by Kiki Swinson
“Who sent this note?” I asked the boy, a little concern in my voice. It was a little weird, and I was still quite paranoid about the possibility of people watching me.
“It came from the gentleman over there,” the boy said, pointing to a man sitting on a bungalow chair. The man smiled when he saw me watching him. I eyed him from behind my shades. He was wearing a fedora, a button-down shirt, and some chinos. The man waved at me and flashed another big smile. I rolled my eyes and handed the note back to the boy.
“I am not interested, so take this back. And tell your friend over there that a gentleman is the last thing I need right now. I need a gangsta or nothing at all.” I smirked. Then I pulled my shades back up over my eyes and continued to entertain myself with all of the stories about me. I, the fabulous Melody Goldman, was back in business and I would not take any more shit for another man from this day going forward! It’s about me and no one else. Fuck ’em all!
Gentlemen Prefer Bullets
De’nesha Diamond
Prologue
BOOM!
Eight-year-old Elijah Hardwick’s eyes flew open the second lightning lit up his small bedroom. By the time he pushed up onto his bony elbows, the room was pitch-black again. His heart hammered against his small rib cage as his eyes darted around. He hated thunderstorms—always had—but something in his gut told him that this one was different. Something was wrong.
Thunder rumbled overhead. The storm was far from over.
BOOM! BOOM!
Eli’s head jerked toward his bedroom door. Was that inside the house?
He brushed off the top sheet and swung his legs over the side of the bed while his ears strained to pick up any usual sounds. But the silence was as loud as the occasional thunderclap, and he couldn’t tell if his ears were playing tricks on him. At long last he stood and crept toward the door.
“Where are you going?” Ezekiel, Eli’s twin brother, asked, sitting up on the top bunk.
“I heard something,” Eli whispered, twisting the doorknob.
“Again?” Ezekiel groaned, dubious.
“For real this time.”
“What did you hear?”
“I don’t know. Something.”
BOOM!
The twins jumped; shortly after, the windows rattled violently. Eli’s hand flew over his heart while another flash of lightning blinded them temporarily. A second later, the sky opened up and rain pounded on the glass like a million glistening hammers.
Ezekiel laughed. “It’s just a damn storm, Eli. Fuck. I swear you’re scared of your own shadow. You better get back in bed before Mama beats the black off of you.”
Eli frowned and resisted pointing out that his brother had jumped too. “That’s not what I heard. It was something else—something inside the house.”
“Yeah, yeah.” His brother plopped back against the pillows, rolled over, and burrowed deeper beneath the blankets. “When you can’t sit for a week, don’t say that I didn’t warn you.”
Eli stood frozen for another second, wondering whether he should really go check things out. His mother had warned him repeatedly to keep his narrow butt in bed because he had a habit of coming up with excuses to get up in the middle of the night. He had used everything from there being monsters in their closet to being thirsty, hungry, wet, sick, or having a bad dream.
Bad dreams.
He had those often. Ever since his best friend Brandon had been gunned down right in front of him. One minute they were arguing over who was going to be on whose basketball team and the next firecrackers started popping off. Before he could understand what was happening, the left side of Brandon’s head exploded open and warm blood and chunks of brain splattered across Eli’s face. While he stood frozen in horror, his quick-thinking twin brother rushed over and tackled him to the ground. Since then, there hadn’t been a single night when Eli hadn’t relived that horrible moment. He truly believed that had it not been for Easy, he would be in a worm hotel just like Brandon was at that very moment.
Still, the nights of his mother lifting the sheet and telling him to climb in were over. His father made it clear that he didn’t want her babying him anymore—and what his father said was law. Eli was afraid of his father, and even more afraid of the man he worked for—Mafia Don.
No one in the family talked about what his father did for Baltimore’s notorious gangster, but with the nickname Killa E, it wasn’t too hard to guess. Elliott Hardwick had a dangerous look about him. At six-five, with dark, brown skin and shoulders so wide they looked like they could carry the whole world, his father had a lot of niggas shittin’ in their pants when they saw him comin’. And the few people who weren’t scared were certainly scared of his huge customized Colt Commander and its bull barrel.
Eli wished that he was more like his father and brother, but it just didn’t seem to be in him. No matter how hard he tried.
I’m not a baby. He glanced at the door. Had he really heard something, or was it just his imagination?
BOOM! BOOM!
“What was that?” Ezekiel popped back up in bed.
Eli’s eyes bulged to the size of silver dollars. Gunshots! His hand flew off the doorknob as if it were a hot poker, and he quickly backed away.
Ezekiel bolted out of bed and rushed the door. When it was clear where he was going, Eli jolted out of his fear and grabbed his brother’s hand. “Wait. You can’t go out there,” he hissed. “We gotta hide.”
“Hide? Are you crazy? We gotta go see what’s up,” Ezekiel snapped, swiping off his brother’s hand.
Eli didn’t miss the annoyance in his brother’s voice. His twin was like their father: strong, decisive, and fearless. Despite the powerful love flowing between them, Easy never missed a chance to scold Eli for punking out all the time. It was Easy who rescued him from schoolyard bullies, neighborhood lil g’s, and even a few ass whoopings he had coming his way at home. So it was no surprise when Easy jerked open the door and charged into the hallway’s eerie darkness like a mini-superhero.
“Easy,” Eli hissed. “Easy, come back here!”
BOOM!
“Easy,” Eli mumbled, taking a trembling step backward. A sudden rush of acidic tears burned his eyes. “Easy, please come back.”
Lightning flashed, giving all the toys in the room oddly shaped shadows. Eli was tempted to turn and dash under his bed, but then his mother screamed.
Eli jumped as a warm trickle of piss roll down his legs. “Mama?” Tears sprang to his eyes while his bottom lip trembled. He still wanted to hide . . . but he also wanted to help his mother.
BOOM! BOOM!
Knees knocking, Eli sucked in a deep breath and then finally plunged into the darkness . . . and smacked into something hard—or rather someone.
“Where the fuck do you think you’re going, lil nigga?” a deep, raspy voice demanded.
Before Eli could even think about responding, the mystery man’s hand locked on to the front of his pajamas and jacked him up into the air. Piss rolled faster down his legs and dripped off of his toes.
“I asked you a fuckin’ question,” the man growled. His attempt to cover up his bad breath with gum wasn’t working. In fact, the cloud of hot, spearmint funk singed Eli’s nose hairs.
“I . . . I . . . ,” Eli stammered, and then slammed his eyes shut. Concentrate. However, the stammering grew worse. “I . . . I . . . I . . . s-s-sorry.”
“You’re s-s-sorry?” the man mocked, and then laughed at his imitation. “You don’t even know what the fuck sorry is yet, you pissy lil nigga.” He dropped Eli back down to the floor, where his small knees buckled and landed him in a pool of his own piss.
“Bring your ass on,” Funky Breath said, grabbing Eli’s arm and dragging him down the hallway. “I GOT THE OTHER ONE!”
“Good. Bring him down here,” another ominous voice barked.
Eli flailed his arms about, hoping to grab hold of something—a table, a lamp, a railing, something. “N-no . . . p-p-please,” he begged.<
br />
“Shut the fuck up!” The man slammed something hard against the back of Eli’s head, plunging him into a darker blackness.
Easy didn’t know who the four-man crew dressed head to toe in black was, and he didn’t give a shit. He just wanted them out of his house—now! He jerked and twisted, hoping to break the nylon rope that was cutting into his small waist. To his right, both his mother and older sister, Erica, were tied to their own chairs, their mouths stuffed with dishrags and sealed with duct tape.
Seeing the fear on their faces only made Easy struggle that much harder to break free.
“Well, look at this lil nigga here,” a man as big and wide as a brick building chuckled, and then scratched the side of his face with his Glock. “This muthafucka got heart.”
“Is that right?” The leader, the only one defying the night’s dress code to wear pristine white, turned away from the window just as another bolt of lightning brightened the room and revealed his sinister face.
Easy glared at the man, unafraid. If he could get loose, he’d prove how much he was like his father. His evil thoughts of revenge were interrupted when another dude joined them in the dark living room, dragging his twin behind him. Once in the center of the room, he stopped, reached down, and tossed Eli onto the couch as if he weighed nothing.
Ezekiel’s heart stopped. The scene was close to an out-of-body experience. Eli’s face so like his own, with blood rolling down the side.
His mother screamed, but the rag in her mouth reduced it to a muffled moan.
Fat tears rolled down Erica’s face, despite her squeezing her eyes tight in prayer.
Ezekiel forced his gaze away from his brother’s limp body and returned his glare to the leader. If only he could get loose. He tugged at the tight rope.
Lightning flashed as the leader strolled over to his mother, his eyes glittering like black diamonds. “Now. I’m only going to ask you one more time. If you don’t answer my question or if you scream again, I’m going to order my man there to put a bullet in each one of these lil fuckers’ foreheads. You feel me?”
His mother whimpered and then rolled her head around in silent agony.
“Good.” With one swift jerk, the tape was wrenched off her face.
She recoiled from the sudden pain while the rag sprang out of her mouth, but she didn’t scream. She didn’t dare.
“Where. The. Fuck. Is. He?”
“I don’t know. I . . . I swear.”
The leader shook his head, disappointed. “Shoot the girl.”
“Wait!”
Big Brick Building swung his Glock in Erica’s direction and squeezed off a shot before Easy even had the chance to blink.
Erica, and her chair, flew backward.
A scream ripped from his mother’s chest, but it was knocked out of her when the man in white backhanded her with his own piece.
Easy rocked onto his bound feet and then charged, hunched in a ninety-degree angle. “Muthafucka!”
“What the fuck?”
Before Mr. White or his soldiers could react, Easy tackled the nigga like a crazed linebacker and knocked his ass to the floor. The man’s gun flew out of his hand as Ezekiel’s chair snap in half.
“Easy, stop! Please,” his mother begged, sobbing. “Please, don’t hurt my baby!”
BOOM! BOOM!
Thunder rolled, as two bullets whizzed by Easy’s head.
“Stop shooting, you dumb muthafuckas! You gonna hit me,” the man roared.
“Sorry, Boss.”
Easy’s hands came free. Enraged, he landed one punch after another. However, his element of surprise was over, and this nigga punched him as if Easy were a grown-ass man and sent him reeling back across the room.
“Now shoot his ass,” the leader commanded.
“No,” his mother shouted, bouncing in her chair.
Big Man swung his gun toward Ezekiel, but before he could squeeze off a shot, Eli bolted up from the couch and flung himself toward the gunman, causing his shot to go wild and find a new mark—straight through the center of their mother’s neck.
“MOM!” the twins shouted.
Both stared into their mother’s wide, shocked eyes. She opened her mouth to say something, but admitted a wordless gasp before her head plopped sideways, her dead eyes staring at nothing.
“Fuuuuck.” Big Man laughed. “Guess she can’t tell us shit now.”
Mr. White pulled himself up from the floor and retrieved his gat. “Don’t matter. That grimy muthafucka’s mug shot is gonna turn up sooner or later. We’ll just finish these two lil niggas and roll the fuck up out of here.” He took aim at the closest twin, who was still frozen in shock, and fired.
Eli jerked as the bullet entered his shoulder and spun him around.
“Noooo!” Ezekiel rushed forward, arms outstretched. But it was too late.
The next bullet slammed into Eli’s chest like a heat-seeking missile, lifting him off his feet and slamming him into the coffee table, the glass top shattering into a million pieces.
Before Ezekiel could knock the gun from the man’s hand, a bullet slammed into his shoulder from behind, spinning him around to receive his own missiles to the chest. While he propelled backward, the front door banged open.
“Y’all niggas want to get down?” his father thundered. “Then come on, muthafuckas.” He took only a second to survey the scene before his own cannon pumped bullets. “Let’s do this shit!”
Ezekiel crumpled to the floor with his chest on fire. However, his gaze didn’t focus on the raging battle but instead searched out his twin among a sea of broken glass. Pain consumed him while his eyes searched for any sign of life.
Eli’s eyes opened, blinked.
Ezekiel tried to smile, but the pain and heat in his chest made that impossible. Everything is going to be all right, he conveyed through his eyes. He and Eli always had a way of knowing what the other one was thinking. We’re going to get through this. I promise.
Eli blinked as though he’d received the message and then stretched his arm out to try and touch his brother. They were a mere foot apart, but it may as well have been miles.
Ezekiel fought like hell to move his arm, but all he could manage was an inch at best. The pain was too much and darkness crept up fast.
Hang in there.
He closed his eyes but couldn’t open them again.
Mafia Don didn’t appreciate having to roll through B-more at three in the fucking morning. The sky was crying and bolts of lightning were threatening to crack open the earth every other minute. Usually he had his best niggas handling this type of shit, but after a rash of disloyal muthafuckas snitching like tricked-out bitches, he decided to handle this late-night creep personally.
“They are all dead, Boss.” Teardrop shook his head outside the don’s black-on-black bulletproof Navigator.
Mafia Don tilted down the rim of his sunglasses and leveled Teardrop with a deadly stare. “All?”
“All,” Teardrop confirmed.
“Midnight?”
Teardrop shook his head. “He’s not here. Maybe he didn’t do the job in person.”
“Since when have you ever known for Midnight to miss a slaughter?”
Teardrop didn’t respond.
“Exactly.” Mafia Don pushed up his shades and then powered up the window. He took a couple of seconds to digest the information. He pulled a cigar from inside his jacket, then took his time biting off the back and lighting up. The mighty Killa E dead?
“Where to, Boss?” his driver asked.
“Give me a minute.” He reached for the handle and opened the back door.
“Wait, Boss.” The driver bolted from behind the wheel and rushed around the car while opening an oversized umbrella to shield the don from the rain as he stepped out of the vehicle.
Teardrop knew better than to try and huddle underneath the shelter of the umbrella and instead fell back to trail behind, getting completely drenched in the process.
The moment h
e stepped into the Hardwicks’ residence, Mafia Don assessed what resembled a battlefield. Blood and bodies lay everywhere.
“It looks like we have ourselves a modern-day Alamo.”
“A what?” Teardrop asked.
Mafia Don rolled his eyes behind his shades and then ventured farther into the house. The shit was ugly. When he found the man he was searching for, Killa E, he stopped. “Damn.”
Teardrop stepped up next to his boss and shook his head. “Looks like your boy went out Tony Montana style. Real fucking gangster.”
Mafia Don forced his face to remain neutral. He’d known Killa E for a long-ass time, and it was too bad that things had to come down to this—to see his whole family go out like this. The hard truth was that in this street game, they were all dead men walking, pretending that they were two steps ahead of the devil.
Mafia Don shocked everyone when he bent a knee to close the eyes of a man who had been like a son to him. “Rest in peace, my nigga.” When he started to rise, a movement caught his attention from the corner of his eye. The don’s head jerked to his right, and the men around him tensed.
“What is it, Boss Man?” Teardrop asked, Glock at the ready.
“I thought you said that everybody was dead.”
Teardrop hesitated as if the statement confused him. “They are.”
“Then you need to get your eyes fixed.” He stood and walked over to one of the twins’ blood-soaked bodies. When he checked for a pulse, the kid’s eyes sprang open.
“Holy shit,” Teardrop whispered.
Mafia Don cocked his head as his chest muscles tightened. “Hey, lil man. Don’t worry. Your godfather is here. I’m going to take good care of you.”
1
Twenty years later . . .
Darkness cloaked Elijah as he stepped away from the back of his black-on-black Escalade. Both he and his right-hand man, Omar, slapped in clips to their twin M16 Vipers and then rushed in low toward a dilapidated warehouse a good five hundred feet away.
