by Kiki Swinson
“Watch and see,” I said, shifting on my feet.
“You ain’t gon’ do shit, that’s what. You all talk. You always did think you were smarter than everyone else around you . . . family and friends. Somebody must’ve lied to your ass, little girl. I’m not one of those simple-minded niggas you can game into doing your dirty work or get over on. You might have had some of those lames by the balls, but me, I’m one step ahead of your ass. You think I don’t know how you tried to set me up? Huh?” he spat, with his face curling into the most evil snarl I’d ever seen. If I didn’t know better, I would’ve thought I was standing face-to-face with Lucifer himself.
“I never liked you, Karlie. All these years, there was always something grimy about you, your trashy-ass mother, and that little bitch sister of yours that I didn’t like.”
He was still speaking but suddenly I couldn’t hear him anymore. Did he just mention my sister? Did he just go there? He knew that was a sore topic for me.
My nostrils flared and I swallowed hard. How fucking dare he say something about Miley? I had always been fiercely protective of my sister, but now, I felt more of a need to defend her name and her honor.
“Shut the fuck up about her,” I growled almost breathlessly. “Don’t you ever say anything out of your rotten-ass mouth about my sister. You bitch-ass nigga. I swear I will blow your ass away. I don’t care who you are.”
I could feel my chest heaving. My jaw rocked feverishly as I tried to hold on to my composure. I didn’t want any more bloodshed. I really didn’t. That was the only reason he was still alive. I was tired of death and destruction around me. But, that didn’t mean that I wouldn’t do what I had to do. Especially if it meant the difference between me coming out of this alive or him leaving in a body bag.
“Oh, does the truth hurt?” he snarled. “You don’t like anyone to tell you the truth? You don’t like to hear that you and your sister were two scandalous bitches that got everything y’all deserved? From the time y’all were kids doing sneaky shit to get over, stealing money, stealing food, I knew y’all would grow up to be just like your mother . . . a piece of shit.”
“Shut up,” I said in an eerily calm voice. My voice completely contradicted the raging inferno burning inside me. I don’t know why I was so calm and that scared me more than he did.
Unlike mine, his extended arm didn’t waver or shake. His aim was steady. Sure. Purposeful.
“Nah, I’m going to tell it. You don’t think y’all got what was coming after years of scandal?”
I swallowed hard again, but the lump in my throat just wouldn’t go away. I shifted my weight from one foot to the other. I was going to have to kill this nigga. I could feel it all down in my bones. It was going to be him or me.
“All I want is for you to leave. We can call it fair. You did some shit and I did some shit. It’s a draw. You walk away, I walk away. End this. Nobody has to get hurt. Ain’t nothing else to prove.” I still spoke calmly, another last-ditch effort to end this shit without death. My insides were going so crazy—churning stomach, racing heart. I felt like I’d throw up any minute. This wasn’t my first time facing down death, but that didn’t make it easy to deal with. I had watched everything and everyone around me get destroyed. Suddenly my sister Miley’s face flashed through my mind. Her sweet smile. Her laughter. Even her annoying nagging when she was being spoiled.
I could also hear Sidney’s voice in my ear . . . I love you, baby. Just be careful. Let me take care of you. He used to say that all the time.
I felt my knees buckle a little bit. If I could have just lain down and curled into a ball and cried for hours, I would have. Some people would say what was happening at the moment was karma for some of the things I’d done in my lifetime, but I say fuck karma—everything that happened and what was happening now was because of evil motherfuckers like the one I was standing in front of at the moment. I had learned the hard way that evil exists in human form, and I was surrounded by it. I was confronted by it. It was a part of my own family. And I was going to either destroy it or be destroyed by it.
“So what’s it gonna be, Karlie? Giving up?” he asked, his gun pointing right at my forehead.
“Hmph,” I scoffed and bit down hard into my bottom lip. I adjusted my grip on my gun, which was now pointing directly at his heart. “Nigga, please. You better give up. You better try and end this if you know what’s good for you.”
He shook his head.
It was a standoff. A duel. A draw. One thing was for sure, at least one of us was not going to walk away from this.
“End this? Nah, baby girl. You can’t start some shit and then think you can just end it. See, in the streets and in life, when you start something, you ain’t got no choice but to see it through,” he replied. Then he cocked the hammer on his gun.
“A’ight. Suit yourself, motherfucker,” I spat, sliding my right pointer finger into the trigger guard of my Glock. He laughed again, an evil cackling laugh that caused tight goose bumps to crop up on my body.
“I’ll see you in hell, bi—” he started to say. That was enough . . .
BOOM. BOOM. BOOM.
I fell backward. My ears were ringing. Neither one of us uttered another word. The smell of the gunpowder immediately settled at the back of my throat. I coughed. I gurgled. I was suddenly freezing cold and then hot again. I couldn’t breathe.
How did it all come to this? Why? Why me?
That was the last thing I remember thinking before the darkness engulfed me.
* * *
I don’t know how long I was out of it before I heard a voice calling out to me, “Karlie. Karlie, wake up.”
I groaned but realized I was still alive. I was dazed and confused, and everything around me was blurry.
“Karlie, we have to go. It’s time.”
“Isha?”
“Yes, girl. I had to use the damn Find My iPhone service to find you. We have to get out of here. That man is dead,” Aisha urged.
She helped me up from the floor. I saw Darwin lying there bleeding from his chest, and I wanted to throw up.
“Oh my God.” I cupped my hand over my mouth.
“That’s what I said when I got here. But we have to go. Jay King is going to give me the money as soon as he can verify that you’re at the hotel we set up. He’s probably going to send his guys, that’s why I got the girls keeping him busy with lots of pussy and drinks. Soon as they get the text from me, that nigga going to be done off,” Aisha informed me.
“You’re a lifesaver girl,” I said.
* * *
I paced around the hotel room waiting for Aisha’s call. Her dudes were in the adjoining room next to mine waiting too and she had about six others outside posted up. This was going down ambush style, but not until after Aisha had her hands on the money.
I jumped when the cell phone vibrated on the table. I rushed over and picked it up.
EVERYTHING IS IN PLACE. HE’S SENDING SIX DUDES FOR YOU. BE READY.
I stood still and said a quick prayer. “Lord, I know that I have done some things in my life that weren’t worthy of your mercy, but if you let me make it out of this one, I promise that I will live righteously from now on. Please show me your mercy! Amen.”
CHAPTER 14
LET’S TALK ABOUT FREEDOM
“Agggh!” I belched out a scream in response to the hotel door being busted open. Although I was expecting them, it still rattled me and almost gave me a heart attack. With my mind fuzzy and confused, I was on my feet within seconds. With a quickness I slid my hand to my waist and locked it around my gun. I took a deep breath.
It was only a matter of seconds before Jay King’s goons were flooding into the room.
“Grab that bitch!” one of the goons growled as the other men barged in. Aisha’s boys were right on time. Like something out of a movie, all of her dudes came from the adjoining room.
“She got a gun!” one of Jay King’s men screeched.
“Yo! It’s a set
up,” another one of his men yelled. It was too late for all of that. The lead goon’s eyes went wide and his jaw dropped.
“I told you we needed to have more guns,” another one of the men said as Aisha’s men rounded on them and put their guns to Jay King’s goons’ heads so fast there was no running, hiding, or reacting. They were caught off guard, just how Aisha and I had planned.
“The boss said it was one little chick. I guess he got caught fucking slipping,” one of Jay King’s goons said, his hands raised above his head.
I took a long-barrel gun with a silencer from one of Aisha’s men and gave him my gun.
“Nah, tell your boss I’m not one little chick, I am a big woman,” I said, smiling. Then, without hesitation, I let off one shot into the chest of the leader of the goons. He collapsed to the floor like a deflated balloon. I saw everyone in the room react, even Aisha’s men. No one was expecting that, not even me. I don’t know what it was that took over me, but it was dark and it seemed to be controlling my actions. I was no longer a scared, cowering chick who had lost her sister and boyfriend and was running and hiding. I was a bitch out for revenge.
I stood over my victim with my chest pumping up and down and the gun still gripped in my hand.
“What the fuck?” Several of the men in the room had the same reaction. All of them seemed to pause with shock.
“I recognize you from the shooting that killed my sister. I can never forget a voice or a face. Die slow, you bastard,” I growled as the goon writhed on the floor. I could’ve let off another shot and ended him, but I wanted him to suffer in pain. Suddenly the sound of my sister gasping for air flooded to the front of my mind. I had to fight back tears. There would be no signs of weakness shown in front of all of those men. I set my jaw, turned, and leveled my gun at Jay King’s other cowering flunkies.
“Now, anybody else want to take a chance and fucking play with me? Jay King sent y’all, so that’s who y’all blame when your mothers and kids gotta slow sing and flower bring at your funerals. Just like y’all didn’t show my family no mercy, I don’t give a fuck about yours,” I said through my teeth. None of the men said anything, but one of them released his bladder all over himself. I guess he was their weakest link. Seeing that type of fear in a man did something to me inside. I didn’t recognize the ruthless person I was becoming. I knew then that I had nothing left inside me. I had lost my mother, my sister, and even my grandmother, who I never thought I’d care about. I was a changed woman, and not for the better.
“Take this one’s cell phone and make him call Jay King and tell him they have me so that he will give the bounty money to Aisha,” I demanded of one of Aisha’s men. Even those dudes looked like they were leery of my unpredictable actions.
“And don’t try no funny shit when you make the call, or you’ll get what he got,” I said to Jay King’s guy, placing the gun with the silencer to his head.
“Yo, boss,” Jay King’s guy said into the phone.
I could hear a little bit of fear and cracking in his voice, so I bent close to his free ear. “Make it sound convincing,” I whispered harshly.
“Yeah, we got the bitch. Nah, she ain’t know we was coming. A’ight, I’ll meet you at the warehouse. One.”
I stood up and clapped as I circled the dude. “Very good. You deserve an Academy Award. I guess the plan was to take me back to where the Kings torture their enemies. Naw, been there, done that,” I said.
After the call was made, I waited for Aisha’s text telling me she had the money and her all-girl crew also had Jay King. Shit was really happening the way we planned. But still, I wasn’t satisfied. I needed more. I wanted more.
“Check their pockets and take all of their shit. Then tie them up. We need to get out of here like now,” I commanded Aisha’s men. They were probably tired of me bossing them around, but they also knew they were getting paid at the end of this whole thing so they dutifully did as they were told. I was trying my best to keep control of my galloping heart and the fire raging inside me.
“A’ight . . . now you.” I pointed the long barrel of the gun in the face of one of Jay King’s men. This one looked like he was maybe second in command. His scowling face and pursed lips told me that if he had the chance, he would probably rip my head off and shit down my neck. I chose him just because I knew it would piss him off even more. I placed the gun to his temple. I was sure the cold kiss of the steel would unnerve him.
“Tell me where all of the stash houses are located, where he keeps his money and what days he does his cash drops.”
The dude sucked his teeth and chuckled like I was a big joke.
“Fuck I look like, snitching like that,” he gritted, his face still folded into a frown. “You ain’t getting away with this shit. You don’t know who you fucking with. You might feel like you’re Griselda Blanco or some shit right now, but you done fucked up. You done fucked up royally,” he replied.
His words enraged me even more, but a pang of fear also flitted through me. “Oh, okay. So you’re not going to answer my question?” I pressed the metal into his skin. He didn’t say anything.
“Well then, I guess y’all bitch-ass niggas don’t wanna live either.”
“Fuck y—” the man started.
A point-blank shot to the temple sent blood and brain matter bursting out of the other side of his head. His body fell forward. The smell of the blood almost gagged me. The piss-stained coward to the left of him fell to his knees and began gagging like he was going to throw up.
“Please . . . please don’t kill me. I’ll tell you where the stash houses is at. I’ll tell you where he lives. I’ll tell you everything. Just let me go. I got kids. I got a family. I’m just out here trying to eat,” the pissy one begged, tears falling from his eyes like a bitch.
“I’m listening,” I gritted, the gun dangling at my side. I didn’t feel one ounce of sympathy for anyone who worked for my sister’s killer. I felt as powerful as King Kong at that moment. I smelled so much fear on the fake goon that I didn’t even feel the need to keep my gun pointed at him.
“There’s one on . . . on . . .” the man stammered. I nodded toward one of Aisha’s men and he grabbed the hotel pad and pen and started writing. We weren’t just going to collect the bounty that was on my head, but we were going to hit those fucking stash houses too. With the crew Aisha had put together, the hundred-thousand-dollar bounty from Jay King wasn’t going to be enough to pay everybody a decent amount. But knowing we could raid his cash and drugs made it all worth it. Aisha’s dudes were all ears. For those petty street corner dudes, finding out a plug’s stash houses was like winning the lottery when the jackpot had doubled.
While we were planning this hit on Jay King and his people, Aisha and I had discussed all sorts of things that we would do with the money after we split it with Aisha and her people. She said she would buy a bigger, better house and just lay low for a while. I had told her she was damn crazy to even want to stay in Virginia. I wasn’t here for that. The first thing I planned to do was get the fuck out of the United States. There was nothing left here for me. Moving to another state wasn’t even going to be enough. I wanted out of the country. Period. I didn’t tell Aisha, but I was going to be ghost. I was going to find somewhere to go, change my name and change my entire life. Maybe I’d move to Barbados or the Bahamas. Some place I could disappear onto a beach and never worry about anything again. I had made it up in my mind that I had suffered enough. I had seen enough death and destruction for ten lifetimes. All I wanted was peace. But not until I got rid of my problem . . . Jay King and his people.
“What scares Jay King the most?” I asked the terrified dude who’d just given away all of his boss’s locations.
“Lose . . . losing . . . his power and his family. He doesn’t like that you crossed his family, and he . . . um . . . he can’t stand to lose power and control,” the man stammered.
“Losing my family was the same thing that scared me the most, and guess what? No
w I don’t have any family thanks to him and motherfuckers like you,” I said with finality. “I ain’t got shit else to lose.” The man put his hands up, but it was too late. One last shot and I was done.
With my nerves on edge, Aisha’s men and I fled the scene. We had one more stop to make before this nightmare would finally be over and I’d finally be free.
* * *
When I arrived at the spot and walked into that room, I felt even more powerful. I smiled and shook my head.
“Damn. Y’all wasn’t playing,” I said in awe, almost whispering.
Those chicks Aisha had gotten down with us had Jay King drugged and bound to the bed. Even his ankles were tied. Totally vulnerable and helpless. Far from the big, bad gangster Detective Castle made Jay King out to be.
“Isha, you’re one bad bitch,” I said, complimenting her. “I knew if anyone could help me pull this shit off, it would be you.”
“Let’s just get this over with. It’s not going to be long before the rest of his people start scouring the city for him. Not only that, I already heard you got gun happy, Karlie. That wasn’t supposed to happen. We were supposed to tie those niggas up, leave them there, and get the hell out. I ain’t want to have to worry about bodies piling up.” Aisha was annoyed.
“I couldn’t help it. You don’t understand what it was like for me to lose my sister,” I replied. “It just happened. It wasn’t part of the plan, but sometimes shit happens.”
Aisha sighed and shook her head. “Let’s just do this. He’s all yours. I already got the money,” she said, pointing to a black leather carryall bag dangling by the handles from her left hand. With that, she walked into the other room of Jay King’s suite.
I was alone with my number one enemy. My heart throttled up in my chest. I walked over to the side of the bed and slapped Jay King’s face with all of the strength I could muster. It was a few seconds before he came alive from his deep, drug-induced slumber.
