Trapstar

by Blake Karrington

  “Sup,” he answered on the first ring.

  “What’s up is that ya boy put his hands on my sister.”

  Hakeem said nothing.

  Brianna looked at the phone. The call was still connected. “You heard me? She asked.

  “Yeah, but what you expect me to do about it?”

  “Something!” she yelled.

  “Calm down now,” Hakeem said, “I can’t get involved in that. That’s their business, and you need to stay out of it too.”

  “What the fuck you mean stay out of it? That ain’t gone happen. This big ass mutha fucka got her face all bruised up… that ain’t a fair fight… and if he don’t wanna fight fair, I got something for his ass!”

  “Aiight shorty… you need to calm down for real. Yo sister with you?”

  “Yeah, in her room now.”

  “Then just chill… she ain’t dead… it’ll be aiight.”

  Brianna shook her head and pressed end on the phone. She couldn’t believe her ears. As long as she had anything to do with it, Dre was going to get a taste of his own medicine. Brianna scrolled though her phone until till she came to the name Kasy. Kasy was a guy from Queens who Tre would call when he had situation’s that needed to be dealt with. There were a couple of times some people had jumped the fence on money owed. Kasy seemed to always have the conversation needed to get them back with full payment in hand. Since it was obvious, Hakeem wasn’t going to handle it, she knew that she had to call someone she was familiar with. Kasy picked up on the first ring “This Kasy.”

  “Hey Kasy this Brianna, Tre’s Wife.”

  “O hey Bri, my condolences on your lost, sorry I wasn’t able to make it to the funeral, I was away on some business, but how you doing?”

  “Well not so good which is my reason for calling you.”

  Brianna gave Kasy a full rundown of what had gone down, they agreed on a fair amount for compensation. She let him know that she didn’t want to kill Dre, just let him know not to put his hands on her sister anymore. And to make sure he never contacted Charisse again.

  “Don’t worry Bri, I will make sure he gets the message loud and clear.” Kasy assured her.

  “Well just make sure you give me a call when you have him, I want to see him when you finished. It’s important that he knows that I did this to him!”

  “I got you Ma, I’ll hit you later. One.”

  Brianna hung the phone up and went to check on Charisse. She was still fast asleep. The Oxycontin Brianna had given her had her out cold. Good, she thought to herself. Brianna knew Charisse didn’t have the heart to be a part of what was about to go down. Shit up until a couple of months ago she wouldn’t have been able to. Tre had always told her that this life changes you, you can never change it! Those words rung heavy in her head now. She had to let Dre know he had violated on two levels. First that was her sister, but Brianna was also the boss. She knew that had she been a male, there was no way a man would have beaten Charisse like that. He would have known the consequences.

  It was late the next day when Brianna received the called from Kasy with instructions on where to go. She had to drive about 45 minutes outside of Charlotte to Gastonia, NC where Kasy and his crew had Dre held up at.

  When she pulled up, she gave him a call on her cell phone, “Hey I’m outside.”

  “Ok, pull into the garage.”

  After she got out the car, Kasy escorted her to the upstairs bedroom where Dre’s body was duct taped to a chair. His arms were out stretch across a small table, with his hands hanging off the ends. Brianna looked over at one of Kasy’s henchmen.

  “Well since he likes to put his hands on women, we figured if we break them, he would remember next time to keep them to himself.”

  Dre’s head was down, but she could see blood dripping out of his mouth. Brianna grabbed his head and lifted it up. She wanted to look him in the eyes.

  “Now the next time...” she paused, “no it won’t be a next time. But if you ever call my sister or even think about touching her, I want you to remember what this feel like!” She grabbed his hand to bend it back, but something caught her eye. She looked again, was her mind playing tricks on her?

  “Somebody cut on the lights!” Brianna yelled.

  “What’s wrong Bri?” Kasy asked. “This is the right nigga isn’t it?”

  “Cut on the damn lights I said!” Brianna yelled even louder.

  When the lights came on Brianna had a chance to examine his hands extremely well. Her eyes had not failed her and she had indeed seen exactly what she thought. There was the tattoo with the word “Smalls” exactly where she remembered. This was the same nigga that shot her that night.

  “Bri, you ok?” Kasy asked for the third time.

  Brianna looked at him, “Yea everything ok, but we need to renegotiate, he not leaving out of here tonight alive, let me hold your gun.”

  “Remember this?” Brianna stood beside Dre with the gun pointed at his temple. Dre could feel the tip of the gun against his head. He didn’t speak. He closed his eyes breathing short and panicked. He was stuck in the chair. There wasn’t a damn thing he could do.

  “You should. This was the same way you stood over Tre when you came into our home,” Brianna’s voice got louder with every word she said, “and murdered him!”

  Even with rage filling every inch of her being, Brianna couldn’t bring herself to pull the trigger. But she wanted to. Wanted him to die like Tre had died, but first she had to know who his partners were. She wanted revenge on, not one, but all of the men that were responsible for turning her life upside down.

  Brianna took the gun and placed it at Dre’s chin pushing his face towards her own. He avoided eye contact at all cost, stretching his gaze in the opposite direction.

  “Who were your partners?” Brianna asked simply.

  Dre’s silence only angered Brianna more. She took the gun and jabbed it into his crotch. He jumped, looked at her with pleading eyes.

  “Ok, now that I have your attention… answer my Goddamn question!”

  “I… I….. can’t say,” he murmured.

  “So, you’re telling me that keeping this secret is worth getting you dick blown off?” Brianna pressed the gun deeper into his groin.

  He jumped again, “No!”

  “Then tell me.”

  Before Dre could say anything his phone rang. Brianna took a moment to dig it out of his pocket. It was Hakeem. She hadn’t spoke with him since the disappointing phone call when he took the hands-off approach to her sister getting roughed up. But now he was calling Dre. She was losing all respect for him.

  “I think I’ll keep this.” Brianna said putting the phone in her own back pocket.

  Dre started to make a mental note of his surroundings. But as he looked around, despair seemed to overcome him. He started to remember more about the night. The men coming to get him, and the first few blows before he fell unconscious. He could see silhouettes of men a few feet behind Brianna. They were not alone, and he knew that he could not escape.

  “It wouldn’t even matter if I told you now. He’s in the pen…”

  Brianna paced back and forth in front of Dre. She knew that she wasn’t going to get the truth out of him. Even if he did provide a name, there was no way for her to verify if it was even true. For all she knew he’d give her a fake name. As much as she wished she was in that moment, she wasn’t a murderer. She wasn’t going to kill him. But she knew who would.

  “Kasy rock this nigga to sleep for good!”

  “It would be my pleasure Bri.” Kasy grabbed the gun from Brianna, stuck it to Dre’s head and pulled the trigger.

  At home Brianna placed the cell phone on the table and stared at it. By the looks of things, this was a man who never checked his voice messages. She figured that catching at least one of Tre’s murder’s was certainly better than none. But that didn’t mean she wouldn’t keep looking for the others. To start she was going to go through Andre’s phone. Maybe, she thought, she w
ould remember his voice if she heard it on the voice mail. If not that, then at least she could find out who was in his inner circle and go from there. She knew that it was far fetched to think that she’d get any information from old voice mail messages, but it was at least worth at try. Brianna’s eyes were heavy with exhaustion. She picked up the phone and headed down the hall. First she checked in on her sister. Charrise was still sleeping like bear in hibernation. Snoring too. In her bedroom, Brianna turned Dre’s cell phone off and tucked it safely away in her night stand. She undressed to her panties and eased underneath her duvet. It didn’t take long her body to relax. She got cozy in the center of her bed and fell asleep.

  The next day Brianna woke up to the smell of sizzling bacon. She looked over at the alarm clock. It was 1:00pm in the afternoon. Charrise was in the kitchen cooking a big breakfast and trying to act normal. When Brianna walked in she was stirring cheese into a pot of grits.

  “You hungry?”

  “Yup… and it smells good in here.”

  Charrise turned to her sister and smiled. Brianna winced at the, now darker, bruises that were on the side of her face. She shook her head, “Are you alright?”

  “I’ll be fine.”

  “I’m sorry. If it wasn’t for me… you would have never met that jerk.”

  “Don’t… it’s not your fault. He’s the asshole.”

  “Well, you don’t have to worry about him anymore.”

  “What…” Charrise asked.

  Brianna interrupted, “Let’s just say it was a loooong night. And,” she pause, “as it turns out… he was one of the guys that came here that night Tre was murdered.”

  Charrise’s mouth dropped open, “Are you sure?”

  Brianna nodded. “Positive.”

  “Damn Bri… that’s fucked up. How’d you find out?”

  Brianna told her sister about the tattoo. She filled her in on everything that happened that night. She even told her about the phone. Charrise didn’t want to hear any of the messages. What she’d learned about the guy that she, only a day ago, thought she was in love with was more than enough. She wanted nothing more that to get over him.

  After breakfast Brianna sat back at the table staring at the phone. She turned it on and noticed that there had been half a dozen missed calls from Hakeem. Funny she thought, because he still hadn’t called her. Brianna pressed the green button on the phone and, scrolled down to the option to play voice mails.

  “You have and forty three new messages,” the phone said.

  “Damn,” Brianna said out loud. What kind of crazy voice mail service kept that many messages saved.

  The first message had been left only a few weeks ago, “Hey babe,” a female voice said, “it’s me. I wanna see you tonight… I got something special for ya…” Brianna pressed seven to delete the message. That female voice was not her sisters. She couldn’t believe that Dre had the nerve to put his hands on her sister when he clearly had another woman on deck. Various female voices flooded Dre’s voicemail. It was obvious to Brianna that Dre had a roster about as long as an NFL team. She shook her head. Niggas. Nearly every message had been from a woman.

  Half way through, Dre’s phone rang. It was another call from Hakeem. Brianna didn’t answer, allowing the call to roll over to voice mail. Next her phone vibrated against the dining room table. It was Hakeem calling her phone.

  “Hey,” Brianna answered dryly.

  “Sup, I was just checkin on you.”

  “Ummm hmmm,” she responded.

  “So, how’d everything turn out last night?”

  “Fine.”

  “Did Dre and Charrise work it out…. Or what?”

  “Nothing to be worked out,” Brianna kept it short. After Hakeem had blown her off the other night, she wasn’t really feeling him.

  “Look, I’m sorry I couldn’t help the other night. You just kinda put me in an awkward spot. I didn’t want to get in the middle of that…. You know?”

  “It’s cool, it was handled.”

  “What… you talked to him?”

  “You already said you didn’t want to get in the middle of it, and I’m not in the mood to talk about it. Let’s just drop it ok.”

  “Aiight.”

  “I’ll talk to you later though. I’m in the middle of something.”

  Brianna wasn’t quite ready to get Hakeem mixed up in this. He had been Tre’s best friend, and she didn’t even want to think about what he would do if he found out that Dre had something to do with the murder.

  It took Brianna awhile to get through the messages, and just as she was ready to give up, a familiar voice spoke on the voice mail.

  “My nig,” Hakeem said, “Just wanted to give you a heads up. Bri just called me trippin cause you hit her sister or something. Try to steer clear of her aiight.”

  The next message was from Hakeem as well.

  “I haven’t heard back from you. Call me back. We need to be careful about all this.”

  WE. The word confused Brianna and peaked her interested all at the same time. Hakeem hadn’t been a part of Dre hitting Charrise, so what the hell was he talking about. That was the final voicemail, so she hung the phone up.

  Charisse looked at her, “ Did you find anything?”

  “Not what I was looking for, just a bunch of voicemails from hoodrats.” She and Charisse began to laugh.

  “Shit I can only imaging what the text messages look like!”

  Brianna looked at Charisse like she had just solved the jeopardy final question.

  “Damn girl I didn’t even think about that!” Brianna began to scroll threw his texts. If she thought he had a bunch of voicemails, she wasn’t sure what to call all those damn texts. Then she saw a name and number that was familiar. It was Hakeem’s, she clicked on the text so she could view the whole chat, then scrolled to the top.

  “Yo what up kid, ol’ girl trying to get me to come up your way for her b-day”

  “Yea her sister told me, shit come on up my nigga”

  “You know I said I wasn’t come back there after that work we put in”

  “Man fuck that come on up here, it’s all good”

  “You sure it’s cool?”

  “Man I’m fucking the bitch you didn’t kill that night!”

  “Word?”

  “Yea my nigga I got to thank you for fucking that shit up, she got some good pussy and the bitch is the plug”

  “Damn nigga you a fool! Fuck it then I will see you this weekend!”

  Brianna couldn’t even continue to read the rest. The truth was right there in her face. It hit her like an 18 wheeler going 80 miles an hour straight on. Brianna got a sinking feeling in the pit of her belly. Her eyes glossed over as she thought about the night she was shot and Tre was killed. She shook her head no. There had to have been another way. She tried to convince herself that she was misunderstanding the messages. Not only had she fucked her man’s best friend, but also his killer. How had she been so stupid? The words that Hakeem’s baby momma shouted on that day began to ring even louder in her head. If Hakeem thought he was going to get away with this, he had another thing coming, Brianna thought to herself.

  *******

  The next morning Brianna lay in her bed staring at the ceiling. She was the one who needed the sleep aid that night. She had toss and turned all night. She knew Tre was looking down on her shaking his head. How had she violated him like that for some temporary pleasure? ‘Forget that right now,’ she thought to herself.

  “Babe how we going to get this nigga back?” Brianna shouted towards the ceiling. She knew that a quick death would be too good for Hakeem. He had to suffer a long slow death. ‘But how?’ she continued to think. Brianna had thought about calling Kasy, but changed her mind knowing that he and Hakeem had to have had a relationship. She figured that he might even tip Hakeem off to her plan and she would end up in the crisscross. Shit Kasy was a hired gun, he would go with whoever he thought would benefit him the most. She knew that s
he had to handle this on her own.

  “Tre please let me know what to do.” she screamed again. Suddenly a big smile came across her face. Just that quick, Tre had answered her request. She knew what she had to do and exactly how to do it.

  “Charisse!” Brianna yelled loudly. “Charisse, Charisse.......!”

  Charisse came running into Brianna room.

  “What is it sis, is something wrong?” Charisse asked, trying to catch her breath.

  “I got it, we about to get this nigga, just me and you.”

  “Huh?” Charisse asked confused.

  Brianna ran the whole plan down to Charisse. It took two hours of back in forth strategizing before both girls were satisfied that the plan was perfect. Hakeem would not know what hit him and he would always remember the Campbell sisters. This, they were sure of.

  Brianna took a deep breath and hit send on her phone.

  Hakeem picked up on the second ring, “Yo what’s up shawtey?”

  “I’m glad you hit a nigga, because I don’t want what’s going on between my man and your sista, to fuck up what we got going on. I got real love for you shawtey and....”

  “It’s all good Hakeem, let’s just move on,” Brianna spoke cutting Hakeem off. It was all she could do just to speak to him. There was no way she was going to hear this love shit from him. Love was something she knew was lost when she buried Tre.

  “Yea you right shawtey, let’s just move on.” Hakeem agreed with her statement.

  “Well, beyond that, the reason I was calling you was because that work is coming in tomorrow morning and I want to make sure everything is still a go?”

  “Hell yea, ain’t nothing change, we got to get this bread babe.”

  “Well I have twenty plates laid to the side for you, so you can pick them up tomorrow after 1pm; you still have the code to the storage right?” Brianna asked.

  “Yea babe I’m all good on that, but when can I see you, I got a hard on waiting on you?” Hakeem spoke with a slight laugh.