by Kiki Swinson
“Hey what’s up, stranger?” I said, forcing myself to smile.
“Where I know you from?” he asked me.
“Who is that out there?” I heard another guy yell.
“It’s me, Ava. I used to mess with your brother Nu-Nu,” I explained.
“Oh, hey, what’s up?” Trey replied.
“Who she say she was?” the other guy asked, and then he appeared over Trey’s shoulder.
When he showed his face I immediately recognized him, too. His name was Al. He was Nu-Nu and Trey’s cousin. Trey and Al were both in their early twenties. They were Nu-Nu’s muscle. If Nu-Nu told these idiots to gun somebody down, they’d do it in a heartbeat. That’s how recklessly they lived their lives. I just hoped that the plan Aiden and I had set tonight worked.
“It’s Nu-Nu’s old girl, Ava,” Trey said.
Al smiled. “So you used to fuck with my cousin, huh?”
I smiled back at him. “If you wanna call it that,” I said, feeling a little relieved that he had lightened the mood.
“Whatcha doing out here?” Trey wanted to know.
I thought for a second, trying to remember what I was supposed to say. But I completely lost my train of thought. You should have seen how Trey and Al were looking at me. Once again, anxiety consumed me.
“You a’ight?” Trey asked me.
I chuckled, trying to remain calm. “I’m sorry. When you said something I completely lost my train of thought,” I told Trey.
“Oh, shit! My bad. So, what’s up anyway?” His questions continued.
“Well, I was in the neighborhood and thought about Nu-Nu and was hoping I could catch him over here,” I lied. I swear, this was not what I was supposed to say. I was supposed to convince them to come outside, not tell ’em I was looking for Nu-Nu. Damn! I fucked up! Ugh!
“Nah, he ain’t here,” Al spoke up.
“Yeah, he don’t come out here like that no more. He supposed to be at the other spot in Norview. Do you have his new number?” Trey said.
“Nope,” I said, standing there trying to figure out what else to say. I needed to get these guys outside so Aiden could make his move.
“Trey, call your brother for Ava,” Al suggested.
“Nah, you ain’t gotta do that,” I interjected as I watched Trey pull his cell phone from his pocket.
“Why you don’t want him calling Nu-Nu? Didn’t you come over here to see him?” Al said. He gave me this look of suspicion. I didn’t know what else to say. So, without thinking about it, I snatched the cell phone from his hands and ran off the porch with it.
“What the fuck!” I heard Trey say as I heard his footsteps coming from behind me. I heard Al’s footsteps, too.
“Get that bitch, Trey!” I heard Al say.
The moment I got to the driveway, I made the sharp left turn to run by the bush where Aiden said he was going to be. But right after I made that turn Trey caught up with me and hit me in the back of my head. I couldn’t tell you what he hit me with, but I do know that it hurt really bad, because I hit the ground hard. BOOM!
“Give me my cell phone, you stupid bitch!” I heard Trey say, while tugging on the back of my shirt. Before I could react I saw feet coming from behind the bush, and then I heard a whip-cracking sound fly through the air, and when Trey flopped down on my back I screamed out of fear. “Aggghh.”
“What the fuck?!” Al roared, and then he turned around to make a run for it. But Aiden sprinted behind him.
By the time I moved Trey’s lifeless body off me, Aiden was walking back in my direction. After I stood up, I reached down to the ground and grabbed Trey’s cell phone. My fingerprints were all over it, so I wasn’t about to let the cops get their hands on it. They wouldn’t pull my DNA off of it. No way!
“Come on, let’s get out of here,” Aiden said as he grabbed my arm. While he escorted me away from Trey’s body I caught a glimpse of Al’s body not too far away. Aiden had shot him in his back so he was lying facedown near the porch.
“Don’t you think we should go in the house and take their shit to make it look like a robbery?” I suggested.
“No. Let’s get out of here before the cops get here.”
“All right,” I said and walked side by side with him as we headed back toward the truck.
Thankfully, no cars drove by while Aiden and I were making our escape. But most important, I was thankful that Aiden’s and my plan succeeded, and now we could move on to our next victims. Two down, seven to go.
CHAPTER 15
NO MORE SLIP-UPS
The plan that Ava and I had laid out didn’t go so well back at the stash house. I couldn’t believe that she almost fucked the whole incident up. While I was unscrewing the silencer I had to pick Ava’s brain to find out what happened. “You all right?” I started off.
“Yeah, I’m good,” she said as she made her way out of the Ocean View area of Norfolk.
“What fuck happened back there? You completely forgot what you were supposed to do.”
“Aiden, I don’t know what happened. I mean, I was rehearsing what I was going to say over and over while I was walking to the house, but as soon as Nu-Nu’s brother opened the door my mind went blank. I tried thinking really hard but that shit wouldn’t come to my mind at all.”
“Is that why you took his damn cell phone?”
“No. I took his fucking cell phone because he was getting ready to call his brother Nu-Nu. I couldn’t let that happen. If Trey would’ve been able to make that call to Nu-Nu, we would’ve been fucked!”
“Yeah, we would’ve. That’s why I was about two seconds from running up on the porch,” I replied.
“I’m glad I reacted the way I did because who knows what would’ve happened if you ran on the porch and shot Trey but Al got away? It also could’ve been another guy in the house, too.”
“Yeah, I thought about that, too,” I told her. This murder-for-hire gig Ava and I did tonight was going to have to run smoother than this the next time. I mean, she could’ve gotten hurt or, worse, shot. I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if something had happened to her on my watch. Like I said, the next time we went out and made our rounds, we were going to have to be on point.
* * *
When Ava got us back to the apartment I retreated to the couch and turned on the television to see if the news media had gotten wind of what happened. I mean, it was highly likely that they wouldn’t, considering I had just smoked those niggas. But in the world of social media, half the time you just don’t know.
Ava went into the bedroom and closed the door. My first thought was that she was going to try to get that nigga Nashad on the phone. So I got up and walked to the bedroom door to see if I could hear anything. But when I heard the shower water running I felt relieved, and that’s when I walked away from the bedroom door.
I returned to the living room and sat down on the couch. I sat there for at least thirty minutes, and nothing came on television. No breaking news. Nothing. But then I heard a cell phone ringing. I jumped to my feet and raced down the hallway. I tried to open the bedroom door, but it was locked. That bothered me. It actually infuriated me. So I started knocking on the door. “What is it?” Ava yelled through the door.
“Open the door,” I demanded.
“For what? I just got out of the shower,” she replied.
“I heard your cell phone ringing,” I roared.
“That wasn’t my phone Aiden. It’s the cell phone I took from Nu-Nu’s brother, Trey,” she said.
“Open the door,” I instructed her once again, because I didn’t believe what she was telling me.
“Give me a second,” she said, and then I didn’t hear anything. All the movement in the bedroom went silent. I started knocking on the door.
“Why is it taking you so long to open the door?” I questioned her.
After waiting for what seemed like forever, Ava finally unlocked the bedroom door. When she opened it, it was just slightly ajar. “Here, see it
for yourself,” she told me and handed me the cell phone she had taken from that guy. Immediately after I took the phone from her she closed the bedroom door.
I turned around and headed back into the living room. I sat back on the couch for the third time and threw all of my focus to the cell phone in my hand. I looked at the call log and realized that Ava hadn’t been lying. The ringing I had heard did come from this phone. When I looked closely, I noticed the call had come from Nu-Nu. I wanted to call back and tell that weak-ass nigga that his brother was dead, but I knew it wouldn’t be a good idea to do so. I was being paid a hefty amount of money to get rid of the whole crew; I’d be a fool to fuck that up. So, instead of calling that nigga back, I looked through the entire call list and saw phone numbers for all the niggas I was supposed to kill. Ava’s picking this up was the best thing she could’ve ever done. If I planned the rest of these jobs just right, I’d be able to kill every one of these niggas and do it quickly.
As I continued to look through this phone I read a lot of the text messages he had sent and received from different chicks. This guy was definitely a lady’s man. Lucky for them, none of them were at the stash house when he got murked, because I would’ve had to put a bullet in their asses, too. Since they dodged my bullet, I wondered how many of them were going to show up at his funeral. Judging from the number of chicks in his DM, they were going to come in droves.
CHAPTER 16
REALITY CHECK
Aiden was about to run me fucking crazy! The fact that he tried to come in the bedroom when he heard the cell phone ringing blew my fucking mind. And then when I told him to give me a second to cover myself up, he acted like I was lying to him. That shit pissed me off. It irritated me to no end too. I mean, he knew he could count on me. Was he becoming obsessed with me or what? He was starting to act more like a stalker than a brother, so I was going to have do something about that before it really got out of hand.
Once I slipped into a pair of shorts and a t-shirt, I joined Aiden in the living room. As soon as I entered the room I noticed that Trey’s cell phone really had him focused. “Whatcha doing?” I asked him as I took a seat on the sofa across from him.
“I just got done reading the text messages that he got from a lot of chicks he was fucking,” Aiden replied like he was amused.
“Did you find out whether that call you heard came from that cell phone?” I wanted to know.
Aiden looked up at me and gave me a half smile. “Yeah, I saw it,” he admitted.
“Now tell me how you felt after you saw it.”
“I felt relieved.”
“Okay, well, what if you would’ve found out that I was lying?”
“I would’ve been really angry,” he said as he continued to look through Trey’s cell phone.
“Listen,” I started off saying, but was abruptly cut off when Trey’s cell phone started ringing once again. I watched Aiden look down at the caller ID while I moved to the edge of the sofa and held my breath. “It’s Nu-Nu,” Aiden told me.
I finally exhaled when I realized I couldn’t hold my breath anymore. “What should I do?” he asked me.
“Don’t answer it,” I replied sarcastically. I mean what kind of freaking question is that? Does he want me to tell him to answer it and tell Nu-Nu that his brother and cousin are both dead? I knew one thing, Aiden needed to get his shit together, because whether he knew it or not, he was acting like he’s falling apart.
Finally the cell phone stopped ringing, and that’s when our eyes locked. And right when I was about to speak, Trey’s cell phone started ringing again. Aiden and I looked at the cell phone and then we looked at each other. “That’s Nu-Nu again, huh?” I asked him.
Aiden nodded.
“Turn the cell phone off,” I instructed him.
“Why?” Aiden questioned me.
“I know Nu-Nu. He’s calling Trey because he knows something is wrong. And besides, I know they use their cell phones for GPS too. So turn it off because one of those niggas might activate the phone locator app and find out that we have his brother’s phone. Believe me, shit would get real ugly if he ever caught us with the cell phone,” I warned Aiden. But Aiden wasn’t trying to hear that shit. I’ve always known my brother would never back down from anybody, especially some niggas way younger than he was.
“And he’s going to find out exactly what it is too,” Aiden commented as he powered off the cell phone. The moment he turned it off, he placed it on the coffee table in front of him.
“I wonder if the cops are at the stash house yet.”
“You see how fucking dark it was out there. There’s no way the cops know about those niggas that quick,” Aiden said, then stood.
“Where you going?” He was about to walk off in the middle of our conversation.
“Into the kitchen to get some water.”
“Have you thought about when we’re gonna do our next hit?” I wanted to know. Nashad would be home in a couple of days, so this assassin shit needed to be over and done with in less than forty-eight hours.
“I was thinking about going out tomorrow night. Hitting them in the dark is the best way to get rid of them.”
“Yeah, I think you’re right,” I agreed.
“So have you thought about how we’re going to do it?” I wanted more answers. I didn’t want to fuck up like I did the last time.
Aiden stopped in the middle of the floor and turned to face me. “You know what?” he started off saying. “You said that Nu-Nu can track his brother’s cell phone with the GPS system, right?”
“Yeah, why?”
“Well, we’re gonna use the GPS to locate those niggas too.”
“How?”
“Tomorrow night when we leave, you can run everyone’s number in Trey’s cell phone and track all the niggas on Nu-Nu’s payroll. The GPS will also tell us how many of them will be around each other at the same locations. So if we run it tomorrow morning it may say that each of those niggas are by themselves, and if that’s the case, then it would be real easy to take. Do you follow me?”
“Yeah, loud and clear.”
“Are you going to be on your A game tomorrow?”
“Of course I am,” I assured him.
“Yeah, we’ll see,” he commented, and then he went into the kitchen.
CHAPTER 17
WHAT’S REALLY GOING ON?
Today was the day that Ava and I would go out to meet up with our next victim. Before we left the apartment I grabbed the two photos that Winston’s cousin had given me and crossed off Trey’s and Al’s faces with a black marker while Ava was in the kitchen fixing herself a bowl of cereal. After she poured the milk in the bowl and put the carton of milk back into the refrigerator, she joined me in the living room.
After she sat down on the couch across from me, I said, “I’m going to need more bullets.”
“Don’t worry about that. Nashad has a box full of them.”
“Good. So I was thinking that we do what we talked about last night. You know, running a GPS on the other cell phones so we can find out where everybody else is at.”
“Hold up a minute. Let’s turn on the TV. I want to see if the cops found their bodies,” Ava suggested between chews of her food.
I picked up the remote control and powered on the television. I turned to every news channel we could get, and no one was talking about the two murders we did last night. This shocked me. “Go on the Internet with your cell phone and find out if any of these news stations around here know about the murders,” I instructed her.
I watched Ava as she took another mouthful of cereal, and then she set the bowl down on the coffee table. Then she took her cell phone from her pocket and powered it on. “Did you just turn your phone back on?” I asked her.
She gave me this blank stare. “Yeah, why?” she asked me.
“Why would you turn it off?”
“Aiden, I turned my cell phone off last night before we went to the stash house and never turned it back on,�
�� she explained.
“But you’re still not telling me why you turned it off?” I pressed the issue. Once again she was making me feel like I couldn’t trust her. This began to anger me all over again.
“Haven’t you seen Dateline and The First 48 TV shows? Where the cops tell suspects that they knew they were near a crime scene because their cell phones pinged from a nearby cell tower?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, that’s what I did,” she said.
I sat there and gave her a look of uncertainty. But I will say that the longer I sat there, the more her explanation made sense. “Okay, I can believe that,” I finally said, and then I smiled at her. But I don’t think she was in the mood to smile back at me.
“Why are you constantly putting me in situations where I have to explain everything to you? I mean, you act like I’m your wife or something.”
“I don’t act like that.”
“Then tell me what you call it? Because you’re running me insane behind it.”
“I’m just trying to keep you on point because I know how niggas are. They start talking that sweet shit to you so they can get your ass in bed, and then after they fuck you that’s when they start treating you like shit.”
“So that’s what you think Nashad is going to do to me?”
“All niggas do that shit to chicks. You should’ve heard the shit niggas was talking about while I was locked up. They don’t respect y’all. All they want from women is sex and a home-cooked meal. That’s it. So do you think I’m going to sit around and let the nigga that live here mistreat you? Fuck that! I’ll kill that nigga first.”
“Aiden, not everybody is like those guys you were locked up with.” Ava tried to reason, but I wasn’t listening to her. I knew what the hell I’m talking about, so I would not change my mind about it.
“Look, Ava, I said what I had to say about it. None of these niggas out here is good enough for you. And that’s just how it’s gonna be.”
“So that’s it. I have no say on how I wanna live my life, huh?”
“That about sizes it up.”
