As he sat back down next to Raven he pulled out his phone.
The front door is unlocked. In and out like a robbery, my niggas. Grab jewelry, money, product ... everything else is too big to carry out of the house unnoticed. Try to find the safe.
“You having a good time?”Raven asked.
Mizan nodded and replied, “It’s not my type of scene, but I know I got to put in time with your folk.”
Raven’s little sister ran up to her soaking wet, and wrapped her arms around her big sister’s waist.
“Raven, is this your boyfriend? Morgan asked through sign language, smiling.
“She can’t hear?” Mizan asked.
“Nah, she’s been deaf since she was born,” Raven informed him.
“What did she say?” he asked.
“She wants to know if you’re my man,” Raven said with a smirk, putting him on the spot.
“Get out of here. She didn’t ask you that shit, ” he laughed.
“I swear,”Raven stated as she laughed too. He smiled and bent down so that he was eye level with Morgan. She was the spitting image of Raven. “She can read your lips so you can talk to her.”
“I’m her friend, Mizan. What’s your name? ”
“Morgan Jacqueline Atkins,”she signed proudly, then patted her cheeks as if she were putting on makeup. It was the sign that Raven had made up for her name when she was just a baby.
“Her name is Morgan,”Raven interpreted.
Mizan pulled a twenty dollar bill out of his pocket and handed it to Morgan. “Happy Birthday.”
Six-year-old Morgan looked at the money in her hands and frowned. “You don’t have anything bigger than Andrew?“she signed, revealing her spoiled nature. She had been raised among the hood’s elite and was used to them showering her with big face bills whenever they came around.
Raven relayed the message and Mizan looked at the mini-diva, shaking his head. “I got you, shorty ...” He removed a fifty and handed it to her. “Is that better?”
She smiled brightly and nodded her head. She then tucked the twenty and the fifty dollar bills inside her swimsuit. “Thank you,”she signed. Raven just shook her head and chuckled, knowing that her little sister had hustled almost a hundred bucks out of Mizan.
“Okay, can you go play now, Morgan?” Raven said.
“No, Mommy told me to tell you to help me get dressed. I’m tired of swimming. I want to put on my birthday outfit,” she replied, her hands moving quickly to let Raven know that she wanted to change now. No exceptions.
Raven sighed and looked at Mizan. “She’s such a brat. I’ll be right back,”she said, then grabbed Morgan’s hand and led her into the house.
As Mizan saw Raven disappear inside the house he quickly took out his cell phone, hoping that his goons hadn’t already entered.
“Agghhhhhhh!”
When he heard the ear, piercing scream he closed his eyes in regret, knowing that it was too late. “Fuck!” he muttered, knowing that the shit was about to hit the fan.
Justine dropped the plate of food she had in her hand and instantly began running full speed toward the house.
“Benjamin!” she screamed, knowing that something was wrong with her daughters.
Benjamin and an entire army of hustlers rushed toward the house, including Ethic who entered first, pistol in hand. He was ready to shoot anything moving.
When he entered he saw a crying Morgan and Raven in the hands of three masked men.
“Ethic!” Raven screamed as she tried to lunge for him, but she was restrained in a choke hold.
Morgan cried when her father came into view, reaching out as she opened her mouth in fear.
“Oh my God!” Justine cried when she saw what was happening.
“Get the fuck back before I blow this bitch brains all over the floor!” one of the intruders yelled.
Raven closed her eyes as tears streamed down her face. Her captor had a gun firmly planted against her temple. She braced herself, preparing for the worst as she shook like a leaf in the wind. The sounds of her little sister’s cries tormented her.
Benjamin’s trigger finger itched as he stood in front of his army of lieutenants. Everyone in the room was strapped, but he knew that if even one shot was fired then his two beautiful daughters would be dead. He stepped up next to Ethic and put his hands up.
“Everybody calm down. All I want are my daughters everything else you can take with you.”Benjamin tried to conceal the malice in his voice as he stood not even five feet from the masked intruders. Ethic fell back into the crowd and grabbed Justine by the shoulders, ushering her back outside.
“You don’t need to see what’s about to go down in there,”he whispered. “Stay out here ... No matter what you hear, do not come in. I’ma handle it.”
Justine nodded as she gripped his shirt. “Ethic . . . they’re my babies.”
“I know,”he said as he sat her down in the lawn chair. He ran to the front yard, and noticed Mizan’s car pulling away from the house. He made a mental note of it. The nigga girl in there at gunpoint and he disappearing, Ethic thought, suspicious. Hearing a loud scream come from the house, he knew he didn’t have time to press the issue. Putting his suspicions of Mizan in his mental file, he refocused as he approached the front door. He pulled a .38 out of his ankle holster, and with a pistol in each hand he crept up onto the porch. He could see Benjamin through the screen door, and he put his finger to his lips to signal for him to keep his cool.
“Morgan, Raven, everything is going to be okay. Close your eyes,”Benjamin said in both sign language and aloud as he stepped closer to the intruders, his hands still raised in the air. He made eye contact with Ethic, who nodded and aimed his two pistols at the two men who had the girls.
Morgan’s wide eyes indicated her terror. She wet herself from the overwhelming fear. Raven just did as she was told.
“Didn’t I say back the fuck—”
Pow! Pow! Pow!
Before the intruder could get the words out of his mouth, Ethic introduced a hollow point to his brain, shooting both men simultaneously. Before Benjamin could even speak, the third gunman looked like Swiss cheese as his goons let their cannons bark.
The bodies dropped instantly and blood covered Raven and young Morgan. Raven put her hands over her mouth to stifle her cries as she rocked back and forth.
Justine ran into the house and rushed over to her daughters. “You’re okay, baby, you’re okay,” she whispered gratefully as she picked Morgan up, while Benjamin wrapped his arms around their eldest child. Nikki burst through the crowd and fell to the floor to embrace Raven. She cried with her best friend as they both thought of how close death had been.
“Fuck did they get in here?”Benjamin shouted in outrage as he turned to the men in the room. “How did they know where I live?”He leaned into Ethic and shook his hand, embracing him slightly. He was especially grateful to him. “Take my wife and kids someplace safe. I have to find out who was behind this and get these bodies out of here,”Benjamin said. He walked over to Justine and told her that she would be leaving with Ethic. She nodded and carried her daughter out of the house. Ethic turned to Raven, who was still holding on to Nikki for dear life. He watched as Benjamin approached her.
“Baby girl, I need you to be strong for Daddy. You’re going to go with Ethic,” he said.
“No, I want to stay here with you.”She couldn’t stop the tears from flowing down her cheeks, and the only place she felt safe was in her father’s presence.
“You can’t, Rae ... you can’t stay here, not tonight. Trust me, baby girl. Ethic will take care of you. Just go with him.”He hugged her tightly, and then walked away.
“Call me and let me know you’re okay,” Nikki whispered in her ear as she hugged her one last time.
Raven nodded, then Ethic put his hand on the small of her back and led her to his car. She was silent as she watched the city streets pass, and she rubbed her sister’s hair gently, trying to ease her soul. Her head was s
pinning, and no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t restore her tough girl visage. When the car stopped moving she looked up and noticed that they were at a house, but nice modest, home. She opened the car door and stepped out without speaking. Her bloody clothes felt disgusting on her body and made her want to throw up. She felt her mouth water and she inhaled deeply to stop herself from becoming sick.
Ethic welcomed them into his three-bedroom, tri-level home. He set them up in his spare rooms, allowing Justine and Morgan to sleep together.
“Thank you, Ethic. My husband speaks very highly of you, and after what you did today, I can see exactly what he says is true,”Justine said. “I’m going to put Morgan to bed, but I want to let you know that I appreciate you allowing us to stay here for the night.”
“Not a problem. Let me know if you need anything,”Ethic said. He turned to Raven, who stood in the hallway, and pointed to the room across the hall. “You can sleep in here.”
He stood in the doorway as he watched Raven in front of the dresser mirror. She looked at the blood covering her shirt, and her hands began to shake.
“There are clothes in the drawer and towels in the closet. The bathroom’s down the hall,” he said.
She nodded, but said nothing as she watched him leave the room. She grabbed the towels and headed for the bathroom. As she stepped into the shower, her tears mixed with the water, and she lowered her head so that it could run through her hair. She closed her eyes and put her hands on the shower walls. This was the first time she realized that the streets were not a game. There was more to them than the glitz and glamour. She had almost lost her life and that fact shook her to the core, causing her stomach to turn. She had never seen a dead body before, and flashes of the men lying with their brains leaking onto the floor plagued her. She just couldn’t get the images out of her head. She jumped out of the shower and wrapped a towel around her as she felt vomit tickling her throat.
She leaned over the toilet and heaved violently, her nerves bringing up everything that she had eaten that day. She hugged the toilet as she sank to the floor. A knock at the door caused her to wipe her eyes. She hated to seem like a child, so she grabbed a tissue to soak up her tears as Ethic’s voice echoed through the door.
“Raven, everything a’ight?” he asked.
No, everything’s not all right, she thought.
He opened the door and saw her sitting on the floor. She stood up as he came in and closed the door. “You okay?” he asked.
She simply nodded because she knew that if she spoke, her floodgates would fail her. Her wet hair hung in her face and made her shiver as she stood in front of Ethic. “I thought they were going to kill me, she whispered, her eyes distant, as if she was recalling everything in her mind.
He put his hand on her neck and massaged it gently as he stared at her empathetically. “But they didn’t.”
“But they could have,” she responded quickly.
He shook his head. “I would not have let that happen.”
She fell into his chest and sobbed uncontrollably. Ethic fought with himself, trying to decide if he should hold her, but as he listened to her weep, he realized this was the real Raven: a weak and vulnerable girl who wasn’t ready for the lifestyle she so desperately wanted to lead. He wrapped his arms around her and allowed her to release her fear. She was trembling and he thought that her knees may give out beneath her. Scooping her in his arms, he carried her into the spare room. Her eyes were red and puffy as he lay her in the bed.
“I don’t want to sleep,”she whispered.
“You’re safe here. I’ll be right here next to you,” he promised as he took a seat in the chair next to the bed. He sat facing toward her and leaned down over her as if he was tucking her in. He ran his hand over her face. “Close your eyes, Raven,” he whispered. “I’m not going anywhere.”
Raven awoke the next day to an empty room. Looking at the clock, she noticed that it was only six in the morning. She arose from the bed and walked out into the hallway. She could hear noise coming from somewhere in the house and she paused mid-step, listening closely. She crept toward the kitchen and realized that the noise was coming from the basement. She crept down the steps, her bare, manicured feet sinking into the plush carpet. She stopped when she saw a shirtless Ethic lifting weights in the basement, his toned chest glistened with sweat as he gritted his teeth while pressing the weights above his head. Raven was in awe as she watched every muscle of his body bulge. Her mouth was wide open as she enjoyed the show. He was the sexiest man she had ever seen in her life. Her attraction to him was more than a schoolgirl crush. She loved him and she didn’t even know his last name. Ethic put the weights on their stand and sat up to find her staring at him. Embarrassment flushed her face, but neither of them said a word. He turned his back on her and continued his routine as if she weren’t standing there.
“I ... um ... I wanted to know if you had heard from my daddy,”she said as she leaned against the wall.
“He called late last night. I’ll be taking you back home when your moms wake up,”he said through clenched teeth as he curled the free weights, working his biceps.
Raven continued to stand there as her eyes roamed his body. He stopped and turned toward her, breathing hard from exhaustion. “Did you want something else?”he asked in an annoyed tone.
Raven was at a loss for words. Of course she wanted something else. She wanted him. The way he had protected her last night reminded her of her father. He was perfect for her and he didn’t even know it. She tried to find the courage to tell him how she felt, but she knew that words couldn’t express how she was feeling. She walked up on him slowly, almost timidly, afraid of how he was going to react to what she was about to do. There weren’t too many people who intimidated her, but Ethic did. He made her nervous, and as she stood in front of him her heart beat out of her chest. She closed her eyes and went for it, standing on the tips of her toes to kiss him.
Ethic stepped back and pushed her away, gently but with enough authority to let her know that she had over stepped her boundaries. “I did what I did yesterday out of the respect I have for your pops. It had nothing to do with you, ”he said truthfully. His words stung, insulting her and embarrassing her at the same time.
Feeling stupid, Raven scoffed and rolled her eyes as she put her hands on her hips. “Nothing to do with me?”she repeated in disbelief. “I’m not buying that. I don’t know a nigga in the world who would catch a body over somebody they didn’t give a damn about.”
“Let me make this real clear for you, little girl. I don’t have time for you. I already got a lady in my life and I don’t have love for no female but her. She has my heart ... all of it. You could never compete with her,”he said before turning his back on her.
Raven shook her head in dismay as she walked back up the steps, enraged and near tears. She couldn’t wait to get out of Ethic’s presence. She had never been shot down like that before and it bruised her ego, making her feel like she was lacking something that the next chick had. She did not know that what she was feeling was inadequacy. If she were really as grown up as she claimed to be, no man, not even Ethic, would be able to shatter her confidence. Poise could not be broken so easily in a real woman, and her salty disposition over Ethic proved that she was trying to grow up too fast. If she paced herself, she would eventually flourish into that woman, but she had a long way to go. She was missing all of the qualities that it took to be the type of woman Ethic would be attracted to. He was not the average hustler. He wasn’t married to the streets like most young men his age. He knew that selling poison to his own people was wrong, and he promised himself that when he made his first million he would exit the game and go legit. His focus was on his hustle, nothing more and nothing less; which was why it would take more than Raven’s pretty face to distract him.
When Raven returned to her house, everything was cleaned up and restored as if none of it had ever really happened. She hugged her father tightly, and h
e told her to go wait for him in his office. He came in and closed the door, then took a seat behind his mahogany desk. Stress was written all over his face. It seemed as though he had aged overnight. Deep lines of worry creased his forehead and bags rimmed his stern, red eyes. His heart was heavy at the fact that his beautiful family had been in harm’s way. He was fully aware that in the blink of an eye he could have lost everything. The silence in the room was deafening to Raven. She hated when her father got like this. The anticipation of not knowing what was on his mind was killing her. He leaned over and pinched the bridge of his nose as he took a deep breath.
“I don’t want you to see that boy again. If I even see him around our home it’s not going to be good for him,”Benjamin said in a low but clear tone.
“What? Daddy, why not? What does Mizan have to do with any of this?”she asked.
“I’m not sure that he has anything to do with it, but he was the only outsider here yesterday. I’ve never had anyone foolish enough to run inside my home. All of a sudden when this kid shows up, three men in masks appear and put my family in danger. I don’t believe in coincidences, Raven. You are not to see him again,” Benjamin stated.
“But Daddy!” Raven whined. “He was next to me the entire time.”
“This is not up for debate, Raven,”Benjamin replied sternly. “The nigga is bad news and I don’t want you around him. I can’t be held responsible for my actions if I see him again so I advise you to not disobey me. If you do, his blood will be on your hands.”
Chapter Three
It had been a long time since Benjamin had put in work of his own. Murder had been his game as a young kid, but as a distinguished head of a ruthless Midwest drug connection, he now had people to carry out his homicidal intent. As he looked into Raven’s room and watched her sleeping peacefully, he knew it was time to get his feet wet again. This was a situation that he had to handle personally. Sending one of his workers would not get the message across. He had to make the city bleed. The jack boys who had invaded his home had already been taken care of, but now it was time to make an example by touching everyone who was associated with them, including women and children. The devil had lain dormant in him for too long, and now niggas around him thought shit was sweet. For one night, he was about to reveal his cold heart and make the city bleed. Tears came to his eyes and he willed them away before closing Raven’s door. After checking on his wife and youngest daughter, he said a short prayer asking God to watch over his family, and left the house.
Moth to a Flame Page 5
