by Brick
I was stuck somewhere between reality and a dream. Gina had stood behind me and placed her hands on my shoulders. Big Jake and Speedy had rushed to stand between Trigga and Phenom. Anika’s eyes never left mine. Any other time, I knew Trigga wouldn’t have spoken to his uncle like he was some random nigga on the street, but Ghost was gone. My life was set to be bartered, and he was feeling like he didn’t do enough to protect either one of us. I could tell by the crack in his voice. No matter what that nigga said to me, Trigga was a protector. Once he had you in his heart wasn’t nobody taking you out. Look at the way he had protected Gina when he could and all those years he had protected Ghost. I could tell he was feeling some type of way.
“Fuck yo’ feelings, Kwame. I don’t give a damn what you thinking of me right now. Put yourself in my shoes, nephew. What or who wouldn’t you give to get Ghost back right now?” Phenom barked out. “I ain’t never gon’ say I was right in my thinking, but that’s my daughter. That’s mine and no matter what I had done to protect her, she still got got. I gotta live with that shit every day as a man, as a father. Gotta live with that phone call and hear my baby girl screaming in the background in my head every fucking night. To know no matter what the fuck I had done or did, I was no fucking closer to getting her back. So I was at my lowest fucking point and Diamond was the only play I had left.”
My aunt reached out to take my hand and I snatched it back. I didn’t know this bitch, I thought. Every nigga had a motherfucking agenda and theirs had been to hand me over to my enemy. The enemy of my enemy was my motherfucking friend.
“So that whole episode with you dragging her out there for that nigga to see was so he could see you had the merchandise, right?” Trigga coolly asked his uncle. When my aunt dropped her head I knew the answer. “That’s why that nigga so cool, calm, and collected because he know your hand, huh, unk? You know this is fucked up. This shit here ain’t right. You ain’t nothing like my pops, yo. My pops woulda never done no shit like this.”
“This is one time you need to think with your heart, nephew,” was all Phenom said.
“You was going to let him give me away?” I asked Anika. That quiver in my voice was evident. Gina tried to say something to me but I cut her off.
I stood and my aunt stood with me. “I would have never let him give you away like that, Diamond. He wasn’t thinking clearly. You know what happens to girls when niggas like Dante take them. Ahmir was a man conflicted. He didn’t even tell me this until—”
I knew Ahmir was Phenom’s real name, but I didn’t even let her finish talking. I made an about face and walked to my bedroom, slamming the door as my response to it all. For the first time in a long time, I broke down. I hadn’t felt that alone and scared since the first day at Dame’s mansion. This whole time I was thinking that we finally had somebody to protect us, keep us from the gritty, grimy life we had been introduced to and this whole time we had been played.
I ignored my aunt’s knocks at the door. Ignored Gina’s too. I took out Ghost’s passport, opened it to her photo, and held it to my chest as I cried.
“Lord, if you ever listening to me, please don’t let what happened to me happen to this little girl,” I whispered as best I could.
My tongue was thick, mouth was like cotton, and eyes burned with tears. I was even worried about Chyna. I didn’t know how long that nigga Dante had been keeping her, but I prayed to God that she was all right too. Was there even really a fucking God? Who or what would let these fucking monsters get away with this shit? I knew they could hear me crying, but I ain’t give a shit. I could still hear Trigga and Phenom arguing. Their yells couldn’t be hidden by my closed door. Sounded like some furniture was moving around. I figured Big Jake wasn’t going to let Trigga and his uncle get physical. To be honest, I didn’t want to see Trigga like that either.
It was only seconds later that I heard pounding on my door. I tried to ignore it until Trigga made it known it was him. “Ray-Ray, open the fucking door or I’ma kick this shit down,” he demanded.
I knew he wasn’t playing and I was in no mind to test this nigga with the mood he was in. I walked to the door, unlocked it, and got back in the bed. He walked in the room, slamming the door behind him too. I expected him to say something, but all he did was plop down on the edge of my bed with his head hanging.
“Sorry, li’l shawty. I fucked that up,” he said.
“Don’t apologize. You got me out of that madman’s house, Trigga.”
“Yeah, and almost got you put back into another one.”
I watched the way his wide back massively expanded with each deep breath he took. I didn’t want to admit to him that I was conflicted in my thinking.
“We have to get Ghost,” I said.
“I know.”
That was all we said for a long while. He sat in silence and I lay back in grief. Eventually, I tugged on his arm and urged him to lay back with me. As hard as I tried to fight it, I fell asleep, but he didn’t. Every so often I would be awakened because of him constantly tossing and turning in the bed or his pacing the floor talking to himself. The last time I woke up he had taken his shirt off and it looked like he was reading the tattoos on his arm. I got up and walked over to where he was standing. I didn’t know what else to do so I stood on my toes, wrapped my arms around his neck, and kissed his lips.
He stiffened for a moment but then his hands found my waist as he returned the kiss. Until we could figure out a way to get Ghost back all we had was this. I didn’t protest when he easily lifted me around his waist and took me back to the bed. It was the moment that I wanted, but I could tell it wasn’t going to happen. He wasn’t into it because just like me, all he could think about was Ghost. As I lay underneath him I looked up into his light eyes. His locs had been pulled back into a ponytail until I reached up to let them down. His gaze didn’t waver as he looked down at me.
“I can’t do this right now, li’l shawty. My dick may be hard as fuck but my mind is mush and I ain’t trying to fuck you just to be fucking you,” he told me.
“I know.”
For a while we kissed some more, even touched a little, but eventually he rolled off of me and I moved to lay my head on his chest. I would never tell him what was running through my mind because that nigga would probably kill me. But I was going to leave out of here in the dark of the morning. Since that nigga Dante wanted to make a trade for my life, since Phenom wanted to do it too, I would do it my damn self. By the time Trigga figured it out, hopefully he’d have Ghost back and whatever happened to me happened. I was tired anyway.
Chapter 10
Phenom
A monster had just been created by the actions of my failings and my woman was distant from me, from the choices I had to make. The plight of a father was never easy when it came to living the hood life and my nephew was learning that. I had spent years in the gutta, cutting, and bucking. Taking heads and leaving some mothers without a son or daughter.
My hands were fucking bloody, torn, and emaciated. That’s how long in the game I’d been doing this shit. From the bowels of Brooklyn to the pond of London’s gang-riddled streets. I was there in the height of all the chaos that reigned in both locations. I ran the streets of the ’80s at the birth of this shit, feel me?
Did the same in London and I knew, always, that this life would be my grave. So, I wasn’t created outta some kiddy bubble gum yackin’ thug crap. Was a nigga ashamed of that shit? No. Through it all I used it for my advantage to thug in the streets then thug in the corporate world. Everything worked out to the point of what I needed and had to do three months back. Then shit changed.
This shit wasn’t for the faint of heart and I knew when my nephew found out, any trust we had just built was fucking done. The fact that we just almost took each other down was the proof of that shit and in this reality of everything, my blood was right. I wasn’t who he thought I was, which that’s not my fault all the way. I’m a man who never had to bargain for shit in my day, but it
took the snatching of my seed to make me turn my back on the very principles his father and I both devoted our lives to. We changed all to be about this life and built this legacy on intellect and power.
Today that shit was just twisted in the truth of what I had planned to do in weakness. My name, my reputation was now looking suspect in my own house. In this shit, Dante gained the upper fucking hand. He weakened the inside of my domain. I stood in a flat that I had planned to set up for them to have in privacy and safety that we wouldn’t intrude on as street bosses but as fam. I stared out the massive bay window of the flat, watching a girl who reminded me of Anika slip out and disappear down the streets of a block she didn’t know shit about. I observed my kingdom fracturing and it had me gripping the windowsill hard in frustration of the reality of it.
“Ahmir, did she leave?” Anika’s sultry voice whispered behind me.
It was the voice that got me the first day we met. It was that ass that had me deep into her curves and that led me on the rocky road of our relationship, which lead us to our unique marriage.
“You know she did,” I replied, lost in my thoughts.
Anika slipped up against me, her hand slipping around my waist to hold me as she used the gift of persuasion that was only hers. “Time to play the next card, baby.”
“That I know too, ma; they both have been in that son of a bitch’s hands too long. Hit up Clip and let’s go.”
Leaning down, our mouths met in heat. We always could get on one level even in fighting. It was something that we knew gave us power in this type of chaos.
“I love you, baby, and this family will be okay, especially when we get our daughter back,” she whispered against my lips.
I gave her back my usual, “Loving you too and that’s truth.”
We tongued down some more, my hand resting on her belly where we had created our daughter when we were still young, around my nephew’s and Ray-Ray’s age.
Anika Okoye-Ekejindu was my equal in every damn thing and I was hers. Her curves melted into the hardness of me and my hands slid down to get a touch of her juicy. The soft moan I got from her let me know we’d always be good even in death, so I let her go and we headed out into the night, strapping up and setting in the next plan of the game. Weakening the protection in the streets but taking down the Dirty Cs.
See, everyone thought we were being lax. That we didn’t know that kid was Dante’s or that he had pull in the lowest and highest of places. Never reveal the true hand to your game, because that shit can tear an empire down at their own weak spot, and Dante had weak spots. It was just time to reveal some of them. The rest me, and mine, would reveal later.
Chapter 11
Trigga
Once trust was broke for a nigga then that was the end of that connection. Phenom was now just another nigga after what he broke down to me. He had his agenda and now I had mine. We were not going to be on that same page ever again. Nigga was now dead to me. And now after this shit, I had to search for my own for the rest of us.
Peace was never going to come to me. That I did take with me from what that nigga Phenom had said to us. For the life of me, him turning on fam who supposedly was to be protected at all cost, in order to barter them off, was not making sense. I don’t give a fuck who it was. Ghost was mine. Like, I realized today that girl wasn’t turning into a little sister for me. Naw, she was my daughter through and through. And though she was snatched up, was no fucking way I’d hand over anyone in my fam to that foul-ass nigga Dante, unless I had some plan behind that shit and that person knew it.
My thoughts were fucking with me. I tried to stay laid up against Diamond but how my mind was working wasn’t letting me. Any other nigga would have hit, since the chance was there but, yo, I just couldn’t do it. I was hard as fuck for her, was cheefin to see what she felt like, but too much shit was going down in the moment.
And on some other shit, I wasn’t sure if she would have been down because that was what she was still used to: a nigga dumpin’ in her and hurting her. To me, she would never be that type of broad, so before I could lie with her, I had to see where her mental was and I needed to get my mental right and get Ghost back for real. Damn, and even get my cousin back, because anyone in Dante’s hands were damaged goods day one. That was why I was pacing and not laying up against Diamond anymore.
Was too fucking hard to sleep. Kept seeing my mom and pops go down and my little sister’s face as she played in the park before she was gunned down. I sat up and watched Diamond sleep for a moment. Part of me knew she wasn’t, ’cause of how shallow her breaths were. But I got up anyway started pacing, and then went to the bathroom to take a piss. Jake and Gina were in their own room ’sleep and Speedy was laid out on the couch. I kept it walking when I saw Phenom near the kitchen with Anika moving to walk up to him.
Just checking how she watched me, I knew she’d gun me down if I laid hands on that nigga. I could see that love all through her, but right now, I wasn’t fucking caring. I ain’t need no friends at one point in life and now, it looked like I didn’t need no blood. I can do bad all by my fucking self. Slamming my hands in my pockets, I kept my head low and walked on back into Diamond’s room.
When I stepped in and closed the door, I glanced up and shook my head. I shouldn’t have even been shocked about it because I already knew she’d do some simple shit. The window was wide open and the cool night air had the curtains flapping and covering me in its embrace. Diamond was gone, and from how stuff was on the floor, I knew she was moving fast. Slight irritation had me thumbing my nose. Habit had me almost turning to tell Phenom and Anika so we all could go get her, but I had no love for those two anymore so fuck them to hell was the motto right now.
I moved around the room quickly, walking to the window to see where she was heading. I had just made it in time to see her turn a corner, so I hustled around to get my shirt, strap up, and then knock on her wall, in the familiar coded pattern me and Jake had. I waited to see if he heard it. When he hit me with that same rhythm back, I knew he was down and would meet up with me to where I knew Diamond was heading: Dante’s codes.
Strapped up and ready, I climbed out the window, pulled my hoodie over my head, zipping it up to expose my eyes, and then sprinted down the block. The endz was quiet, but I still saw random niggas and broads roaming the streets, drinking, smoking, or just fucking off. Catching up with Diamond was the priority, so I wasn’t even checkin’ for anyone who tried to step to me. Taking an alley, I ran into fence, pulled myself up and over it then landed back to the ground returning to my sprint.
Flashing lights and sirens screeched past and I waited. It seemed like since my time being in the endz that more roadblocks by the coppers were being set up. A lot of them were by schools and the shit had me feeling some type of way about it. The sound of a car coming up had me dipping into the shadows of an alley and waiting for it to pass by. A white van slowly road by, stopping near me. The sound of doors opening had me stepping deeper into the darkness as I listened.
“Oi, this one is a fighter. Wack her good and let’s go mate,” a pitchy, funky accent sounded. I knew it was British but it was almost too hard to understand for a moment, so I had to replay it slowing my mind again to understand. As I did so, I heard grunts and screams before the doors closed again and the car pulled off.
Realization hit me about that ride. I’d heard from several of the people in the towers that a white car had been spotted in the endz around this time every day. It was the same one that Phenom and Anika told me about when Ghost was snatched. That shit had my fingers itching because if it was the same one, it sounded like some kidnapping shit was going down in the endz and I’d just gotten close to it. Another realization hit me: Diamond was still out here; what if she had just gotten snatched too?
Pushing off the wall, I kicked started on my run again. Snaking through alleys, jumping over gates and pedestrian bridges, my pulse was thumping hard in my ears. Sweat was kissing my skin and heat had me wa
nting to pull off my hood. I kept running, crossing into Dante’s codes until I heard a familiar feminine voice shouting over a group of niggas.
“Fuck you. You think I’m scared about any shit you got to give? Fuck you wack-ass niggas.”
Laughter sounded off and I moved closer behind the wall of a community building to see her surrounded by about ten to eleven busted-up niggas of all varieties. Some had locs, some had long hair, other had no hair, some were scarred the fuck up from shanks and others were as huge as Jake. Speaking of, that nigga almost got sliced up the moment he stepped behind me.
“Yo, you know not to do that, man,” I hissed low, my own shank pressing against his neck.
Jake’s big hands lifted in the air and he gave a lopsided smile. “The Lord is my weapon, bruv. I like how they say that shit, man. Anyway, Ray-Ray being foolish?”
Dropping my hand, I turned back around and saw her swing on a tall, lanky Asian-looking guy. I gritted my teeth and gave a quick nod. “Yeah. Where’s Gina?’
“She said she wasn’t leaving. Said she’s waiting on your fam and going to holla at him for a moment. She’s tired of running, Trig,” he quietly explained.
“Ah yo, if that’s the case, who is that back to back with li’l shawty?” I said with a quirky smirk on my face.
Jake pushed me back to look over my shoulder and his grip got so hard, I had to push that nigga back.
“Yo, not my baby? Nuuu I wasn’t readyyyy. Damn, G baby! Fuck ’em up,” Jake hissed low in shock and slight amusement.
Gina stood with Ray-Ray sporting her fishtail ponytails, dressed in tights and twin tanks, one pink, one white with the pink and white Js I had gotten her back in the A. Ray-Ray’s high-pitch grunt distracted me from speaking on Gina and Jake’s low growl almost made me laugh. Both broads’ grunts were so high it had them sounding as if she and Gina were in Wimbledon playing tennis.
