by Ashley
Rocko reached down, grimacing slightly as pain shot through his leg. He retrieved a 9mm handgun that was tucked beneath the couch cushion. He checked the clip, clicked off the safety, and set it in his lap.
Liberty grabbed his hand. “Rocko, no,” she whispered.
He pointed at the screen. “Look at his face, Liberty. He ain’t here to talk,” Rocko stated. “Let him in.”
Liberty felt as if she was caught on a train track with two locomotives headed toward her, threatening to collide. She had to stop this clash of two street titans. They were best friends; surely they could resolve their differences without further bloodshed. She went to the door and pulled it open. His face . . . seeing the way his eyes reflected an abyss of sadness when he saw her was all it took to start her tears. Her heart ached as they stared at each other, silently yet with so much brooding in the air between them. Po had hurt her. He had crushed her spirit and snuffed out the little bit of faith that she had in him.
Liberty was the last person he expected to open the door, and he felt a tug of jealousy as he stood over her. She seemed broken as he stared into her soul, and out of habit, his hand found a place around her waist as he pulled her out onto the porch slightly, to be closer to him. He could hear her nervous breaths as she closed her eyes.
“Don’t.” Her voice was so fragile and low that he barely heard her, and he pressed his forehead against hers as they both closed their eyes.
“It’s true,” he whispered. “You’re fucking with Rocko.”
Liberty pulled away, shocked, but before she could deny anything, Po pushed past her, storming into Rocko’s home.
“Rocko!” His bark was filled with animosity as his territorial instincts kicked in.
Liberty took off after him. “Po! No! Listen to me!” she pleaded as she pulled his arm, but he was so enraged that he snatched it away from her violently.
“Don’t touch me!” he shouted as he made his way through Rocko’s home. “Where is he?” Po didn’t think about the fact that he had tossed Liberty away like a rag doll. He didn’t care that he had disregarded her to start a relationship with her very own cousin. All he could picture in his mind was Liberty lying in Rocko’s bed. He could hear her voice saying all the things that she had once said to him. He could see her doing all the things that she once did to him. The images he was conjuring up made him sick to his stomach. Seeing her standing there, shaken from a fresh sleep, wearing Rocko’s shirt, hair tousled, had him ready to finish the job that Li’l Mikey had started.
“Po! It’s not what you think!” Liberty shouted.
Frustrated and overwhelmed by jealousy and heartache, he lunged at her. “Arghh!” Po growled as he grabbed her arms and pushed her forcefully against the wall, pinning her to it with the weight of his body and startling Liberty. “You fucking my man?” he asked through gritted teeth. He had so much emotion in his face that she feared briefly that he would strike her. The fear was evident on her face as she cowered in his intimidating presence.
“Po!” Rocko’s voice boomed as he hobbled into the hallway on crutches.
Po looked at Liberty. His precious Liberty, who now stood before him, terrified. He looked from Rocko to Liberty, his head foggy from the lines of cocaine that he had taken on the way over. Shame washed over him as he loosened his grip on Liberty.
“Go upstairs, Liberty,” Rocko said.
Liberty snatched her arms away from Po and rushed past Rocko in distress.
Po watched her retreat and immediately felt defeated.
“What are you doing, Po?” Rocko asked. “Look at you. You’re in the clouds right now, my nigga. You’ve put so much shit up your nose you can’t even think straight.”
Po noticed the pistol that Rocko had tucked into his waistband. “That for me? You gone shoot me, Rock?”
“What you mean, come at you the way you came at me?” Rocko shot back. “You almost got her killed.”
“Fuck was she doing in your car anyway? Huh? You never been the nigga to save a ho,” Po replied. “You had no words for Liberty until I was done with her, now she sleeping in your shirts, driving your cars. You fucking after me, Rocko? That never been your style.”
A light bulb went off in Rocko’s head as jealousy reared its ugly head. The nigga tried to off me because he thought I was fucking his girl, he thought. Rocko shook his head in disgust as he realized that Po was transforming into a sloppy nigga. He was letting a woman steer his decisions and cause him to act irrationally.
“The Po I know wouldn’t care . . . that is, if you was truly done with her,” Rocko replied. “Look at you, bro. You’re moving reckless. You’re high all the fucking time. You tell Liberty to kick rocks for Dahlia? Then send shooters at me over her? Fuck is wrong with you? You know how I get down. You the only nigga who will ever get to say he shot at me and is still breathing, and that’s just off GP. You won’t get another freebie. I ain’t never warred with a nigga of your caliber, but I ain’t running, neither. We both know the outcome would be ugly. So let’s get to root of the problem instead of sparking a beef that neither of us wants.”
“I love her, Rock,” Po admitted, pained by the thought of all he had done to disprove that fact. “I haven’t loved anyone like that since Scarlett died. She has Scarlett’s heart in her chest, and you’re fucking her,” Po stated. He was trying to stop his emotions from flowing, but his hurt was reflected in the strained tone of his voice.
Rocko had never seen his friend so vulnerable. Po never wore his heart on his sleeve under any circumstance, but today he was a man broken by a manipulative force . . . by Dahlia.
Rocko looked at him in shock. “Scarlett’s heart? How do you know?”
“I paid off the doctor back in Michigan to give me the name of the patient her heart went to,” Po said.
Rocko stumbled slightly, and Po sighed. He walked over to his best friend and positioned himself so that Rocko could use him as a brace. Rocko lifted his leg off the floor, grimacing as Po helped him back to the living room sofa. Rocko sat down in relief.
“You kicked Liberty out because you thought she was involved with me?” Rocko stated as he shook his head.
Po pinched the bridge of his nose. “Shit is fishy. It don’t help that she answering your door in the middle of the night,” he admitted.
Rocko scoffed. “I’m not fucking your girl, fam. She came to me for help after you broke her heart. That bitch Dahlia is bad news. Look at everything that has happened since she found her way into your head. Drugs? That ain’t you. You got niggas coming for me. You used to trust me with your life. I’m willing to bet that Dahlia was the one who planted the seed against me.”
Po was silent “I’m sorry about the leg,” he stated.
“Your li’l niggas didn’t do this. This is Zulu’s work.”
Po’s back stiffened. “He’s in L.A.,” he stated. He knew that if Zulu had traveled all the way across the ocean to get to him, he wasn’t coming in peace.
Rocko nodded in confirmation. “And he’s out for blood. At first, he wanted both you and Dahlia. Liberty put her life on the line in order to save you. She promised him she would hand-deliver Dahlia to him. He gave her forty-eight hours,” Rocko said.
Po took a seat and reached for the cognac, helping himself to a glass as he was silent, consumed by deep thought. He was blind to the claws that Dahlia had in his back, but he was slowly realizing that she was a snake in the grass. Everything about her is rehearsed. Bitch is putting on an act to gain access, he thought. He shook his head as he sipped the cognac. I played right into her hand.
Po thought of everything he had told Dahlia. The late nights when she had listened to him complain about Liberty. He realized that she wasn’t the “hold you down” type that he had pegged her as. He had told her exactly what Liberty lacked, and Dahlia had purposefully supplied him with what was missing. It was a setup. The sex, the drugs—she had been plotting on him all along. He didn’t know what she had to gain, but he did know that
whatever trust he held for her was now wavering. He thought about the cocaine that had been found on the boat, and he grew enraged. The Coast Guard was tipped off. His gut told him Dahlia was behind all of the treachery, but his ego didn’t want to believe that he had been so easily conquered. A woman had gotten into his head and caused him to switch up on everyone who had held him down. He held his head down in regret. He was ashamed of his recent actions, and his thoughts ran wild as he recalled all of the things that Dahlia had whispered in his ear. His inner voice ridiculed him for being so stupid. He was susceptible to feminine persuasion, and that made him weak. Pillow talk was the worst kind of manipulation, and Dahlia had perfected it. Guilt ate at him. He had put money on Rocko’s head. He wasn’t sure if that could ever be repaired. No amount of money, no words, no actions would suffice. While Po was pegging Rocko as disloyal, it was he who had broken the code.
“I fucked up,” Po whispered as he sniffed to stop his running nose.
“Yeah, you did,” Rocko admitted. “You built a fort around your empire and then locked yourself inside with the devil.”
Po leaned forward and placed his fingertips in a steeple underneath his chin. “I owe you my life, Rock.”
Rocko nodded but remained silent as he watched Po stand to his feet. “Appreciate you looking out fa’ her,” Po said. “I can take it from here.”
* * *
Po knocked gently on the bedroom door as he pushed it open slightly. Liberty sat on the bed with her legs folded beneath her as she looked up at him. She was silent, her eyes saddened. He crossed the room and sat on the bed near her, only for her to back away until her back hit the headboard.
“Come here,” he commanded.
Liberty’s chest was so heavy with indecision that it felt as if she would suffocate. She had mixed feelings about the man sitting in front of her. She wanted to love him. She could feel her heart begging her mind to let it embrace Po, but she was hesitant, because she hated who he had become.
“You’re on something,” she commented in disdain. She hated to see him under the influence. Po was too sharp to have his mind altered by drugs. In fact, when she first met him, he had prided himself on his ability to remain clear-headed. She had seen the effects of drug use during her days on the streets, and the glossy look and his dilated pupils gave him away. It wasn’t hard to see that Po was high. “What happened to you? Where is my man?” she asked. Disappointment filled her as she realized that the game was changing him. He had been a hustler before, but he had never had to operate at this level of the game. He was sucked into the abyss of the underworld, and instead of reigning over it, he was falling victim to it.
“I’m back, ma. I got lost for a minute, but I’m right here now. The coke is nothing. It’s nothing, just something to take the edge off. I can kick that. It’s not a concern, Liberty. I just needed something to cope,” he said.
“Cope with what, Po? You talk like you lost something,” she whispered harshly with a frown.
“I lost everything, ma. First Scarlett, then the baby you carried inside of you,” he countered quickly. “The day you lost our baby, I lost you to the grief of it all. You never came back to me after that.”
Liberty moved closer to him and cupped his handsome face in her hands. “You’re forgetting the details, Po. You didn’t lose me,” she replied. “You chose Dahlia. You pushed me away when I needed you.”
“She was a mistake,” Po said. “If you forgive me, I’ll spend every day of the rest of my life making you happy.”
“You tried to kill Rocko,” Liberty said as she shook her head in disgust. “You thought I was fucking Rocko.”
“Forgive me,” he said as he placed his hand on the back of her neck. Her pulse quickened as he planted kisses on her neck, awakening her insides as her sex clenched sweetly. She tried to pull away from him, but he refused to let her go.
“Forgive me, ma.” His voice was low, sexy, and in control as he melted her with his touch, grazing the side of her cheek with the back of his hand. He touched her lips with his thumb, then kissed her chin as he made his way south.
A twinge of guilt flashed through her as she thought of Rocko. She was sure she had felt something when they kissed. This lust with Po was much different from the brief encounter she had with Rocko. Why am I thinking about him? Liberty asked. That can never happen.
She gasped as he grazed over her breasts, circling her nipples, elongating them under his expert touch.
“You missed me,” Po whispered.
“Stop it, Po,” she replied weakly, her defenses lowered by his touch. “You can’t just show up and expect it all to go away. I don’t even know who you are anymore.”
Po advanced his pursuit, touching her in all the secret places that he knew turned her on.
“You hurt me.” Tears clouded her eyes as she thought back to all of the changes that Po had taken her through.
He parted her thighs and slid his leg up her thigh to find that she wore no panties. “Forgive me, Liberty,” he whispered into her southern lips.
Before she could respond, he sucked her swollen clit into his mouth, causing her back to arch and her legs to open farther as he nibbled on her gently.
“You love me?” he asked as he released her love button. He sucked it again, long and hard.
Did she? She wondered, confused by it all. Surely she had to feel something for this man whom she allowed to run in and out of her life. He had done everything to make her hate him, but here she was melting at his touch.
Is this love? This isn’t what it felt like with A’shai, she thought.
“Yes,” she whispered, for lack of a better answer. Half of her believed her words, but the other half was filled with doubt. How could she love someone who had wronged her? She was doubt-filled and worried. She had no idea where Po’s true allegiance lay, but she still wanted to call him hers. Inside she knew that it wasn’t even about Po. It was about winning. It was about finally beating Dahlia. Her thirst to defeat her cousin made her want to love Po, even if she was unsure about his ability to requite.
“Tell me,” he demanded.
“I love you,” she moaned as she moved her hips to increase the pressure on her clitoris. She said it because he wanted to hear it and she wanted to believe it. It was her leverage. Only her love would pull him away from Dahlia’s hold. “Oh, my . . .”
Po ate her with intensity until she exploded, leaving her quivering with delicious spasms of pleasure. The vibrating of his cell phone brought her head out of the clouds. She looked and saw “DAHLIA” flashing on the screen. The reality of his betrayal came rushing right back to her.
“I’ll handle it. You don’t have to worry about Dahlia or Zulu. You stay here with Rocko until I send for you. The next time you see me, everything will be fine, ma, that’s my word.” He stood to leave.
“You’re going back to her?” Liberty asked.
“I have to. If I don’t go back tonight, I can’t deliver her to Zulu tomorrow. I can’t let her know that anything is different. If she gets wind that Zulu is in town, she’ll run, and he will make good on his threats to kill you. I can’t let that happen,” Po said.
“It makes me sick to think of you with her,” she whispered. “She’s been behind everything, Po. Behind Trixie, behind the miscarriage—”
Po’s eyes went from concerned to dark as his brow furrowed and his pupils narrowed. A flicker of anger shot through him. “What? I know her presence stressed you, ma—”
“I’m not talking about fucking stress, Po! I’m talking about sabotage! The crazy bitch poisoned me. The doctors found a drug called Plan B in my system. That is emergency contraception. I wouldn’t even take aspirin while I was pregnant, Po. I didn’t take the stuff I was prescribed for morning sickness. You really think I would have ingested Plan B? Dahlia must have been putting it in my food or my drinks.”
Liberty pulled at the sides of her hair in frustration, because she could see doubt in Po’s eyes. He thought she h
ad lost it. Yes, she was unraveled, but she was completely sane. “I’m not crazy! Po, Dahlia is the crazy one.”
Po was so livid that it felt as if his body was on fire. The look that he was giving Liberty was one of concern. How did she deal with this alone? he thought, feeling shame for leaving her side in the first place. “After hearing that, I’ll never fuck with her. You don’t have to worry about that. She was a mistake, and it’s over. That’s my word, ma. It’s one night,” he whispered. He gripped her chin to kiss her lips. “She will pay for hurting you, but you have to trust me.”
“How can I?” She sighed.
She watched him walk away, feeling defeated by Dahlia once again. Warily, she watched from the bedroom window as he departed. Liberty felt that Dahlia would somehow get her claws back into Po and that he would turn on her once again.
FOUR
PO ADMIRED LIBERTY’S SILHOUETTE AS HE SAT in his car, looking up at her as she peered out of the bedroom window. He loved her; of that much he was certain, and he knew that he would sacrifice anyone to keep her safe. He put his car in drive and pulled away from the curb. He pondered the fact that Dahlia had put him at odds with everyone he cared for. Po had allowed her to make him weak. Like every great king before him, the person who had beaten him was the exact same person he had made queen. He lifted the console between his seats and removed a small baggie. The crystal-white cocaine sparkled even beneath the plastic barrier. His ego was bruised, his pride diminished, and his heart burdened. It would be so easy for him to numb the pain with one little sniff. Po opened the bag, and without hesitation, he rolled down his window and poured it out before releasing the bag itself.
Dahlia watched the time tick by as she sat waiting for Po to come home. Cloaked in darkness, the only light was the tiny illumination from the numbers on the face of the large vintage clock. Her blood-red nails drummed on the arm of the chair, while she sat with legs crossed, in deep contemplation. Dahlia was nobody’s fool. She could feel in the air when something was awry. When the headlights of Po’s car announced his arrival, she didn’t move. She simply waited for the car door to slam. Then she waited until she heard his key enter the lock. She was trying her hardest to control her temper. A confrontation between the two of them was the last thing that she needed. Arguing with him would make her like Liberty. It would make her a nuisance. I need to be everything that she could not be, Dahlia thought as she compared and contrasted her ways with those of her cousin. That’s how she had gotten so close in the first place. It didn’t take her long to find out the voids that Liberty left in Po’s life. All it took was the art of observation, and Dahlia was Picasso when it came to that. Liberty didn’t carry Po right. She didn’t fuck him right. She wasn’t nasty enough. She wasn’t seasoned enough when it came to his business. Liberty was too much of a good girl. She was too fragile, and Po grew tired of her victim act. Dahlia slid in at the right time and gave him everything that was lacking. She had played him perfectly. Conquering him in bed had been the first step. Conquering his mind and introducing him to coke had been the second. Now she was trying to seal the deal by conquering his kingdom. She wanted to take over the streets without him knowing they had been taken, and by the time he realized that he was no longer in control, it would be too late. That was the plan, but it seemed as though something was interfering.
