“I told you, nigga, don’t fuck wit’ us!” La-La had shouted.
She was ready to hit him with the baseball bat again. Search was hurt though.
“La-La, chill the fuck out,” I had instructed her.
She knew not to go against me. She had fallen back, still scowling and itching to hurt him some more.
Search was beaten badly, but he wasn’t unconscious. He stood up and looked at me. His suit was ruined and blood trickled from the cuts and wounds on his face.
“So it’s like that between us, Sammy?” he had asked despondently.
“Yeah, it’s like that,” I had replied harshly.
He groaned and looked crushed. “You don’t know what went down, Sammy. But someone’s been in your ear about me and telling you the wrong things. Yes, I left town and went to Atlanta, but the truth isn’t what you’ve been hearing.”
“Yo, just leave, Search. I got other things goin’ on fo’ me right now. I don’t need you,” I had said.
He took a deep breath, licked his wounds, and had finally gotten the hint. With the little sympathy I had for him, I had said to my clique, “Yo, give him back his shit and let him go.”
They were reluctant, but they did it. They had tossed Search everything they took out of his pockets. He had picked up his things from the ground and stumbled back to his truck in worse condition than he came. I fixated my eyes on him. He didn’t even turn around to look back at me. He climbed into his truck and drove away. I had strongly made my point.
Fuck him!
I gazed up at the stars in the sky not knowing where Rico was taking me. He said it was a surprise. I didn’t ask any questions. It was only us two, riding north on the New England Thruway. We were about fifty miles outside the city and what seemed to be in the mountains, removing ourselves further from civilization.
Rico turned onto a remote road where pavement gradually turned into a dirt road. The thick trees and shrubbery around us shielded us from any traffic that was nearby. With the dark and the woods, it brought about an eerie feeling inside of me. I was getting nervous. The only time you saw a road like this is with serial killers or mobsters, meaning whatever happened, it was hard for anyone to hear you scream and they could easily bury your body, never to be seen again.
I looked around. I noticed what looked like a pair of headlights up the narrow road. We were meeting someone, but who? Rico was calm, smoking his cigarette like usual, and didn’t say a word to me.
“Why we comin’ way out this way for, Rico?” I asked again.
“Ya see,” he replied.
We approached the car that was already parked in the cut. It was a cream-colored Lexus. Two men waited for us to arrive. They lingered outside the vehicle, smoking a cigarette and chatting in the dark. The only light around came from the headlights and interior of the car. They were waiting for Rico.
We stopped; I got out right behind Rico. I was there reluctantly, thinking about this surprise he had for me. I didn’t know if I wanted it. Rico walked up to them and greeted them with dap. The two harrowing figures were tall and looked like they were always up to no good.
“It went well, I assume,” Rico said to them.
“No trouble at all, Rico,” said one of his thugs.
The men moved to the back of the car and stood near the trunk. I followed them. I was silent and curious. Rico looked at me. I returned the stare. He continued to smoke.
“Open the trunk,” he instructed, flicking his cigarette away.
They did. From where I stood, I couldn’t see what was inside the trunk. Rico looked into the trunk and smirked. I wasn’t a fool; I had a hint to what was going on. In this world, you had to expect the unexpected. You had to know there was someone in that trunk. Who? I thought about one person, but truthfully, had no idea.
“Sammy, come over here, let me show you something,” Rico said.
I walked over and looked into the trunk. I wasn’t shocked to see Macky inside. I knew it was someone in the trunk; it was a plus to see him though. It had been over a month since I told Rico about him, but Rico never forgot. He always held grudges.
Macky was tied up, beaten, and gagged, lying in the fetal position. He looked up at me and pleaded with his eyes. He knew his fate. He knew he’d fucked up.
“This nigga done pissed twice on himself, he so scared,” said one of Rico’s thugs.
“You like it, Sammy? Puta muthafucka,” said Rico.
Macky squirmed and grunted. The gag in his mouth made his speech incoherent. He was an infamous music producer in the industry, but in this world, he was nobody to us. However, he would definitely be missed in the music industry.
Rico pulled out a 9 mm and glared at Macky. He then turned his attention to me. He handed me the gun and said, “You do the honors, Sammy. He tried to rape and kill you, so you pop two into this muthafucka.”
I took the gun from his hand. I frowned and stepped closer to the trunk. I aimed the gun at Macky’s head. I could hear him mumbling and pleading for his life. He squirmed in his restraints. He knew he fucked up. He fucked with the wrong bitch and this was the consequence. I shot people before, but they lived, and I did a lot of grimy shit, but I never killed anyone, even though I was ready to take Angie’s life awhile back.
Everyone’s eyes were fixated on me. They waited for me to do the deed. The darkness and shrubbery surrounding us cloaked any criminal action. This was the game. This was me taking it to the next level. I wanted to continue to play and get this money. I couldn’t look weak in front of Rico or anybody else. If I showed any kind of weakness then the wolves would sniff me out and try to tear me apart.
I locked eyes with Macky. He continued to plead with his eyes. He grunted and squirmed harder. But there wasn’t any escape from the inevitable. I frowned harder and thought about what he did to me and what he tried to do to me. This was a monster in sheep’s skin. He was a fake muthafucka and a friend of Search, and I wasn’t sure that Search was still a friend of mine with bitch-ass niggas like this in his circle.
Fuck it!
Bam! Bam!
I put two into him, one in his head and the second shot tore into his chest. He lay slumped in death, the crimson blood pooling underneath him. I exhaled.
“Damn!” Rico uttered. “That’s my girl.”
I stood staring at the body with the smoking gun in my hand. Now, there was no turning back. I was in this deep. I was officially a murderer. I definitely proved I was about that life now.
“You see, Sammy, when you kill someone, you do it discreetly, not impulsive, like you was about to do Angie, and then you get rid of the body. No fuckin’ body, no fuckin’ crime scene,” Rico coolly explained to me.
Rico turned his attention to his goons and instructed, “Y’all niggas know what to do wit’ this piece of shit. I don’t want him found.”
They nodded. The trunk was closed and I stood there silently. I still had the gun in my hand. I wanted him dead, and I wanted him gone. Funny thing, I didn’t feel any remorse about it. It all felt natural to me, like murdering someone was inevitable. The lifestyle I was living, yeah, it was going to happen sooner or later, with or without Rico’s influence. And the one thing I was proud of was that my first victim was Macky. He deserved death more than anything. I felt relieved. I knew this was a pivotal moment in my life.
Music, sex, murder: it was all the making of a platinum-selling album.
Chapter Fifteen
Mouse
I didn’t want to believe it at first, but why would my homegirls lie to me? The tears that fell from my eyes were more like a waterfall staining my face. The truth hurt. But the betrayal was devastating and unbelievable.
“I’m not telling you this to hurt you, Mouse, but you needed to know the truth. They playing you, things done changed a lot in the hood,” Tina said to me.
I knew she didn’t want to be the one to tell me the news, because she was a true friend to the both of us. But she knew Sammy was wrong and she confided
to me. My best friend was smiling in my face while stabbing me in the fuckin’ back. It felt like out of sight, out of mind. I was now three months pregnant with Rico’s baby and I hear this shit.
Tina sat in front of me in my home, the place where I felt protected and had some comfort, the place where I wanted to raise my family. But there was no comfort with my heart and feelings. The profound agony I felt was making me sick. They might as well have put a gun to my head and pulled the trigger. Yes, it hurt that much.
My belly was growing more and more. I was carrying this muthafucka’s baby, changing my ways and trying to make a decent home for him, and he had the audacity to fuck my best friend. I didn’t care if we weren’t speaking at the moment; she was still a friend of mine.
And Sammy, that snake-fuckin’, two-faced bitch. How dare she contradict herself, preaching to me about how Rico wasn’t any good, I was rushing into things with him, and she fucked him too, knowing how much I loved him?
“How long has this shit been goin’ on, Tina?” I asked in grief.
“For too long, Mouse. I’m so sorry, it ain’t supposed to be like this, but Sammy’s changing. They jumped Search the other day, beat him up pretty badly,” Tina continued.
“Search?”
“Her and Rico are in business together too,” Meme chimed. “He got her moving drugs all over the city.”
Meme was with her too, also confirming the bad news to me. I couldn’t hold my composure. I started to cry heavily. My heart was crushed. I gasped and held on to a piece of furniture for balance. I wanted to react, break things, and fight someone. Fuck that, I wanted to kill this bitch and shoot Rico.
Rico had me pregnant and locked up in this spacious Mount Vernon home, miles away from my hood, and he was out there doing me dirty. It was a lie to me. He was a lie and Sammy was the ultimate lie. All these years of having each other’s back, the bond, the sisterhood, and she threw it down the drain for some fuckin’ dick. She could have messed with anyone in the neighborhood, but instead, she went after my fuckin’ man.
“What you wanna do, Mouse?” Meme asked me. She never did like Sammy, but she loved me. This incident gave her a chance to finally go at Sammy.
“I wanna go see that fuckin’ bitch!” I cursed.
I was tired of being in the dark. Now that I saw the light, it was time to fuck things up. I couldn’t sit around this house any longer and wait. I was tired of waiting for Rico to come home, only to show me partial loving, fuck me, and then leave for hours, maybe a day or two at times. I was losing my fuckin’ mind.
Tina didn’t want any serious drama, she just felt sorry that I was getting played by Rico and wanted me to know what was going on with him. He was in the streets doing him, and Sammy wasn’t the only bitch he was fucking cheating on me with. She dropped names: Caroline, Desire, Pink, and Tammy. He was a ho and he was nasty. The muthafucka had swag and the gift of gab. He got Sammy to hustle for him again; I always thought she was done with selling drugs.
Meme, she was ready to have my back and fight both these betraying assholes right beside me. She was hyped. She was ready to cut bitches. I was with it. I quickly got dressed and got one of Rico’s guns from the bedroom. When Tina saw me with it, she stood and worriedly asked, “Mouse, what you gonna do wit’ that?”
“Fuck that, Tina, I’m ’bout to go see that bitch and Rico,” I hollered.
“C’mon, Mouse, just chill fo’ a minute.”
“Nah, fuck that shit, Tina, I ain’t fuckin’ chillin’. That bitch gonna disrespect me like that, I’ma see her ass!” I shouted frantically.
Meme had her car parked outside, a Maxima. I wanted to jump in it and rush to Edenwald and raise hell, three months pregnant or not. I was still Mouse, one of the baddest bitches in this gang.
“Let’s go then,” said Meme.
Tina was outnumbered. With or without her, I was going to Edenwald to raise hell. I hurried toward the door. Meme was right behind me. She had her car keys in her hand. Tina looked reluctant. But she didn’t have any choice but to come with us. I was thankful that she had my back telling me the news, because she didn’t have to say anything to me. Where I stayed at in Mount Vernon, it was about a twenty-minute drive from Edenwald, and for a bitch who rarely traveled outside the hood, Mount Vernon felt like I was on the other side of the world.
I climbed into the front seat of Meme’s Maxima. I had the .380 on me and it was fully loaded. There was no calming me down. I was so pissed that I felt sick to my stomach and I couldn’t stop shaking. My eyes were red from rage and crying and my sanity didn’t exist.
When we got to Edenwald, it seemed like everybody in the neighborhood was outside. It was early evening and hot. It made me wish for a quicker fall and winter. It was a burden being pregnant in the heat. But summer seemed to be flying by like a bullet. I kept a vigilant eye out for Rico or Sammy. Meme informed me that she was driving around in a silver rented Intrepid. She got her money up and now the bitch thought she was the shit.
She wanna fuck my man and talk shit about me. Okay. Bitch, I always kept a job and had money in my pockets, you didn’t. Bitch, Rico came at me and he was treating me like his queen, the nigga moved me into a three-bedroom home in Mount Vernon. You, he has you hustling for him, might as well said he was putting you on the track. I don’t have to do a damn thing for him but be his woman. Bitch, I am pregnant with his baby and his main bitch, you is the side bitch. Bitch, I’ve been rhyming since I was twelve, you hitched a ride on my talent and followed my lead and now you think you’re better than me? Fuck out here, dumb bitch!
Meme continued to drive around. I was itching to find Sammy and confront her. She had everyone in the hood scared of her; I was far from scared of this bitch. I was ready to show Sammy the true gangster side of me. Tina was trying to calm me down, but it wasn’t doing me any good. The more she talked, the more furious I turned out to be.
I finally saw Sammy exiting out of the bodega on Laconia Avenue and walked to her rented Intrepid. She was with Chyna and La-La. I was ready to leap from the car and smash that bitch’s head into concrete. Meme sped up to them and before the car came to a complete stop, I jumped out and rushed toward Sammy. Pregnant or not, I was ready to throw down like a prize fighter in a boxing ring. I heard the sound of the bell in my head.
“Sammy, can I talk to you fo’ a minute?” I asked roughly.
She looked at me kind of dumbfounded and stopped walking. It was obvious that there was tension between us. Meme and Tina exited the car and hurried behind me.
“What’s good, Mouse? How you been?” she asked halfheartedly.
Her little smile toward me was fake and I knew she didn’t expect to see me. She probably didn’t know I knew about her and Rico. I glared at her. I couldn’t hold it in any longer. I was a time bomb ready to go off. The fuse was already lit and it was reaching the TNT.
“You a fake bitch, Sammy,” I shouted. I went up to her face, shocking everyone.
“What, bitch?” Sammy retorted.
“You fuckin’ Rico? Stay away from my fuckin’ man, bitch! You fuckin’ hypocrite,” I screamed out. “You a nasty-ass ho, Sammy! Conyo Sucio.” I had my fist clenched and was ready to spit in her face.
Sammy screamed, “Mouse, who the fuck is you, bitch? Besa mi culo, puto, fo’ real. You ain’t shit wit’out me! Get the fuck out my face, Mouse. Back the fuck up. You don’t know who ya fuckin’ dealin’ wit! Estupido.”
We were in each other’s faces heatedly; I could feel her breath and spit on me. She wanted to punch me and I wanted to attack her. I wanted to rip her fuckin’ head off. Chyna, La-La, Tina, and Meme, they were there looking speechless. We were all a clique, EBV, supposedly tight like a sisterhood, but everything between all of us was falling apart. It was becoming civil war within our crew. Chyna and La-La were backing Sammy, and Meme and Tina were backing me. But it was going to be a one-on-one fight with Sammy and me. We had that type of respect on the streets. Anybody else, they would have been to
rn apart like meat at a butcher’s shop between all of us.
Sammy glared at me and she shouted at me in Spanish, “No me jodas,” which meant “don’t fuck with me,” and followed up with a harsh, “Vete a chingar a tu madre.” Telling me to go fuck my mother, I went ham on this bitch. I swung and punched her in the face so fast and hard, I thought she went flying across the street. Sammy counterattacked and tackled me and started hitting me.
“Yo, y’all chill, she’s pregnant! She’s fuckin’ pregnant, Sammy!” I heard Tina scream.
“I don’t give a fuck!” Sammy shouted.
Sammy didn’t care; it was all-out war between us. I grabbed a fistful of that bitch’s hair and tried to pull it all out by her roots. She came at me and punched me in the stomach repeatedly. I cried out from the pain. And this angered the fuck out of me, knowing I was pregnant and intentionally trying to harm my unborn. I went berserk on this bitch; I caught her with hard right and then another right to her face, spewing blood from her mouth. She grabbed me to support herself from collapsing. We locked into each other’s arms and she brought me down with her. We both hit the concrete like a large tree falling.
There were throngs of people around us, hollering, cheering, and shocked that I was fighting Sammy. She had the advantage at first, outweighing me. I caught a few blows to the face, having the ability to absorb her punishment, and then I bit the bitch and punched back. I was small, but I was strong and a beast. I kept hearing a few people scream out, “Yo, she’s pregnant. Stop it! Stop it!”
I wasn’t thinking about my baby when I was fucking this bitch up. But someone cared enough to roughly pull us apart and separate us from each other.
“Bitch!” Sammy screamed. “You dead, bitch!”
“Stay the fuck away from, Rico, bitch! Fuckin’ slut!”
“Vete al infierno,” she shouted.
“You first, bitch!”
“Yo, ain’t y’all friends?” someone shouted.
La Familia Page 22
