by Brick
There was so much conviction in her voice that it had me watching her with newfound respect. Clearly, she was in pain from her battle, yet she stood in front of me with a willpower like that of a true queen. No fucks were given with her. Right now it was raw and real, regardless of her secrets, and I had to take that into account in this negotiation.
Cool and collected, I kept my gaze on Code’s and never broke it. “So you’re loyal to your Eraserheads or to your old man? Which is it? Because you’re not at the end of your rope, baby.”
“I . . . both,” she said with a hint of sadness in her voice.
That was all the answer I needed in this. I stood and moved around the desk. “Then you can’t do a damn thing for me until you know where your loyalty lies. I can’t help you until then.”
“Wait! What? No, see, you can help. Forget me. Help Auto. Help Smiley!” she urged me.
The way her body slightly teetered from exhaustion made even me tired. I stepped forward, then forced her back in the chair, which I had picked up off the floor. I reached out, took her chin, then turned it from side to side, checking for more cuts or head trauma. I saw nothing, so I dropped my hand, then caged her with my arms.
“I’m taking you to your own apartment in here. No snakes, I promise. There you will rest to give yourself time to think. Three days should suffice. If you leave in that period of time, the temporary protection that I give to your people evaporates. Understood?”
Her head bobbed, and she got ready to open her mouth, but I stopped her by raising my hand.
“Two, in those three days, if you do not tell me where your loyalty lies, then again, all security is gone, and they are on their own. Any help they ask of me on their own is between me and them, so don’t think about contacting them, because that will then be a breach of contract. Understood?”
A spark of annoyance flashed across her beautiful face. It made me want to laugh, but I wasn’t in the mood to, so I stood up to wait for her to acknowledge that she understood me.
“Yeah, fine, whatever. Three days, I can do that, but . . .” she said, looking up at me. “I’m not here to be your bitch. So don’t think that I’m going to be free pussy for you or your boys.”
That there made me laugh. “Trust me, that’s not how we do things. You and your other family might be about that twisted shit, but there are many ways to do business and many ways to torture. Rape is a lazy way to do things. So I’m good. Besides, anything that goes down between us will go down willingly, and my people aren’t interested in you in that way. Don’t think the power of your pussy is that fly, Mama. It ain’t. It’s just pussy.”
With that, I snatched her up and threw her over my shoulder.
“What the hell is your problem? Put me down, pendejo!” Code screamed, then began to thrash my back.
“I’m many things, Mami, and an asshole is one of them, but keep fighting and I’ll throw your ass out a window, entiendes?” After strolling out of my office, I kept to the back of the apartment. I entered another room, where I ducked down, since she was still over my shoulder, and walked into the closet. I pushed one of the closet walls to the side, revealing a hidden passageway.
“Put me down! Ow!” Code spat.
Sometimes this chick could be a handful, which was why I sighed and shifted my body up so she would bang her head on a hanging rod as I stepped into the passageway. I walked a few feet, then reached out and slid a door open. We stepped into another room, which belonged to another apartment. Light washed over us both when I tapped the light switch. Then I dropped her on the huge bed in front of me.
“Bathroom’s behind me. Next to it is the door to the hallway. Take it to the living room and the kitchen. This is Alize’s spot. If you decide to leave, my people will grab you in any direction you go, even up or down, understood? Now chill out and rest. If you need me, get Alize or Oya. They’ll be your best friends while you stay for a while. Remember our agreement, Mami,” I explained, giving her a rundown on how all of this was going to work.
Code pushed herself up on her elbows, then slipped back in exhaustion. She turned on her side, then closed her eyes. “If I need to go, no one will be able to stop me. Know that. Like I said, I just need to lay low. I want to . . . I want to see my people, but I can’t. So I know if you can just help them, they’ll be good no matter what happens to me. I don’t care if I die. Death is my lover, and after today the old man is going to try to give me that kiss by any means necessary.”
What she said made sense, and from my having studied her old man, I knew it was the truth. Thinking about what she had just said, I went over to the door that connected this apartment to mine. I closed the door, locked it, and then headed to the doorway of her room. “Check it. Death may be your lover, but only you can turn it around and make it benefit you. Shit, I’d turn into an angel of death if I were you. But you’re chicken shit. Copping out in your pain, and about to let your old man make you look weak. He’s all about leaders, right? Be one. It’s just that simple.”
Code stared at me in shock. Her nose crinkled in a cute way; then she gave me a look of annoyance and scowled at me in anger. No lie, I was enjoying pissing her off.
“You know nada! Just look at those ugly-ass boots on your feet. Bet them things stank too,” she spat out.
Opening the door that lead to the hallway, I shrugged, then gave her a wink and a nod of my head like a good country boy. “I may not, but I’m not the one playing myself in my grief.” Her words had me feeling salty at that moment, and I looked down at my shoes, then back at her. “Don’t talk about my shitkickers, Scarface. Anyway, check it again. Whatever you get to thinkin’, make sure it’s about your loyalty for the sake of your people. We’ll speak again.”
With that, I walked out, signaled to my people, then went back to my place, with her on my mind. Betrayal was a dangerous game, and little Miss Spice could use it to her advantage by serving that shit up with shards of glass once she got her head together. It wasn’t hard for me to figure out that no matter what, she would always be an Orlando, but without a doubt, I could see her equally being an Eraserhead as well. That was a dangerous combination.
Everyone on both sides had secrets, and everyone was locked in a battle created long ago, before any of us had been born. It was going to be interesting to see where it went, but for now, I had bigger fish to fry, and more customers linked to her grandfather to sell to. A huge smile slid across my face as I thought about what I had learned about a woman named Code, or the person I really knew her as, Maria Rosa; her cousin Smiley; and the rest of the Eraserheads. I then pondered the man I aimed to return the sweet gift of death to, her grandfather, Caltrone Orlando.
As I walked into my office while in my thoughts, I spoke to my right-hand. “Keep her well protected, Shango.”
“She will not receive the special treatment reserved for those of her birth. So yes, I will do that, bro,” he said in return.
After clicking on my monitor, I watched Code and took in all the ways she moved even in her sleep. She was a piece of work. “How is Oya doing with our friend?”
Shango gave a grunt, then crossed his arms. “She’s attempting to get to him without our new friend’s people recognizing her or thinking anything about her.”
“So, then she’ll play a nurse, yes?” I said, not as a question but as a suggestion.
My boy gave a slight sigh, and I knew it was because of his past history of loving Oya. But in every relationship, people had to let go, especially if they couldn’t love each other right, like those two.
“Yes, sir. I’ll send that her way,” he said, then turned my way. “You know Big Boots’s informant will be silent for a while since this has gone down.”
Rubbing my scruffy beard, I rolled my shoulders and turned away from my monitor. “Of course. But it’s all good. If everything goes well, we’ll have our own through our new friendship with our guest’s cousin, as you suggested.”
“Yeah, we might. Oya is feeling hi
m,” Shango said quietly.
I walked to my desk, sat down, and kicked my feet up. “And I’m feeling the one on that monitor. Shit happens.”
Shango laughed, then strapped up. “Off to hit up that party for the kid you have me watching with Shredder. Dude has a temper. He’s cool people in that aspect.”
“Right now, but he has the blood of the devil, so be careful and play hard in his world. Make sure you check on the Eraserheads too.”
“Will do.” Shango gave me dap, then headed out, dressed like a professional sports agent.
Everything wasn’t falling as it should, but in the chaos and the battles, there were good pieces of shrapnel I could use to my advantage or not at all. The devil should have never procreated, because in his pursuit to secure his lineage, he had not only sired demons, but he had also created something worse than his wife, Lilith. He had created his own mirror image, a female Satan by the name of Maria Rosa. I definitely was intrigued, and the move was mine.
Hopefully, what I had told Code would make her understand the power she had in herself was bigger than Caltrone himself. Once she recognized that, maybe her true family could help her down the road. With this newcomer on the news, maybe he too would be worth investing in, but I wasn’t sure just yet. I was just here to do what I did best, and that was watch. Until then, all I had to do was wait like the shadow of a guardian angel that I was and gather more pieces. Then I could begin the move in this battle of chess. Checkmate.
Chapter 21
Auto
The front room was heavy with grief. The polished wood flooring was spotless. Pictures of sunflowers decorated the walls, while live ones sat in different areas, in potting soil. Yellow and green sofas sat kitty-corner to one another in the center of the room. On the left side of the room was a fireplace that hadn’t been used in so long, it still looked fairly new. The window in the adjoining dining room was open, and the cool country breeze wafted in.
Outside was cloudy and misty. The weather was fitting for the mood in the room.
“No. No. No!” she screamed as her small fist pounded my chest. “When you took my baby away from here, you told me he would be safe. You said you would protect him with your life,” she wailed. “You promised me, Devin. You gave me your word.”
Seymore’s mother’s angelic voice washed over me and made me feel even lower to the dirt than I already was. She’d called me by my real name. Something nobody ever did. Most people didn’t even know my real name. After I’d gotten Seymore out of jail and brought him home to Augusta, I had told his mother he would be in good hands. Had told her my plans. Had presented myself to her in a way that showed I was about my business.
All she’d asked for in return was my real name and the assurance that her son would leave behind the criminal activity that had paralyzed him in the first place. Out of my arrogance, I’d been so sure that I would be able to live up to that promise. And now, there she stood, with hurt and pain in her eyes because of me. I’d let her down. Her normally pale face had reddened from emotion. Blond hair was still wet from the shower. Her robe was slightly open and revealed the scars from her battle with breast cancer. She’d fought it and won.
Around her front room sat pictures of her other four sons . . . My heart sank to my stomach. She’d lost all four of her other sons to gang violence. Seymore was all she had left, and now I’d taken him away from her too.
“I’m sorry, Mrs. Cleveland—”
Her hard slap across my face stopped my useless apology.
“I ain’t got shit left now, Devin. Nothing. I sent him away to save him,” she barely got out through gritted teeth. “To-to save him, and you . . .” She was so emotional that she couldn’t breathe and talk at the same time.
I nodded. “I swear to God—”
“Get out, Devin. Get the hell outta my house. You ain’t nothing but the devil in sheep’s clothing. You presented yourself as something you’re not. You’re no better than the other devils who stole my sons from me. Get out of my house and go to hell, where all of you belong.”
Her words stung. They hurt like hell. To be compared to the other menaces to society all but crushed what little sanity I had left. I reached in my pocket and pulled out an envelope.
“Here is some money to take care of his funeral—”
She lashed out at me again. Knocked the envelope from my hand, then shoved me. While she was only five feet three inches tall at the most, she towered over me, and I felt so small.
“Are you hard of hearing? Get out! Leave and never come back here. He was all I had left. He was it. I got nobody and nothing else to live for. Nothing. Nobody. Get the hell outta my house,” she yelled with righteous indignation.
I swallowed my shame and resigned myself to the notion that she would forever see me as the devil who took her last and youngest son away from her. I walked out of her house and headed to my truck.
Took me a minute to even push the button to start the engine on the black-on-black Dodge Journey.
“You okay?”
I looked to my right. Smiley had a concerned look on her face, which made me feel worse than I already did. There shouldn’t have been any concern for me, only for those who had lost their lives because I had trusted the wrong person. I looked in my rearview mirror. Stitch sat behind Smiley, his face stoic as he stared out the window at nothing. If he was who I knew him to be, his mind was on the scene that had played out between him and Carmen.
Having to tell one lover that another had been killed wasn’t easy. Between him and Lelo, they shared four children, all by Carmen. As much of a conundrum as their relationship was, the three had raised their children the way most parents could only dream of. They had had their share of fights among themselves, but the children had always come first. And now they were one parent short. The color had drained from Carmen’s dark face when he delivered the news that Lelo wasn’t coming home.
She’d screamed at Stitch. Slapped him. Kicked him. Cursed him to hell, same as Seymore’s mother had done me. Then she had latched on to the only father her children had left, and had screamed out to God. She, too, wanted to know why He would take Lelo from them. Watching Stitch break down again, same as Carmen, had been too much for me to bear then.
I finally found the strength to crank the car. “I don’t know how to answer that,” I said.
I pulled out of the dirt driveway, my mind in overdrive, but my body numb. I’d had to deliver this same speech to Dunkin’s grandma. And while she hadn’t cursed me to hell, the pain in her eyes still haunted me. She’d taken the money, his portion of the insurance policy we all had, and then wished me well. Once she’d closed the door to her home, I swore it felt as if the whole world had closed me out.
“Your face is blank, emotionless, but you haven’t shed a tear,” Smiley observed. “That’s not good. You have to grieve in a way that lets you show emotion.”
I heard her, but as I gripped the steering wheel and drove down the long dirt road leading away from Seymore’s mother’s place, all I kept seeing was the look on the team’s faces when I told them about Code’s part in all the madness that had befallen us. I’d been kicking myself in the ass for over twenty-four hours. Every nigga had a motherfucking agenda, even those closest to you. How that had slipped my mind would forever eat away at me. It was a motto to live by or one to die to. Either way, I had never seen the shit coming.
“Don’t psychoanalyze me right now, a’ight? Don’t do that. Let me handle this my own way and we’ll be cool,” I told Smiley.
The problem with all of that was I didn’t know how to handle this tragedy. Four losses in one night. Three physical deaths and the death of a friendship. How the fuck did one deal with shit like that? How?
“You’ve been handling it your way for the past day and a half, and all you’ve managed to do is be the deliverer of bad news.”
I snapped my head to the right to scowl at her, then looked back at the road. “Yo, fuck you, a’ight? Fuck you. I just
lost three fucking friends who were like brothers to me to death. All because a motherfucker wanted what we built from the ground up. You don’t know shit about me. You don’t know shit about this family. All you know is what Code has told you. You’re only here because she didn’t feel like you could protect your own ass, so she wanted me to do it for you. So fuck you.”
“Hey, you don’t get to snap at me because you fucked up, Auto. You did.”
I almost swerved the truck as I turned off the dirt road onto a main highway. “What the fuck?”
“I mean, come on. As smart as you are, you didn’t think to up the ante on protection around your camp? Someone stole your shit, nigga. Not once, not twice, but three times. Then these big-ass white boys came on your turf, hunted you and your team like animals, and you did nothing.”
My hands were gripping the steering wheel so tight, you could see the white of my knuckles. Her words had cut deep. Made me feel like I was less than the man I knew I was inside. There had always been a killer inside of me. One that I’d tried to hide, but he was always lurking just beneath surface. I didn’t want to be that person. I had never wanted to be a menace to society, even if it meant I had to survive in an environment that saw me as food.
The saying in the hood about it being a dog-eat-dog world wasn’t just for shits and giggles. The few kills I’d made during this whole fiasco hadn’t even made me flinch. I had to do what I had to do, right? Still, something innate in me always kept me on the sane side of things. It probably wouldn’t make sense right now, but later on it would. I’d like to think that I didn’t or wouldn’t kill unless I had to.
But Smiley was wrong; I had done something.
“I did do something. How do you think we were able to track down Mouse?” I asked her, temper raging at this point.
