by Mz. Robinson
December 1, 2011
Sabrina A. Eubanks
author of Karma I, II & III
Chase Brown has it all…he’s wealthy, owns three of the hottest night clubs in New York City and he’s boyishly handsome. Chase’s rise to the top hasn’t been easy and memories of his mother’s murder, as she died in his arms when he was only twelve years old, still haunt him. These memories birth Smoke, his monstrous alter ego, who is psychotic and very dangerous.
Chase and his younger brother Corey are close—so close that his older brother, Cyrus, uses emotional blackmail to make Chase carry out his deceitful and murderous deeds. While attempting to bury Smoke and break free from his brother’s spell, Chase meets the beautiful Bliss Riley. They fall madly in love but there is only one problem…Bliss isn’t aware of Chase’s murderous appetite and the demon that lives inside of the man she loves.
Will Chase be able to bury his demons for good and live happily ever after with the woman of his dreams or will Smoke take Chase and Bliss on a journey that will leave dead bodies throughout the city of New York? Only time will tell!
Prologue
Chase Brown had never been moved much by the power of prayer, but he was sure as hell praying now. There, in what were apparently the last moments of his life, he discovered the truth: You really do see your life flash before your eyes. His life story did not unwind like one of those grand and glorious old epic movies; rather, it was a jarring assault, just starkly vivid sparks of random memory. He saw hundreds of bits and snatches of everything he’d done: things he’d done right, things he’d done wrong, and things he should have done differently. Then there were the things he never should have done at all.
What should have happened in the blink of an eye, though, seemed to stretch out unnaturally in some sort of strange, revised measure of time. Chase wondered why his thoughts were so scattered, why he couldn’t think straight. Everything was flying around in his head with such swirling, blurring speed that it was impossible to get his thoughts to gel. He felt dizzy, and his heart hammered in his chest.
Violence had always been an abstract to him, and he always associated it with his older brother, Cyrus. That’s not to say he was a stranger to it himself. Chase had grown up around violence, had seen friends and family fall prey to it, and had inflicted a generous amount of it himself; though rarely had he been on the receiving end, unless it was from Cyrus. And, the violence he doled out himself was for Cyrus. The shit he did for Cyrus had niggas scared to death…but obviously not this nigga.
Objectively speaking, there really was no reason for the guy to be afraid of Chase. After all, the man holding the .45 on Cyrus Brown’s little brothers was Herc Mercer. He and his boys went back a long way with Cyrus, but as of late, most of their history was far from pleasant. They’d started out as friends and business partners when Chase was still in junior high. Chase knew Herc, Rome, and Khalid—knew them niggas well. He knew things were turning sour between them, but he never in his life did he think he’d find himself looking down the barrel of Herc’s infamous .45.
Herc waved the gun in front of his face a bit. “Stop daydreamin’ and answer the damn question. I swear, I ain’t never seen a man drift off with a gun in his face. Where’s Cyrus, Chase? Is that muthafucker hiding from us?”
Chase narrowed his eyes and licked his lips. He looked Herc straight in the eye when he lied to him. “I don’t know.”
They stared at each other, neither wavering for a second, and Chase felt sweat trickle between his shoulder blades.
Herc looked at him dubiously. “What did you just say?”
Chase squared his shoulders and held his gaze. He was scared, but there was no way he was about to let Herc see that. If he was going to shoot him, he wasn’t going to let him punk him first. “I said I don’t know,” Chase repeated, careful to keep his voice even. Raising up had no place here. He knew Herc, and he didn’t doubt for a minute he’d blow his brains out. His best bet was to try and smooth this dude out by keeping it even.
Herc was glaring at him with murder in his eye, but he spoke to him gently. “I don’t believe you, son. You know, a man can get in a whole lot of trouble lying to me. Come on, now. Tell me where Cyrus is, and y’all can walk away like this never happened. See what I’m sayin’? Be good, baby. Tell me where he is.”
“Fuck you, Herc!”
Chase and Herc both turned in surprise to see Corey standing there, bristling with outrage at the indignity. His sixteen-year-old manhood was offended, and he was full of piss and vinegar.
“How you gonna pull a gun on us, Herc? What the fuck is wrong with you, man?”
Chase put his hand on his brother’s arm. Things were about to get crazy; he could feel it.
Herc smiled grimly and turned his gun from Chase to Corey.
“Shut up, Corey. Don’t say nothin’,” Chase ordered in that same even voice.
Corey shrugged his hand away. “Naw, man! Fuck this nigga, Chase!” He turned his head and scowled at Herc, his young, handsome face glowing with indignation; his eyes were ablaze with it—with bright anger and naiveté.
Chase stepped in front of him to try to diffuse the already out-of-control situation, hoping he was not too late to change the ending of this story. He could understand Corey’s anger, but he also understood the fact that if Herc had the audacity to pull a gun on them in the first place, he most definitely had the nerve to follow through.
Herc grinned and spoke through his teeth. “Who you talkin’ to, boy?”
Corey pushed against Chase. He foolishly feared neither Herc’s size nor his weapon. “I’m talkin’ to you, you big, stupid, motherfucker! How you gonna pull a gun on us, Herc?” he demanded again.
Chase pushed him right back. Corey’s fast temper and big mouth were finally about to get him into something neither one of his brother’s could fix. “Shut up, Corey! Stop talkin’! Just shut the hell up!”
Herc reached past Chase and snatched Corey up by the front of his T-shirt.
“Let him go, Herc!” Chase yelled, pushing his weight against the big man who outweighed him by fifty pounds, easy.
Herc knocked him out of the way like he was swatting a fly and hit Corey in the face with his .45.
Corey yelped in pain, but it didn’t take the fight out of him; instead, it only made him angry.
Chase knew his brother well. He knew what Corey was going to do even before his hand went under his shirt. Corey might have only been sixteen, but he never left the house without his trusty .32. Chase’s brow furrowed in resignation. He was resentful about the unfortunate turn of events. All he wanted to do was go to the park with his brother and get in a simple pick-up game of basketball, but this fool had come out of nowhere with his flexing and his questions. He’d even felt brave enough to come alone, thinking he’d intimidate two teenagers. Chase smiled a sad smile as he watched Herc turn his gun to point at Corey’s head. He couldn’t just stand there and let that murderous fool kill his little brother. Just like everyone else, Herc had slept on Chase, paying him no mind,
Because Herc had his back to Chase, he didn’t see him slip his hand into his back pocket and pull out his own weapon of choice. Chase quietly put his foot between Herc’s feet and put his left hand on his forehead, pulling his head back to his shoulder in an oddly intimate embrace. By the time the look of surprise fully registered on Herc’s face, he was already wearing a broad smile across his neck. Chase wiped the blade of his silver-handled razor on Herc’s pants and stepped away.
Corey, who’d been down this road before, wrested himself away from Herc before the blood could touch him.
Herc didn’t care that Corey got away from his grip, because he had more important matters to consider at that moment. He instinctively clutched at his throat and unleashed the torrent. He watched in shocked dismay as his warm crimson life force jetted between his fingers, coloring the air with its spray and soaking the pavement. “Shit . . .” he gurgled.
Chase shook his
head. “You got a couple seconds to find God, Herc. Maybe you should pray.”
Herc gurgled something unintelligible—maybe it was a prayer—and then he fell on his side in a growing pool of his own blood.
Corey leaned down and looked him in his dying eyes. “That’s what you get when you pull a gun on us, Herc. Don’t nobody pull no guns on us. Oh, and don’t worry…we’ll make sure we tell Cyrus you were lookin’ for him.”
Chase tapped his brother on the shoulder. “It’s not right to mock a dyin’ man, Corey. Let’s get the hell outta here and leave this nigga to his last breath.”
Coming…December 1, 2011
