by N’Tyse
Duke eased his phone back in his pocket and walked over to Tierra. While he was on his call, she had been thinking that maybe it really wasn’t time for her to tell him about the baby. She took all the distractions and interruptions as a warning sign.
“Now what were you about to tell me?” Duke asked, taking his place back beside her on the edge of the bed.
She slowly licked her lips and crawled over his lap. She tried her best to push everything to the back of her mind. “I was going to tell you how much I love you,” she lied, kissing him with more passion than before. She lifted his shirt from over his head and tossed it behind them.
Duke picked her up and changed positions. She automatically scooted to the center of the bed, knowing what time it was. He dropped his pants, climbed on top of her, and began rubbing on her hairless pussy, causing it to gush. She moaned in delight, begging him to put it in. He parted her legs some more and eased inside of her. Tierra let out a stricken gasp as he plunged deeper into her, hitting all the right spots. The sound of his gun being cocked was completely drowned out by the propelling of his arousal, and her cries of pleasure. Duke’s large fingers snaked along her neck, applying slight pressure with every thrust. He lowered his head and sucked roughly on her breasts, biting down on her thick nipples to incite another round of moans. Their bodies made music. It felt good and bad. So good that Tierra called out his name at the brink of her climax, not realizing for one second that her life was about to end.
Duke took Tierra there, but his mind was too far gone to even come close to reaching an orgasm. He was surprised he was even able to get an erection despite all the madness in his mind. The longer Duke lay on top of her, inside of her, the harder it became for him to pull the trigger and blow the back of her brains out the way she had done his cousin.
With his left hand camped under the pillow where the gun rested, he began stroking her chin with the other hand. Her lips latched onto his and he responded with what he knew would be that fatal kiss.
4
Shinette constantly glanced out of her rearview mirror as she made a right onto her street. She had no reason to believe anyone was following her, but in her line of business, there was no room for error. She refused to get caught slipping. That was why her guard stayed up.
She lowered the volume on the music as she pulled into her apartment complex, circling it three times before finally parking in her designated spot. She checked the rearview again and the side mirrors before reaching for the bag in the passenger seat. As she got out of the car, Shinette couldn’t help but feel like she had robbed a bank and had escaped with $75,000 cold hard cash. That’s how smooth her latest transaction had gone. There was only one person in the world who could get her a fast turnaround on that many bricks in such short notice, and that happened to be her mother’s ex-boyfriend, Kenneth. He was one of the dirtiest cops that ever existed. She never understood what her mother ever saw in him. On second thought, she did. Money.
Shinette had taken a major loss, because in actuality, the five keys combined were worth well over $100,000. But time was of the essence, so the quicker she unloaded them, the quicker she could get the fuck out of dodge and lay low for a minute.
She had contemplated leaving Texas for the longest time, and with all the money she had saved, along with today’s earnings, she could leave and never look back if she wanted to. She and Tierra had infiltrated so many dope dealers’ trap spots that it was only a matter of time before they got caught. Leaving now was not only the best move for business, but it was a smart move if she wanted to stay alive. Besides, Texas was dried up like the Atacama Desert. It was time to explore new opportunities.
Shinette walked hastily toward her unit. She could hear those bad-ass kids that lived on the first floor, running around like they’d lost their minds. She took to the steps. She was still bothered by how Tierra had gone sour on her. Before speaking with Tierra today, Shinette had every intention on splitting the money, but after her fly-ass mouth, she wasn’t getting a penny.
Shinette moved at a more eager pace than before once she made it to the top floor. Her mind was made up. She would move all her things into storage first thing tomorrow and be on the first plane gassed up for Las Vegas. She entered her apartment, placed the bag on the living room couch, and kicked off her heels. She had worn the attire especially for Kenneth who always had the hots for her since she was sixteen. Today, she used his perverted ass to her advantage. He took all the weight off her hand without charging her a handling fee, whereas that same transaction would have cost her a few grand in applicable street taxes. But Kenneth wanted the pussy so bad that he was willing to sacrifice a profit to get it.
Walking instinctively straight to Tierra’s room, Shinette opened her closet. All of her clothes were still hanging there. She pulled out her drawers. Everything was still folded the same way she had left them. Shinette checked Tierra’s bathroom. Her toothbrush was still in its holder; her $30 face bar was still in the box; the Guilty Gucci perfume was exactly where she’d always kept it. Nothing of Tierra’s was out of place, which could have only meant one thing.
Shinette retreated to her own bedroom. She turned on the television and stereo. She raised the volume and headed for the bathroom. Once inside, she eased the door shut and walked over to the tub. She plugged the drain and turned up the hot water for the shower. Instead of getting inside the tub, she pulled the curtain closed. Shinette took off all her clothes, leaving them strewn on the center of the floor. Soon as the wide mounted mirror exposing her nudity began to fog, she slipped behind the door.
Less than two minutes later, the bathroom door slowly crept open, as Shinette had anticipated. A bare outstretched hand graced a heavy piece of hardware. She was as quiet as a roach. The assailant silently snuck past her, unbeknownst of her position. He was unmasked and dressed in true goon fashion from his head down to his feet. His black and long wavy hair was pulled back in a single ponytail, allowing Shinette to get a close look at the bold cursive lettering tattooed on the right side of his neck. She was able to make out a woman’s name, underneath it, “rest in peace.” She pressed her lips tightly together knowing that whomever the woman was, she would soon have company.
Shinette and the intruder were merely an arm’s length distance from each other. She could almost hear his heart tick. His calm slow breaths, confident stance, and direct headshot aim, led her to believe that this wasn’t his first time. Like her, he wasn’t afraid to catch another body. He had come prepared to execute his mission, and the closer he got to the tub, the tighter Shinette’s right hand folded around her Nina. She held her breath, ready to spray at any given moment and light his ass up like a Mexican Christmas tree. She didn’t blink once for fear he’d hear it. The steam building in the air had obscured her so well she could no longer see her reflection. Yet her eyes never lost sight of this dead man walking. His fate had already been sealed long before he woke this morning. However, Shinette was going to do the honors of deliverance.
The gun leveled in his right hand, he blindly aimed at what he had hoped was Shinette’s head. The instant he reached to pull back the curtain with the other hand, Shinette let loose a double that reverberated off the bathroom walls. Blood splattered everything in plain sight. He caught the first slug in the middle of his spine and the other in his right shoulder—the last hit forcing him to drop his gun in the tub full of water.
He managed to turn around before slowly dropping to the floor, pulling the shower curtain and the rod down with him. He groaned in agonizing pain as he stared wide-eyed at the naked being standing over him. He placed his bloody hand on the edge of the tub and tried pulling himself up until gravity forced him right back down. He looked down drunkenly at his shirt and began to panic at the sight of his own blood.
“Agggghhh!” he groaned as he tried to scoot as far away from Shinette as he could.
Shinette watched on as his shirt became drenched with blood. She squatted next to him, reducing hersel
f to his level. “Who the fuck sent you?” she seethed. The icy glare he gave her didn’t rattle her one bit. “Who the fuck sent you?” Her interrogation seemed to be getting her nowhere.
He let out a loose chuckle and scathingly retorted, “Bitch, I ain’t telling you a damn thing.” He unleashed a glob of spit dead in the center of her face. “Now use that to suck my dick!”
Shinette snapped, and before she could think twice, she rammed the gun to his temple and let it sing. She didn’t give her finger a break until she heard the click, indicating that there were no bullets left. What was left of his head, slumped forward. Blood was splattered everywhere and spewed from every single hole she’d put in his body. She jumped up and rushed to the sink to wash all the blood and spittle from her face and neck. When she was finished, she walked back over to his lifeless body. She rummaged through his left pocket, pulling out the very piece of evidence that had given him away—Newport cigarettes. Although he didn’t light the cigarette in her house, the distinctive stench in his clothes along with his musky cologne had left a trail. Shinette reached into his other pocket and pulled out his cell phone, ID card, an unopened pack of condoms, and a single door key. She stared at the key long and hard. Unless it was a coincidence that he liked pink butterflies, there was only one other person to whom that key could have belonged. That one little key explained why Tierra was acting the way that she had that morning. Shinette didn’t want to believe how this was even possible, but as she stared down at the man she had decapitated, she understood better than anybody else that when shit got dirty, somebody had to clean it up. Although she never would have guessed in a million years that her own best friend would have ordered the hit. But unlike her, Tierra was too soft to do the job herself so she had to send a punk-ass bitch to do her job.
Shinette’s psychotic mindset took her everywhere. She didn’t like the feeling that began to fill her gut, but it was obvious to her that Tierra was a traitor. She had double-crossed Shinette and then tried to have her killed.
Shinette turned off the water and stepped around Jason Hamilton’s corpse. She jetted to her bedroom and quickly slipped on a pair of jeans and an oversized T-shirt. She snatched clothes off hangers, gathering only enough to fill her bag. With no time to spare, she ran through the living room, grabbed the bag of money, and dashed out the door. Her heart raced as she rushed down the steps, worried that someone might have reported the shots. She didn’t look back, only picked up her pace.
She opened her car door and immediately tossed the bags in the backseat. She started the engine and peeled off through the parking lot, only slowing down when she got to the gate. It seemed to take forever to open and when it did, she nearly floored the car’s accelerator. Pulling out of the complex and entering a flow of traffic, she saw two Dallas squad cars racing in the opposite direction. She looked in her rearview and saw that they had turned into her apartment complex. She had made it out just in time. She respired and made a quick right, headed for the interstate.
5
There was a smothering silence that floated in Duke’s bedroom. He sat on the edge of the bed, his head buried in the palm of his hands. Tierra’s desperate pleas for help were trapped behind the rag he had stuffed in her mouth right before taping it shut. A bucket of tears poured freely down her face and her eyes begged for mercy. She bucked her head violently, straining every vein in her neck as she tried to shake free from the restraints. Duke had tied her hands and feet to the chair with cable wire, practically cutting off her circulation. She strained herself to the point she peed herself.
Duke was out of his head and the longer he delayed killing Tierra, the more he began to care that she was carrying his seed. She had blurted out that she was pregnant right as his finger prepared to pull the trigger. He was ready to avenge the death of his cousin, Keyz, and do to her what he would have done to any nigga in the street. Being a bitch didn’t mean she was exempt from catching that fire. When it was all said and done, he didn’t give a damn about the dope. All he wanted was Tierra and Shinette dead, and their bodies dumped in the landfill along with the rest of the trash.
Now, Duke wrestled with the fact that if Tierra was indeed pregnant, he would be killing his own baby as well. That thought alone sent him over the edge. He jumped up from the bed, walked straight over to where she was and slapped her so hard her neck popped.
Tierra’s entire face turned red and blood trickled from her nose. She couldn’t even feel the left side of her face any longer. She squeezed her eyes tight and jerked wildly.
“Y’all killed my fucking blood!” Duke got up in her face. He placed the muzzle of the gun directly on Tierra’s forehead. “Bitch, I should just do you in right motherfucking now! How the fuck I know it’s mine?” he hollered. “Matter fact, how the fuck do I know you even pregnant?”
Tierra blinked her eyes constantly, her only means of communicating to him.
Duke yanked off the tape and snatched the rag out of her mouth. She immediately began throwing up and coughing simultaneously. When she was able to catch her breath, she hollered, “Help!” at the top of her lungs.
“Ain’t nobody gonna hear your rabbit ass!”
“Please don’t kill me,” Tierra begged of him as globs of bloody snob ran down her mouth. “This is your baby! I promise it’s yours.” Her breathing became heavy as she tried to inhale as much air possible before he gagged her again. “Please, Duke. I didn’t mean to hurt you,” she cried. When she saw that he wasn’t responding, she yelled again. “Help!”
Duke rammed the gun into her mouth, shoving it past her teeth. “Scream one more damn time and I’ll splatter your brains all over this fucking wall!”
“Agwwwah…” Tierra wailed, knowing he would make good on his threat. It was written all over his face. Everything before an hour ago had been a mystery until Duke revealed that the man she and Shinette had murdered, was his cousin. Duke then began accusing her of trying to set him up too. The more he talked, the quicker she began to tie everything together, realizing that the set-up from the night before had all been a part of Shinette’s plan from day one. Tierra had no idea that Duke was a major drug dealer, and while Shinette had insinuated that Duke wasn’t to be trusted, Tierra had written it off as jealousy. It didn’t register that Shinette was trying to expose him. But greed had also set in during that process. Shinette had used Tierra’s relationship with Duke to her advantage, making it that much easier for her to keep tabs on Duke and his drug operations, all with the intent of robbing him right under their noses. Shinette had outsmarted them both.
Duke yanked the gun back.
“I’m sorry,” Tierra pleaded. “Please believe me…I…I didn’t know he was your cousin.”
“Bitch, don’t give me that! And you can kill all the fake-ass theatrics.” Duke pulled back. “You and that hoe knew exactly what y’all were doing! Y’all set this whole thing up and now you expect me to believe that you didn’t know he was my kinfolk? What the fuck I look like believing your trifling ass! You didn’t think I would figure this shit out?”
Tierra couldn’t believe how Duke had turned on her. It all felt like a horrible nightmare. “But what about our baby, Duke? Please. I’m begging you. I promise we can fix this,” she told him. “Think about our baby!”
Duke’s face twisted into a scowl. “There ain’t shit to fix.” He balled up the rag and gagged her once again. “You better start saying your prayers because when I get back, your life is going to be riding on your piss.”
Duke walked out of the room, headed to buy a pregnancy test. If Tierra wasn’t pregnant, he was going to murk her ass before her piss could dry on the stick. He pressed the button on his keyring to unlock his car and as he got ready to walk out of the door, he remembered his wallet was on the kitchen counter. He walked hastily to the back of the house to retrieve it.
The instant he got inside his car and closed the door, his phone started going off. He pulled it from his pocket. Seeing that it was Jason’s numbe
r, he anxiously pressed TALK.
“Man, you handle that bitch?” Duke asked as he started up the engine.
“Yeah, I handled that bitch!” Shinette sprung up from behind him. Before he knew what was coming, she hooked one arm around his head and pulled it toward her chest, using all her strength. Duke was blindly grabbing for her head, but before he could get his hands high enough in the air, Shinette drove the knife deep into his flesh, slicing his throat from ear to ear.
Blood sprayed out of Duke’s neck. He immediately placed both hands around his throat, trying to apply enough pressure to stop the profuse bleeding. His efforts were futile. He was hemorrhaging to death. His jugular vein and carotid artery had been severed in one swipe before he knew what had hit him. Gurgling sounds escaped Duke as he tried to hold on to dear life.
Quivering in shock, he widened his unbelieving eyes as he watched himself die at the hands of a bitch. Staring back at him in the rearview mirror was Shinette in full gorilla gutta form with a black ski mask covering her face. A weak shrill lifted off his throat but crashed before it could reach his ears. Duke started to lose oxygen. The loud thumping of his heartbeat sounded more like a trumpet, serenading him to a state of unconsciousness as he drowned seemingly in a sea of his own blood. Shinette completely emerged from the backseat. It was only a matter of minutes before the Grim Reaper came to claim his soul. She leaned over and pulled the keys from the ignition, dropping Jason’s phone in Duke’s lap. “Pussy nigga!” she bantered. She slipped out of the car and started straight for the house. She walked through the front door, gun cocked and ready. She was looking for the one person who she knew had set her up.
Shinette didn’t hear a peep, which kept her on her toes. She walked through the entire downstairs and there was no Tierra in sight. She took to the stairs, climbing them slowly and quietly. Once she reached the top, she looked down over the banister. She believed she was imagining things when she heard what sounded like muffled screams.
