“Yo, let’s stop at Atlas restaurant and grab something to eat before we hit the road. I’m hungry as hell,” Joe said as he leaned back in his chair and inhaled the weed smoke into his lungs.
They all bobbed their heads in unison to Jay-Z’s Reasonable Doubt, which was pumping lightly out of the subwoofers in the trunk, as they headed toward the restaurant.
Malek kept noticing how Tariq was continuously typing on his Sidekick. He was wondering if Joe had peeped it, but then his question was answered when he heard Joe say, “Nigga, you always on that mu’fucka, sweet-talking them hoes.”
Tariq hurriedly put his Sidekick away. “Man, ain’t nobody sweet-talking nobody.”
“Yeah right, nigga. You probably over there caking it, paying car notes and all,” Malek added.
“Yeah right,” Tariq responded, noticeably irritated. I’ma be caking, all right, nigga. Just wait and see.
“Please don’t kill me, Sweets! Please. I got three kids at home. I’m sorry,” the man pleaded while on his knees. Sweets had found out that he was skimming off of the top and stepping on the dope to make more money. The man had been stealing from Sweets for years and had finally gotten caught.
“You stupid mu’fucka, why would you steal from me, huh?” Sweets slapped dude upside the head, like he was some young schoolboy getting popped by his mama for not cleaning up his room. “Don’t I treat you good? When yo’ bitch-ass ex-wife took yo’ house, who helped you get on yo’ feet? I gave you a job, and this is how you repay me. You stepping on my dope, having fiends run to the North Side because my product is weak. That’s bad business, my nigga! You fuckin’ with my money. Now you gotta pay. It ain’t a game, fam!” Sweets grabbed his long machete from behind his desk.
The grown man began to cry like a little child, begging and pleading for his life. The sight of the long machete made his limbs shake uncontrollably. He knew something bad was about to happen to him, and he instantly began to regret skimming money from Sweets.
“Pick his ass up and turn him around!” Sweets ordered two of his soldiers, who stood in the room with him.
Lynch and another one of Sweets’ henchmen grabbed the man and turned him around to face the wall.
“Don’t move, mu’fucka!” Sweets said as he raised his machete.
The man knew that Sweets was about to cut his ass up. He’d heard stories about how crazy Sweets was. His body tensed up as he waited for his life to end. He kept visualizing Sweets chopping off his head with that long machete.
“Please, Sweets, don’t kill me.” The man decided to plead one last time as he faced the wall, not knowing how he was about to die. He began to sweat profusely. All he could do was beg for his life. “Please, Sweets, please, man. I’ll never steal another thing in my life.”
The sound of plastic being ripped filled the air as Sweets stood behind the man. He didn’t know what it was, but he would soon find out. All of a sudden, the man heard the sound of the machete slicing through the air. The man closed his eyes, preparing himself to be decapitated. But when he didn’t feel a knife pierce his skin, he slowly opened his eyes and saw that Sweets had other plans in mind. Sweets had cut the man’s belt off, causing his pants to fall to his ankles. The man finally got the picture. He begged Sweets to stop, but the pleas fell on deaf ears. The ripping sound that he’d heard was Sweets opening a condom wrapper.
“You take my money, I take your manhood. If you move, I’m going to slice yo’ mu’fuckin’ throat.” Sweets pulled down the man’s boxers and grabbed himself.
Lynch turned his back to avoid witnessing the scene. Sweets often degraded men who stole from him in that sort of way. I hate when he do this shit. This is some twisted gay shit, fam. Lynch walked out of the room.
Sweets bent the man over and rested his dick on the man’s back. “If you move, I’ma slice yo’ mu’fuckin’ throat. You got that?” Sweets took the knife and slightly punctured the man’s neck. Blood trickled from the crying man’s flesh as Sweets prepared to force himself in.
Just before Sweets could enter, his phone began to vibrate on his hip. He smacked his lips, irritated with the interruption, and pulled the phone off his hip. He had a new text message that read: ATLAS IN TEN MINUTES—20 BRICKS IN DA TRUNK.
“Oh shit!” Sweets said out loud gleefully. A huge smile covered his face as he immediately pulled up his pants and pushed the man forcefully to the ground. “You got lucky this time, mu’fucka. You steal from me again, though, and I guarantee you won’t get off so easy the next time,” Sweets said as he grabbed his gun and jacket. He had someone to meet.
“Thank you, Sweets, thank you,” the man said while tears ran down his eyes. He’d just escaped an ass-thrashing, literally. “I promise it will never happen again. God bless you, Sweets. God bless you,” the man repeated as he pulled up his pants.
“Nigga, get the fuck out of here with all that crying,” Sweets said. He thought to himself, Damn! And I was gon’ tear that ass up. But hell, money over dick. “Load up! Joe at Atlas. Let’s get ’em!” Sweets yelled loud enough for his soldiers to hear him in the next room.
Lynch rushed into the room, not believing what he’d just heard. He was itching to get at Joe, to avenge the death of his little brother.
“His man just hit me up saying that they’re going to be at Atlas in ten minutes. Let’s roll.” Sweets zipped up his pants.
“What you going to do with ol’ dude?” Lynch said, throwing his head in the thief’s direction.
Sweets looked at the man and contemplated what to do with him. He knew he couldn’t just let him get out of there scot-free, with no consequences whatsoever. That would be bad for business. Then every mu’fucka might think they could get away with stealing from Sweets. He finally said, “Give ’im a limp.” Sweets headed out the door.
“No doubt.” Lynch pulled out his gun, pointed it at the man’s leg, and left two bullets in it. Bang! Bang! “Hope you wasn’t an NBA prospect too.” Lynch chuckled.
The man screamed in agony while Sweets and the Shottah Boyz rushed over to Atlas restaurant to give Joe’s crew a rude awakening.
Chapter Twenty-two
Halleigh entered the twenty-four-hour restaurant along with Tasha and Mimi. The Manolo Mamis were in the building, and all eyes were on them as they strolled in. Halleigh was still beautiful, although her recent struggles showed in her face and loss of weight. She looked tired and worn out, but she was proud of herself for being brave enough to fight her drug addiction. Although she hated what Tasha did to her at the time, handcuffing her to the bed and not allowing her to leave the room, she loved her for it now and understood exactly why she had done it. Had she not, as far as Halleigh was concerned, she could be lying dead in an alley somewhere.
Tasha had opened Halleigh’s eyes and made her realize that she was following in her mother’s footsteps. She would have eventually found herself at the point of no return, but thanks to Tasha’s support, she didn’t finish the path she was heading down. It was only the beginning of Halleigh’s recovery, but it was a start.
Tasha was only few years older than Halleigh, but she showed her motherly love at the time Halleigh needed it the most. Halleigh looked at Tasha and smiled, and Tasha returned the smile, proud of the way Halleigh shook the monkey off her back.
Among the patrons who looked their way when the girls entered the restaurant was Malek. His heart sank into his stomach when he saw Halleigh. She wasn’t the same Halleigh he’d seen just a few months ago. She looked as though she’d taken an ass-whippin’ from the streets.
What the fuck happened? Malek looked her up and down. But then he heard the sound of Tasha’s words echoing through his head. “She needs you,” he remembered her telling him, and from the looks of things, he knew that it was true.
Malek couldn’t take his eyes off of her, and his heart beat so loudly in his chest that he was sure Jamaica Joe and Tariq could hear it. Malek’s heart dropped at the sight of Halleigh. He noticed that she had lost weight, an
d her eyes looked baggy. He knew something wasn’t right with her, and that’s probably what Tasha had been trying to warn him about. His pride wanted him not to stare, but his heart made his eyes stick on her.
No matter what Halleigh and Malek had gone through, he still loved her. Halleigh might have been able to shake drugs, but Malek couldn’t seem to shake her.
For the last couple of months, Malek, trying to keep Halleigh off his mind, was just getting with chicks for the hell of it. But whenever he was inside one of them, he couldn’t help but picture Halleigh’s face.
“Who the fuck is Halleigh?” one of the girls spat to him as she sat butt naked on top of him, riding the hell out of him.
She was putting her back into it when all of a sudden he had yelled, “Oh, Halleigh, baby, don’t stop!”
Although Malek was never intimate with Halleigh, he had dreamed about it a million times. He had played that night in his head after his high school championship game, when she had promised him her virginity, imagining how it would be—how it would feel to be inside of her, to be the first man ever inside of her. It would have been such a privilege. He knew he was going to wife her. But then everything took a turn for the worse when he dropped her off at her house after the game so she could freshen up for him. It was then that two men savagely raped her and stole her innocence. To this day, Malek wanted revenge on those two fools just as much as he wanted revenge on whoever took his parents out.
Halleigh finally looked in the direction where Malek and his crew were sitting, and when she saw him, her eyes almost popped out of her head. She stopped suddenly in her tracks.
“You all right, girl?” Tasha asked her. She followed Halleigh’s eyes and saw Malek.
“Yeah,” Halleigh lied. She wanted to believe that she was okay, but she wasn’t.
“Come on,” Tasha said, grabbing her arm. “Just let him be over there with his boys. If he wants to step to you, then so be it. Otherwise, let ’im be.”
Halleigh didn’t even realize that Malek was there with Jamaica Joe and Tariq. As a matter of fact, she almost forgot that she was there with Tasha and Mimi. When she and Malek had locked eyes, it felt as if the two of them were the only ones in the room.
“Yeah, you’re right,” Halleigh said as she took a couple more steps. She peeled her eyes off of Malek and let them fall on the two guys he was with. Once again she stopped dead in her tracks, but this time, she began to tremble.
“What is it, Hal?” Tasha asked, her eyes darting back and forth from Halleigh to Malek and his boys. “You okay?” Tasha could feel Halleigh’s body trembling.
Halleigh just stood there with her mouth dropped open as she stared at Tariq. That’s him, Halleigh thought. “That’s him,” she said out loud. Halleigh would never forget the faces of the men who raped her, and Tariq’s face was one of them.
Her heart began to beat rapidly. She couldn’t believe that Malek was sitting there with him—the man he was supposed to protect her from, the man he said he would kill if he ever found him. And now here the two of them were, about to break bread together.
Halleigh pulled her arm away from Tasha and hurried to the back of the restaurant, where the restrooms were located. She could barely breathe. The sight of Malek with Tariq made her want to throw up.
She burst into the bathroom and rested both of her arms on the sink. She was tormented by horrific memories of the night her virginity was ripped away from her. The fact that Malek was sitting next to her rapist made her heart sink deeper in her chest. She couldn’t believe it. “How could he?” she whispered as the tears in her eyes built up. “How could he?”
Chapter Twenty-three
“ I’ll be back,” Malek said to Joe and Tariq as he made his way to the back of the restaurant. He knew Jamaica Joe probably had something to say about him going after Halleigh, but he couldn’t hold off any longer. He had to talk to her.
He paced outside of the bathroom, waiting for Halleigh to come out.
“Yo, come on, man,” Joe called out. “We got business.”
Malek acted like he didn’t hear him and just continued pacing until he heard the women’s bathroom door open. He caught Halleigh on her way out. “Halleigh!” he whispered as he grabbed her arm.
“Get away from me, Malek,” she said, trying to pull away.
“No, I need to talk to you. Just listen to me for a minute,” Malek said while Halleigh struggled to get away from his grip, using up the little bit of energy left in her body.
Malek got tired of struggling with her and ended up pushing her into the men’s bathroom and into one of the stalls. But she pulled away from him, not wanting anything to do with him. She was inconsolable.
“Don’t touch me,” she said weakly. His touch hurt her sensitive body, but she also didn’t want his hands on her since he was associating with the person who’d raped her. Halleigh couldn’t believe that Malek was with a man that had hurt her so bad. After she got raped, it sparked a chain of events that changed her life forever. In her mind, Malek was just as lowdown as the hoodlum he was sitting with.
“Are you okay?” Malek cupped her face in his hands and stared into her lost eyes. “What happened to you? Baby, I’m sorry. I should’ve come to you,” Malek said as he got an up close and personal look at just how bad Halleigh appeared. She was “Whitney Houston skinny.”
“Stop touching me,” Halleigh said. “I can’t believe this. How could you be with him? How could you?”
“What? Who? What are you talking about?”
Just then, the men’s bathroom door opened. “Yo, Malek!” Tariq called out as he entered the bathroom.
Malek closed the stall door and replied, “What up?”
“It’s time to go,” Tariq said. “Joe trying to get on the road.”
The sound of Tariq’s voice sent chills up Halleigh’s spine. The same way she could never forget his face, she could never forget his voice.
“All right, I’ll be out in a minute,” Malek said in an irritated tone. The only thing on his mind was Halleigh.
When Tariq left the restroom, Halleigh snatched away from Malek once again.
“Just let me go, Malek!”
“I will let you go, but on one condition . . .” Malek paused before continuing. “Leave with me, Hal.”
Halleigh let out a sarcastic laugh.
“I’m serious. You’re not looking too good. Let me take care of you. We can start over, just me and you.”
“Let you take care of me?” Halleigh repeated. “Let you take care of me? You mean the same way you been taking care of me? Fuck you, Malek!”
“Fuck me? You the one who picked that other nigga over me, and you got the nerve to have an attitude with me?”
“It looks like you picked your niggas over me,” she replied, her eyes flooded with tears. Malek’s betrayal hurt more than anything she’d ever felt.
“What the fuck are you talking about?”
“Let me ask you one question, Malek. Since when did you start fucking with the nigga that raped me? Huh? He’s what started all this. He raped me, and you’re running around here with him like y’all best friends,” Halleigh yelled, the warm tears gracing her cheeks.
Her words hit Malek like a ton of bricks.
“Y’all cut from the same cloth, Malek?” She began beating on Malek’s chest. “You a rapist too? Huh? Is that what you were going to do to the girl in that room the night of that party before you saw that it was me?”
“Whoa, hold up,” Malek said, putting up his hands. “You trying to say my boy Joe was one of the dudes that raped you?”
“I don’t know his fuckin’ name. The one you just told you’d be out in a minute,” Halleigh said furiously. “What? Are you two on your way to rape somebody else?”
Malek tried to digest everything Halleigh was spitting at him. Finally, Halleigh mustered up every ounce of strength she had in an attempt to shove Malek out of her way, but Malek grabbed her.
“Get your hands off me,
” she said. “Don’t touch me! Don’t you ever touch me again,” Halleigh screamed with so much rage that Malek released her. Then she squeezed past him and stormed out of the bathroom.
“Wait, Halleigh!” he yelled out, but Halleigh never looked back. Still in a daze, Malek exited the bathroom stall and began pacing again. “I can’t believe this shit.” He balled his fist and began punching the walls in the restroom as he tried to calm down.
Halleigh’s words had hit him like a dagger, and he couldn’t fathom someone hurting her again. He was determined to make things right for them. She was his soul mate, and he wasn’t going to lose her again. The thought of Tariq raping Halleigh emerged in his mind, and he instantly became enraged. He pulled out his gun and cocked the hammer back. I’ma murder that nigga.
Just like Halleigh had accused him, he felt guilty, as if he were one of the men who’d raped her. All of this time he’d had no clue that Tariq was one of the men who’d hurt Halleigh on that horrible night, but now that he knew, he was going to make Tariq pay.
Chapter Twenty-four
Malek walked out of the restroom with rage in his eyes, his temple pulsating from the range of emotions he was experiencing. He watched as Halleigh, the woman he loved from the depths of his soul, rushed out of the restaurant with Tasha and Mimi.
He then focused his attention on Tariq, who was seated next to Jamaica Joe. His blood boiled as he closed his eyes and envisioned the hurtful expression that had covered Halleigh’s face. Things had definitely shifted from what Malek thought they seemed. All along, he had been thinking that it was Halleigh who was, in fact, sleeping with the enemy by fucking with Manolo, when it was actually Malek himself that was cliqued up with one of the dudes that had raped her.
Just then, Malek became suspicious of everybody who was assigned under Tariq. Was it one of them who had gone to Halleigh’s mom’s apartment that night and participated in the assault? Malek’s mind was twisted. He didn’t know what his next move should be. Should he find out who the other cat was that helped Tariq and take them both out, or should he just kill Tariq’s ass and ask questions later?
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