Black Beauty

by Erica Hilton

  He tucked his dick back into his pants and zipped up, but not before removing his condom and stuffing it in his pocket. His DNA was leaving with him. When he left the bedroom, Fingers was eager to go inside and get a taste too. But God pushed him back.

  “Nah,” God said.

  “Fuck outta here, nigga. I wanna fuck her too,” Fingers exclaimed.

  “I said no.”

  Fingers became furious and shouted, “So you get to fuck that virgin and not me?”

  “What I said, nigga!”

  Fingers wanted to go to blows with God, but he decided against it. Never had they raped anyone, and the last person God should have raped was Chanel, his girlfriend’s virgin sister. So why couldn’t he get a turn? Everyone noticed how beautiful, sweet, and pure Chanel was. And Fingers never fucked a good girl virgin before. And why hadn’t Mateo fucked her yet? There were so many questions, but he didn’t care for the answers. It was time to get down to business.

  Meanwhile, Mateo was tucked in the corner nearby, still bound with duct tape and powerless to aid the woman he loved. He was completely destroyed and devastated, especially after overhearing the two goons’ conversation. He knew what they had done to his fiancée—the horrors Chanel had endured. He cried and cried, suffering greatly.

  God walked over to the grief-stricken man and placed a pillow over his head to muffle the sound of the gunshot. He didn’t hesitate to squeeze the trigger and put a bullet into Mateo’s head.

  Poot!

  Mateo’s body fell over, and from the bedroom, a terrified Chanel heard the muffled gunshot and she knew her fiancé’s fate. She figured they were coming to kill her next.

  However, God and Fingers picked up their blood money and the loot they’d picked from the place and made their exit, leaving behind a nightmare of a scene.

  Chanel heard the door slam. She assumed the masked men had left. Still shaken-up and terrified from being assaulted and raped, and not knowing what she was going to find in the next room, she mustered the strength to remove the duct tape from her mouth and hurried to call the police and help for Mateo. She raced from the bedroom and into the living room and her worst nightmare became reality. She saw Mateo sprawled across the hardwood floor motionless. He had been shot in the head and his blood was pooling thickly on the floor.

  She rushed to apply pressure to his critical head wound and tried to comfort him with loving words. She clutched his limp body in her arms and begged Mateo to fight for his life. She cried as she tried to be strong for him.

  “C’mon, baby, don’t do this to me. Please don’t leave me. Please, Mateo, please. I love you too much to lose you now. I can’t live without you,” she cried out.

  Chanel couldn’t believe it. She was supposed to get married in four days, but now it looked like she would be planning a funeral instead.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  It was two in the morning when Bacardi’s cell phone rang and rang. Lying next to Butch in the dark bedroom, Bacardi didn’t want to move at all to answer her phone. She was a bit tipsy from drinking earlier. The only thing she wanted to do was close her eyes and sleep—become catatonic to the world. But her ringing cell phone wouldn’t allow that. It became infuriating.

  Finally, she removed herself from the bed and angrily snatched the phone from the night stand beside her. Whoever was calling her this late was about to get a tongue lashing and a curse-out so strong that it would leave marks through the phone.

  “Who the fuck is this calling me so got-damn late?”

  She heard Chanel’s voice roar with tragedy from the other end. Her daughter screamed frantically into the phone, “I think he’s dead! Ohmygod, I think they killed him!”

  Chanel’s unexpected devastation now had Bacardi fully awake and worried. “Chanel, what the fuck is goin’ on?”

  “They shot Mateo!”

  “What? Who shot Mateo? What the fuck happened?”

  Chanel was mostly incoherent and upset. Bacardi could barely make out what Chanel was saying to her. She heard her repeat that Mateo had been shot.

  “Chanel, calm down . . .just calm down and talk to me,” Bacardi said.

  But it was hard for Chanel to calm down. She had just gone through a terrifying ordeal. She was scared, angry, and filled with so many emotions that she couldn’t think straight. She didn’t know what to do.

  “Chanel, what’s goin’ on? Fuckin’ talk to me. What happened to Mateo? Who fuckin’ shot him?” Bacardi wanted to know.

  “They . . . they . . .”

  “Chanel, where are you right now?”

  “I’m . . . I’m at the hospital . . . in the Bronx.”

  “What hospital?”

  “Umm, I think . . . I think Jacobi,” she stammered.

  “We’ll be right there,” Bacardi uttered with rush in her tone.

  Bacardi woke up Butch and then she informed Claire that something was going on with Chanel. It was a new day for them, and although they had their differences with Chanel, she was still one of their own, and Mateo had been nice to them. Chanel had now become their golden child.

  In the middle of the night, all three of them climbed into a taxi and headed toward the Bronx to meet Chanel at the hospital.

  Mecca was already there to greet everyone. She was in bad shape too after hearing the news about her friends. Mecca’s eyes were red from crying. She told the family what she knew. Chanel had been brutally raped and Mateo had been shot in the head by two masked intruders. At the moment, the medical staff was collecting a rape kit, clipping and swabbing her fingernails for DNA, and performing an exam on Chanel. Mateo was still in surgery. He was touch-and-go. Bacardi and everyone else was floored by the news.

  “I need to call Charlie again,” Bacardi said.

  She had been trying to reach Charlie since they’d left the apartment in Brooklyn, but she’d had no luck. Charlie’s phone was going straight to voicemail.

  “Fuckin’ bitch, answer your fuckin’ phone! This is an emergency!”

  Everyone was breaking down while sitting or standing around in the emergency room. How could this happen to such a sweet girl like Chanel?

  ***

  They’d hit payday. God and Fingers had dumped the loot onto a motel bed somewhere in Brooklyn, and it was a goldmine. There were large amounts of cash, lots of jewelry, some clothing, and a few minks. But the mother lode was the kilo of weed they’d taken from the place.

  Charlie was pleased with the lick. She noticed that there was some tension between God and Fingers, but she didn’t mention it. The only thing she said to God was, “Is my sister still alive?”

  “What the fuck you think, bitch? Yeah, she’s fuckin’ still alive. She’s good—no fuckin’ harm to her,” he replied matter-of-factly. “Don’t ask me no shit like that!”

  Fingers frowned at him.

  Charlie couldn’t put her finger on what the sudden tension between them was about. What had happened?

  “And what about Mateo?”

  “What you think? I personally put a fuckin’ bullet in that nigga’s head,” said God.

  She was pleased to hear the news. She believed God when he said that Chanel was still alive and that no harm came to her.

  The trio started to go through their score, separating the cash, the goods, and the weed. They had the motel room all to themselves and weren’t worried about anyone intruding on them.

  Charlie’s phone was constantly ringing on the dresser, but she chose to ignore it for the moment. She assumed that it was either her mother calling, or one of her sisters to inform her about the tragic news about Mateo and Chanel. She wasn’t in the mood to talk to them. What was important to her at the moment was counting money and getting what was hers—what was owed to her.

  The guys needed to sell the weed and the jewelry to give Charlie her cut. In total, they felt that they
came off with at least fifty or sixty thousand in stuff, and split three ways, that would probably leave her with fifteen to twenty thousand dollars. It was a good day, Charlie felt.

  Charlie’s cell phone rang for the umpteenth time that night, and once again, she continued to ignore it.

  God looked at her and said, “You need to act surprised when you hear the news, Charlie. Ya feel me? Fuckin’ act concerned about ya sister an’ shit. Can you fuckin’ pull that shit off?”

  “I got this, God. Don’t worry about me,” she assured him.

  He sighed heavily. He didn’t want to worry about her, but he wondered how she would react when she heard the news about Chanel being brutally raped.

  ***

  Charlie arrived at Jacobi hospital in the Bronx the following morning where she was met by everyone, even Mecca. Bacardi shot her a foul look and right away tore into her oldest daughter with, “I fuckin’ tried to call you and you don’t know how to fuckin’ answer your fuckin’ phone.”

  “Chill, Ma. I was busy.”

  “Busy…”

  “What the fuck happened? What happened to Chanel?” Charlie asked with concern pouring from her tone, though it was fraudulent.

  Butch, Claire, and Mecca simply looked at her with sadness. Did God lie to her? Did he kill her sister too? Now Charlie started to worry.

  “Is Chanel okay?”

  “No! There was a home invasion, and Mateo was shot and Chanel was raped.”

  “Raped?” Charlie repeated the word with ample bewilderment. “What the fuck you mean she was raped? By who?”

  “We don’t know.”

  “And is Mateo dead?”

  “No, he’s in critical condition,” said Bacardi.

  “Ohmygod!”

  “He made it through surgery, but it’s still touch-and-go wit’ him.”

  Charlie was shocked for two reasons. Mateo was still alive and Chanel had been raped. That wasn’t part of the deal.

  “They don’t know who did it?” Charlie asked.

  Bacardi suddenly lost her cool. “If they fuckin’ knew who did it, they would be fuckin’ locked up by now or fuckin’ dead already, don’t you fuckin’ think!”

  “Where’s Chanel?” Charlie asked.

  “She’s still with the doctors,” Mecca answered.

  Charlie all of a sudden looked visibly sick. The family thought she was finally showing some concern for her little sister.

  “I need some fuckin’ air,” Charlie announced.

  She immediately departed from the room and dashed out of the hospital. She needed to call God. She needed to confront him. Everything was fucked up. They done fucked up. She walked up the block and called God from her cell phone.

  When he finally answered, she screamed from the top of her lungs, “You grimy fuckin’ nigga! You fuckin’ raped my sister! You nasty-ass bastard! Fuck you, God! I swear, nigga, you ain’t shit!”

  God indifferently replied, “Yo, I don’t know what the fuck you talkin’ ’bout, Charlie. I ain’t rape nobody. And don’t be coming at me wit’ this shit over the fuckin’ phone. I’m on my way.”

  He curtailed their call.

  Charlie was left standing outside looking dumbfounded. She sobbed.

  Unbeknownst to Charlie, Claire had followed her outside because she was concerned about her. She overheard Charlie cursing God out on the phone and was shocked by what she heard.

  Could it be true? Did God have something to do with this tragedy?

  Claire didn’t know for sure, but she knew what she’d heard Charlie scream out. Her sister was truly upset. Claire walked back inside the hospital without Charlie seeing her.

  ***

  Butch excused himself from the waiting area and went and stood in an empty corridor. Ten minutes later Bacardi went to check on him. She bent the corner and found a pitiful sight. Her husband was coiled over, hands clenched in a tight fist, his face drenched with tears. His veins were bulging in his neck and his eyes were puffy, almost swollen shut from crying. He looked almost unrecognizable.

  “They hurt my baby,” he sobbed. “I’ll fuckin’ kill ’em. I’ll kill ’em all!”

  Bacardi embraced Butch. He squeezed her waist tightly and buried his face in her shoulder. He was torn up inside, grieving, and blaming himself for not being able to protect his youngest child from the wolves.

  “Why, Bernice? Why her? Why Chanel?”

  Briefly, Bacardi wondered if Butch had ever had a clue that Chanel wasn’t his blood. And then she pushed that thought to the back of her mind. What did that matter now?

  ***

  A few hours later, God arrived at the hospital in the Bronx. He came alone and brought flowers for Chanel. By now the adrenaline had worn off and he suddenly felt the pain from the scratches Chanel had dug in his back. He didn’t want to panic, but he knew that his DNA would be under her fingernails and hoped that the hospital staff would somehow overlook this evidence.

  Charlie had mixed emotions about God being there.

  To Charlie, he emphatically denied the rape—whether it was between him and Chanel, or Fingers and Chanel.

  “Then why the sudden tension between you and Fingers?” she asked him.

  “That’s some other shit, Charlie, not this. I promise you, we ain’t touch that girl,” he replied vehemently.

  He continued to lie and said that Chanel was lying to get attention. Charlie didn’t know what to believe. God went on to say that he bet the rape test would come back inclusive, no DNA.

  She narrowed her eyes at him. What did he mean DNA?

  “Maybe they wrapped up,” she said. “My sister was fuckin’ raped!”

  God became easily offended, and shouted, “I ain’t no fuckin’ rapist! I would never touch ya fuckin’ sister, especially some black, ugly bitch like her. Shit is like fuckin’ incest. She’s like a sister to me too.”

  “But she’s not your fuckin’ sister!”

  “You never gave a fuck about her anyway!”

  “That don’t mean shit!”

  “I didn’t fuckin’ do it, Charlie, so get that shit out ya fuckin’ mind,” he shouted.

  They argued right there, and God remained adamant about his innocence in the rape. Eventually, Charlie backed down, but she couldn’t shake the uneasiness she felt around God. The thought of her man putting his dick inside her little sister disgusted her. Inexplicably she still loved him, even with the allegations of rape lingering over his head.

  He was right, though. She never cared about Chanel, so why did she start to now? Was it jealousy that Chanel fucked him too, though it was by rape? She already had everything, and now God had to give himself to her too—taking her virginity.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Bacardi stayed by her daughter’s side in a room chair, while the rest of the family went home. Chanel’s doctor had come out and confirmed that she’d been raped. There was trauma and tears to her vagina, and her hymen was viciously torn. They’d swabbed her for DNA, but they wouldn’t know if they had a profile for some time now.

  Bacardi was shocked that Chanel was still a virgin. She didn’t think that it was still possible at her age. Bacardi had been having sex since she was twelve years old.

  Grief and guilt overwhelmed Bacardi, and she realized that she had been a terrible mother to her youngest daughter. The fact that a long time ago she’d had an affair and had gotten pregnant with a man she loved had haunted her until this day.

  Bacardi wanted revenge.

  A few detectives came to the room to ask Chanel some questions about the home invasion and the attack. Did she recognize the two men? She didn’t. They wore masks. Did she notice any distinguishing marks on either man? She couldn’t tell. It happened too quickly, and she was terrified. They were dressed in black and wore gloves, therefore, left behind no fingerprints. The men
came and went, vanished suddenly, leaving behind her fiancé to fight for his life—and her definitely scarred for life.

  With nothing to go on, the detectives were disappointed. They really wanted to catch these culprits. There had been a wave of deadly home invasions in the Tri-State area in the past few years, and the culprits still hadn’t been caught. The detectives were hoping that Chanel could give them their first lead to catch these murderous thugs, but they left empty handed.

  “We were getting married,” Chanel uttered faintly.

  “Married?” Bacardi was shocked to hear.

  Damn it, the man was going to officially become her son-in-law, and now they didn’t know if he would live or die. Just like that, Chanel’s world—and she felt like her world—had been turned upside down.

  Bacardi sat with Chanel for a few more hours, and then she decided to go check on Mateo. He was in ICU—comatose from the shooting and the intense surgery, with machines and tubes monitoring his vitals and trying to keep him alive.

  “I’ll give you fifteen minutes with him,” said his nurse.

  Bacardi nodded. She moved closer to Mateo’s bed, a bit nervous to see him in such a fragile condition. Then there was this anger that started to develop inside of her. Why was this happening to her daughter? Mateo was supposed to be her golden goose out of the hood. He had money and he was kind to her—a cool dude. Maybe he had enemies, or stick-up kids came to violently take from him like they always do. There were so many questions as to why this happened, but Bacardi knew that she probably would never know the answers.

  She gently took Mateo’s hand into hers and said to him, “Chanel is gonna be okay, Mateo. And she needs you to fight. She told me that y’all were getting married. That’s wonderful news. So you fight, so you can be with my daughter and take care of her—take care of us. But I need you to fight because someone hurt my daughter and we need you to get better so you can get your revenge.”