The Awakening

by Shakir Rashaan

  I finally settled on jezzabelle, Blaze’s pet. She had the proper credentials to be able to do the job, and the appetite to give my now former boss everything he could handle and then some. A quick call to Blaze to let her know her pet had a new job and a better rate of pay, and it was on to the next thing on my “to do” list, which was taking care of the club.

  I called DeAngelo to find out from him if he wanted to buy me out or not. He had this perplexed sound in his voice, like he didn’t expect to hear those words come out of my mouth. To be honest, I didn’t expect them to come out, either. But right then, I had a different path to follow, and that path was leading to the Palace.

  “Are you sure you want to do this, cuz?” he asked me one final time, trying to talk me out of it. “It’s not gonna be the same without you, and you know the girls are gonna be pissed they don’t have you as a boss anymore.”

  “Yeah, I know, and I still might change my mind, D. But I’m on the verge of something big, and I know Kane; he’s gonna want my undivided attention.” I wasn’t lying about that. Knowing my husband, he had some big plans, and now that we had the cash flow to get it done, the sky was the limit.

  “I hear you, cuz. Tell Big Game I said congrats and I wish you two the best,” he replied. “I guess there’s nothing left to do now but figure out the dollars to make this buyout work for the both of us. I’m not trying to slight you, and I know you don’t want to sound like you’re selling yourself short.”

  I had to admit, I wasn’t sure if I was ready to give up my baby just yet. After all, D and I had built her from the ground up, gone through those years in the red, sinking hard-earned money from our full-time jobs, sacrificed what had to be done to get it off the ground to being successful. Now that it was, was I ready to leave? I really wasn’t sure about it, which was quickly leaving me quite torn. Could I juggle two businesses at the same time? Could I be the power player I dreamed about being when Kane and I were younger?

  “D, wait a minute, I’m not ready yet. I thought I was, but…” I really heard myself hesitating, and it was killing me.

  “Talk to your husband about it, cuz,” he reassured me. “He might not want you to give up. That is what you’re thinking, right?”

  I hate it when family knows you so well sometimes.

  On the way home from my soon-to-be old employer, I was trying to figure out in my head what conversation I was going to have with my husband. In my heart, I wanted to keep the club. After all, it suited a lot of purposes, including a central location to be able to handle meet-and-greets without having any issues pop up. Not to mention the money the club would generate to open up the possibility of opening other businesses.

  My mind tried to rationalize dealing with the kids and how they would handle the transition of Mommy and Daddy working at night, but that argument was BS too because we were already doing the night shift on some weekends anyway, so nothing would really change there. My mother and mother-in-law would be able to help out with the kids anyway, as they had been, except now they could both retire so they could be paid to handle them on a fulltime basis. I smiled at that thought. They’d always been active in their upbringing, so this wouldn’t change much.

  In the end, I pretty much figured out he might have already thought about that as well, and he would be gung-ho with trying to develop more “vanilla” businesses, to be able to diversify our revenue, and at the same time, create some jobs as well.

  My cell phone rang. I couldn’t see the number because it was privatized, and normally I wouldn’t have answered the phone, but I had a feeling I needed to pick it up. Call it woman’s intuition, I guess. I felt a slight chill come over me as I answered the phone, and I soon realized the reason why.

  “Your husband is going to pay for fucking with me,” I distinctly heard Jasmine’s voice, but it was definitely more panicky, more stressed. “I just thought you might want to know that before I go inside and have my people drop him like a sack of potatoes. My husband will be taken care of soon. I told you that you were all going to pay.”

  “Jasmine? Jasmine!” I yelled into the phone as Jasmine hung up, but because she hid the number, I had no idea of where she could be, who she had with her, or anything. What’s worse, if she had done something to Jay, then I knew she would make good on her threat against my husband.

  Damn it, I shouted in my head. I need to get to Kane now.

  My mind went into panic when I couldn’t reach him by cell phone. It really didn’t help matters because Jay’s phone was rolling straight to voicemail. I had to call Candy; there was no other choice in the matter, and I needed my girl to help me think. The last thing I needed was to get to this point, only to have him taken from me so unfairly.

  Once I got through the front door, I tried to keep from pacing the floor. I was trying to figure things out, but all I accomplished was heightened anxiety attacks. Thankfully, the kids were at my mom’s house that night, or I’d have really lost it by then. Candy’s number popped up on my screen, and I picked it up immediately, rambling on and on to her, not giving her a word in edge-wise.

  “Mercedes, calm down,” I heard her say over the phone, but I really couldn’t hear her completely. My husband was out there, and I had no way of figuring out if something had happened to him. “Where was he supposed to be today?”

  I slowed my thought processes down. I needed to think. I went over to the calendar to see what he was supposed to be doing today. I saw Bank w/Amenhotep written around the 3 o’clock time slot. It was around 7 p.m. now, and he hadn’t called me back or returned any texts I’d left in the last forty-five minutes. It wasn’t doing me any good to try and calm down.

  “He should have been home by now, Candy. It’s not like him to change his routine without calling me to let me know.” One thing about my husband: he’s always cautious. He didn’t take the same way home from work two days in a row. He left work at a different time every day. It’s all to keep anyone from trying to track his movements.

  “Baby, you need to calm down. He’s with Amenhotep; have you tried calling over there to make sure that he’s not over there?” Candy asked, showing a little concern in her voice now, realizing maybe I wasn’t panicking for nothing.

  The house phone started ringing, and I prayed hard it would be Ramesses. Again, the caller ID showed a private number, and I cursed out loud because I didn’t know whether to answer it or not. “Hello?”

  “He’s not at the bank, sweetie, and Amenhotep is a little ‘tied up’ at the moment.” Jasmine’s voice came through as cold as an arctic breeze. “He’s okay, for now, and he will stay that way until you bring your pretty little ass over to my house. Oh, and don’t forget my darling ex-husband. After all, it is only fair. You helped take my husband away from me, so I might have to return the favor.”

  The phone went dead, and I went completely numb.

  “Mercedes, talk to me,” I heard Candy yelling through my cell phone. “Mercedes!”

  I put the phone to my ear finally and told her what I had just heard. “She’s got Kane.”

  33 RAMESSES

  My head throbbed.

  My senses slowly came back to me, but the intense pain from the blow I took to the back of my head was nothing nice, to say the least. As each one began to surface, my mind took inventory of what exactly was happening to me. The last thing I remembered, I was with Amenhotep leaving the bank, and then I saw Jasmine waving frantically at us like she was in trouble.

  A sharp pain scorched across the back of my head, then another across the right side of my jaw.

  Then darkness consumed me.

  I couldn’t tell if it was night or not, but it had to be because we’d left the bank just after closing time, around six.

  Amenhotep…

  The first thing on my mind concerned my mentor. If I had been unconscious, what had become of Him? Had He been harmed and kidnapped as well…or even worse?

  It didn’t take long to figure out Jasmine had played us, and now
the question in my mind was exactly who had helped her kidnap me? I’m not a small man by any stretch of the imagination, so even if she had gotten help, it would have taken at least two others to drag me to wherever the hell I was.

  My arms were bound behind me with rope, ankles tied down to the legs of the chair, and my wrists were expertly secured to the arms of the chair as well.

  My eyes were open, but I only saw the dark fabric that bound my eyes to shield me from whoever was in the room with me. I could taste fabric against my tongue, and the distinct salty taste of my own blood within the texture of the fabric in my mouth. I guess someone decided to take some target practice while I was out, either that or I hit the ground pretty hard after being hit.

  My hearing became hypersensitive, taking notice of running water to my left, and voices trying to whisper in conversation with one another. I knew I wasn’t alone, but I wanted to know how many people I needed to blaze through to get out of this mess. But who was I kidding? I didn’t have a gun on me, and you can’t win a gunfight with your bare hands.

  “He’s not so tough now.” A male’s voice I heard.

  I could recognize the voice: Lee. Son of a bitch…

  “Don’t get cocky, he’s wasn’t easy to bring down. You found that out when you had to hit him a couple times.” The other male voice in the room I couldn’t make out, and I could hear a faint voice yelling from behind me. That meant the count was three, the number of men who were holding me captive.

  But damn, a couple of times? No wonder my head hurt so badly.

  I detected a female’s scent and her presence entering into the space around me. She started caressing my cheek, which was strange to me. Why would she be treating me like I was her lover?

  “Now that I think about it, I should have married you instead of that weak-ass punk friend of yours.”

  It was Jasmine.

  She untied the gag in my mouth, and I felt the cold rush of ice water flowing down my throat immediately afterward. My throat couldn’t catch up with the rush and I found myself choking for a minute, but the water kept coming. I felt it sliding down the sides of my mouth, trailing down my chest and shoulders until the water flow finally stopped.

  “That’s better. I wouldn’t want your girls to find out I mistreated their precious Daddy.” She laughed as she said it. “The great Ramesses, huh? Not so great now, are you, my Lord?”

  I was still coughing water out of my mouth, so I really didn’t have a snappy comeback in mind. She still had the blindfold over my eyes, so I couldn’t really see what expression she had on her face, although I’d imagined she was definitely exulting in my misery right now.

  “Exactly…what…are you…trying to prove, Jasmine?” I kept trying to take breaths in between the words that felt hard as hell to say because my throat was so tight.

  “That I’m in control, playa,” she angrily retorted. I heard her moving across my right side, again stroking my cheek lovingly. “Aww, did my boys bruise that handsome face of yours? I’m sorry about that; that blow to the head was supposed to put you out.”

  The fingertips I felt caressing my cheek a second ago were now replaced by cold steel. My mind processed the barrel of a .380 stroking my skin now, and for the first time, it was real.

  Her intent was to do some major harm if she didn’t get her way.

  My sense of smell was coming on strong, and I could distinctly pick up cannabis on her breath. That made for a really bad combo, and my anxiety factor kicked up a notch. I made a mental note not to enrage her any more than she already was, but I needed to get her talking so I could figure out how to survive long enough to live through this craziness.

  “Let’s just do this punk and be gone.” I heard Lee yelling, sounding more agitated by the second.

  I was dying to have this blindfold taken off, so I could at least face my captors. A man in my position deserved at least that much.

  “Why are you…doing this?” I huffed, still trying to control my breathing. The pace was steadying now. I felt my lungs filling without the fire I was experiencing a little while ago. “Damn it, at least let me see who the fuck I’m looking at before I die!”

  The answer to that question came in the form of the butt end of the gun connecting with my jaw.

  “You arrogant sonofabitch, I would have figured you could have figured this out by now,” she raged. “Come on, it doesn’t take a dummy to figure out this puzzle.”

  “Jay.” I wrapped it up in one word. “Jay.”

  “Yes, Jay.” The venom was on her breath as she said her ex-husband’s name. “You thought you were in control the whole time you were at my house that day, didn’t you? Trying to look all calm and shit, like you had shit played out before he even came through the door.”

  “Jasmine, Jay is his own man. I thought…”

  “You thought?” I caught a slap across my mouth again with the gun before the blindfold was ripped off my face. I squinted to let my eyes adjust to the lighting.

  We were in the living room of a house I did not recognize. Pastel colors on the walls, art deco placed on two sides. No pictures to give me an idea of who the owner of the house was. I could tell from the lack of light against the windows that it was after dark, but I had no idea of the time. No clock in sight.

  Lee was in one corner of the room, and the short stocky dude I remembered from that night at Liquid was standing watch by another window in the opposite corner of the room.

  I took one look at Jasmine and, as sick as this might sound to say, but damn. The way she was rambling on, I’d have thought she would be ragged, disheveled even, with hair all messed up, wild woman personified.

  The vision I saw in front of me was the furthest thing from what I imagined.

  She looked like she was ready to head to the club after all this was over. Halter-top pant suit, black in color, four-inch pumps, hair impeccably styled, her makeup completely flawless.

  If I wasn’t in fear for my life before, I was definitely there now. Anyone who took their sweet time to dress to kill while I lay unconscious was a force to be reckoned with.

  Dressed to kill…damn, poor choice of words and then some.

  “Since you saw fit to ruin my life by taking my husband away, I thought I would do you the honor of returning the favor and taking your life,” Jasmine finally told me.

  “Okay, this doesn’t have to go down like this, Jasmine. You can’t be serious,” I pleaded, leaning and turning my head toward where I thought she was so my words could be heard. “Call Jay, let me talk to him.”

  “Oh, I’ll do you one better, Sir; I’ll call your dearly Beloved so she can see how serious I am.”

  Before I could protest, she secured the towel over my mouth again. I heard silence behind me, but I couldn’t see anything because she was still behind me, then I heard the numbers being punched into the phone. The next thing I heard both relieved me in one sense and completely chilled me to the bone in another.

  “He’s not at the bank, sweetie, and Amenhotep is a little ‘tied up’ at the moment.” Jasmine’s voice came through on her end of the conversation. I kept trying to scream through the towel, make any kind of noise to let my wife know that I was still amongst the living. I felt another pair of hands around my neck from behind me, trying to stifle my ability to breathe, closing in tightly.

  “Yeah, put this fool out of his misery so we can get this over with.” Lee’s eyes moved up in the direction of the source of my distress.

  With Lee and the stocky dude still in front of me, I could only conclude that it was the third man in this abduction, the tall dude from the club, who was trying to choke the life out of me.

  It was only a matter of time before I would pass out, but I was not about to go down without a fight, period. I kept struggling against the ropes on my arms, trying to figure out how to wiggle free to fight against the tall dude, but it wasn’t happening.

  Jasmine continued her demands over the phone. “He’s okay, for now, and he
will stay that way until you bring your pretty little ass over to my house. Oh, and don’t forget my darling ex-husband. After all, it is only fair. You helped take my husband away from me, so I might just have to return the favor.”

  That was the last thing I heard before another sharp pain hit me square across the back of my head, covering me in darkness once again.

  34 NEFERTERRI

  God, I can’t lose my husband…not like this.

  A million thoughts and emotions went through my mind while Candy and I were on the way to get Jay.

  Candy tried hard to keep the mood even keeled and tried to talk about other things to keep us both from losing it. Neither of us had ever been in this situation before. The only good news we received was from paka. She told us the police had found Amenhotep and He was a little dehydrated, but no harm had been done. But He was upset to say the least and had begun making phone calls from the officer’s phone to locate his former apprentice.

  Jay was speechless when I explained what his ex-wife had done. He sat down on the couch with his head in his hands and couldn’t stop the tears from flowing. “It’s my fault. I never thought she would stoop to such a level. Kidnapping?”

  “Look Jay, you might be the only one who can save Kane from her. She’s not listening to anyone right now.” I pleaded with him, at the same time attempting to keep my own emotions in check. I was beside myself with fear and anger at the same time, but it wasn’t Jay’s fault. Jasmine had made this choice to go down this path, and there was no way to change it. It was going to end one of two ways: jail or death. I shuddered at the thought, but being a part of a law enforcement family, there was no other way to think.

  Candy sat next to Jay and rubbed his shoulders. “I’m with you, Jay. I know this isn’t easy for you, but your best friend is in trouble. We need you, baby. Please.”

  Before we left, I rushed into the office and went through Kane’s black book he had hidden in a drawer he didn’t think I looked into. It contained information and phone numbers of people he only used for certain “emergencies” that require something outside of police interference. He’d have to kill me later. I was desperate to find out where he was, and the only people who could find him without arousing too much suspicion were at my fingertips.