Pawns & Kings

by D D Bridges

All Mike and I could do was look at one another while Kenny and Terry stared at us.

  “Apparently they didn’t,” Kenny said.

  Terry was confused as he looked back and forth between Mike and I.

  “Yo D, what’s up? You told me that you and Mike took care of KaRon,” Terry said.

  Mike and I were both speechless. The night that we were supposed to kill KaRon had not gone according to plan. We were all supposed to meet up at the old abandoned house so that we could take care of him. He had left us no choice since he had put a bounty on both me and Terry. But when we got there it was just me and Mike and the rest of my boys were nowhere to be found.

  Originally Mike had knocked KaRon out by hitting him in the back of the head. That kept him asleep for a couple of hours which was enough time for us to take him even further away from Atlanta. We wanted to make sure that no one found his body once we were done with him. But once Mike and I were about to kill him, he woke up. Luckily, we already had him tied up so he couldn’t do anything but talk trash. His pride wouldn’t allow him to beg for his life even though we had our guns pointed at him. Instead, he chose to threaten us, saying that even from the grave he’d have us and our families killed. His conceit amazed me. He really thought that he could get revenge after he was dead.

  “Let it be known that nobody puts a hit out on me and gets away with it,” I had told him that night.

  “Nigga, fuck you!” he shot back. Without hesitation, Mike put a bullet in his leg just to let him know how serious we were. That nigga started screaming like a little bitch. It wasn’t as if anyone could hear him since we were in the middle of nowhere, so we let him scream. He was bleeding out pretty rapidly but the wound wasn’t fatal.

  I pulled my trigger and shot him in the thigh. By now his punk ass was in tears. The bullet in his thigh must have hit an artery because blood was gushing out of it. It was then that I decided to let him die a slow death.

  “Let’s go,” I told Mike.

  “What?! This nigga ain’t dead yet,” he said adamantly.

  “We’re in the middle of nowhere. There’s no way that he’s gonna be able to make it back to the city, especially with two bad legs. And the more he moves the faster he’s going to bleed out,” I said, turning my gaze on KaRon.

  So we left him there, and I was sure that we would never hear of him ever again. But clearly I had been wrong and not killing him when I had the chance may end up being the biggest mistake of my life.

  “We didn’t kill him,” Mike informed Kenny and Terry. “We put a couple of bullets in his legs and left him in the middle of nowhere. We figured that he wouldn’t make it far and would either bleed to death or die of starvation.”

  “Are you fucking serious?” Terry said as he rose to his feet. “You call that taking care of that nigga? You know you done fucked up, right?”

  “Terry…”

  “If that nigga been living in the woods for the past three months, and now he’s back, I guarantee you that he’s even crazier than he was before,” Terry said and we all knew that he was right. KaRon was a different beast now, a monster that we had created, and there was no telling what he was going to do.

  “Look, everybody saying that Lonnie, that nigga from Decatur, is the one who done had the streets on lock since KaRon disappeared,” Kenny said. “And he still fucking with your girl Kenya.”

  “That’s not my girl,” I said abruptly. “But what the hell that gotta do with KaRon.”

  “Because Lonnie knew KaRon’s whole operation,” Kenny told me. “You need to call Kenya so that you can get the info from Lonnie.”

  “The info on what? You leaving a lot of shit out,” I said becoming frustrated.

  “That nigga took Natalie, bruh,” he finally blurted out. We all paused then and stared at Kenny because I knew that he couldn’t have said what I thought he said.

  “What the hell you mean he took Natalie? Who?” Mike asked.

  “KaRon. He took Natalie and he’s holding her hostage somewhere.”

  “Hold up, you sure about that?” Terry said as I came from around the desk and stood in the middle of the room with the rest of them.

  “I’m as sure as the streets are,” Kenny replied. “Everybody say that KaRon is on some different shit now. He’s holding her for ransom, but they doubt that if he gives her back she’ll be in one piece. And he’s been telling everybody what he’s doing to her because he wanted word to get back to you. He know that taking your woman is the only way to get you to come to the hood and face him.

  Enraged, I turned around and in one swift motion I threw everything off of my desk. Everything fell to the floor including a very expensive desk lamp that broke in half when it hit the floor. I repeatedly pounded my fist on the now bare desk. I knew that this shit was all my fault. If I had made sure that KaRon was dead then we wouldn’t be in this situation. And I should have never let Natalie leave this house. I let my bruised ego cause me to become careless with her safety. Now there was no telling where she was and what KaRon’s crazy ass was doing to her. No words could describe how low I felt. I wanted to crawl under something and die because I didn’t know if I was going to be able to save the woman that I loved.

  I composed myself and turned around to face my boys again. I could tell by the expressions on their faces that they could feel my pain. We had all become like a family over the past few weeks, so knowing that Natalie was in danger was hurting them too. I dropped my head because I knew that they were relying on me for answers and for the first time I didn’t have any.

  “You gotta call Kenya and see if she can get you a meeting with Lonnie. He probably knows where some of KaRon’s secret spots are,” Kenny said. “And I know that you don’t want to, but you need to call Derek.”

  “What?” I said with a cold stare. “Hell nah. I don’t want to see or talk to that nigga about anything that has to do with my lady.”

  “You need to let that shit go, Darius,” Kenny said and this had to be about the one thousandth time that one of my boys had told me that in the past few days. “We all know that if anybody can track Natalie down, Derek can.”

  “He’s right,” Mike added. “You don’t have time to let your pride get in the way right now. Natalie’s life is at stake.”

  Chapter XXXV- Natalie

  It was cold and very dark. I had no idea where I was but that was the only way to describe my surroundings. When I woke up I was lying on a cement floor with my hands and feet tied. My clothes were damp and I could feel pain on different parts of my body. The only sound was the echo of dripping water. I had no idea what was producing the sound but it sounded close to me. I wondered how long I had been asleep. All I remembered was KaRon showing up at my house only minutes after Mike dropped me off.

  I foolishly let KaRon come into my house because he said that he wanted to talk to me. I was so shocked that he was actually alive that it didn’t dawn on me that he could be there to get revenge. But it didn’t take long for me to realize that was exactly why he was there. He completely bypassed small-talk and got right to the point. He was there to kidnap me because he knew that was the only way that he could get to Darius.

  I tried to run into my room but he grabbed me by my hair and threw me to the floor. Using his bare hands, he began to pummel me with a flurry of body and face blows. I tried to fight back but it was no use. My screams were so loud that I was sure that my neighbors could hear, but no one came to help and KaRon didn’t stop his assault. He literally beat me into submission. By the time he was done all I could do was lie there helplessly as I cried. Once he saw that my fight was gone he picked me up and carried me outside. He put me in the back seat of his Escalade and we drove away.

  He took me to a small apartment that wasn’t far from where I lived. I stayed there for less than a day before he moved me. I was tied up in an empty bedroom and I had no idea what he was planning to do to me. The next morning he came in with a glass of orange juice and forced me to drink it even though I d
idn’t want to. I immediately knew that I had been drugged. Unable to resist the effects of the drug, I slowly began to dose off. The last thing I remembered seeing was the scowl on KaRon’s face.

  Now I was here in this dark room. I was hungry, cold, and still very tired. Why did KaRon have me here? What did he want from me? And more importantly, when was Darius going to show up and save me? I knew that we had left on bad terms and he probably still hadn’t forgiven me for what I did, but I knew that he couldn’t hate me enough to let KaRon keep me as his prisoner. I had no idea how long I had been held captive at this point. By now Darius had to know that KaRon was back and that he was holding me hostage. Maybe I was crazy to think that he would save me after how things ended between us, but at this point he was my only hope.

  I could feel tears beginning to roll down my face. I was so scared. I knew that if Darius was here he would tell me to be strong and that everything would be alright. I wanted so badly to hear his voice at that moment. I wasn’t so sure that I could be strong on my own this time.

  “Please, Darius. Come save me,” I said as if he were right there in the room with me. I knew that he wasn’t, but he was the only person that could come to my rescue now.

  To Be Continued…

  ©by D.D. Bridges June 2015