by Ashley
Dahlia looked over at Po. “Get out of the car!” she ordered.
“Dahlia . . .”
“Shut the fuck up and get out of the car!” she bellowed. Dahlia nudged Po’s head with the gun, forcing him to open the door as she simultaneously held the phone in place with her other hand.
“I want him here unharmed, Dahlia,” Liberty said.
Dahlia got out of the car and opened the trunk. “Get in.”
Po gave her the coldest look as he reluctantly climbed inside. “I’m gonna kill you.”
Dahlia slammed the trunk closed. “Yeah, yeah, shut the fuck up.”
She looked around to make sure that no one was watching, and then she rushed to the driver’s seat.
“How do I know you haven’t made copies?” she asked, worried.
“Because I said I didn’t,” Liberty said.
“I want that fucking tape, you bitch!” she yelled into the phone.
“Of course you do. You have fifteen minutes to get here,” Liberty replied. She gave Dahlia the address and then disconnected the call. She turned toward Zulu with shaky hands and handed him the phone. “She’s on her way.”
* * *
“Fuck is this nigga at?” Rocko said aloud as he looked around. The shipyard was empty. There wasn’t a car in sight, and Rocko’s patience was growing thin. All of his calls were being sent to Po’s voice mail, and even when he dialed his own home, no one answered. “Something’s off,” he whispered. He grimaced as he adjusted in his seat, sending pains pulsing up and down his leg. He was an injured soldier, no doubt, but his two 9mms evened him out. He was fearless in the face of danger and couldn’t let Po walk into a meeting with Zulu unprotected. Even through their differences, he still felt an obligation to hold him down, bum leg and all. Rocko was growing restless. He started the car as he tried to decide whether to stay or leave. He had the overwhelming desire to check on Liberty. Now that things were so quiet at the meeting place, he had a feeling that things her way weren’t so safe. Somehow he felt it in his bones that Liberty was in trouble, and with Po unavailable, he concluded that Dahlia had once again gained the upper hand.
* * *
Dahlia pulled up to the house and pulled Po out of the trunk. She was so full of fury that her heart thundered rapidly. “I’m going to kill your pretty little Liberty. She’s going to hand over this fucking tape, and then I’m going to put a bullet between her eyes,” Dahlia said.
Po didn’t know why Liberty had lured Dahlia to Rocko’s home, but he heard Dahlia’s threats loud and clear. Armed and full of hatred, Dahlia wasn’t speaking recklessly. She meant every word that fell from her mouth. Suddenly, Po spun on Dahlia and swiftly hit her with a sharp left. The blow sent Dahlia and the gun flying to the ground. Po quickly retrieved the gun and then yoked Dahlia up as if she weighed nothing. He looked around, not wanting to create a stir in the affluent neighborhood, and pushed Dahlia toward the house. “Getcha ass inside,” he growled. The charade was up. There was nothing but hostility between the two as she shuffled into the house, rolling her eyes.
“You’re not going to shoot me, Po,” she began as she stepped up onto the porch. The front door swung open, and Dahlia stared into the face of the devil himself.
“No, he isn’t,” Zulu stated. “I am.”
Dahlia turned to run, but Po was behind her, blocking her path.
“Please,” she whispered. All of a sudden, Dahlia turned into a ball of humility as her eyes widened and tears accumulated.
“Bring her inside,” Zulu commanded.
Zulu’s men surrounded him like a pack. Zulu traveled nowhere without the African Mafia. Two of his soldiers grabbed Dahlia.
“No! No!” she screamed, but she was quickly silenced as a salty hand covered her mouth. She bucked and contorted her body as she struggled against the men. Her efforts proved futile as they delivered her to Zulu’s feet, dumping her into a mess before him. Liberty stood when she saw Dahlia, and they locked eyes.
“Liberty . . .” Dahlia whispered through snot and tears.
Liberty sneered at Dahlia, unable to hold in her disgust. “I hope you die slow, you heartless bitch.” She slapped Dahlia with all of her might.
“Let’s go,” Po said. He looked at Zulu, who stared at him in contempt.
“You’re done in this business,” Zulu said.
Po nodded his head and then looked at Liberty before staring Zulu in the eyes sternly. “All of our business is dead.”
Zulu glanced at Liberty briefly. The dictator in him wanted to murk her just because he knew that she was the weak spot in Po’s life. His affection for Liberty made him vulnerable. However, Zulu was a man of principles, and he had already promised peace upon Dahlia’s delivery. “You have my word,” he confirmed.
Po placed his hand on the small of Liberty’s back and guided her out of the house. As soon as they stepped onto the pavement, Rocko came racing up the driveway. Po ushered Liberty to Rocko’s car.
“What the fuck?” Rocko shouted.
“Just drive away from this mu’fucka. I’ll explain on the way.”
Rocko pulled away from his home and asked, “On the way where?”
Liberty sat back against the backseat and leaned her head back, her soul weary. Rocko stared at her through the rearview mirror. Their eyes met.
“Just take me away from here, Rocko, away from L.A. . . . Take me back to Detroit.”
SIX
BLOOD. PAIN. REGRET.
Dahlia cringed on the floor as the impact from Zulu’s blow caused her to collapse onto her hands.
“You dirty, dirty bitch,” Zulu spat. His men surrounded them, all armed, as they watched Zulu prepare to take Dahlia’s life.
“Please, Zulu,” Dahlia whispered as she sat back up, coming onto her knees as she wiped the blood from her busted lip.
Zulu grunted and extended his palm to the man who stood at his side. “Salim, the machete,” he said.
Salim had been Zulu’s counsel for the past twenty years. He stood loyally beside Zulu. His presence seemed out of place among the men suited in expensive threads. Salim wore a beautiful dashiki, reflecting his African culture. Prestige and regality emanated from him. He stared directly at Dahlia with no sympathy. He had been through this before with Zulu. He had played assistant to the grim reaper countless times. Dahlia had crossed one of the most powerful men in all of Africa. Now her time to pay had come.
Salim unfolded Zulu’s murder weapon of choice and handed it to him. Dahlia lowered her head as a stifled cry escaped her lips. She trembled, and for the first time since her childhood, she felt fear. It was true what people said in the face of danger. Her life flashed quickly before her eyes, and she wondered when she had become so cold. Was it the day her father died? Was it the day her village was raided? Or was it much later? Dahlia’s judgment day had arrived, and she was certain that she had earned a warm bed in hell.
The jagged edges of the metal proved that the machete had been used many times before. It had cut off more heads and limbs than Zulu could count.
Feelings of regret, of embarrassment, of seething rage, and of pure fear caused confusion within her. She was so terrified that she couldn’t think.
“Please, Zulu . . . please,” she begged as she gripped the carpet, bracing herself for the brutal way in which she was about to die. She hoped that the blade was sharp enough to kill her in one swing. She didn’t want to be hacked to pieces. She didn’t want to feel every blow. That was a fate that reminded her of the war back in Sierra Leone. It was a fate that no one should have to endure.
“Now you beg,” Zulu said as he admired his machete.
“You can’t do this,” Dahlia whispered, her voice shaking and frantic.
Zulu lifted the machete.
“Please!”
He swung, and his eyes widened as he put force behind his arms.
“I’m your daughter!”
Zulu stopped just before he got to her neck, still nicking her slightly, ca
using a tiny trickle of blood to flow. “What?” He gasped.
“I’m your daughter!” Dahlia cried. She never lifted her head to him. Her limbs were so unstable that she shook violently. “I’m your daughter. Please, don’t kill me.”
Zulu thought of all of the sexual things that they had done together. Dahlia had seduced him. She had taped their encounter. She knew his secret fetishes.
“This can’t be,” he whispered, unsure, taken aback by her outlandish revelation.
“It’s true,” she answered, her voice quivering. “My mother was a whore in the red-light district in Sierra Leone. You were her most faithful client.” She spoke so fast that he could barely process her words. “Her name was Myeea.”
Zulu dropped the machete at his feet in shock. He hadn’t heard that name in twenty years, but it still knocked the air from his lungs. “No . . .”
“It is true, Zulu. I swear to you,” she urged, finally lifting her head.
Zulu knelt before Dahlia and grabbed her shoulders, forcing her to look up at him. He frowned as he examined her, studying the features of her face. He couldn’t see himself. He was trying to confirm her claims any way that he could. “If you are lying . . .”
“I’m not! Zulu, I’m not. I know that I’m fucked up, but I haven’t had anyone, not a mother or a father, since the rebels raided my village when I was a little girl. I’m fucked up, but I am your daughter. My mother told me. She pointed you out to me one day as you were riding through our village. I never forgot your face,” she whispered.
Zulu lifted her to her feet and said, “Wait outside. Leave us.”
His men began to exit the home without question.
Once they were alone, Zulu said, “Tell me. Tell me why you think I’m your father. Share with me the story your mother told you.”
* * *
Dahlia listened to the sounds of passion that flowed from the room as she peeked through the slight crack in the closet door. Her mother’s smooth dark skin was a stark contrast to the white body that humped wildly on top of her. Dahlia scrunched her face as her eyes swept over the hairy man who stood behind her mother, with his pants pulled all the way down to his ankles, red pimples covering his bare back. Her eyes darted to the nightstand where his wallet lay and then back to the scene going down on the bed. Nightstand . . . bed. Nightstand . . . bed. She crept out of the closet silently. The man was too involved in her mother, Myeea, to notice Dahlia as she lifted the leather wallet. She quickly opened it and saw the billfold full of money. She pulled out three bills and then put the wallet back on the nightstand before slinking back into the closet. She left the closet cracked so that she could see what was going on inside the room. The panting and fast pace of the sexual scene before her made her stomach turn. She hated witnessing her mother at work. It made her young heart sad to see her share her body with strange men all for the sake of a dollar. Finally, she heard the familiar grunts that meant the end was near.
The sweaty man peeled himself off of Myeea, who grabbed her satin robe and lit a cigarette. She leaned back against the headboard and said, “Leave the money on the table on your way out.”
“The pussy was loose,” the man said. “I should get a discount.”
“Fuck your discount, white boy. Put your money on the table,” Myeea replied.
The man grumbled as he buttoned up his shirt, snatched his wallet off the nightstand, and, without paying attention, pulled out two bills. He left the motel without even knowing that he had been hustled.
Myeea put the chain on the door behind him and then called out, “Coast is clear, baby, come on out!” She rushed to the bathroom and left the door wide open as she hoisted her leg up on the sink. “You did good, baby,” she said to Dahlia.
Dahlia peered into the bathroom and watched as her mother wet the washcloth. She wiped herself clean, unashamed as she spoke to her daughter as if the routine was normal. She dressed and then grabbed her small overnight bag before leaving, clasping Dahlia’s hand as they walked out onto the busy street.
Dahlia was quiet as they maneuvered their way through the traffic to hail a cab.
“You hungry, baby? You did so good that we can eat in a real restaurant tonight. We can stay in the city, have dinner, before I head back to work?” Myeea asked.
Dahlia nodded and gave her mother a half, dismal smile.
“What’s wrong, baby?” Myeea asked as she stopped walking in the middle of the sidewalk and knelt down so that she was face-to-face with her child.
“I don’t like watching you with your men. I miss Daddy. You never had to do this when he was alive,” Dahlia said.
Myeea stood and grabbed Dahlia’s hand, then hailed a cab. “Come on, baby, let me show you something.” They climbed into the back of the taxi, and Myeea told the driver their destination.
“We’re going to District Seven,” she said.
“I don’t go to District Seven,” the driver said.
Myeea threw a few extra dollars into the front seat. “This cab has wheels, so it goes wherever you’re paid to go. District Seven!” she shouted aggressively. She turned her attention back to Dahlia as she pulled a cigarette from her bra and lit it. Her sex-ruffled hair blew lightly in the wind as Dahlia looked up at her.
“I know you miss your daddy, Dahlia. I know times were easier when he was around, but this is all I know. I was doing this before your daddy came along and saved me. Now that he’s gone, it’s the only way I know to survive. You do what you know, what you’re good at. I’m good at sex,” Myeea said as she inhaled the nicotine into her lungs. “I have something to tell you, Dahlia, but when I do, I want you to know that this doesn’t change how much Ramil loved you.”
Dahlia’s eyes grew wide in nervous curiosity as Myeea spoke of her father. Somehow she knew that whatever revelation her mother was about to make would change her life forever.
“He wasn’t your real daddy. Your blood father was not the man you grew up with,” Myeea said. “I met your real daddy doing this. He was one of the men you hate so much. Never look down on me for what I do or the men who come to me. Some of them are just lonely. You were born from it, and if it wasn’t for these men, I wouldn’t be able to feed you now.”
The realization hit Dahlia like a ton of bricks as memories of the man she had grown up with flooded her brain. Tears misted in her eyes.
“Oh, no need to cry, dear daughter. Your blood is strong. Your daddy was much more powerful then Ramil,” Myeea said. “Do you want to see him?”
A part of Dahlia wanted to scream no, but how could she not wonder who this man was? She nodded, and Myeea reached over to grab her hand. She bossily directed the cabbie until he was a block away from a known drug area.
The driver nervously checked his surroundings using his rearview mirror. “I will drop you off here, lady. I do not wait. You will have to find your own way back.” His voice shook slightly from paranoia.
“We won’t be getting out,” Myeea replied. She pointed to a crowd of men standing outside a raggedy multihome building. “You see that man, the one with the huge diamond hanging from his neck? He’s wearing the silk shirt and the black sunglasses?”
Dahlia craned her neck to see.
“That is Zulu. He is your father,” Myeea explained.
Dahlia took in his appearance. He seemed strong, handsome, and in charge. All of the other men on the block catered to him as he stood among them, the obvious leader. “Is he rich?”
“He is.” Myeea chuckled.
“Then why are we poor?” Dahlia asked with the beautiful naivety that only comes with childhood.
Myeea gripped Dahlia’s chin and replied, “Because I didn’t charge him enough to make me go away. Never let a man outwit you, Dahlia. You be the one doing the manipulating. Your mama learned that the hard way. There was no way that he would claim a whore as a wife and the mother to his child. I knew this, so I never told him. I met Ramil. He helped me. He moved me out of the city and into the villages in the country
side. We fell in love, and he vowed to be a better father to you than Zulu could ever have been.”
Dahlia’s eyes never left Zulu as she listened. “That’s my father.”
“Yeah, that’s the son of a bitch . . .”
* * *
Dahlia could see Zulu’s faith in her as she told her tale. The more she spoke, the more he believed. Floods of relief washed over her as she realized that he would spare her.
“I have a daughter. You are my child,” he whispered as a perplexed look crossed his face. So many things made this wrong. He remembered frequenting the red-light district and having his pick of the litter among the girls. He had been reckless back then, a young, flashy, stupid kid who had left his seed inside almost every woman he had ever seduced. He knew that Dahlia could indeed be his. Distracted and confused, Zulu felt his focus had shifted. Dahlia had thrown him off of his square. He couldn’t possibly think straight. He completely forgot that just moments before, he had almost made her a victim to his infamous blade.
As Zulu ran through his memories, recalling the time he had spent with the prostitute, Dahlia’s mind was only on her own survival. Zulu turned away from her, and as soon as he did, Dahlia bent down and picked up the machete. Zulu was so off guard that he never saw it coming. He spun toward her, and Dahlia pushed the blade through his abdomen with all of her might and then sliced across before bringing the blade upward.
Zulu gasped in shock, gripping her hand as it held the machete. “But you’re my child.”
Dahlia smirked as Zulu fell to his knees and blood poured from his body. Dahlia still hadn’t released the blade. “No, Zulu. I’m not your fucking daughter. I’m just a hell of a storyteller,” she said sinisterly. She knew that Zulu had frequently lain with her prostitute mother. Her mother had often bragged of her important clientele, especially Zulu. Dahlia had played on that knowledge to concoct a tale that would throw Zulu off guard. Everything out of her mouth had been a creation of her imagination. She was willing to pull out the most extreme lies to cheat death, and Zulu had fed right into them. It was known that he had always desired to experience parenthood. His wife back in Africa had been unable to carry children. Her many miscarriages were public knowledge, as was his thirst to be a father. Dahlia had manipulated that fact, and the result had been deadly.
