by Askari
“This is your grandfather’s house. Sontino brought us here.”
“Where’s the rest of my family? Are they okay?”
“As far as I know everyone’s safe,” she told him, then gently kissed his bottom lip.
Releasing a sigh of relief, he looked Olivia square in the eyes and said, “Oli, is it true what you said about my pops? Did your dad really kill him?”
Shamefully, she nodded her head in the affirmative. “It was Papi, my brother Estaban, and Chee-Chee.”
“Chee-Chee?” Rahmello asked with a screwed up face. “You talking ‘bout the lil’ scruffy looking mutha’fucka who was at the bodega the last time we copped from your dad?”
Again, she nodded her head.
“Yo, how do you know all of this?”
“I was... I was there when it happened,” she managed to say as tears began to run down the sides of her beautiful face. “It happened in Papi’s office.”
“I’m sayin’, though, what the fuck they kill him for? What did he do?”
“My brother, Angelo, was killed a couple of years ago on 4th and Indy. Estaban was there when it happened, and I heard him tell Papi that your dad was the one who killed Angelo.”
Gently, Rahmello wiped away her tears. Aside from his family, he loved Olivia more than anything, and he hated to see her upset. “I need you to tell me how to find ‘em.”
“I can’t,” she said. “They went back to Columbia. After everything that happened at the funeral, they panicked when they heard that a cop got killed. And my Uncle Juan took them back to Columbia.”
“Damn, Oli, why ain’t you tell me this shit sooner?”
“I wanted to, but I couldn’t,” she responded with a face full of tears. She sat up and looked at everything in the room except for his eyes.
“Oli, look at me.”
Defiantly, she continued to look away.
“Look at me, I said.”
When she finally looked into his blue eyes, he wrapped his arms around her and kissed her on the forehead. “You should’ve told me, ma. My brother and his right-hand man went to war behind this shit and a lot of people died.”
“Baby, I wanted to tell you, but I was too afraid,” she sobbed.
“Afraid?” He looked at her with a creased brow. “Afraid of what?”
“I was afraid of what would have happened to you if you tried to retaliate. My Papi would have killed your entire family, and I couldn’t stand the thought of losing you.”
“A’ight, but if that’s the case, then why are you tellin’ me this shit now?”
“I don’t know,” she shrugged her shoulders and sighed. “After everything that happened today at your father’s funeral, I knew that my Papi was comin’ for you. So basically I had two options, either tell you who your enemy was, or just sit back and watch you get picked apart.”
“Damn,” Mello sighed. He was thinking about Sonny and the vow they made when Easy was first murdered. They promised one another that not only would they kill the motherfuckers responsible, they would body their entire family. “Oli, did you tell my brother about this?”
“No,” she quickly replied and vigorously shook her head. “The only person I told was you.”
“A’ight, you gotta keep it like that,” he instructed. “Because if Sonny finds out...”
Subconsciously, she placed her hands on her stomach and looked at him with a concerned expression. “Do you think he’ll try to hurt me? Or my Mami maybe?”
Rahmello took a deep breath and sighed. “I don’t know, ma. For now, just keep that shit under wraps and gimme some time to figure things out.”
The door opened slowly and Sonny stuck his head into the room. “Mello,” he smiled at his little brother, happy to see him sitting up with his back propped against the padded headboard. “I see you back, Babyboy!”
Rahmello returned his smile. “Come on, bro, you know a nigga built Ford tough.” He returned his gaze to Olivia and wiped away her tears. “Babe, can you step outside for a minute? I need to holla at my brother.”
She nodded her head and then carefully climbed off of the California King. “I’ll be out in the hallway.” She walked past Sonny and when he looked at her, she lowered her head to avoid eye contact.
As the door closed behind her, Sonny looked at the wooden frame, and then returned his attention to Rahmello. “What was that all about?” he asked, immediately picking up on the weird energy.
“She’s a’ight,” Rahmello assured him. He re-positioned his body and winced from the pain that shot up his left leg.
“Damn, bro, you gotta take it easy,” Sonny advised him. “Them bitch ass niggas is gettin’ mopped up behind this shit, you feel me?”
“Yeah, I feel you,” Rahmello said. “But you know what I’m about to ask you, right?”
Sonny chuckled. “Grip?”
“Nigga, you already know. This nigga was public enemy number one, and now we lampin’ up in his fuckin’ house. Yo, what the fuck is goin’ on?”
“Life is too short, bro, and family’s everything,” Sonny said while plopping down on the leather recliner that was positioned beside the bed. “Blood is thicker than water, and at the end of the day, Grip is our grandfather. We had our issues in the past, but we agreed to put that shit behind us.”
“Yo, Sonny, this shit is fucked up, bro. Niggas really tried to park us some crazy shit. Matter of fact, what’s up wit’ the fam? Please tell me that everybody’s straight.”
“Everybody’s good, my nigga. We’re just waitin’ for you to hurry up and get better.”
“I’m sayin’, though,” Rahmello looked at him skeptically, “why we over here? Why ain’t you take me back to your house?”
“Me and Daph is beefin’ right now, so I’m givin’ her some time to cool off,” Sonny explained.
“Cool off? From what?”
“From all of the shit that’s goin’ on wit’ me and Grip. My nigga Mook was like her big brother, and she’s mad at me for fuckin’ wit’ Grip. She had me mad as shit, bro. I damn near had to put my hands on shorty, and I don’t even get down like that.”
“Damn, bro, that’s crazy,” Rahmello replied, feeling sorry for him. “But I’m sayin’, though, if the ol’ head ain’t come through when he did, them niggas would have parked us.”
“Who you tellin’,” Sonny said, looking at him knowingly. “But Daph’s gonna come around eventually. I just gotta give her some time.”
“A’ight, so now that Sheed’s outta the way, everything’s good, right?”
“Nizzaw,” Sonny shook his head. “We caught up in some real shit, but we gon’ hold it accordingly.”
Rahmello was stuck, automatically thinking that Sonny was referring to Poncho and the Columbians.
“Damn, nigga, whatchu seen a ghost?” Sonny smiled at him, noticing the distant look on his face.
“Naw, I just assumed that with Sheed being dead, everything was settled.”
“I wish it was, but it’s not. We goin’ through it wit’ the Italians, them fake ass mob niggas from South Philly.”
“The Italians?” Rahmello asked with a raised eyebrow. “What’s that about?”
“They’re the ones who killed pops,” Sonny said.
Shamefully, Rahmello lowered his head. He wanted so badly to tell Sonny that Poncho was the one who killed their father, but to do so would be a death sentence for Olivia. “I’m sayin’, though... how you know the Italians were the ones who killed pops?”
Sonny reached in his pants pocket and pulled out a pack of Newports. After extracting one from the pack, he sparked it up and took a deep pull. “It all started in Cuba...”
***
Back In North Philly
Egypt was parked in front of his trap house on Marshal Street. A burning Backwoods was dangling from his lips and his eyes were glued to his iPhone. Facebook and Instagram were flooded with images of Sonny and Grip, and he couldn’t stand it.
“Nut ass nigga,” he said aloud, a
nd then exhaled a thick cloud of Haze smoke. He glanced at his Cartier and saw that the time was 10:25 p.m. “Yo, where the fuck is this nigga at?” he asked himself, referring to his man, Chino. The eighteen ounces of coke that he had for him was stashed under the passenger’s seat in a brown paper bag, and the faster Chino came to pick it up, the faster he could get back to playing in some pussy. He plucked the ashes off of the Backwoods, and then took another pull. “Yo, this nigga better hurry the fuck up ‘fore I bounce back to Jersey.” The thought of his young fawn deep-throating his dick was making him anxious, and he was dying to get back to her.
A brown, late model, Ford Bronco turned off of Montgomery Avenue and pulled up behind Egypt’s Panamera. He looked in the rear view mirror and saw Chino hopping out of the driver’s side. The skinny Puerto Rican was dressed in a black skully hat, a black North Face, blue jeans, and black Timbs. Chino opened the passenger’s side door, hopped inside, and reclined back in the butter leather seat.
“Goddamn, nigga, about time,” Egypt said. “You had me sittin’ out here for damn near a half an hour.”
“Aww, come on, Papi,” Chino replied with a silly smile, showing off the diamond grill on his bottom row of teeth. “Niggas was blowin’ up my jack like a mutha’fucka. Everybody’s lookin’ for work, and the little bit that I had left, I wanted to get off ‘fore I came to see you.”
Damn, Egypt thought to himself. After all the shit that happened at the funeral, Mello never got around to feedin’ the streets. I gotta get me a new connect. I know mad niggas in the city, and if I link up wit’ the right mutha’fucka, I could blow up in no time.
“Eyg,” Chino called his name, “you heard me, dawg?”
“Huh? Naw, my nigga, whatchu say? I was zoned out for a second.”
“I said, is it cool for me to pay you $9,000 now, and the other $8,500 tomorrow?”
“Yeah,” Egypt nodded his head. “That’s cool.”
“Bet.”
Chino reached in both of his coat pockets and pulled a knot from each one. “Here,” he handed Egypt the money, “that’s $4,500 a clip.”
Egypt counted the money a stack at a time, and then popped his glove compartment. After stuffing the money inside, he locked it and told Chino to reach under the passenger’s seat.
Chino reached down and pulled out the brown paper bag. “Aye, this a half a chumpee, right?”
“Ain’t that whatchu asked for?”
“Yeah,” Chino nodded his head. “I just wanted to make sure.” He reached inside of the bag and pulled out a white slab covered in plastic wrap. It was nine inches long, three inches wide, and one inch thick. “Umm mmm mmm.” He smiled like a little kid on Christmas morning. “This that buttah right here. I can smell it through the packaging.”
Egypt looked at his Cartier, and then returned his focus to Chino. “Yo, gotta bounce, my nigga. And make sure you got my chicken by tomorrow night. I don’t wanna have to come lookin’ for you,” he warned with a deadly expression on his face.
“Nigga, my word straight like Indian hair,” Chino quickly shot back. He gave Egypt some dap and then climbed out of the Porsche. As he hopped back in his Bronco and pulled off, Egypt started the ignition, and the sounds of Jim Jones’ Byrd Gang Money erupted from his customized sound system.
Just cleaned my fancy car/ Picked up my fancy clothes/ And we only in the hot spots, no/ We got the bar/ We got the bar/ This is Byrd Gang Money/This is Byrd Gang Money/ Spendin’ that Byrd Gang Money.
As he slowly pulled away from the curb, a black Mercedes G63 pulled up beside him, blocking off the front of his car. Mashing down on the brake pedal, he whipped out his .357 Magnum, and aimed at the Benz through his windshield. Just as he finger-fucked the trigger, the tinted driver’s side window rolled down and Daphney was staring at him.
“Turn the music down.” He couldn’t hear the words, but he read her lips. He cut the music off and threw the transmission in park.
“Daph, what the fuck is you doin’?” he snapped at her when he climbed out of the car. “I almost shot ya ass.” He showed her the .357, then placed it back on his waist.
“Come take a ride wit’ me,” she said in a calm voice. “We need to talk.”
Chapter Eleven
“Daph, what’s good?” Egypt asked as he settled into the passenger’s seat.
“When you and Zaire was standing outside of my house, I heard what you was saying about Sontino,” she revealed as she cruised down the block and made a right turn on Columbia Avenue.
“N-N-Naw, it wasn’t even like that,” he stuttered. I was just sayin’, like, like, Zaire, like I was just tellin’ Zai, you know, like how Sonny gon’ play us like that.” His palms were sweaty and his heart was beating like an African drum. He wasn’t sure if she had already talked to Sonny, but just in case she didn’t, he was doing his best to clean up his words.
“Play y’all?” she asked while whipping the Benz with one hand. Her other hand was wrapped around the compact .380 that was concealed in her jacket pocket. The barrel was aimed at Egypt’s stomach and if he said the wrong thing, she was more than ready to leave his guts on the upholstery. “Play y’all how?”
“You know,” he shrugged his shoulders and sunk into the seat, “by fuckin’ wit’ the ol’ head Grip.”
“And what’s so wrong about that?” She questioned his mind state, wondering if she would be able to trust him.
“That nigga killed Mook and Nasty, and his young buls shot me up. And for all we know, he could have killed Easy and made it look like Sheed did it.”
“Damn, I never even looked at it from that angle,” Daphney said. “Maybe that’s the reason he showed up at the funeral and started blazing.” Just then, she remembered a book that her father instructed her to read, 48 Laws of Power. “He very well could have set everything up, and then made himself look like a hero, just to get Sonny to trust him.”
“And that’s the shit that I’m talking ‘bout, Daph. After everything we been through, how Sonny gon’ turn around and start fuckin’ wit’ this nigga?”
“So, whatchu wanna do about it?” she asked. Her left index finger was gently placed on the trigger, and if he gave her any inclination that he was still loyal to Sonny, she was ready to let him have it.
After a brief pause, he looked her straight in the eyes and said, “I wanna be my own boss. I wanna do my own thing.”
Daphney smiled at him and removed her index finger from the trigger-guard. Still whipping the Benz truck with her right hand, she said, “What if I can make that happen for you?”
“Huh?” Egypt replied, looking at her skeptically.
“I’m not in the habit of repeating myself,” she checked him. “You heard what I said.”
She pulled the Benz over on the side of the road and threw the transmission in park. She then turned her body towards him and rested her arms on the leather console that separated the two front seats. “You know who my daddy is, right?”
“Yeah,” Egypt nodded his head. “Alvin Rines, the boss of the YBM,”
“And do you know who my son’s father was?”
He searched his brain, but couldn’t come up with an answer. “Nizzaw, I don’t think you ever told me about your son’s father. Who is he?”
“Who was he?” she corrected him.
“A’ight, well who was he?”
“Mook.”
Completely brain-fucked, Egypt just sat there with his mouth wide open. “Hey yo Daph, hold up,” he paused for a moment, taking the necessary time to get his head together. “A’ight, I might have heard you wrong, but did you say Mook?”
“Yes,” she nodded her head in the affirmative. “He’s Dayshon’s father. He was my first love, my everything.”
“Does Sonny know?”
“Nobody knew, just me and Mook.”
“Well, if Mook was your baby dad, then how the fuck did you end up wit’ Sonny?”
“To make Mook jealous,” she revealed her true intentions. “You gotta
remember, before my daddy went to prison, Mook was his top lieutenant. He left everything to Mook, his money, his connect, and the responsibility of looking after his family. At the time, I was just a little girl and Mook was like my big brother. But as I got older and grew into a woman, the dynamics of our relationship began to change. I first noticed when I was sixteen. Every time I started fucking with a nigga, Mook would flip out and chase him away. Initially, I thought he was being the overprotective big brother; but obviously that wasn’t the case.”
She paused for a moment, and then continued, “On my eighteenth birthday, he called my house and told me that he was coming to take me shopping. It wasn’t unusual for him to lace me with random shopping sprees, so I really didn’t think anything of it; especially since it was my birthday. He picked me up in his Maserati and we drove to New York. I was anticipating a day of shopping and upgrading my wardrobe, but Mook had other plans. Instead of hitting up the diamond and fashion districts, he drove us to Central Park and took me on a romantic carriage ride. It was then that he expressed his true feelings for me, and he told me that he wanted me to be his woman. I was head over heels in love with him, but up until that point I had never said anything. So when he expressed his true feelings for me, I wasted no time expressing my true feelings for him.”
“Our love was a real one, but we still had to sneak around because of my daddy. He knew that daddy would never approve of him dating me, so we did our best to keep it a secret. In the meantime, I got pregnant with Dayshon, and when Mook found out, he panicked. So to cover his tracks and throw daddy off, he married his side bitch, Saleena.” She gave Egypt a second to let it all soak in before she went on.
“As time went on, we continued to sneak around, but eventually I became tired. So I gave him an ultimatum, either divorce that bitch, Saleena, and be with me and the baby, or I was leaving.”
“And he chose to stay with Saleena,” Egypt said, already knowing that part of the story.
“Yeah, he stayed with that bitch,” she replied with venom dripping from her tongue. “So I moved on and did me. We remained friends, but nothing more.”
