Terri stood by their side as he watched the twins bury their mother. He had been to plenty of funerals over the years, having caused many himself, but he wasn’t too keen on being in cemeteries.
He eyed Apple from where he stood and admired her bravery. He had never met a woman like her.
Terri knew the feds were watching them closely, even at the cemetery; he’d noticed the dark sedan parked across the street in the distance, with a few agents seated in the car snapping pictures of everything. He knew the routine.
A federal indictment was coming down, and it was inevitable that the twins would be prosecuted. Kola already had an open case in Miami, and Guy Tony wanted Apple to suffer. He was a snitch, but he didn’t look at it that way. At this point, Guy was secretly working with the feds to save his own ass, becoming a borderline informant.
***
Kola convinced Apple that they needed to leave the country to escape prosecution and death. If they didn’t, then their fate would be sealed. She’d told her sister about Eduardo, telling her he had the money and means to give them new identities and passports and could have them out of the country within twenty-four hours. But they would be indebted to him.
Working with Eduardo would give them an unlimited supply of coke and dope, money and security. Apple was somewhat reluctant. She couldn’t leave the country without seeing Chico and Shaun dead. And then there was Peaches.
“We can’t stay,” Kola said. “If we do, then we’re both as good as dead.”
Apple understood their situation, but her ego couldn’t let it go. What Shaun did to her was unforgivable, and Chico had not only tried to kill her but had mercilessly murdered Denise. She wanted to see him suffer.
Kola finally convinced Apple to go along with the program. She assured her sister that Eduardo had a team of assassins already on the job. But Apple wanted to be there when they caught up with Shaun and Chico. She wanted to see the look in their eyes as they were about to die. She didn’t want that moment taken away from her. She wanted to take pleasure in seeing them die slowly and painfully.
Kola looked at her sister and asked, “You ready to make your own moves?”
Apple nodded.
***
Clinton Correctional Facility, the maximum-security prison in Dannemora, New York, was known to house violent inmates and redneck guards. It was late evening when Cross was leaving his work detail in the kitchen. He was doing a seven-year bid on the gun charges he’d caught a while back. It was the best deal his lawyer could work out for him, since he had priors for drug trafficking and murders. He had gotten off easy. He was keeping a low profile on the inside, aware that he was a marked man.
Word had been getting back to him about the murders and violence in Harlem, and Kola’s return. His peoples were dead, and he felt like he was the last one left. He just wanted to do his time and get out. He didn’t want any problems.
As he moved through the narrow corridor, Jingles said, “Yo, Cross, what’s good? You got any smokes on you, man?”
Jingles, a former gang member and ruthless enforcer in his late forties, used to terrorize the Bronx streets in the eighties and early nineties. He had a life sentence and a lot of regrets. Cross had befriended him when he’d first arrived at Clinton. Jingles had never had any problems during his incarceration because everyone knew his fierce reputation.
“Jingles, how’s it been?” Cross replied.
“Same ol’, same ol’, my dun. Time moving slowly, and I’m moving slow wit’ it.”
“I hear you.”
Cross passed Jingles a cigarette. He lit it up and the two started to walk down the corridor, talking and laughing. Cross had a lot of love for Jingles. When he’d first arrived, Jingles took him under his wing, and they became friends, sharing stories of their wild, hustling ways.
As they walked, the hallway dimmed, and within the blink of an eye, Cross felt a pair of strong arms wrapping around him and pulling him into a darkened corner.
Jingles’ smile rapidly turned into a threatening frown. Two inmates were wrestling with Cross, who was fighting a losing battle.
“What the fuck, Jingles!” he yelled out.
“You a good friend, Cross, but this is only business. I need the damn money for my kids.”
Cross’s eyes became wide with terror when he felt the cord tighten around his neck. He struggled for his life, but he was overpowered. He stared at Jingles while subdued on his knees, and the life started to fade from his eyes, as his attacker thrust his knee into his back and pulled brutally at the wire that was digging into his neck and cutting off circulation.
“Just die, Cross,” Jingles uttered.
Cross slowly began to close his eyes, feeling his life being pulled from him. His killer was strong like an ox, his biceps the size of boulders, and he wasn’t letting go of the wire gripped around his knuckles until every ounce of breath was gone from Cross’ lungs. And then Cross’ body went limp.
The killer released his powerful hold around Cross’ neck, and his body dropped at Jingles’ feet. It would be the first of many deaths to come in the months ahead.
Epilogue
After the black hood was removed from around Chico’s face, he squinted up at his kidnappers. They had kept him in the dark for hours. And now he found himself restrained to a chair.
“Y’all niggas know who the fuck I am?”
“Shut the fuck up!” someone yelled.
Chico’s remark warranted a pistol-whip by the Glock 17. He spewed blood from his mouth and glared at the men surrounding him in the dark room.
Chico’s eyes darted in every direction. He tried to break free from his restraints, but they had him tied down really good. He continued to curse and threaten everyone in the room.
He shouted, “I’ma fuck y’all up. You fuckin’ hear me? I’m fuckin’ Chico. I run this shit!”
“Shut the fuck up!” the suited gangster replied. He struck Chico with the butt of his pistol several times, bruising his face and cracking some teeth. “I’m sick of your fuckin’ mouth.”
Chico coughed and spat up blood. He was the only one left. His crew was dead—Torrez, Bad and Rome, all gunned down by AK-47 as they exited a nightclub. Then he was beaten and pushed into a van and brought there.
“You a fuckin’ cowboy, Chico . . . too fuckin’ reckless out there. We can’t have that going on in Harlem anymore,” a man said.
“Fuck you!”
“No, fuck you!”
Chico instantly knew the voice and spun his head in the direction where it came from.
Apple came limping into the room, clutching her cane. She glared at Chico. Their eyes locked.
“You fuckin’ bitch!” he spat.
“I told you, I was comin’ for you, and you was going to hurt bad, and feel every bit of pain I felt.”
“You always been a bitch, Apple. I should have killed you a long time ago.”
“You did try, didn’t you?”
Chico growled at her. He wanted to rip her apart.
Apple told him, “Oh, and I do have a surprise for you. You’re not in this alone, muthafucka.” She nodded to one of the thugs, and he went to retrieve the special gift she had for him.
A short moment later, the muscular thug pushed another captive into the room with Chico. It was obvious she was a female, by her curvy shape. She wore a hood over her head, and her wrists were tied in front of her.
Apple snatched the hood off Blythe’s head.
“Nooo!” Chico screamed out. “Let her go!”
“Are you serious?” Apple shouted. “You love her over me? This bitch?”
“I don’t wanna die. Please, I don’t wanna die,” Blythe pleaded, tears trickling down her face. “Please let me go.”
“Apple, she ain’t got shit to do wit’ us. Just let her go, please.”
“You love her, Chico?” Apple asked. “You fuckin’ love this bitch? She took you away from me. I loved you.”
“Apple, just let her go. I’
m begging you.”
“You’re fuckin’ beggin’ me? Did you feel this torn up for me when I was in Mexico?”
“I searched everywhere for you! I paid everyone to try and find you. I did look for you! I LOOKED EVERYWHERE FOR YOU!” Chico screamed madly.
“Well, it’s obvious you didn’t look hard enough, because this dumb bitch had most of your time. Was it worth it, Chico? Huh? Was the pussy worth dying over?”
“You a sick bitch, Apple. You are. You took everything from me.”
“So now you know how it fuckin’ feels.”
“I’m pregnant, Chico,” Blythe uttered.
Apple was in pure rage. “Pregnant?” She put the gun to Blythe’s head, her finger on the trigger, and then stared at Chico. “You know, I gave birth to a daughter in that hellhole.”
“I know. Her name is Peaches, right?” Chico said.
Apple’s face was fluttered with bewilderment. “How did you know?”
“The enemy of my enemy is now a friend. Me and Shaun, we suddenly had a lot in common. I’ve seen ya fuckin’ daughter. She’s pretty, but I know she ain’t mines; the time frame doesn’t add up.”
“Where is she?”
“Fuck you! Just let her go first, and then we can talk.”
Now Apple was put into a difficult situation. She was furious that Chico had befriended Shaun. It was the ultimate treachery. But she yearned to know the whereabouts of her daughter. And it also infuriated her that Chico loved Blythe more than he’d loved her.
“You let her go, and then we can talk,” Chico said.
It amazed Apple how Chico was still able to gain control of the situation he was in. Suddenly, Chico had the upper hand in the room.
“Let her fuckin’ go, Apple,” he roared.
It was a hard decision for Apple. She wanted to see them both dead. Her plan was to kill Blythe in front of Chico and make him suffer.
She hated to do it, but she released Blythe and continued to torture Chico until he revealed where Shaun had her daughter. Afterwards, she personally put three rounds into his head, splattered his brain all over the walls and concrete.
Shortly thereafter, her goons got a hold of Blythe and strangled the life and that of her baby out of her. There wasn’t any way Apple was going to allow her to live happily ever after with Chico’s baby. This was the hood, where there were no happy endings.
***
When Apple got word that Eduardo’s soldiers had caught up with Shaun in New Mexico, she put the word out that she wanted him alive. She and Kola flew out there immediately under their new identities, and under the darkened sky of the vast desert, the black SUV they rode in hastily moved toward the hole Shaun was being buried alive in.
When they arrived, Shaun was buried up to his neck in the cold desert, his face was badly beaten, and three armed thugs towering over him.
Apple rushed out of the truck and ran toward that muthafucka with a ferocious look of a lion. She wanted to tear him apart. Finding out he had her daughter made her insane.
“Where is she, you muthafucka?” Apple screamed out.
Shaun taunted her by laughing.
“Where is she?” Apple kicked him in the face with the bottom of her heels.
The pain was excruciating for Shaun, but he continued on with his mocking smile and laugh. “Fuck you, bitch!”
Apple was about to break his head off. She always thought she would enjoy this moment, but it flipped on her like a coin in the air. Her tears started to drop.
“You ain’t gonna never find that little bitch. Fuck you, Apple! Fuck you and everything about you. What you did to my family, to me, bitch, rot in hell! ’Cause your daughter . . . you ain’t gonna never see that little fuckin’ bitch again. I made sure of that.”
Apple couldn’t hold her composure. She broke down in front of everyone. It wasn’t fair. Even on the brink of death, Shaun still had the advantage over her. The pleasure of torturing and killing him wasn’t there anymore.
Shaun continued to mock Apple, until Kola silenced him with four hot shots into his head. He wasn’t going to talk. After that, the men buried him in the desert, but Apple was left with no closure.
Kola was shocked to find out that she was an aunt. “Why didn’t you tell me?” she asked Apple.
“’Cause it was my fuckin’ business.”
Kola didn’t push the issue because Apple was too distraught. Kola tried to console her, saying, “We’ll find her.”
But Apple didn’t know anymore. Her life had been one big free fall of terror and anguish. Everything had been taken from her—Nichols, her mother, her daughter, her beauty, and even her dignity.
Now, the twins were being forced to leave the country because they had to repay a debt to Eduardo, and the feds were closing in on them with for murder, racketeering, tax evasion, and on and on, each charge carrying twenty to life sentences. The twins had to disappear, and Eduardo was ready to make it happen.
In two days, they were going to board a plane, with new identities and leave for the south of France, and then head for Colombia. Kola was ready to show her loyalty to Eduardo, but Apple wasn’t so sure. But what choice did she have? If she chose to stay, then her freedom and her life would be in jeopardy.
***
Guy Tony walked into his penthouse suite in Houston wanting to relax. So far it had been a good day. He turned on the TV, and it was all over the news—The FBI had a nationwide manhunt out for the twins. He smiled.
Somehow, the twins had escaped capture and hadn’t been seen in weeks. Guy Tony felt he could relax more. He figured he’d outsmarted Apple. Kola was just a bonus.
Guy walked into the bedroom to undress, but he felt a strange presence in the room with him. Before he could turn around and react, he felt the cold steel of a Desert Eagle pressed against the back of his head.
“Don’t fuckin’ move, muthafucka!” a voice growled in the dark.
“What is it that you want, nigga? Money, huh? I got plenty of it around. Help yourself.”
“I don’t want ya fuckin’ money, Guy, I want ya life.”
“Yo, we can work this shit out. I can give you whatever! Who’s payin’ you for this job? Huh, muthafucka? Who’s payin’ you for this shit?”
“Not a damn soul. This is pro bono,” the man replied.
The man squeezed the trigger and unloaded a hot slug into the back of Guy’s head, and Guy crumpled to the floor. The man continued to fire, shooting the body five more times.
Terri hated a snitch. He stepped over the body as it began pooling with blood. Now, it was time for him to leave the country too, and maybe link up with the twins and work for Eduardo’s empire. He had nothing else left in Houston or New York.
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Face Off--The Baddest Chick 4 Page 22
