“Get your damn hands off me! I’m not playing around with you, boy, fucking nothing-ass punk! I swear to God, this shit ain’t gonna just go down the way you think it is.”
“Oh yeah? Is that right?”
“Yeah, I swear, it ain’t, you fucking asshole. It ain’t,” she said angrily, turning her head to the far right and attempting to avoid further physical contact. Not wanting to subject herself even to seeing Li’l Ronnie’s face, let alone experiencing the rough feel of his weatherworn fingertips on her skin, she cringed. Wanting to throw up in her mouth as he sat down on the edge of the bed, she took a deep breath.
The dancer turned part-time drug hustler at the strip club wanted to break free. However, the restraints Li’l Ronnie had wrapped around each of her wrists were much too tight. It felt like the circulation in her ankles had been totally cut off. Her feet, like her hands, were numb. Sable hated her former monkey hustle partner in crime, who had learned so many ways to tie knots in summer camp when they were ten, maybe eleven. But he had, and now he was putting his expert skill in tying fisherman and square knots to work. Sable just wanted to go home. In the time that she’d been there, she’d searched the room for any weapon she could possible grab when she broke free. Regretfully, a determined Sable had struggled for hours on end already and had made the reinforced rope that bound her grow tighter with each twisting movement.
Standing to his feet, Li’l Ronnie felt a sense of entitlement when it came to this female, who was technically no longer his, but his uncle’s. He wanted to beat on his chest and shout out his victory in making Sable his woman again, whether it was true or not.
She might not love me now, but she will again real soon! Arrogantly, he walked over to a bookshelf on the far side of the dimly lit room. With his back turned to Sable, he removed several items off the shelf and set them on the table. Making sure he had everything required for his street love potion, Li’l Ronnie took a seat. Removing a lighter from his front pocket, he lit the vanilla-scented candle that served as a centerpiece. Placing a bottle cap right side up and a cotton ball alongside it, next to a syringe, he was almost ready to make magic pop off for his renegade lady love. Cutting his eyes back over to Sable, he knew it wouldn’t be long before she stopped resisting the inevitable and loved him once more.
Li’l Ronnie reached over and took one of several small Baggies out of his jacket pocket. He lifted it up and held the edge tightly with pinched fingers while tapping the sides to bring the addictive mixture down to the bottom. Seeing that it had evened out, he ripped the top of the Baggie off. He poured a small bit of water into the bottle cap and felt anxious, as if he was about to feel the ultimate rush, not the virgin veins of Sable. Soon the spoon was heated over the burning candle, bringing the sometimes lethal combination together, to where it needed to be. As he allowed the cotton ball to serve its purpose of filtering out the unneeded bullshit in the barely stepped-on product, Li’l Ronnie’s smile grew wider. After sticking the needle into the center of the cotton ball, he filled the syringe with Ethan’s product. Finally ready to put things back in order, Li’l Ronnie stood to his feet.
As he approached Sable, sweat was pouring down her face from fighting a losing battle to get free. She’d been watching him like a hawk as he prepared a blast, which she prayed to God would be for him. The closer he got, the more she continued to buck and rattle the entire bed frame. Her wrists and ankles were now bleeding as the twisting rope had gnawed through her skin. Li’l Ronnie got closer, and Sable grew more terrified with each passing second. Her heart felt as if it was going to jump out of her chest. She couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t think or see straight.
“Li’l Ronnie, get the fuck away from me with that bullshit! Are you fucking crazy or what? Get the fuck back, nigga! I ain’t playing. Get the fuck on.” Sable knew what his intentions were and was going berserk. In all her years of living, she had not once smoked a cigarette, smoked weed, or even been drunk. Now this asshole who claimed he used to love her so much and still did wanted to shoot some dope into her, like she was some common junkie off the street. Sable couldn’t fathom the thought of being high on any shit but counting her money. Not her. Not now. Not ever.
“Look, look, listen. Hold up, boy! Wait! Chill! Wait,” she begged, hoping to reason with him, convince him to put the needle down so they could talk. “Why you doing this, huh? Why? You said you love me so damn much. This how you gonna do me, huh? Like this? Damn, baby! Hold the fuck up!”
Li’l Ronnie paused. He watched “his girl” slowly abandon her attempts to break free. Sympathetically, he listened to her pleas and questions as to why it had come down to this. Caught in his feelings as well, he wanted nothing more than for them just to kiss and make up and let things go back to the way they were before Sable decided to be “a bad bitch out in these streets” and leave him behind in the dirt, like he was nothing but a piece of shit. However, Li’l Ronnie knew there was no changing Sable’s mind-set without a little bit of help. Never once giving up on the dream, he’d done and said just about everything he could think of underneath the sun, stars, and moon to get Sable to just love him again—but, tragically, no dice. So just to make his uncle hurt, he would now use her as bait.
As he looked around the small, filthy, out of the way house he’d rented from a crackhead for a few days, he grinned. He was killing two birds with one stone. He was making Ethan suffer, and he was back spending one-on-one time with his precious Sable.
“Me and you are made for each other. We done been through hell and back. I was there when you ain’t have shit. I put up with all your garbage and still loved you.” He reached for the small amount of rope that was left after tying her up. Carefully, he set the filled syringe on the edge of the nightstand.
As Sable continued to fight, Li’l Ronnie grabbed her arm forcefully and wrapped the rope tightly around it. After he tied her arm, his beloved multiple veins started to emerge. Having his choice, he tuned out her panic-filled screams.
“Look, be still. Just relax, before you mess around and get this needle broke off in your arm. You’ll have a blister growing full of this shit and a damn sore. So stop fighting me.”
Sable’s eyes seemed to pop out of her face. She was going into shock. She couldn’t stop him. She was trapped. “Please don’t,” were the last two words she said as Li’l Ronnie stuck the needle through the first layer of her skin and finally filled her vein with the unstepped-on poison she’d sold grams and grams, for which she’d gotten paid. As Sable’s bloodshot eyes rolled in the back of her head, her body tensed up, then started to tremble. Her arm started to bleed as he eased his love potion out and grinned with satisfaction. She’d never felt no shit like this before. The room started to spin as she had been made to break the first law of the game. Don’t get high on your own supply. As Sable drifted off to a place in her mind she’d never been before, Li’l Ronnie stood up and waited. After taking pictures with his cell phone of Sable sprawled out in the bed, he started texting them to Ethan.
* * *
It was now pitch black outside, and Ethan was constantly getting reports from all his lieutenants on how the various dope spots they were in charge of were going. His first mind was just to shut all of them down for the night and start back slinging at the crack of dawn. However, the product they had was already stepped on twice and had to be sold before he fell. Ethan had stretched the rest of his last shipment as much as possible, anticipating the re-up that should have taken place earlier. But now, thanks to Li’l Ronnie, he was almost at point zero. After speaking to Amir two separate times in the middle of the afternoon, he felt like he was making a little progress in securing his new bag, in spite of the confusion. But after the last embarrassing and remorseful conversation he was forced to have, Ethan knew that deaded their union.
Leaning back on the couch in the dark, he tried to gather his thoughts and see who he could call to get his stash off craps. The other few dealers he was somewhat cool with would have no proble
m asking why Amir had taken him off his line, and then either he’d be forced to fess up and tell them or they’d check with Amir and find out on their own. Either way it went, he was fucked. Push come to shove, he’d have to take a flight down to Miami and secure a new avenue. Lost in his thoughts, he closed his eyes and nodded off for no more than a few brief minutes before his cell notification alerted him.
Oh, hell naw! What this nigga want?
Ethan was disgusted that J-Blaze hadn’t caught up with his nephew and done what he was asked to do in the name of crew loyalty. Here Li’l Ronnie had the nerve to be sending him a text message after all the dirt he’d done.
After tapping the icon on his phone, he read the first of three back-to-back texts out loud. “Catch me. I got you.”
Ethan didn’t understand the first secret squirrel message, so he went on to the next. Upon opening the second text, he almost dropped his cell to the floor. His eyes burned and filled with blood. His entire body stiffened with resentment for Li’l Ronnie. In disbelief, he stared at a picture of Sable, his woman, half naked and tied to some bed. In the next picture his nephew so proudly sent, he showcased the empty Baggie that had clear heroin residue on it and a needle mark in Sable’s arm.
Enraged, Ethan tried over and over again to call Li’l Ronnie’s cell but was sent straight to voice mail. He left messages and tried texting back but received no response. The old-school player knew the boy had crossed the line. He knew he was playing the game with him, making him suffer by not knowing Sable’s whereabouts or fate, so the only thing Ethan could do was wait it out and hope J-Blaze found him or, hell, even Black Tone at this point.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Amir was receiving back-to-back calls from his father. Pops kept complaining that he couldn’t get in touch with Mikey or Hassan. The twins had not been picking up their calls, either, and Pops said he was worried. True enough, Amir found that to be strange, but he knew if something was really wrong, one of the four of them would have called. Not too long ago he had had a call from Wild Child, and he hadn’t mention nothing much going on up at the store, and he was in the neighborhood, at Black Tone’s house. After he had informed him about the disturbing call from Ethan, he knew his two main security staff would be tied up with family business. Even though he wanted them there with him, he understood. Although Amir did his own thing for the most part, he still loved his family and would hate for someone to violate them, as Black Tone’s grandmother had been.
Taking it upon himself, Amir started to call and text his younger siblings, but he got no response. Reasoning that their cell phone batteries must have all gone dead from them being on Facebook or listening to music, Amir took it for what it was for the time being. Cell still in hand, he tried calling Black Tone just to check in and see how his grandmother was doing, but he got voice mail. “Damn. Is everybody shit going to voice mail?”
After going to the local news Web site on his phone, Amir watched countless reports of firsthand accounts of crimes being perpetrated within the city limits. They ranged from everything from petty larceny, strong arm robbery, burglary, and car theft to arson, hit-and-runs, and murder. Shaking his head over how bad things had gotten throughout the day, he poured himself a drink as he watched videos from the Channel Seven News helicopter that showed some of the homes and commercial businesses that had been or still were on fire. After seeing five, maybe six mouth-dropping dwellings that had to be left to burn down to the ground, Amir stopped sipping and dropped his glass to the floor.
He paused the last video he was watching and pushed the PLAY AGAIN arrow on the TV remote. Raising his eyebrow, he repeated the process three more times, making sure the reporter had said what he thought he had said. Amir had to watch it twice more to ensure he was seeing the eagle-eye view of what he thought he was seeing. “Oh my God,” he shouted out as he leaped to his feet, grabbed his keys and rushed toward the club doors.
* * *
Black Tone went out into the parking lot of the suburban hospital. He had not been able to get a signal inside, and so as soon as his reception improved, a multitude of notification alerts started to chime. He searched through the text messages. The most important person he wanted to return a call to was Alexis. Still emotionally drained from seeing his grandmother in the abused state she was in, he need to talk to a friend. Someone he not only trusted but loved as well. After three rings, Alexis finally picked up, and he smiled.
“Hey now. What’s popping?”
“Hey, Anthony. How is Granny? Is she good?” Her voice was soft, but he could easily tell she’d been crying.
“Yeah, she’s better now. They have her stabilized. But what’s wrong with you? You didn’t seem yourself on the porch. And what was all that about Dre helping you? Helping you with what?”
Alexis was bombarded with questions. While she had been wishing she could talk to him and cry on his shoulder since the very moment she walked into the party store and sat down, hearing Black Tone’s always soothing, deep voice had her feeling overwhelmed. Now she had her chance, but she was hesitant and remorseful after what she and Dre had done. Of course, those awful twins had got what they had coming to them, but Mikey and her son’s father, Hassan . . . Alexis was torn up inside over what had popped off, and she was scared to death that she would soon be going to jail for murder.
Hassan might have been talking a lot of smack about her, but like he’d claimed, maybe he had just been showing out or trying to fit in. Maybe he hadn’t known what terrible thing his cousins had done to her. And she already knew Mikey was too weak and incapable to stand up to his wife. So the chances of him standing up to two monsters, not one, were slim..
“I need to talk to you, Anthony. I need to see you in person. Talk to you face-to-face.”
“Alexis, what’s wrong? What happened?” he asked, watching the overflow of Detroit hospital patients crowd the parking lot and the emergency room. “You can tell me. You know I’m not gonna judge you, no matter what.”
Suffering from pain all across her face and in between her legs, she knew she needed to seek medical attention from the brutal attack and rape, but she couldn’t bring herself to leave the safety of her bedroom. “I . . . I . . . I know,” she stammered. “It’s just that what we did, what I did . . .”
“We? Who is ‘we’? You mean Dre? Alexis, tell me what happened.” Black Tone was confused as he walked around the perimeter of the entire parking lot.
Before she could answer any more of her best friend’s questions, she heard a light tap on her closed bedroom door. “Hold on, Anthony.” She was sobbing as she spoke. “Yes, come in.”
Dre pushed open the door and barely poked his head inside. A constant headache to his sibling, he knew that he had not been allowed to cross the threshold of his sister’s bedroom for years. And even though they’d just committed murder together, he still knew that rule stood.
“Hey. I hate to bother you. And trust I ain’t trying to get off into your business, but don’t you think you should go to the doctor or some shit like that? I mean, ain’t no telling what them nasty-ass Arabs got. I know you don’t be really giving a shit what I think, but this time . . . Well, you know.”
She still had Anthony on hold. Her eyes were almost swollen shut from the beating she’d taken and from her crying, not to mention the fact that her legs were almost too weak to stand on. Out of options, she asked Dre if he would do her a favor. His answer was, “Yes. Of course.” Considering he had just killed over her and had torched a liquor store, whatever else she needed for him to do would be a piece of cake.
“Hey, Anthony. What hospital are you at? I’m gonna come to you,” she said into the phone.
* * *
Amir locked up Detroit Live as securely as he could. With just two men left on duty from Zero Fucks Given, he advised the skeleton crew to keep a careful eye on the perimeter of the building. Not in the best mind-set, he hopped in his car and sped off into the darkness of the city. He navigated the best he
could through the potholed streets, but his expensive sports car rattled with every bump, ditch, or rock he could not avoid hitting. What would usually take him fourteen minutes in travel time turned into an almost thirty-minute ride through the crime-infested city. Anything that the chief of police had warned of had already taken place. The town that Amir and his family had spent years doing business in was in complete shambles.
By the devastating way things looked to him in the high-beam headlights that illuminated his path, he could easily tell that by daybreak Detroit would mirror a war-torn third-world country. The bankrupt city would be last in line for good odds of being able to make a comeback. Having the news radio station on low, Amir was praying to Allah that what he’d seen on his phone was a mistake. Maybe his eyes had played tricks on him. It was possible that the video he’d watched repeatedly had been shot in some other location, one that resembled the area around Pops’s long-standing store. He tried to call Mikey first, then Hassan. After calling the twins as well, Amir feared the worst and no longer bought the dead battery story he’d convince himself of back at the club.
Turning off of Davison onto Linwood, Amir swerved seven or more times, attempting to avoid crashing head-on into the abandoned vehicles that filled the road. The cars had probably run out of gas or been in accidents, and the drivers couldn’t get a tow truck to remove them. Needless to say, besides the drivable cars and the people darting out from here and there, the only thing that gave off any kind of light was the multitude of uncontrolled fires burning every few miles or so. Off in the distance he saw a familiar landmark and knew the store was coming up. Although he could not see down that far, he was relieved that he didn’t see a blaze in that general direction. Slamming down on the brakes so as not to hit a small child and his mother, who was carrying what appeared to be laundry baskets full of miscellaneous items, Amir glanced up at the street sign and knew he was only three short blocks away.
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