meanwhile he slid his burner from inside his jeans and reached for the bag with the money inside. Just as Dre’s .45 rang out inside the bedroom, ignoring the bodies that flew past where he was standing, they dropped to the floor. Prince laid there with the left side of his face missing.

  $ $ $

  Three minutes later, seated inside the passenger seat of the Ford Explorer as Dre drove away from the trap house, Dante ignored the sound of sirens heard somewhere in the distance. He sat listening to his phone ringing as he called the number Big Worm had given him to call once Prince had been taken care of.

  “This Worm. Who dis?” Big Worm answered on the second ring.

  “This me, where we meeting?”

  A few quiet moments passed before Big Worm replied. “This Dante, right?”

  “Where are we meeting?” Dante asked.

  “Damn you already handled that, my nigga?”

  “You plan on telling me where to meet you or have you changed your mind about the deal?” Dante said, becoming irritated with him.

  “Nah, meet me at Royal Castle off 79th and 27th. I’ll be there in 20 minutes.” Dante hung up the phone.

  “What we doing, fam?” Dre asked

  “We’re meeting him at Royal Castle,” Dante said, pulling out a vanilla Black and Mild.

  “We really doing the whole deal, or we doing us?” Dre asked.

  Getting the tip of the Black lit, Dante took a pull from the cigar while he answered. “We will see how fat boy acts. It’s up to him.”

  $ $ $

  Still heated about the whole bullshit with Kenny K who was now seated at the table inside the bedroom apartment that she and her girls rented as their stash house, Alinna ignored the conversations with her girls as they broke down the two pounds of the weed they had just picked up from Kenny K, and bagging it up into ounces.

  Getting up from the table and walking back up the hallway into the bathroom, she wanted to get away from her girls who were talking about Kenny K. Alinna was becoming more agitated with every word they said. She closed the door and looked into the mirror, holding onto the edge of the sink. “Shit, fuck, shit!” Shaking her head, Alinna took a deep breath and then released it when Vanessa stuck her head into the bathroom door.

  “Are you okay, yo?” Vanessa asked. She was a big girl stepping into the bathroom at 6’2” 165 pounds, thick and curvy but with a muscular frame, joining Alinna inside the bathroom. Taking the joint that Vanessa had brought in with her, Alinna took a deep pull and held the smoke in her lungs. While releasing the smoke after holding it for as long as she could, she said, “I want to kill that motherfucker, Nessa, for real.”

  “Just say the word; I will happily get rid of his ass,” Vanessa told Alinna, almost happily. Shaking her head on the account of how easy it was to get Vanessa on board, she looked back at her friend with a smile.

  Alinna then quickly became serious and said, “We will deal with Kenny K first then plan on how we’re gonna deal with this weed connect problem we got.”

  $ $ $

  Reaching over and tapping Dante on the shoulder as he laid in the passenger seat with his eyes closed, Dre nodded toward the diner parking lot at an Expedition that was pulling in. “Ain’t that homies ride?” Seeing the truck, Dante sat watching it closely as it pulled into an empty space in the lot. They watched Big Worm poor himself out after the truck was quickly put in park and the door opened. The other doors then opened revealing two more men who climbed out from the truck.

  “Big Worm is a little nervous after all,” Dante said with some laugher in his voice.

  Opening the car door, climbing out of Dre’s Avalanche, and walking around to meet sides with Dre at the front of the vehicle, Dante nodded to Big Worm and the five guys who were occupying the Expedition. “Looks like this nigga was planning a get together. Come on, let’s go say hi.”

  Seeing Big Worm inside the Royal Castle, both Dante and Dre headed around to the front end of the diner to greet him. Dre opened the door allowing Dante to enter first and then followed behind him. Dante walked straight up on Big Worm at his table before any of them noticed. “You brought friends I see.”

  “Shit!” Big Worm said, startled by Dante.

  Big Worm then looked at him and then to Dre, recognizing how big he was. “You didn’t come alone either.”

  Ignoring the others who were with Big Worm as well as their stares, Dante pulled up a chair, and turned it backwards as he sat. “Here’s the deal,” Dante began. “I got three bricks and three pounds for you. I want $4,200 for the weed and $27,000 for the coke.”

  “Damn playboy, you asking for $31,000 from the boy? I thought we were cool?” Big Worm told Dante staring into his eyes and seeing how serious Dante was.

  “Either yes or no. It’s just that simple; you choose,” Dante told Big Worm nodding his head and thinking about the work that was being offered.

  Big Worm answered, “Alright, I call that. Now what about the other part of the deal?”

  Holding Big Worms eyes, Dante asked after a moment of silence, “What’s this problem you’re talking about?”

  Slowly smiling, Big Worm answered, “Her name is Alinna Rodriguez.”

  “Hold up,” Dre had spoken for the first time since walking into the diner. “It’s a woman?”

  “Now don’t get twisted,” Big Worm responded. “This ain’t no normal chick. She’s straight evil and she’s got a team of demon bitches just as evil as that hoe. She’s got this bitch, Vanessa who’s evil and crazier than all the rest of them!”

  Watching Big Worm’s facial expressions as he told them about her, Dante paid close attention to what was being told to him, but also the hatred fuming from Big Worm’s massive body.