by Kiki Swinson
“Oh Matt,” I cried, and shook my head.
Matt was beaten so badly I could barely recognize him. His nose was completely flattened, his lips were like two pillows, and he could barely open his eyes because his battered eyelids were so swollen. As dark as Matt was I could still see blue, green, and purple bruises cropping up all over the sides of his forehead. Blood covered his face, which made it even harder for me to make out his features. I could see huge knots on his head that had begun to swell to the size of golf balls. It seemed like blood was leaking from everywhere—gashes in his head, his mouth, the inside of his bloodshot eyes, and from the inside of his ears. The way Matt lay curled into a fetal position, I knew he was probably dying. I had seen that before. Once when I was a kid I witnessed a boy get hit by a truck and when his body flew up in the air and hit the ground it immediately curled in on itself. Mrs. Shepherd later told me that it was the body’s natural defense against danger, but it was also how the body began to react when a person was about to slip away. I had never forgotten. And now it looked like that was going to be my fate, too.
MATT
“Ooof,” I gagged as another fist slammed into my stomach, causing all of the wind in my body to involuntarily escape through my mouth. Acidy vomit leapt up into my throat and spewed out of my mouth right after.
“Hit ’em again!” a deep baritone voice commanded. With that, another sledgehammer-sized fist slammed into my left jaw. I felt the blood and spit shoot from between my lips. The salt from the blood stung the open cuts on my split bottom lip.
“Until he tells me where the fuck every dime of my money is I want his ass to suffer,” the deep voice growled. “Break every bone in his body if you have to.”
“Agh!” I belted out as a heavy-booted foot crashed down on my ribcage. I think hearing the crack and crunch of my own bones disturbed me more than the excruciating pain I felt.
I coughed and wheezed trying to will my lungs to fill back up with air. Each raggedy breath hurt like hell. I knew then that some of my ribs had been shattered. More fury came right after.
“Ugh!” I coughed as a front kick with a pointed, steel-toe boot slammed into my back. I swore I heard my spine crack. My insides felt like they were being shuffled around by the punches and kicks I’d been subjected to since these dudes had snatched me from my hideout in the thick of the night. I had tried to bounce before they could get me, but I was too slow. Lauren was lucky I hadn’t snatched her ass outta that restaurant and brought her here to beat the money outta her. Although I wanted to kill her myself right now, I could only pray that she was someplace safe . . . maybe with the police or back on the run. But if these dudes were after me, I would think they would be after her and Yancy as well.
“Where is my fucking money!” the voice boomed again. This time, I forced my battered eyes open and looked at the sharply dressed man who was standing over me. In dim light I couldn’t make out his face. But I could see from the flash of his sparkly diamond pinky ring, solid-gold cufflinks, and a clearly expensive tailor-made suit, this dude hadn’t even broken a sweat. He obviously took great satisfaction in commanding his goons to torture me over and over. And like good little soldiers, they did just enough to hurt me, but not kill me.
“I’ll ask you one more time, Matthew Connors . . . what the fuck did you and your bitch do with my fucking money?” the boss man growled. His money? Me and my bitch? What the . . . It finally hit me like a hammer to my head. My entire body went cold like my veins had been injected with ice water. The score that was supposed to put me back in the game and set me and my woman up for life had turned into my worst nightmare.
The man who’d been our mark let out a raucous, maniacal laugh. “You petty fuckin’ thief,” he spat as he moved closer to me. “Stealing instead of going out there and working for your own shit. I can respect a man who hustles for himself, but a man who steals from another hardworking man is a waste of fucking sperm. Your mother should’ve just swallowed.”
The heat of anger that lit up my chest from his words was probably enough to make me kill him with my bare hands. I bucked my body out of anger but that just made shit worse.
I couldn’t believe our big score, that pussy-ass playboy businessman Nikolai Kudrin, was delivering the worst beatdown I’d ever known. Even worse than the smackdown I got at my condo. It was all coming together now. How my whole life started to go down the toilet right after we stole dude’s money. I can’t believe Lauren’s hustle had gotten into a situation crazier than anything I’d done out in the streets.
“Aggh!” I screamed. Kudrin crushed one of his hard-bottom Salvatore Ferragamo loafers down into my balls. The famous Ferragamo buckle glinted off the bright lights and taunted me. I guess this was payback for all of the times I had purchased expensive Ferragamo shit with other people’s money and identities. Maybe Kudrin was right, a man who is a thief is the worst type of motherfucka alive.
“Now, you little bitch. I want to know how you got the balls to steal my money and where it is now. I’m not going to keep playing so nice because this . . . this little bit of ass-whooping and pain is nothing compared to what I do to niggas like you who I see as the scum of the earth,” Kudrin growled. Then he stomped down on my balls with what felt like the force of a ten-ton boulder.
“Hmgh!” I screamed out and panted for breath at the same time. The pain was unbearable. I could barely catch my breath. Small squirms of light flitted through my eyes. I was literally seeing stars.
“That’s what I thought. Now, if you want to make it out of this alive you better fucking start talking,” Kudrin snarled. “You must’ve realized by now that you and your little female crew of thieves fucked with the wrong man,” Kudrin hissed. “I just look like a square businessman. You have no idea who I really am. Not even now.”
“Agggh!!” I shrieked as the square heel of Kudrin’s shoe slammed into my nuts again. This time with so much force I felt like my ball sack had busted open. I opened my battered and swollen eyes and stared up at the blinding light dangling from the ceiling. I was praying and inviting death to just come take me away from this pain. I could feel the walls closing in on me but before the darkness and the shock engulfed me I thought about Lauren and Yancy and all the shit we had done to get to this point. Suddenly I was thrust back in time to how all of this shit started.
If I had my way a nigga would’ve bypassed that fucking lick and just stuck to the credit card shit until I could get on my feet and back in the game.
“We got a little surprise for you . . . maybe this will jog your memory about where my money is,” Kudrin snarled.
“Uh! Ah!” I screamed as freezing cold water was dumped on my battered body. The icy water shocked me back into consciousness. I was shivering. I felt like my heart was going to explode. The pain that was wracking my body was unbearable. Every inch of me ached . . . even my hair follicles.
“Bring her in!” Kudrin demanded.
I think I smelled Lauren before I even saw her. It was her familiar scent that forced me to open my battered eyelids although it hurt like hell to do it.
“Matt!” Lauren screamed out. I could hear that she was sobbing.
I could barely see her. My vision was blurry and clouded.
“Lauren,” I garbled through my swollen lips. Blood leaked from my mouth and burned the cuts on my lips. “T . . . T . . . tell him,” I rasped. “Wh . . . where . . . the mo . . . money is.” It hurt so bad to talk. My left jaw was definitely broken. I had to fight through the pain. I needed Lauren to understand that if she didn’t cooperate I was going to die and she was also.
“Oh my God, Matt! I’m so sorry!” she cried out. “I’m so sorry for everything! I’m going to fix it! I’m going to make it right!”
“Get her up. Fucking torture her until she tells me where my fucking money is,” Kudrin snarled. Lauren started screaming again. I saw Lauren’s hand extending toward me like she was trying to touch me. She never made it. She was snatched away. That was it fo
r Lauren. Her life was about to be over.
I closed my eyes because even after all Lauren had done to me, I couldn’t stand to watch them torture her.
BANG! BANG!
I jumped from the loud roar of a gun. “Lauren,” I called out painfully. I couldn’t get enough air in my punctured lung to put any force behind my words. I couldn’t hear her anymore. Just the idea of Kudrin killing Lauren sent enough adrenaline through my veins to make me go crazy.
“Lauren! No! Lauren!” I screamed. I rolled onto my side in an attempt to get up.
WHAM! Something slammed into my side. When I hit the floor again darkness finally took over. For good.
LAUREN
I wanted to kill everybody in the room and save Matt, even if it meant dying myself. It was partly because I was concerned about him, but mostly because I wanted to send a great big fuck-you to Drake. I wanted Drake to see my concern for Matt so it would make him jealous. I wanted to pretend that I had never fallen in love with Drake’s traitorous ass. The ache in the center of my chest kept reminding me that I was indeed still in love with him.
“Get her up. This is bullshit. We didn’t bring her here for a fucking lovefest reunion. Fucking torture her until she tells me where my fucking money is,” Kudrin snarled.
“Aghgh!” I cried as I was dragged up from the floor. I caught a glimpse of Drake standing there watching this all unfold. Like a brick falling from the sky, it finally hit me. I could picture Drake’s taxi pulling up right behind mine outside of the bar in New York. I could picture him racing to hold the door open for me. I could picture him watching me inside the bar. The moment he approached me also played like a movie in my mind now.
“You motherfucka!! You lying motherfucka!” I barked with my eyes trained on Drake’s gorgeous face. I had figured it all out just like that. Drake had followed me that day I was shopping in New York. He knew all along who I was. He had also followed me back to Virginia Beach. He may have even listened to all of my conversations with Daysha. One thing he didn’t know . . . that no one else knew . . . was where the rest of the money was stashed. I wasn’t telling them either. If I couldn’t have it no one could. I made up my mind about that.
“Strip her, tie her up, and hang her from the rafters. I got some shit for her that will be like truth serum,” Kudrin growled. “I want my money.”
“Agh! Help me! Don’t do this!” I screamed when I felt a bunch of hands all over me. All the while I was staring dead at Drake. I am sure he could see the devastation and pain in my eyes.
I jumped and started shaking when the sound of the material of my shirt ripping resounded loudly off the hollowed walls of the warehouse. The freezing cold air in the room slapped at my naked skin. My nipples betrayed me and became erect as if I was turned on.
“Nice tits,” one of the goons said, followed by a cruel chuckle. Another one came over and squeezed a handful of my breasts. The goons surrounded me like buzzards over a dead carcass. They were jeering at me and taking a free-for-all fondling my body. I stood stock still and let them have their way.
“Nice and suckable,” the other goon said lecherously.
“Aye, boss, with a body this fine, you should let us all have a piece of her before we kill her,” the third one with the chunk missing from his ear joked as he cut my skirt away from my waist. I was shivering even more now, more from fear than cold. I closed my eyes and began to pray.
“Matter of fact . . . I’m about to make her beg me to treat her like the whore she is.” The same goon leered. He pushed me forward and started dropping to his knees from behind me.
BANG! BANG!
The goons were cut short by gunshots. His body lurched forward onto my back. I jumped up.
“Agh!!” I shrieked. The booming sound of gunshots had made me completely deaf. Instinctively, I threw my hands up to my head and covered my ears.
BANG! BANG! Two more shots rang out but they sounded muffled to me. I didn’t even realize I was jumping up and down. Then I felt a strong hand latch on to my left arm with a death grip.
“Get off of me!” I wailed. I didn’t know what was going on. I could hear the faint sound of a voice in my left ear, but I couldn’t understand what it was saying. I looked up with fear dancing in my eyes. It was Drake. He was the one holding on to me. He was pulling me but I was too frightened to move.
“Come on! Let’s go!” he was screaming but it looked to me like he was just mouthing the words. “Let’s go!” He took his suit jacket and hung it around my quaking shoulders to cover me. I was shaking my head no and trying to pull away from him. I didn’t trust him. Wasn’t he with these goons? Hadn’t he set me up? Didn’t he work for Nikolai Kudrin? Then I realized that it was Drake who had shot the goons. Kudrin was lying on the ground too but I wasn’t sure if he’d gotten shot.
“Lauren,” I heard Matt call out to me one last time. I tried to turn around, but Drake tightened his grasp on my arm.
“C’mon,” Drake urged, pulling me in the opposite direction from Matt. “You can’t do shit for him now! Let’s go!” Drake barked at me.
“Lauren! No! Lauren!” I heard Matt scream. I turned in his direction. I watched him roll onto his side in an attempt to get up. One of the goons who was on the ground nursing a gunshot wound extended his foot and kicked Matt in the ribs. I saw when Matt toppled back over.
“Oh my God! Matt! He’s going to die!” I hollered as I watched him fall flat to the floor.
“You don’t fucking listen,” Drake roared. He grabbed me around my waist and hoisted me up onto his shoulder.
BANG!
“Agh!” I screamed as I felt a bullet whiz right past my face. They were shooting at us.
BANG! BANG!
With me on his shoulder Drake whirled around and returned two shots in the direction of the goons and Kudrin. It was like some shit out of a movie how perfect those shots hit their intended targets. One of the goons dropped to the floor again. This time I could see that he wouldn’t be getting back up.
“Let me go! I can’t leave him like this! It’s all my fault!” I cried out. “I don’t trust you! You are a fucking liar!” I yelled as I punched Drake in his back.
Drake ignored my cries and my little hits didn’t faze him in the least. Carrying me like a rag doll, Drake raced through the warehouse doors to a black Bentley. He opened the door and dumped me into the passenger seat. Then he raced around and got into the driver’s seat. He still had his gun in his hand.
“Let me go! Please! Let me go!” I cried out. I was rocking back and forth and hugging myself. I had just experienced something that was too surreal to believe. I think I was still in shock.
“I’m not letting you go,” Drake said calmly. “Now just sit tight and be quiet. I will explain everything. We’ve just got to get away from here first.”
“I hate you! You liar! You set me up! You’re a fucking liar!” I cried. I was experiencing so many mixed-up emotions. Drake had betrayed me but he had also just saved my life. It was all too confusing.
“You think I betrayed you, but I saved your life, Lauren. My ex-boss Nikolai Kudrin was going to torture and kill you for stealing from him. It wasn’t even about the money. He didn’t need the money . . . for him it was the principle. It was the fact that someone like you had the balls to steal from him. It was his pride and ego that was injured more than his pockets. You had outsmarted him. He never likes to be outsmarted. What he had planned for you wasn’t fit for a human . . . so you can thank me later,” Drake explained.
“But you . . . you lied to me. You let me believe that we had something,” I sobbed until my shoulders quaked. “You let me fall in love with you. You made me believe that you loved me, too. You’re a fucking liar!”
“Shhh. You’re right. I lied. In the beginning it was all about finding you and finding Kudrin’s money. Yes, I was standing as his right-hand man so I was sent to follow you. To find out where you lived. To see where you had the money hidden. I was assigned to do all of that
. . . but once I found you, followed you, spoke to you, kissed you and made move to you . . . Lauren, knowing you made it impossible to follow through with my assignment. At some point it became more about protecting you from what I knew was coming rather than turning you over to Kudrin. I could’ve told him where you were the day I followed you, but I didn’t. I knew when you left the letter at the apartment in New York that you were coming back to danger. I knew that Kudrin would find you as soon as you stepped foot back in Virginia Beach. . . .” Drake paused as he focused on swerving around the traffic ahead of us. I had no idea were he was going and I didn’t care. Everything he was telling me was crazy. The worst I thought could happen was that the police would track and find me. Not that my score would end up being a crazy thug, as bad as any street hustler about his money.
I grabbed on to the door handle to steady myself as the car continued to swerve. Drake continued. “They had been following your friend Daysha practically since you’d left. They knew eventually she would be the one to lead them to you if I didn’t. I had never told them that I had found you. I wanted to move you as far away from the danger as I could. They knew Matt didn’t have the money or else he would have been dead a long time ago. When you left New York, I knew what was up so I came right away. I came to save you, not betray you,” Drake said with feeling and a sincerity that no man had ever shown me. No one had cared that much for me since Mrs. Shepherd. I continued to cry uncontrollably—a mixture of fear, love, confusion, and surrender all rolled into my emotions. Inside I felt all warm and mushy from Drake’s words.
