by Tiana Laveen
“That has a nice ring to it.” She smiled up at him, looping her arms around his neck.
“You know, baby, I wanted you since the first time I saw you. I wanted your body, to fuck you, I’m not going to lie to you, but I also wanted to get to know you.” She sighed with contentment. “You intrigued me. You’re not a fling to me. I care about you.” He began to pump his hips again, making love to her just how she needed it.
“I care about you, too.” There was no way he could know how much she needed to hear what he was saying. How her heart craved those words. “Sometimes, when we talk, or we’re alone just chillin’ together, I feel like it’s just us in our own little world. Feels like we’ve got our own garden of Eden… Maybe I could be your Eve?”
He suddenly jerked, his eyes growing larger for a split second, then closed. A wave of warmth flooded her gate when he emptied his seed into the condom. Laying against her, his heart beating, he gave her lazy kisses. They looked at one another, playing with each other’s hair.
“Such a pretty smile,” he complimented, then kissed her and got out of the bed. “This is probably the bathroom over here, right?”
“Yes, that’s it.”
He grabbed his dick and removed the condom as he walked to the restroom and closed the door behind him.
He’d left her there with his inebriating scent lingering in the air, and her pussy suddenly empty, missing him already. She slowly got up from the bed, her body sore and feeling good all at once. She made her way over to the music and turned the volume up as Nasty C and Ari Lennox’s, ‘Black and White’ started to play. Snapping her fingers to the music, she made her way back to the bed and sat down. Slowly. Thinking.
I don’t know if I did the right thing or not, but I’m not going to overthink this. I like him… A lot. I did what felt right. End of story.
She ran her hands up and down her arms and fell into a daydream as the music played. Viper emerged from the bathroom and the first thing she noticed when he approached the bed was a new erection. She burst out laughing when he grabbed another condom, tore it open, and quickly slid it down his dick.
“I thought we were going to take a minute?”
“We did. It’s been at least ten minutes. Get on your hands and knees on the bed. I want to fuck you from behind and watch that ass jiggle.”
They were both laughing now as she complied. Standing behind her, he gripped her waist and kissed up and down her spine. Her pussy began to weep in anticipation.
“I want you inside me.” She urged him on as he stroked her, then pushed his dick within her. She screamed and writhed about, flattening her breasts on the bed in the process. Massaging her shoulder, he kept pumping his hips. Doggy style with him was even more intense. He made love to her slowly, then ruthlessly, speeding up and cursing over her screams, delivering deep blows until she was shaking and quaking.
His dick was pure fucking magic. And he knew how to use it. She couldn’t recall the last time she’d orgasmed so much. In fact, this was probably the first time she’d had so many, in such a short span of time. He came once again, groaning and trembling. It wasn’t long before they were cuddled in the bed, fast asleep. Several hours later, she awoke to see that Viper was gone from the bed. She found him standing by her window, looking out. She could only make out the outline of his body for it was dark now in the room, except for the illumination of her blue nightlight that reflected on his skin. She imagined the sun would be rising soon, but right then, he was the sun. He’d turned her inside out, and she knew it would be hard to let him go now, just as she’d both hoped and feared.
He turned away from the window, and without saying a word, slipped back under the sheets with her. Wrapping his arms around her, he kissed and held her, then rolled her on her side, facing him. They looked at one another in the darkness, breathing slow and easy. Reaching for her breasts, he gently caressed them, then placed his hand against her pussy, lightly stroking her folds, kneading her clit. He increased the pressure, rubbing and massaging her pussy until she burst, releasing an orgasm that caught her off guard. With a gentle hand, he coaxed her trembling body flat on her back, then disappeared between her legs…
His tongue taut, he weaponized it against her in the most beautiful of ways until she came again… and again… and again…
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Blood and Onions
There was blood everywhere…
A deep, red, angry scattering of terminated life and fresh death sprayed like paint upon the walls. Furniture and lamps were turned over. Bloody handprints stained the linoleum floors. Three dead bodies, one of whom he didn’t recognize but was informed had been a Latin King, occupied the room. One was face down, lying in a pool of blood. Another was slumped on the black couch with two bullet holes in his head, his fingers still loosely holding onto an unlit joint, eyes wide open. The last lay dead in front of the television, the video game he’d been watching still on pause. Viper was being told for the second time how several members of the Crips had broken in, looking for a stash of cocaine that wasn’t even there. There had been no lookout replacement since Wild had been apprehended and incarcerated, only guys doing half-assed shifts, and everything was going to hell.
“They thought it was Blood territory,” King Joker announced, his face splotchy and voice cracking. One of the deceased was his second cousin. “They thought Day’s friend was here, too.” Day was a drug runner who was cool with several of the Bloods that came in the area to purchase weed, grub, or fuck some Cuban women. “This is fucked up, man. Real fucked up.”
“It will be taken care of.” Viper sighed. “In fact, it’s being addressed as we speak. I’ve sent out someone to bring me back some names.” Hands on hips, he once again surveyed the scene.
“Kill them and their fuckin’ mothers. Kill them all!” Joker yelled as he knelt over his cousin and gently brushed his eyes closed.
Grief was a strange thing, but in the end, it didn’t matter. The souls of the damned were doing what they did best. Destroy. It was a dog-eat-dog world, and Viper trained the leaders of the pack. This wasn’t our fight. Bloods and Latin Kings got along; they weren’t enemies, and it wasn’t unheard of for them to help one another in various situations, especially behind bars. King felt somewhat distant, devoid of emotional triggers. The sight of these bodies didn’t make him flinch or recoil in disgust. The smell of death no longer resonated with him. He’d been to too many funerals, seen too many dead fuckers in the streets and alleys, and at his very own feet, to give a damn.
This sense of detachment, the lack of feeling or concern for the horrors facing him, was something he’d been experiencing for quite some time. He’d become immune to it long before this moment, but this gave him food for thought. Nothing shocks me anymore. If I saw a priest getting a blow job from a nun in broad daylight, and then she shoots him in the face with heroin while singing a Frank Sinatra song in French, I wouldn’t even slow my stride as I walked on by.
Nothing could make him scream, jump, or lose his cool. He’d taken out so many people over the years, he’d lost count. Many times, you don’t wait around and watch. You spray and go. He was a Warlord. It was his job to keep order, punish and give the go ahead for disposals, and he did the shit well – was one of the reasons why he’d climbed the food chain so quickly. He’d choked, stabbed, tortured, beaten to a pulp so many men during his lifetime, if he tried to write their names in a ledger, his hand would grow tired.
That’s just what this life was about: Kill or be killed. He didn’t relish this, but it was part of survival. No one grew up in the life he lived, the one he inherited, without ever having to waste someone. Most people had no inkling what was really going on in the streets. Once the sun set, under the cover of night, an entirely different world would emerge. The police had an idea, but even they only saw the aftermath, rarely the acts that led up to such behavior. Poverty. Strife. Depression. Need. Greed. Lust. All doorways to what he’d been born into. He understood t
hat in some factions of society, he was perceived as a savage, but savages were created by the same society who judged them. People didn’t care when I was a child in need. They don’t need to care about what the fuck I do now. It’s just that simple.
He was the same little boy who’d witnessed his father shoot a man in the gut for stealing from him, the same kid who had cuts in his arms and hands from shattering glass during a botched robbery in a small family restaurant that resulted in four people being shot to death. He’d grown up around gangs, violence, drug usage, physical abuse, and more. As a child, he’d witnessed atrocious crimes he’d tried to scrub from his mind over the years… crimes passed off as everyday life.
The last straw, he believed, was when he was forced to witness his own mother being assaulted by an intruder while he and his brother were held at gunpoint. Their father had left months prior, and someone took advantage of the situation. A woman living alone with two boys. She’d never disclosed what happened to her during those twenty-four minutes when their tiny home was ransacked by a couple drug addicts, and she was behind closed doors with some man who was making her scream, beg, and cry. ‘I’ll do what you want! Just don’t hurt my children…’ He and his brother were never without weapons again after that night, which was still etched in his mind. How else would anyone expect him to turn out? He was born from blood and death. He’d lived in blood and death. He’d die in blood and death.
Viper knew one of the dead men, but they weren’t friends. It was another Latin King, a brother not by blood, but by Reye. Protect the crown, protect the nation. He bowed his head and whispered in prayer, “Amor de Rey.”
“There’s no forced entry.” He casually pointed to the front door. They knew these guys.
“You sound like a cop,” King Vodka joked, but no one laughed. “Uh…” He cleared his throat, taking the matter a bit more seriously. “Yeah… but Day’s sister said they broke in.”
“She was here when it happened?”
“Yeah, but she climbed out the back window.”
Viper slipped on some gloves and did a search, looking for any other clues. Moments later, about thirteen Latin Kings and Queens arrived with bottles of detergent, buckets, garbage bags, coverlets, rags, mops, towels, and various other cleaning agents.
“Did you all leave your phones at home and on like I asked?” They all nodded in the affirmative.
“Where do you want us to start, Viper?” King Red asked as he removed his dark sunglasses from his eyes and placed them atop his short, buzzed cut head. A teardrop tattoo, prison blue, sat below his right eye.
“Right here in the living room.” They instantly began to prepare. “Use the sheets and blankets you brought to wrap the guys up in, just like the times before. Then…” he glanced at his watch, “at two o’clock, take the first person out to Franco’s truck. Put him in the bed, be respectful. No bruises or bumps. Wait ten minutes between each body. Break out into groups. I need all this shit cleaned up within two hours. Clean the entire apartment.” He waved his finger around. “Even in the bedroom and bathroom, just in case one of the fuckers who did this tracked blood everywhere they went. If they couldn’t get the cocaine, trust, they weren’t leaving empty-handed. They got a hold of something other than money. All their pockets are empty, too, including their cellphones, but they took anything small and fast no doubt, like jewelry, weed, shit like that. Take the UV light and go over this room especially good to make sure you didn’t miss one square inch. Take the rugs off the floor, throw ’em away. Get into the creases of the linoleum. The corners of the baseboards. Use the OxiClean, dish detergent, and the peroxide. No bleach. Then, when you’re finished, call me.”
It was a common misconception that bleach got rid of all traces of blood. In fact, it was often a red flag to police homicide teams confirming that something amiss had in fact taken place. Gone were the days of South Florida Latin Kings leaving shocking massacres for the authorities to walk in on. Headline news. They’d adapted. No crime scene. No problem.
“Yes, Viper.” The team worked fast.
“Contact their families once you’ve spoken to me. Tell them we’ll take care of the funerals.” He grabbed his keys, ready to head out.
“Viper, let me kill the motherfuckers responsible. Fuckin’ crabs.”
King Coin, who Viper had known for about five years, had come to help make all this shit disappear. Young guy with lots of heart, in Viper’s eyes a Warlord in the making. He was a natural, which was a shame, a blessing, and a curse.
“Coin, I don’t want any fuck ups, so we have to go easy on this. Space things out. Keep ’em guessing. If they know we figured out who it was, they’ll run off.” Coin nodded in understanding. “If someone does what happened a year ago, it’s a fuckin’ wrap!” They all knew exactly what he was talking about. Someone from Naranja had shot a seven-year-old girl. No one seemed to know which amongst them had done it. It was all hush hush. Then, people started disappearing – other Kings. “They were trying to get at Snaps, and I very well may be looking that motherfucker in the eye right now who covered for the coward.” Everyone drew quiet. “Then I heard that one of you motherfuckers said that it was a Black kid, the little girl who lost her life, as though that made it okay. Did you fuckin’ forget who we are?!”
A rage that had been burning inside of him swelled up, bursting free. “We’re all linked!” He locked his fingers together, which symbolized the chain of people. Comrades. “These are our people! I know most of you don’t think that way, but enough of you do to put a smear on our name, on the nation. No one disrespects the crown! If I ever hear anyone say some shit like that, that so and so doesn’t count because they’re Black, or because it’s a chick, it’s off with your fuckin’ head!” He made a cutting motion with his finger, as if decapitation was imminent. “We’ve been down with the Bloods since the 1960’s. Since before any of us were born. You don’t shit on what our King forefathers put together. It took a lot of time and investment to form those pacts. You need allies, or you’re fucked. And y’all are fucking it up. Some of you knew who did it, and you tried to hide the one responsible. Protect him from me and the other warlords. You know the magnitude of that.”
“Do you want us to take care of that too, Viper?” King Torch offered. Torch was cool; he got shit done. He respected the old ways, but Viper suspected he could fold under pressure.
“Take care of it?” Viper repeated. He sucked his teeth, then smirked. “No. I’ve got it under control.” In fact, it was already done, only most of the Nation was unaware of that. Once word had spread that he was in over his head, the guy’s family had shipped the motherfucker off to Texas, but Viper had gone right after him. He could have assigned this task to somebody else, but this had been personal. In the end, he’d made sure the girl’s father knew he’d had to ice his own king brother to keep the peace.
He’d also made a public statement at their annual ALKQN meeting in Miami, that that sort of thing would not be tolerated. If you fuck up and miss your target, hitting an ally’s child instead, death was coming for you, from your brethren. It had to be so for them to keep peace. Unlike some of his brethren, he didn’t need to brag about his exploits or report how he ran business, he just produced results. Period. If he hadn’t done what he had, there would have been blood in the streets, and the damage and thirst for revenge could have potentially lasted for decades. Regardless, one always needed to move in silence. That’s their fucking problem. They talked too damn much.
“King Loco was upset about that, too,” Joker added as he began to pick up debris and toss it in a bag. Loco was now dead but the man had made it known that whoever in their family had been responsible for that little girl’s death would pay the ultimate price.
“As he should’ve been. The Bloods are part of the People Nation, just like us.” King Hell added. “Those are our brothers and sisters.”
Many nodded in agreement.
“Vice Lord Nation, and the Black P-Stone Nation.
We respect one another. That kid, her name was Kerisha… beautiful little girl. She was the daughter of a P-Stone, man. His name is Jacob, but he goes by Wizard,” King Hell went on to explain as he slumped down in a chair, clutching a bottle of cleaner.
“Whoever did that to her fucked up big time. It almost started a feud. You want this to turn into a Black and Latino thing? Like the shit they try and pull in prison? Like how some of the Mexicans and Blacks go after each other in the penn? Those White guards eat that shit up! It’s entertainment for them. Black and brown men fighting each other to the death over bullshit! Wake up! We’re not them! Is that what you want?” Viper yelled at everyone in that room. “Us pitted against each other?” Several of them shook their heads. “Let Combat 18 and American Front do all that dumb shit! We all bleed red.” His voice echoed throughout the room. “We don’t die, we multiply, and we need the numbers. I don’t like what’s going on. I’m seein’ an uptick in bullshit. You’ve even got other Latino gangs fuckin’ with the Black gangs, and vice versa, out in Chicago and L.A. That’s what some of the police and government want. It keeps them in a job. Divide and conquer. So they can look like the good guys, and we look like scrubs. Let’s just look us for a minute. Do you know how powerful we’d be if each and every Latino and Hispanic gang united? We’d be unstoppable, but we’re even split amongst each other. You fuckers only call me when the shit hits the fan. Next time, call me before you take a dump and turn that motherfucker on full blast.”
He stormed out of there, furious as ever.
“Go on, I’m serious,” Viper said as he poured himself a glass of ice water from the pitcher on Majesty’s kitchen counter. The woman kept giving him an uncertain look.
“Mama, go ’head!” Troy said, rolling his eyes in an exasperated fashion. “Viper can stay with me. Us men don’t need you here all the time.”
