by K'wan
“By now, you’re probably all wondering where the hell I’ve been,” Animal addressed the room.
“It had crossed our minds,” Ashanti said looking down at the blood on his Converse.
“On a fact finding mission,” Animal took off the messenger bag and placed it on the counter. He took the papers from it and held them up for Sonja to see. “I’m going to assume you know what these are.”
“They look like bank statements to me,” Sonja said as if she didn’t know where he was going with it.
“Why don’t you look a little closer,” Animal pushed the papers into her face. “These are bank statements for a Ms. L. Angelino. Stop me when any of this starts to sound familiar,” he told her. Sonja remained silent.
“Who is L. Angelino?” Abel asked. He’d been so quiet they’d almost forgotten he was in the room.
“L. Angelino is a shareholder in a chemical company called NYAK. I don’t expect you to recognize the name since we’ve all come to know her as Tiger Lily,” Animal revealed, much to everyone’s surprise except Sonja’s.
Brasco looked confused. “Blood, you said this chick is a drug dealer. What would she be doing breaking bread with a chemical company?”
“I was hoping she could tell us.” Animal turned to Red Sonja. “From the time you showed up on my doorstep you’ve been jerking my strings, I was just too blinded by my love for that little girl to see through it. You knew how deep this rabbit hole with Lilith went and you let me crawl into it blindly anyhow. If that’s how you treat the niggas you claim to love, I’d hate to see how you do the ones you hate.”
“Animal, it’s not like that,” Sonja tried to telling him.
“Save that shit for someone who doesn’t know you, Red Sonja. In all the years I’ve known you, you’ve never gone at any enemy without knowing them; their strengths, their weaknesses, their vices…I’d be a fool to think that the same doesn’t hold true with this situation. You might’ve dressed it up as being about your father, but I believe it’s been about Lilith all along. No more lies, Sonja. If you’ve ever truly loved me then now is the time to prove it by being honest for a change.”
Sonja’s mind reeled. A million lies sprang to her tongue, but she couldn’t manage to put them into words. Lying was something she did better than most, but with Animal, she found herself at a loss. Red Sonja had known from the moment Animal left Puerto Rico to rush to Gucci’s side that Gucci was his one true love, but there was a part of her heart that still held onto the foolish hope. Staring into his eyes…eyes that used to look at her lovingly, and seeing nothing but emptiness and pain staring back at her. If he hadn’t been before, he was truly lost to her now. His soul had died with his lover, and it was all Sonja’s fault.
“I never meant for any of this to happen,” Sonja said after a long pause. “In the beginning, I thought Lilith was exactly who she presented herself to be; an overly ambitious old whore. She wasn’t the first who had tried to sleep their way into my father’s cartel and she wouldn’t be the last. Daddy seemed happy enough for the time being, so I left him to enjoy his new toy, waiting for the time to come when he got bored and threw her in the trash like the rest, and that proved to be a fatal mistake. Lilith was nothing like the others and it didn’t take long for her to show it. Within her first year in our home Lilith had all but totally usurped my father’s authority and infected his cartel with agents of the Brotherhood.”
“So you knew Lilith was a part of the Brotherhood?” Ashanti asked.
Sonja shook her head. “No, not at first. I didn’t learn that until later on. After Lilith had been with us long enough to get her hooks into my father, several mysterious men showed up at the compound. Not long after, there was a rash of unexplained deaths occurring amongst both our soldiers and the soldiers of our enemies. I knew that these guests of Lilith’s had a hand in it.”
“How did you know they were Brotherhood and not just some mercenaries on Lilith’s payroll?” Animal asked.
“I’ve been around mercenaries all my life and these men were no freelancers. They moved like cats, skulking around in the shadows of the compound, always watching and whispering amongst each other. They hardly said two words to anyone outside of their group except Lilith. From the time they showed up, I knew there was more to them than what met the eye. Unfortunately, I didn’t find out who they really were and why they’d come until it was too late.”
Animal measured her words. “That still doesn’t make them Brotherhood. Outside of Kahllah and my father, I’ve never met another member, so I’m no authority, but from what I’ve heard, it’s an order that prides itself on secrecy. The only way to positively I.D. a member of the Brotherhood is to have someone on the inside.”
Sonja lowered her eyes. “I developed a friendship with one of the men.”
Animal snorted. “That’s just a nice way of saying you were fucking him. I don’t know why I’m surprised. You’ve always been good at using that gaping hole between your legs to get what you want.”
Moving as fast as lightening, Sonja slapped Animal’s face. It was more of a reaction to his sharp words than something she intended to do, but it conveyed her feelings about what he’d said. “How dare you! Animal, I don’t give a damn whether I’m right or wrong, I will not allow you or anybody else to disrespect me, ever!”
Animal took a step towards Sonja, but Brasco moved between them. Their eyes met and for a few seconds there was a battle of wills. Animal was the leader of their group, but it had been Brasco and his uncles who turned Animal onto the streets, before Gladiator had made him a killer. Brasco was the one person in his life who had never changed and Animal had a great deal of respect for him. He was in a volatile state, but going upside Sonja’s head wouldn’t help the situation. Animal spared a last hateful glance at Sonja before backing away.
“His name was Ethan; at least that’s what I knew him by. While the others who Lilith had brought in were secretive and kept themselves separate from everyone else, Ethan was slightly more approachable,” Sonja continued. “I later learned that this was because he was new to the order and still had a touch of the streets in him. Unlike some of the others who had been brought into the order as children, Ethan was already an adult when Lilith recruited him to serve in her new regime. He was a good dude, but he had a tender heart and a big mouth. I’d only bedded him twice before he was he was whispering all his dirty little secrets in my ear. For all his faults, Ethan was still special to me, and next to you, one of the most beautiful men I’d ever laid eyes on.”
“I’m flattered,” Animal said with an edge of sarcasm to his voice.
Sonja ignored him and continued her story. “We kept our romance a secret but it wasn’t long before Lilith found out and she didn’t take it well. She’d tried to bed him before but he refused her, so it was like a slap in the face when she found out that we had been together. To punish us, she used those claws of her to scar my Ethan’s beautiful face. She thought by making him ugly that I wouldn’t want him, but it only made me love him harder. After what she’d done to Ethan’s face he hated her just as much as I did, and this is when we began to conspire against her. Ethan and I were planning on running away together, but he was killed helping me escape with Celeste.”
Animal’s wheels began to spin as he processed the new information. “If your father was a target of the Brotherhood he’d have been long dead before any of you even realized they were amongst you. Why go through all the trouble of marrying him then quietly infiltrating unless killing Poppito was never the objective.” He was finally starting to figure it out.
“Because she never wanted his life, she wanted his business,” Sonja revealed.
“The Brotherhood sells death, not drugs,” Ashanti chimed in.
“As I’m sure we’ve all learned by now, Lilith isn’t like a typical Brotherhood member,” Sonja pointed out. “Unlike someone like Kahllah who follows of code of honor, Lilith knows no such codes. She’s a power hungry bitch whose only conc
erns are money and power. She wants to corner the drug market using a combination of her connections within the Brotherhood and my father’s supply line.”
“And let me guess, she’s been moving drugs back and forth using ships,” Animal said.
“How’d you know?” Sonja asked in surprise.
“Because of this,” Animal pulled another sheet of paper from the bag. “As you were talking I was putting the missing pieces of this puzzle together and it got me to thinking: if I wanted to flood the country with drugs and had the connections Lilith does, what would be the most effective way to go about it? Planes are out of the question and moving them by land could present too many unnecessary risks, but a cargo ship would satisfy all my needs. The Brotherhood has agents in pretty much every division of law enforcement so why not Customs? What I’m holding is a shipping manifest for a boat called The Red Widow that’s coming into the port of Newark tonight.”
“If we intercept that shipment it’ll give us the upper hand in this,” Ashanti said.
“As usual, we’re on the same page,” Animal said proudly. “If that boat is coming in tonight we don’t have much time.
We need to arm up and get moving,” Zo said.
“Agreed, but before we head out, there’s just one more thing that’s nagging at me.” Animal turned to Sonja. The way he was looking at her told her that she wasn’t prepared to answer whatever he was about to ask. “How did Lilith manage to get her hooks into NYAK?”
Sonja’s tongue suddenly got very dry. She opened her mouth to speak, still not sure how she would answer when she was saved by what sounded like a ringing phone.
Abel reached in his pocket and pulled out what looked like a car stereo remote. He looked at the flashing red light at the end of it and frowned.
“What the hell is that?” Ashanti asked.
“Motion detector. It’s part of the security system I had installed when Cain and me moved in here. It’s how I knew you were outside the door before you knocked,” Abel explained. “I shut it off after you came in, but re-set it once our friend here managed to pick our front door lock,” he nodded at Animal. “Cain, pull the feed up.”
Cain hit a button on the television remote and the screen flipped from the news station to an AUX channel. It was a live video feed that showed them the front door and part of the hallway. There was a man standing outside their apartment door wearing a blue and white delivery uniform and holding a large pizza box in his hand. A hat was pulled down snugly over his head making it hard to see his face. He stood there for a while, as if he was trying to decide if he had the right apartment or not.
“I’m glad one of y’all ordered some food, because I was in this bitch starving,” Brasco said greedily. He hopped up and went to get the door with the blunt he’d just rolled dangling from his mouth.
Sonja moved closer to the screen and stared up at it. There was something familiar about the delivery man that she couldn’t put her finger on. When he tilted his head she was able to see his face, and her eyes nearly popped out of her head. “That’s no fucking delivery. Brasco, don’t open that door!” she shouted, running to stop him, but it was too late.
CHAPTER 16
After his meeting with Lilith, K-Dawg stopped by his secret apartment to change his clothes. He traded his suit and tie for a pair of jeans, a hoodie, and Timberland boots. He stood in front of the full length mirror and couldn’t help but to smile. For the first time in a long time he was feeling like his old self, so now it was time to get back to his old tricks.
He jumped in his whip and made a b-line for the heart of the city, Harlem. He crept through the familiar blocks with his window cracked just a taste, inhaling the stale air. It had been a long time since he had cruised the streets of the city he had once loved so much. Much of it had changed, with fancy cafes and new high rises replacing some of the old dope spots and bodegas. Years ago, K-Dawg had sold more than a little bit of cocaine on those very same streets. He was the king of kings during the era when dope money was plentiful and snitching was a no-no, but those days were long gone and he was a different man, but the plan was still the same…the penthouse or the morgue.
He navigated his car across several avenues and the projects came into view. The tall brown buildings seemed to loom over the city like a grim warning to those who weren’t from the hood to stay out of the hood. To that day, the sight of them still sent chills down K-Dawg’s spine. The hood held both good and bad memories for him, mostly bad though. They were a constant reminder of what he came from and never wanted to go back to.
K-Dawg was one of a set of twins, born to a mother who loved him and a stepfather who couldn’t stand the sight of him. Mr. Wilson went out of his way to be cruel to K-Dawg every chance he got. It was hard to imagine a man despising an innocent child, but his step-father hated him. It wasn’t because of anything K-Dawg had done, but because of what he represented. He and his twin sister were the only children in the house who didn’t belong to Mr. Wilson. They were the products of a vicious rape, and the family’s darkest secrets.
His mother had been home from work on the night it happened. She generally took the bus from her job to the house she shared with her husband and children, but that night she was tired and decided to hail a taxi. The driver was a white man with red hair, green eyes, and a warm smile. She gave him her address and settled into the backseat. At some point, she must’ve fallen asleep and when she woke up, she was in a place she didn’t recognize. She questioned the driver as to her location, but he didn’t answer. When she tried to get out of the taxi, she realized that the doors wouldn’t open from the inside. When the driver turned to her his warm smile had faded and there was a look of hatred plastered across his face.
The driver spent the next few hours beating and having his way with K-Dawg’s mother. The whole time he was violating her all she could remember were his jade green eyes hovering over her. When he was done he left her on the street for dead, but luckily someone had found her and called an ambulance. When K-Dawg’s mother next awoke she was in the hospital. She and her husband kept the secret of her rape from everyone, including their friends and family, but secrets never stayed secrets for long. A few weeks after the rape K-Dawg’s mother discovered she was pregnant. She prayed to God that the two lives growing inside her were from her husband’s seed and not the wicked taxi driver; but when the twins were born and she looked into their green eyes, her worst fears were recognized.
It was hard for K-Dawg’s mother at first, but over time, she had learned to love her children. The same could not be said for her husband. Every time he looked at the children, especially the boy, he was reminded of what had happened to his wife. He tolerated the girl, but would have nothing to do with the boy. K-Dawg’s mother knew that her husband hated her son, but she wouldn’t realize how deep that hatred ran until the day she got the call at work that her daughter was dead. Apparently, Mr. Wilson had been trying to poison young K- Dawg by lacing a cup of juice with antifreeze, but the girl had gotten to it by accident. By the time the ambulance arrived it was too late. It wouldn’t be until years later that karma would catch up with Mr. Wilson for what he had done, but it wouldn’t come from the justice system, it came from the barrel of K- Dawg’s pistol. For the killing of his father, K-Dawg was sent to prison where he served five years for manslaughter. It was within the walls of state prison that the young teenager’s mind would become corrupted and start him on the path of darkness he now walked.
As he neared the projects, he saw a man standing on the corner, wearing a hood on his head and trying his best to look inconspicuous. He shifted his weight from one leg to the other, looking up and down the street nervously. K-Dawg pulled his car into a parking spot a few yards away and flashed his high beams twice. The man in the hoodie walked towards him looking around cautiously as if he was afraid he was being watched. He made to get in on the passenger side, but K-Dawg motioned for him to come around to the driver’s side window.
“
Sup, Jewels?” K-Dawg greeted him through the open window.
“Ain’t shit, out here waiting on you and trying not to freeze my ass off. I was expecting you a half hour ago,” Jewels said. He was a light skinned dude with a sunken face that looked like there wasn’t enough meat in his cheeks.
“My fault. I had to do something that took a little longer than I expected. Don’t worry though, I’ll make the wait worth it. You’ve been a big help to me Jewels.”
“Yeah, I just hope helping you doesn’t get me killed. When I turned you onto those shooters I told you that everybody was a go except Zo. Lakim was pissed when he heard somebody tried to smoke his little brother,” Jewels said angrily. Lakim was King James’s second in command and the man Jewels answered to directly. He was a low level member of their crew and a sneaky cat who was always looking for a come up. A friend of his had told him about someone who was offering up big money for some bodies that needed dropping and Jewels offered to help. He was hesitant when he heard that Ashanti was one of the men on the list because they knew each other from when Ashanti was working with their crew. He and Ashanti had never been friends, but he was good to Jewels. When Jewels heard how much money K-Dawg was offering, loyalty went out the window and he did what he had to do.
“Sorry about that. Zo almost getting killed wasn’t part of the plan, but you know sometimes these young boys get overzealous,” K-Dawg lied. He had given specific instructions that everyone loyal to Animal be taken out, including Zo.
“Whatever, man. Just give me my money so I can get the fuck up out of here,” Jewels said.
K-Dawg grabbed an envelope out of the glove box and extended it to Jewels. When the young man reached for it, he snatched it back. “You know this is only half, right?”
“Fuck you mean half? We agreed on a set price!” Jewels argued.
“Yes, a price based on the success of your people. As I’m sure you’ve heard, their targets are still alive,” K-Dawg informed him.
