by Ws Greer
“We getting him too?” Ricky asks.
“I’m glad to hear you ask that, Ricky,” I reply. “Tell me, what do you think we should do about the good detective?”
“I don’t think you should do anything,” Ricky responds, to my surprise, but then he continues. “I think you need to let me handle him. He’s responsible for what happened to Donny, and I had to watch as my brother laid on the floor with four bullet holes in him. Mason didn’t tell the officer to hold his fire or anything like that. He just let it happen. He let my brother die. So I want him. I don’t care how we set it up, but in the end, it needs to be me who pulls the rug out from under him.”
“Well, I wouldn’t dare deprive you of your much-needed retribution, Ricky,” I reply, still smiling. “I’ll tell you what, Ricky, you and Rock don’t worry about tailing Dante. Focus on Mason. Follow him, see where he goes, who he’s with, and when the best time to end him is. In three days, we build our plan and add Detective Anthony Mason to our hit list. Sound good?”
“Hell yeah,” Ricky replies.
“Good,” I say. “Clear your schedules, because until this thing is over, we’re all on the clock. I need you all on top of your game, because it’s gonna get thick. In three days, I’ll tell you when and where to meet up so we can put it all together. The day after we set up the plan, we execute it.”
“Looking forward to it,” Rock replies.
“Perfect,” Ricky says, and we all hang up the phone, knowing we’re about to go to war for the entire city. After this is over, we’ll either all be dead, or all be kings. And me? I’ll be the king of kings!
Sometimes life throws curveballs at you. It’s really all about how you react when one of those curveballs comes flying at your face that shows what kind of person you are.
I never expected any of this. When I was stressed out in Whitney’s basement all those years, I never thought I’d be on the cusp of greatness. I never thought the notorious Scarfo family would be coming after me because my rise to power was too quick for them to handle. I never thought I’d be at this level, with street guys who were willing to risk their lives for me. Yet, here we are. After Whitney’s overdose and Reina’s disappearance, I dedicated my life to becoming the most feared man in the city, and I made it happen. If Whitney could see me now!
Thoughts of my mother rarely happen, but tonight, as I walk to the liquor cabinet to refill my drink, she’s with me. I hated that woman, and I’m pretty sure she hated me because she hated herself, but when someone dies, things change. People tend to forget about the bad things and focus on the good things. For me, that’s not the case. Whitney wasn’t a good person, and she made my life miserable. Even now, as I pour this drink to add to the few I’ve already taken down, I can remember the stench of her vomit soaking into the discolored carpet in the living room. I remember the first time she pissed her pants after taking a hit right in front of me. I think I was five when I saw that for the first time. My life has been insanity from the beginning.
Believe it or not, I don’t get sad when I think about it. It emboldens me. It reminds me of what life can be like when you’re poor with nowhere to go, stuck inside a life where no one cares about you. That’s what happens when you’re all alone and no one gives a damn that you exist—you simply deteriorate, just like Whitney. I won’t let that happen to me. I’ve been poor, and I’ve been rich, and once you’ve been rich, there’s just no going back to being poor. That’s why I could never go back to Strawberry Mansion to live. I still own Whitney’s house, but I’m not about to live in it! Dante has no idea what he asked me to do when he suggested that I leave Philly and give him everything I own. It was the ultimate insult, and he’ll pay for the request.
I set my chrome gun on the counter and grab the bottle of bourbon I’ve been hanging out with all night. My glass is completely empty, so I open the freezer and drop new ice cubes in before securing the bottle and leaning it over. The brown liquid spills into the cup, and just as I set the bottle back down to put the lid on, I hear a knock at my door.
Knock, knock.
No one comes to my house uninvited. It literally has never happened, so the moment I hear those knocks, my first thought is Dante.
Does he really have the balls to send somebody to my house? This is why I’ve been walking around with a gun all night because I thought it was possible. It’s also why Nix and I planned on spending a few nights in a hotel until Dante’s death was freshly on my hands. I guess I waited too long.
Being alone right now is a problem. If I was Dante and I decided to send people to a home, I’d send at least ten, just to make sure. Especially if the person I’m after has my kind of reputation. With that thought, I assume I’ll be met with more firepower than I can go up against alone, so I’m going to have to use my home to my advantage.
Knock, knock, knock.
How many of them will I be able to kill before they put me down? I can’t just let them come in and end my life without the greatest gunfight the world has ever seen!
Knock, knock, knock.
I don’t know why they’re just knocking on the door, but I assume that’ll stop once they realize I’m on to them, so I pick up my drink and take the entire thing to the head, swallowing it in one big gulp before grabbing my gun from the counter and heading for the stairs. As I walk, I develop a plan on how to wreak havoc on this hit team once they burst through the door.
I’ll stand at the railing in front of my bed, and from there, I’ll pick off the first few with a silencer on my nine mil before tossing down the hand grenade I have stashed in my armory. Once the explosion goes off, I’ll pick up one of my fully automatic rifles and spray into the cloud of smoke that’ll still be lingering from the grenade. I bet I take out eight or nine of them before one of them can make it up the stairs.
Knock, knock, knock, knock.
I step onto the first stair and prepare for them to burst through the door, but instead, I’m stopped in my tracks as another knock comes, followed by a voice.
Knock, knock, knock, knock. “Solomon?”
My heart starts to pound as the voice sends memories exploding throughout my mind like birds being released from a cage. It can’t be.
I blink a bunch of times and shake my head, wondering if I’m just drunk or if I actually heard what I thought I heard. Then she speaks again.
“Solomon, it’s me.”
I don’t answer. I’m honestly not sure if I can. So instead of speaking, I speed-walk to the door and snatch it open. Like a nightmare suddenly shifting to a heavenly dream, my world changes when I look into the icy blue eyes of Reina Wilde.
After a few seconds of staring at each other, Reina smiles at me, and I drink it in. She’s wearing an inconspicuous, all-black outfit with large, silver, hoop earrings, and the bracelet I bought her in the mall. Her blonde hair is in a tight ponytail and her makeup is minimal, yet perfect. She’s so gorgeous it takes my breath away.
“Solomon,” she says again behind her perfect smile. “It’s nice to see you.”
I don’t know how to respond to her being here. I have so many questions to ask, so many things I’ve always wanted to say and do, things that have been pent up for seven years. My body hums with excitement and curiosity, and I’m not sure which one of the million things I’m thinking I’ll act on first. So, I stop thinking and do the first thing that comes to mind.
I lift my chrome nine millimeter and point it at her beautiful face.
AS I CUT off the thoughts that’ve been attached to me like a leech for the past seven years, I grab Reina by the collar of her black sweater and yank her inside, slamming the door closed behind her. She doesn’t make a sound as I push her up against the wall, grab her by the throat, and point the barrel of my gun at her forehead.
Something in me expects her to show fear. I look at her as I press her against the wall with my left hand and hold the gun with my right, and I search her face for alarm or panic, but neither is there. Reina simply locks he
r blue eyes on mine and stares, unblinking, with the smallest smirk turning up one side of her mouth.
Her lack of fear pisses me off, and I squeeze her throat tighter, turning her perfect skin red beneath my fingers, but she still doesn’t flinch. She doesn’t lift a hand to try to stop me, she doesn’t attempt to scream. She just stares at me, unable to breathe as tears fill her eyes from the lack of oxygen. Not even the slightest hint of worry about what I might do to her. It’s like she knows I would never kill her. Her eyes start to bulge, and I feel a spike in my chest as my own emotions take over and I finally release my grip, but I keep my hand in place. She takes in a deep breath, but she doesn’t try to get away or even rub her throat. She just keeps staring and grinning.
“What the hell are you doing here?” I ask, my voice like gravel as suppressed rage starts to surge its way through me. I’ve waited for this moment for seven years, and there isn’t a hair on my body that can believe it’s finally happening. She’s finally here.
“I needed to see you,” she replies, her voice ragged from the pressure I put on her vocal chords. “I’ve missed you, Solomon.”
“You’ve missed me?” I shout, bringing my gun closer to her face. “It’s been seven years, Reina! Seven years have gone by, and you just now realized that you missed me? It took you that long? I should put a bullet in your skull right now, and rid myself of the agony your presence causes me. I was over you! I was done. I had moved on, and now you show up here at a sit-down on the arm of my enemy, wearing jewelry I bought you! No phone call, no text, nothing! I should kill you for making me feel what I felt for you and then destroying it all!”
I really should do it. I even think about pulling the trigger as I press the barrel against her forehead. She made me feel things I never thought I could, and just left without saying a word, forcing me to deal with all of that alone. I had to deal with Whitney’s overdose while still struggling to deal with Reina’s departure. She broke me without saying a word.
But looking at her now feels no different than it did the last time I saw her, when she was staring at me through the window of the train. After all these years, what I felt for her hasn’t changed, I just got better at suppressing it. But her return makes pushing those feelings down completely impossible. She’s back, and so is everything I ever felt for her.
“I know it must’ve hurt you,” Reina says. “It hurt me more than I could ever explain to you, but after all this time, I managed to make it back here. To you.”
Her words fill me with too many emotions to act on just one, and I feel like I’m losing my mind just listening to her.
“That’s bullshit!” I snap. “You think everything is forgotten because you were telling the truth about the hitmen? I don’t think so. I don’t trust you, not after what you did to me all those years ago, and definitely not since the last time I saw you, you were sitting next to Dante Rossi. You let him kiss you on the cheek in front of me! If you were any other person, it’d already be over for you. I’d be paying someone to come over here and clean up your blood and dispose of your dead body.”
“But you can’t do that,” she interjects, showing her first sign of emotion since she arrived. “You can’t pull the trigger because I’m not just any other person. It’s me, and you know it. You still feel for me, the exact same way I still feel for you, Solomon. I loved you then, and I still love you now, even after all the years, and all I’ve been through since I left Philadelphia. I still love you.”
My heart jolts with pain and fury like a bomb just went off in my chest. In my mind, I see the image of Reina sitting next to the window on the train as it hissed and began to pull out of the station. I stood on the platform and watched her go, as she looked out at me and mouthed the words I love you. I didn’t return the gesture. Not because I didn’t love her, but because that emotion was just something I couldn’t showcase. But she said it again, here and now, and I still don’t know what to do.
My heart pounds in my chest as I stare into her eyes, struggling to push the growing emotions down into the pit of my stomach. I won’t let her break me. I’m Solomon King!
“No,” I hear myself say. “I don’t believe you. I don’t believe that after how you left without a trace and then just reappeared out of the blue. I don’t believe it, and I don’t trust you. So, I suggest you tell me what the hell you’re doing here. Did Dante send you here?”
Reina frowns at the accusation and doesn’t answer, which sends me through the roof.
“Answer me!” I yell as I tighten my grip on her throat again. “Did your boyfriend send you here to trick me? I’m gonna tear his fucking heart out, and I should rip yours out too, for letting him use you against me!”
Reina’s eyes turn as cold as the ice they resemble as she squints at me, rage seeping through her pores.
“Are you kidding me?” she asks, her voice tight and aggressive now. “You think I’d let myself be used? You have no idea what has happened to me since I left Philly, so you have no clue what I’d do. Let me fill you in on something, Solomon. In the seven years I’ve been gone, I’ve been through more than you can imagine. In fact, I’m willing to bet that since I left, my life has been harder than yours! I’ve been through the absolute worst, and I’m telling you right now, nobody uses me! Ever! So if you think I’d let Dante Rossi use me to take you down, then go ahead and pull the trigger! Go ahead! Do it! If you think I don’t love you, that I didn’t spend every day and night thinking about you for seven straight years, if you think I didn’t cry myself to sleep every night for over half a decade missing you, if you think I didn’t overcome everything I went through just so I could get back here to you, then you go ahead and pull the fucking trigger!”
Tears fill Reina’s eyes as she glares at me, full of anger and completely void of fear. I’m shocked as she reaches up with both hands and wraps her fingers around the gun, pressing it tighter to her head.
“Do it!” she screams. “If you believe that leaving you didn’t completely break me into a million pieces, then you do it! If you really think I don’t still love you with every fiber of my being, then do it, Solomon. Get it over with.”
I stare into her eyes as my fingers tighten around the grip of the gun and my body heats up with adrenaline. Reina’s tears start to spill over as her breathing becomes labored by emotion. We glare at each other, unmoving, in complete silence as the temperature in the room seems to raise by fifty degrees.
I know what my mind is saying: kill her and rid yourself of the burden she brings. I can’t trust her since seeing her with Dante, and I know my ability to think clearly will be compromised if she’s here. But it’s Reina, and my heart says that I’m still in love with her. My heart tells me that no other woman has ever mattered to me, and now that she’s here in front of me, I couldn’t possibly be without her again, not even for a second. I couldn’t bear to watch her walk away. I’d die if I let her leave this loft and disappear from my life again. It tore me apart the first time she left, and I can’t let it happen again. It’s my mind versus my heart, and my heart wins.
Like a dam breaking, I let the flood of emotions overtake me. I yank the gun from Reina’s grip and toss onto the floor, just before aggressively pressing my mouth against her and kissing her for the first time in seven years. She responds by wrapping her arms around my neck and plunging into me, her mouth crashing into mine like a head-on collision.
There’s no more anger now. All I feel is the heat between us as we frantically try to make up for seven years apart by clawing at each other. Our clothes can’t come off fast enough. Our tongues can’t dance together quick enough. I can’t be inside of her fast enough, and she needs me just as much as I need her.
Our bodies overload with passion and I feel my back slam against the bar counter behind me as Reina pushes me backwards, her mouth working on mine like we can never be apart again. As we kiss, Reina lifts up my white tank top and pulls it over my head before tossing it behind her and letting it fall to the fl
oor. She eyes my muscular, tattooed body and runs her fingers across my skin, awe etched in her facial expression as she realizes that I’m not the kid I was in Strawberry Mansion. I’m a man now, and I have the body of a man who has had to fight to become king of the criminal underworld. You don’t become a legend the way I have without doing the work yourself. I had to bleed, I had to eat, I had to grow to become unbeatable, and Reina’s eyes bulge at the sight of my arms and chest.
After letting her appreciate my body, I reignite the passion by kissing her again. This time it’s Reina who’s back slams against the wall behind her as I wrap my hands around her throat again, but this time for a completely different reason. I feel her mouth lift into a devilish smile as we kiss and I squeeze her neck. She moans and pushes herself away from the wall as the two of us go stumbling into the living room, bumping furniture as we go, still kissing, still licking, still biting.
As we shuffle past the couch, the urge to have Reina becomes so strong that I can’t wait any longer to see her flesh. I reach for her sweater and use both of my hands to tear it apart. It rips down the middle, stopping halfway before I use a jolt of strength to tear it completely apart. She’s braless and sporting a giant tattoo on the right side her body, between her back and stomach. It’s a large bird made of bright orange and yellow fire, lifting itself into a black and blue sky like it has just come back from the dead. It’s a rising phoenix, and it’s breathtaking on her flawless, pale skin. On the opposite side of her body, running vertically, are letters written in red and black, spelling words that put a smile on my face because I know they’re for me.
ONLY A BEAST CAN TAME A MONSTER.
I marvel at the words, knowing full-well that she is the monster, and I’m the only beast who can tame her. I lift my eyes to find Reina glaring at me, grinning from ear to ear, silently confirming my thoughts about the words inscribed in her skin.
