Baddest Apple

by Nisa Santiago

  This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  Baddest Apple - The Baddest Chick Part 7. Copyright © 2019 by Melodrama Publishing. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. For information, address info@melodramabooks.com.

  www.melodramapublishing.com

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2018957345

  eISBN: 978-1620781111

  First Edition: October 2019

  Melodrama Publishing

  www.MelodramaPublishing.com

  Dedication

  I want to dedicate this final book in The Baddest Chick series to all the people who continually go above and beyond the norm of an avid reader. These readers aren’t “fans” to me; they’re so much more, somewhat like family. They encourage and motivate me and are beacons of positivity regarding my works. They have helped push my Nisa Santiago brand forward in different ways—from starting and maintaining my Facebook fan page, updating other readers with my latest publication dates, and reviewing my book(s) on any of the online retail platforms without my having to ask. These little things are huge to me and mean so much. I am forever grateful. Thank y’all!

  Your sistah-friend,

  Nisa

  1

  The rules to the street game were straightforward—don’t get caught or killed. So far so good, Apple thought. It felt like the end of summer was going out with a bang—indignantly terrorizing New York City with a scorching heat wave that was becoming oppressive to the nine million people that populated the city. The urban city blocks were active with people trying to keep cool in the blazing heat. Hundreds of fire hydrants were opened and on full blast spewing cold water that flooded the worn, paved roads. Apple cruised onto the Henry Hudson Parkway, traveling north in her air-conditioned black and sleek Maserati while listening to her new favorite song—“Money.” As she drove, the silence had her mind going to places she wished she could forget. Although the music helped distract her somewhat, the brain is so powerful that it would take more than Cardi B to pull her out of her funk.

  The familiar road she traveled was an unpleasant journey, but one she felt she had to take. The heavy rainfall that began pounding against the roof and windows matched her mood: messy. Apple’s Michelin tires hugged the newly paved Upstate New York road as she steered her pricey car to Clinton Correctional Facility in Dannemora, New York. Several blocks of towering concrete walls with barbed wire were indicative she had finally arrived, five hours later.

  Apple turned left into the visitor’s parking lot where multiple guard towers had a bird’s-eye view of the vicinity. Clinton was a somber-looking structure—increased security after the recent prison escape of inmates Richard Matt and David Sweat. Apple hesitated to weigh her decision to be merciful. She wondered had she gone soft as she sat in silence, trying to get her mind right. She sighed and then got out of her car, opening her large umbrella before bolting toward intake. Her vintage Pumas splashed through puddles until her footwear and jeans were soaked.

  Inside the cold, damp, stone building she reluctantly snaked through the tight-knit security without incident. Corey Davis sat with his back erect, body stiffened, and face in a hard frown wondering why he had agreed to let this parasite visit.

  Apple made eye contact with the sixty-something-year-old senior and saw her beloved, Nick. Nicholas was a younger version of his father as if Corey spit him out. It pained Apple to revisit her feelings, but the pain was ever-present in her life; different day same shit. Corey was still physically fit, but it appeared he had aged since she saw him at the funeral, which wasn’t that long ago for him to sprout all those new grays. Now he was mostly salt and a little pepper against his dark, chocolate skin—still no wrinkles, though.

  Corey watched as Apple moved toward him with a tiger’s stride—deliberate and untamed. He realized that she feared no one and noted she didn’t fear him. He assumed that she would be all dolled up like most women who came on visits, but she was casual. Apple’s hair was pulled into a messy bun, and her bare earlobes didn’t have the sparkly diamonds she was accustomed to wearing. She wore no makeup, a long-sleeved shirt, jeans, and sneakers. At first blush, Apple looked no older than seventeen until you peered deeper into her dark eyes and saw a seasoned, and manipulative, grown woman.

  She plopped down. “Hello again, Mr. Davis.”

  Corey absorbed her energy before he uttered something unintelligible. Apple watched as he clasped his large hands together, seeming to stop himself from lashing out. Finally, he asked, “What the fuck you want?”

  Bluntly, she replied, “Absolution.”

  The blood drained from his face as he processed Apple’s statement. “What the fuck you say?”

  “You have every right to hate me, because the likelihood of Nick being alive had he not met me is high. He wanted to get out of the game, but I pulled him back in,” she confessed. “His death is on me.”

  Thick veins bulged through Corey’s temples as Apple confirmed what he already knew to be true. “Why are you here?”

  “I came up here to . . .” Apple’s voice trailed off. Instinctively she bit the inside of her cheek to stop the emotions swirling around her stomach, which were threatening to spill out. She swallowed to force the lump back down her throat, but it was too late. Her bottom lip quivered, and the tears came next. Within seconds she was blinded with salty reminders of the many mistakes of her past.

  A strangled cry tumbled out of Apple’s throat. “I loved him, Mr. Davis,” she squeezed out. “I loved him,” she repeated.

  Corey sat there, unaffected and unmoved. Her tears wouldn’t bring back his son. He leaned in and whispered, “I will kill you, Apple. Not by my hand, but you will die before I celebrate the New Year. I owe that to my son.”

  “Mr. Davis—”

  “Please, call me Corey. You murdered my son; I think we should be on a first-name basis.”

  Quickly, Apple shut off her tears like she had shut off faucet water and said, “Mr. Davis, you can have a death wish for me, but I gotta tell you that that’s not what Nick would have wanted. He loved me, he did.”

  “He was a fool.”

  “He was not!” Apple got agitated. “Nicholas was the smartest, most ambitious man I know, and he had the best heart. It’s me; I think I’m cursed.”

  “Cursed?” He chuckled.

  Apple shook her head and shot up from her seat. This visit was a waste of time. She knew what she wanted to accomplish, but this wasn’t it.

  “Sit down!” Corey demanded, and Apple glared his way. She was uncomfortable being told what to do. He lowered his voice. “Please, have a seat.”

  Apple sat back down and protectively folded her arms in front of herself. She felt vulnerable—a rare emotion for her. She was trying to remember a time when she felt normal; when she didn’t have so much hate in her heart.

  Corey asked, “What does cursed mean, and how does it pertain to my son?”

  She wondered if she should let him in. Should she say her most private thoughts out loud to Corey? He was a stranger to her—an enemy. Corey was a man who wanted to take her away from her daughter, Kola, and the comfortable life she had created for herself. His cold eyes, etched in wisdom, gave her permission to proceed.

  “On my drive back from South Beach I realized that so many people had died because of my choices, all people that I loved—and I don’t love many—and I’m so scared, Mr. Davis, that the two peopl
e that I have left will die because of me and I’ll have to live with it. But I won’t. If something happened to my sister and daughter, I’d kill myself, but only after I avenged them.”

  Corey was glad he got her talking. So, she had a daughter and sister who if they were killed first would send this bitch over the edge.

  “This doesn’t sound like who you are.” Corey’s eyebrows raised and merged, forming a barrier of skepticism. “The woman that my son described was stubborn and strong-willed. This pity party seems forced. What’s your angle?”

  “You’re not listening. You’re judging.”

  “I’m listening, but get to the point. I want to hear about this curse.”

  Apple sucked in the air before forcefully exhaling. “There is something inherently dark hovering in and around my life that’s been there since my early teens. I remember the first time I felt this powerful entity. We lived in Lincoln projects, and things were miserable. I’d gone to bed hungry, so I didn’t sleep long, maybe a few hours. My eyes slowly lifted open, and the house was dark and still. I tried to get out of bed but couldn’t. My whole body was paralyzed as I lay limp. The only movement was my eyes as they darted frantically around the room, so I screamed, ‘Denise! Denise!’ for my mom, but no sounds came out.”

  “And then what?”

  “I told everyone what I’m tellin’ you.”

  “Which is?”

  Apple knew her story was bizarre, but she continued. “Have you ever heard of a witch ridin’ your back?”

  “Enlighten me.”

  “It’s when you’re lying in bed, and you want to get up but you can’t—there’s a force holding you down, an invisible, dark force—a powerful witch. You want to scream out, but you can’t. You hear your screams in your head, but that’s it. That morning was the first but not the last time that this occurrence happened.”

  “And this is your evidence of a curse?”

  “It’s a sign that a dark entity wants to hurt me and those I love.”

  Corey’s eyes could bore holes in anyone except Apple. He stared her down, and she didn’t flinch. Finally, he offered, “What you’ve described is a medical condition called sleep paralysis, when you haven’t fully awakened. Your mind has, but the rest of your body is trying to catch up. The terminology and explanation of a witch riding your back is folklore—an old wives’ tale passed down through slave generations until the myth made its way to the mainstream.”

  Apple rolled her eyes. “That makes no sense whatsoever. I’m telling you what I feel—what I’ve alway—felt is a demonic presence. Why do you think I’m like this?”

  “Like what? I don’t know you.”

  She snorted. And then she slowly tossed out several adjectives she had heard her enemies use to describe her throughout the years.

  “Heartless, angry, bitter, sociopath, vengeful, hateful . . . and mostly a crazy bitch.”

  “If you claim it, then it shall be.”

  Apple wanted to convince him of her theory. She wanted him on her side. She tried again. “It all started when I borrowed money from a loan shark and couldn’t repay him. He ended up murdering my baby sister, and she was raped. Meanwhile, I fucked him, called him my man, and life went on for me. I’m still here. Can you see the curse now? She’s dead because of my dark demons. How can you explain that? And because of me, my mother and Nick were both murdered.”

  “I’m trying to follow your supposition. The same people that murdered your sister, mother, and my son could have murdered you but didn’t? You’re still alive, yet you feel that you’re cursed? You caught the raw deal here?” His voice dripped with sarcasm, and Apple didn’t like it one bit.

  “I’m not playing the victim here if that’s what you saying!”

  “Only you said it. Listen, you may have internal demons placed upon you by yourself. You will never have freedom until you stop caring what others think about you. Stop making this visit about how I think or feel about you. What is it that you want?”

  “I wanted to affirm your feelings about the death of your son and also add a backstory to why things turned out the way they did.”

  “You have to let go of what was the past. Use it as a teacher and let that be it. But if you keep looking backward, you will miss things right in front of you. Plots, enemies, love, happiness could be sitting outside your front door and you wouldn’t know because your eyes are fixed on your rearview. As I sit here in prison I pity you because you’ve allowed your mind—thoughts of things that happened in your teens, early twenties—to imprison you. Your past has you in bondage. You can either evolve as a person or repeat your mistakes.”

  Apple got his point. Nick’s murder would be yet another reason added to her long list of explanations of why she robs, steals, and kills. She robbed because so much was taken from her. Apple stole because her mother never provided for her. And she murdered because her sister was killed. Corey was trying to get her to see she did those things because she wanted those things done.

  “You hungry?”

  “I could eat,” he returned.

  Apple pushed her chair back from the table and went to one of the many vending machines. She added money for two cheeseburgers, sodas, and two candy bars. There wasn’t any nutritional value in the highly processed, carbonated choices, but it was fuel. As she placed the burgers in the microwave, her eyes scanned the room.

  “Watch those hands, convict!” a corrections officer yelled to an inmate trying to finger fuck his girl under a table. “Try that again, and your visit is over!”

  This place was depressing. Apple wondered how Kola could have survived both Miami and Colombian jails. Apple grabbed their meal and sat back down in the uncomfortable chair; luckily, her fat ass gave her some cushion.

  “How was my son with you? What type of man was Nicholas out on the streets?”

  Apple grinned. “He was a quiet storm, and I respected how he handled me. I mean, I can be a bit much with my foul mouth and strong will, but he would never lose his cool with me. He never went to bed upset, no matter how hard his day was. Oh, and he cooked.”

  “Shiit, you lying.”

  “On my life, he could burn. He never told you?”

  “Our visits were mainly about the streets. How to keep my son alive.”

  Apple glossed over that and continued. “Well, he could make anything. Soul food, Italian, Asian, you name it. He was always planning his menu for his lounge, and every few days he would switch it up.”

  “I would have loved to taste his cooking.”

  “Nick was a big kid at heart too. He would play that Fortnite game until I was begging him to come to bed, which would cause an argument.”

  Corey chuckled. He liked hearing these stories about his son. Through Apple, he saw a side of Nicholas he hadn’t met.

  “So, Amir. That was you?”

  “Amir went against the grain. He crossed me. He crossed my son. He had to die.”

  “Just like that, huh?”

  Corey nodded.

  “Fuck ’im,” Apple replied. “I didn’t like him. Nick’s casket was hardly lowered in the ground before he was trying to holler at me.”

  Corey hated to admit this to himself, but he was enjoying his day with Apple. The young woman was troubled and had been through a lot, but she was fiercely strong-willed. He could see what his son saw in her just as Nick said he would. He killed Amir, his son was murdered, and he was pushing seventy and had no one. He wanted to see her again—if only one more time to hear more about Nick. However, Corey still knew a hard fact: Apple had to die.

  “Let’s call a truce, for now,” he announced grandly.

  “Done.”

  Apple looked left and did a head nod and then repeated that same movement to her right. Instantly, Corey’s head swiveled over his shoulders to see who she was addressing. To Corey’s right sat Drac, a
n old head from Harlem who had just gotten three life sentences in state court plus eighteen years in the feds for murders and racketeering. Nearing fifty, he had a long run out on the streets and had left a lot of grieving families praying for his demise. Drac looked worn and weathered, but he was everything but weak. The deep lines and battle scars in his face were like an old treasure map taking you to dangerous places and years of lascivious events.

  The other man was Bubba, but you could never call him that to his face. Nowadays he went simply by Bee. Bee was a drifter; moving state–to–state, leaving bodies racking up in his yesterdays. He had a short but powerful run on the streets, and his hubris is what they said brought him down. Bee killed too many too quickly, leaving witnesses and snitches alive so they could tell his tale. His murdered victims weren’t killed over turf, a drug deal went wrong, or the obligatory robbery. Most casualties of his war were because of a perceived disrespectful look, or talking too loud in his vicinity, or even accidentally bumping into him. His hair-trigger temper almost got him the death penalty, but a merciful jury had spared the monster.

  Corey smirked. What the fuck was up?

  “So, Corey, now is the time to tell you what the fuck I want.” Apple snickered at his original question. “Your men, the ones who keep you alive in here, are now my men.”

  Corey glared. He was a cool dude and wouldn’t erupt in anger or play himself until he knew who all the moving pieces on the chessboard belonged to.

  “I know about the shooters, Whiz and Floco. And of course, you know they’re both dead.”

  “Bitch, you drove up here to tell water it’s wet?”

  “Uh-huh,” she said. “I also want to move forward. I’m back from South Beach, and I want to spend quality time with my daughter without worrying about you sending a limitless supply of paroled convicts at me.”

  “That’s exactly what I’ma do. You think this shit scares me?”

  “You’re not listening, Pops. Can I call you Pops? I like it more than Mr. Davis or Corey.” Apple smiled wide, and within a split second, her eyes turned dark, her nostrils flared, and a deep scowl emerged. “You have no power, old man. None! Your life is courtesy of my good heart. I’ve loaned today to you, maybe tomorrow. If I’m feeling generous, then you may make it to the New Year. Bottom line, you die when I say you die. I am your god!”