by Brick
“I’ll give you whatever you want,” I murmured low.
I was rewarded with her smile and the feel of her legs parting to straddle my waist. “Remember you pick up the family from the airport and our eyes are watching the ones who watch us. For now, we do not have to worry about the heat that Diablo’s vengeance has set off for us all. For now, they get to settle in, see what their actions have created these past six months and they get to settle into their new world, like we once had to.”
My lips skimmed the side of her neck, as my fingertips found their way around her raised nipple. She knew I did not want to speak that motherfucker’s name in our house, nor as we shared this intimate moment. “No doubt, my queen. London gave them a new foundation, but now it is time to take those lessons learned and get back to business but with a fresh outlook.”
Pulling her hair back, I leaned forward to scrap my teeth against her neck while I spoke low against her thumping pulse. “They are legends in the streets now, and are being gunned for hard because of our common enemy, as well as others who feel that they can weaken them and us. Theirs, and his death is going to come, because we all have unfinished business, especially with his side handler. Let’s see if our misfits can handle that shit, like I believe they can.”
Reflecting back, we had all spent the last six months living in London after that battle with Dante, where we hunted down everyone connected to him. Gathering all we needed to plan our revenge and ready ourselves for his retaliation. My global circuit kept me hipped up to any glimpses from him and his handler S.B. who had also disappeared, until I was told they had both hit the grid in Cali then back in the A, a month back.
The moment that happened, the plan we all involved each other in kicked started and both Anika and I went back to the States to prep for battle while my nephew and the others built their names in the codes. As they say, there is no time like today to take out some motherfuckers, and that was what we all intended to do.
My queen, my wife Anika, slipped down my body, her smile causing my dick to thump in my pants as she released me. Her soft sweet moan was all I heard with that of a “yes” before she swallowed me whole with a smooth slurp. She had her needs and so did I.
Though I was schooled by true OGs back in NYC, I was still young, a product of the ’80s but a kid from the streets of the late ’90s. Maturity came only from my experience in survival and it also had me learning a lot from my nephew and his makeshift family. It even had me taking on the mantel they proudly sported in fondness and pride.
ENGA versus the last of DOA. It was a long-overdue battle and one that definitely was about to be ended with our enemy’s death, or ours. Chaos was power that only me and my family controlled and we planned to paint the streets with our enemy’s blood; ENGA and nothing more.
Episode 4:
The Showdown in A-Town
Victorious warriors win first and then go to war, while defeated warriors go to war first and then seek to win.
—Sun Tzu
Chapter 16
Trigga
“Virgin UK flight 218 has now landed. Welcome to Atlanta.”
Damn it was good to be back. By back, I meant in the A. London wasn’t all the way good to me, but it schooled me. The past six months there was spent dealing with niggas and broads coming left and right at us since we had chopped down that nigga Dante’s kingdom and his little imp sidekick. After that, wasn’t nothing peaceful about London for me, but I survived it. I swallowed my pride two months after everything and stepped to my uncle.
Watching Ghost heal, seeing the small changes in her after coming from Dante’s hands was what made me do it. Shit wasn’t math for a brotha. She’d been hurt and that shit burned in my body like acid. Wasn’t nothing I was used to at all, but watching how my unk watched us all, I saw in his eyes what I was feeling. So I squashed my beef and sat with him, learned, and told him I’d open his throat from ear to ear like the Joker if he played me and mine again. Blood ain’t supposed to do what he did, but I got it, and that was his one time with me, feel me?
He hipped me to how he and my pops grew up. Dirty in the streets of the BK. Surviving however they could just to keep fresh, but also to get dough before they were snatched up by his great-grandpops and schooled on real OG knowledge. They learned knowledge that was mixed with religious and Nigerian principles, which changed everything for them.
I sat and soaked it all up. Everything that was in both my pop’s and mom’s journals came to light and synched up through the words spilling from my uncle. As he schooled me, I watched my fam. Big Jake would sit and learn, as would Ghost, just to be near me. Gina and Diamond would sit with Anika as Diamond began her lessons too.
When we weren’t sitting and learning game, and dodging the dietary lessons my unk wanted us to favor, I’d train Ghost, Chyna, Ray-Ray, and Baby G some of my moves. Speedy would teach them ways to hide weapons and craft them, Big Jake would teach them how to box and shoot, while I made them all repeat the principles I learned in my books. Every day we’d all shift off, where I would train with my boys, and vice versa and every day we’d all get stronger.
How I trained, the shit wasn’t easy. I made all the women cry in some way but I had to. The streets weren’t going to be gentle because they were chicks and they needed to never forget that.
“Pay attention, Ghost,” I said firmly as I clapped my bandaged hands twice.
The frustration on Ghost’s baby face had her features contorted as I gained her attention. We were in a secluded padded basement back in Hackney. It looked more like a boxing gym without the ring if you asked me. A sheen of sweat covered my arms, shoulders, and face giving it a glowing reddish tint as I looked down at the little girl I called my own.
Ghost was tired, almost about to pass out from exhaustion, but she was determined to prove to me, who she thought of as her father, that she was a fighter and would never be taken without a fight again.
Her hair was braided in six long cornrows on her head. The tips flapped against her back as she did a spin kick and tried to slide between my legs. She was too slow and I think that annoyed her more than it did me in that moment. As she rushed by, I caught her quickly and lifted her into a sleeper hold. Even on my knees, I towered over my baby girl. The hold wasn’t as tight as I would put on a nigga in the street, but it was tight enough for her to have to fight her way out of it.
Diamond stood off to the side watching. Stress had her eyes watering as she stepped forward. She wore black workout pants that showed off her curves and a pink sports bra that matched Gina’s. Her hand moved up to her mouth and she bit her lower lip before waving her hand in trying to get my attention.
“Trigga, stop,” she called out to me. “That’s enough!” she pleaded.
I looked up in her direction, but I wasn’t even checkin’ for her. Too much shit was playing on rewind in my head. From intel hitting us back about sightings of Dante in the boroughs of New York, Miami, Washington, North Carolina, Texas, Cali, and even New Mexico. To people from the Trap hitting our secret circuit talking about how scared they were because they thought they just saw Dame’s lame pussy ass walking the streets again. Stress was running through me and had me ready to go to war.
It didn’t take my unk to let us know that he was building up his army. Ready to hit us OG style and try to start a turf war. That shit was elementary and simple to gather. What had me pissed off was that he now was using his power to try to get us tied into some deep-ass dirt. He was trying to get the feds to connect us to pushing the drugs in the streets and trafficking kids and shit. Luckily, the feds only knew us by our street names and because Jake and me always kept our shit covered, facial shots wasn’t even possibly. This was why my unk and Anika went back to the States to set up our return, and I was here training the other misfits.
“You think she’ll be able to make another nigga stop because she’s had enough?” I asked Diamond, raising an eyebrow tripping off of her in the moment.
“Tri
gga, baby girl has had enough for the day. She’s tired. She needs to rest,” she pleaded with me as Ghost was still doing her best to get out of the hold.
I snapped my eyes away from her and back down at the little girl I knew we all would protect with our lives. “Stop struggling. Shit’s useless,” I barked at her. “It’s just going to tire you out, Chas. Think smart and move swiftly, but never make unnecessary moves, depleting useful energy,” I continued in trying to school her.
“I’m . . . trying,” she whined.
“Bruv, I think she’s done for the day, yeah?” Speedy asked his lights eyes reminiscent of me and Phenom’s.
“Yeah, Trig. She’s needs rest now,” Gina added on.
Chyna was still sitting in the corner. She had yet to recover from the beating her body took in one of my famous training sessions before I’d turned my attention to Ghost. Chyna’s black tights and sports bra were drenched in her sweat. She looked as if she was about to vomit. Speedy had his hands wrapped in black boxing tape as his blue gym shorts hung low on his slender hips. His toned yet slim tatted chest heaved up and down as he fought to catch his breath finally. He too was still drenched in sweat.
“Kwame,” Jake called out to me as he approached the black mat. “You need to ease up.”
Annoyance had me narrowing my eyes. I opened my mouth to go off but whatever both Jake and me was about to say was cut short. Ghost held my pinky finger in her clasp and put all the strength left into bending it back. I had told her a week earlier that it was a weak point on a man’s hand if done the right way.
Baby girl took my technique to heart and did what I had taught her well. I loosened my hold and when I did, she managed to free herself. She jerked her head back, hitting me in the nose. My right arm still had her in my grasp as I stood, but she used the heel of her foot and swung back at my dick. This had me dropping her instantly on her ass with a grunt.
She rolled over, grabbed a pencil some dumbass had lying idly by, and when I rushed to pick her up again she’d aimed the sharpened end of the pencil right near my carotid artery. My baby girl was breathing like she was about to have an asthma attack and tears were rolling down her face, but she’d done what I had trained her to do and it had me smiling on the inside. Why? Because of how I had taught her, and how she had just done the damn thing, I had no choice but to hold my hands up in surrender.
“Good,” I calmly praised her.
My hands ran down my sweaty face. At that moment, she was outright crying. I hadn’t noticed until she dropped the pencil, wrapped her arms around herself and looked away, speaking to me a small voice, “Can I go lie down now?”
Her voice was shaky and I could see she was beyond fatigued. Even though she was crying, Ghost was still a pretty little girl and it had me shutting down, because I wasn’t prepared to see her crying. So I gave her a curt nod that she could go, and she quickly made her way from the room.
“Can I go too?” Chyna asked, causing me to turn her way.
The amped zone I was in was slowly fading away at the sight of seeing that Ghost was hurting, so I threw my towel over my shoulder in a shrug and nodded. “Yeah, go.”
Gina also decided to jump in and stress me. “Me too, Trig? A bitch is tired and hungry and shit. You got us down here like we ’bout to go to war or summin’,” she complained.
Her voice had come back, but she would forever have to sometimes clear her throat to speak clearly. Locked in the stress of knowing that we needed to do better, that we needed to be ready for Dante had slight annoyance tingeing my voice. All of it over the fact that no one was getting what we were going to have to face and I shook my head at a chick I always felt was like my baby sister. “We are.”
London was hard shit then. So many emotions, so much time spent getting ready and my fam couldn’t get peace because we had to be ready. Diamond always found some way to be the voice to pull me back as with everyone else, but I couldn’t help that sometimes they just wasn’t getting it. Speaking on her, shit. I was not even sure where to start.
Standing in this airport, my mind was open like never before. Dressed in black Timbs, gray slacks, a white button-down shirt with a black vest, my locs were pulled back. The fitted cap I wore hid my face. Lessons were learned in London. Lessons we all, me and my fam of misfits, were still learning. Even while I checked the eyes of those who watched us mixed in with the crowd of people who bustled around us in the airport, I knew that we were being observed and that it was not like it was before.
We were in a new level of power and what we learned was going to definitely test us in our survival. Check it though, I say all of that because Diamond and me, shit. I don’t even know.
My hooded eyes drifted her way as she stood next to Gina holding her hand as Jake stood off on the side shifting on his feet as if he were their bodyguard. Baby G was scared to be back. All the shit we went through, running from the A, only to go through more shit in London, really ain’t give her time to mentally heal. Same shit I believe with Diamond, which was why I ain’t even know where we stood right now. Shit, it ain’t like a brotha was really trying to wife her or be one-on-one with her.
I mean, ain’t nothing against her but, on some truth shit, we all got thrown together ’cause of the streets and the violence. She wasn’t made for this world. I was born into it, she wasn’t. Now that we were back in the A, like, damn, would she really want to stay in this? Stay with me? Nah, I wasn’t even sure, even though she held me down through all of this. But wasn’t that something different then really wanting to stay in this, stay with me? Shit. I don’t think it would even be fair for her if she did because she had a future before being snatched up and dropped into the bowels of hell better known as the Trap. Yeah, her fam was part of the Trap and my world, but she wasn’t.
She was just another girlie on the block, going to school and not worrying about nothing but living, until her fam fucked up and we took her. I had a hand in that. Shawty might start to resent me if she doesn’t get that shit back. I mean, I was a part of her being snatched away from her world of security. Another thing, Dame fucked up her mental and body, and dealing with Dante kick started that shit all over again. Why am I saying that?
’Cause two months in, after her and me hooked up, I caught her playing in dust again. I almost lost my mind when I snapped on her. Shit had me fucked up and pissed at her for stepping backward into that shit. Things were supposed to be different but it felt like everything was the same. I mean, shit, look. I got why she was doing it, ’cause the ghosts of that place never can heal right, when we haven’t had the time to. But it just felt like, damn, a nigga can’t even substitute that poison and bring you a little peace?
That’s when I knew wasn’t shit I could do for her but protect her and help her find her destiny again. So yeah. I don’t know where we are, even though we still kickin’ it. I’m a young dude. I don’t even know what settling down even looks like. Don’t even know how it operates. I mean, yeah, I see my unk doing it, but that’s him and I’m me. I’m gonna do me to the fullest and keep my game intact. Ain’t shit change but the survival tactics, feel me?
So standing here watching her, she had me wanting to get that again, but also had me on guard. This world wasn’t meant for her. She deserved better.
Anyway, like I was relearning from my pop’s and mom’s journals and even Phenom’s and Anika’s lessons, one must separate the true self from the personality. Which ultimately reflects the mask of personality. I’ve been schooled on that since birth and that’s the power that flowed through my veins.
Knowledge of self without trying to be something one is not is priority.
The feel of a small hand in mine had me staring down. A smirk played on my face before disappearing as I stared down at the little girl with several chucky twists in her hair. She was dressed like any nine-year-old would be: bright colors and a pair of kicks I got her while in London with her book bag full of books and weapons hidden as toys. This girl right here was my
weakness and it fucked me up every night I went to bed ’cause I knew she would be used against me.
Which was why she and I continued our training together. Chasity was sugar and spice. Things I used to do when I was her age as a kid were lessons I schooled her in and she molded it into perfection. I knew if she ever got fucked up again, what I taught her from my mom’s and pop’s journals, and what Anika taught her as a young female warrior of the streets was going to keep her protected as best as we all can do for now.
“Wayment, bruv, this is ATL? Ya didn’t tell how many fine sistas there are here,” sounded to the left of me.
When I turned to check its source, I saw Speedy walking back and forth with a goofy look on his face as he eyed the many females who walked past his way. I knew the moment his teeth flashed and he turned my way smirking then sticking his tongue out with a thumbs-up that someone needed to snatch him. Laughter had me stepping forward but I stopped when Speedy was snatched up and prevented from walking up on some bad chick’s ass.
“No time for that, Moseif. You have a party to set up for. All of you remember what we spoke on so let’s be out, my family,” Phenom simply stated, before turning around and walking between two special services–looking cats on each side of him.
The tense squeeze from Ghost’s hand had me looking down at her. I pulled her to me and locked eyes on Diamond, as she moved to fall into step with me and we headed out.
Hours later, we stood in an opulent mansion in Buckhead. This place was a cover spot just for the party, our welcome home banger. Everything around us was lit in cool tones, blue, green, and purple as Speedy spun tunes. All around us was people in our age group, and I stood against a pillar in a walkway with my arms crossed watching everyone. Dressed in leather blue jean hoodie, dark jeans that matched, a white shirt under the jacket, and my infamous Timbs, I nodded to the music and watched as everyone moved as one like the sea, with their hands in the air.
