The Last Kings

by C. N. Phillips

  “Marie,” he said to his sister whose tears were mixing into the blood streaming down her cheeks. “No!”

  Her window was busted out and a hand grabbed her by her short hair, yanking her through the window.

  “No! No!” she tried to fight, wriggling her body and kicking her feet, but they were too strong for her.

  “Contain that bitch!” a voice said, but she couldn’t focus on the face.

  Her vision was getting blurry, the trauma of her head injury was causing her to blackout. The last thing she saw while she was being carried swiftly away to the big black truck was a gun being aimed at her brother’s head. One last tear dropped from her eye, and she blacked out, but not before she heard the bullet that ended her brother’s life.

  Chapter 22

  Khiron sat on the large king-sized bed inside the room of his penthouse suite watching Mocha move her body seductively before him. The lights were dim. She turned around, exposing the way her ass ate up her thong just before she began making it clap. No music played; she rocked to her own beat. All she wanted to do was please her man and forget about all of the chaos in her life. With Amann and D’s double funeral the next day, she needed something to drown out the pain of losing two men she’d come to think of as her brothers. It was her second night with Khiron, and she noticed he’d been real distant, but she knew a little of her loving would bring him back to her.

  Khiron was toying with Mocha, playing her like a game of chess. He just needed his next move to be his best move. Manipulation was the game, and he needed it to be in his favor. He wanted nothing more than to put a bullet in her head, but what use would her corpse be to him? Her smooth mocha skin and plump ass enticed him, and he felt his manhood grow three more inches. Khiron couldn’t lie. He loved Mocha. Women, of course, caught his attention in the past, but no one but she was able to catch his heart. That made the betrayal he felt all the more wrong. It caused him some grief to know that she would have to die with the rest of her team. He had a small army of niggas just waiting for the word, but the thing was, Mocha hadn’t given him anything.

  He sighed and shook his head. He had to speed up the process. His operation couldn’t wait for him to get his nut off. He needed to formulate a plan before Ray traced the deaths of the two men he killed back to him. Khiron was ruthless in the head. He felt nothing when he cut off their heads with the sharpened machete. It was refreshing to him. All of them would die gruesome deaths, and when he got to the Italians, he would do the same to them. He was crazy as hell for going at the Italian cartel, but he knew killing The Last Kings one by one would send them a message. Nino’s legacy was not to be fucked with.

  “Bring that ass here,” he bit his lip at her, and she smiled, sashaying his way.

  “Mmm, you ready for me already?” Mocha said seductively, straddling him.

  “Naw, chill, ma.” Khiron placed his hands on her waist, stopping her from grinding on him. He knew he wouldn’t be able to stop her once she got going. “I just wanna kick something to you right quick.”

  Mocha cocked her head at him and eyed him with her light brown eyes, curious as to what he had to say.

  “Well, speak, nigga,” she told him. “This pussy can’t wait all day.”

  Khiron thought quickly about his plan, knowing that everything about it was pointing against him, but putting Mocha in the know was the only way she would sing information. If it didn’t work, it would be nothing to just put her to sleep forever in that hotel suite.

  “I know about you, ma,” Khiron started and immediately saw the look on her face go from pleasure to nervous.

  “Know about me?” she giggled, trying to catch herself. “I would hope you knew me. You’ve been fuckin’ with me for a while now, bae. Now, come on and make me feel good.”

  “Naw, Mocha,” Khiron pushed her hands off of him. “You know what I mean. The Last Kings ring a bell?”

  Mocha’s face paled, and she stood to her feet.

  “Were you ever going to tell me?” he asked her, seriously wanting that answer.

  “No.” Mocha didn’t even have to think before she answered, and that made Khiron even angrier than when he got wind of who she really was.

  Mocha saw the anger in Khiron’s face and couldn’t help not giving a damn. She didn’t feel that Khiron needed to know about her business dealings. It wasn’t any of his business. She also didn’t inform him of her affiliation in fear that he would try to use her connections for his own personal gain. Now, she felt something in the air change between them, and she didn’t like or trust it. She knew about Khiron. She wouldn’t have kept visiting him in Atlanta if she didn’t do some kind of research. His body count stretched a long way. He’d killed mercilessly to obtain his spot as Atlanta’s boss, so she knew that he was nobody you wanted to go toe to toe with. Khiron just nodded his head.

  “I met with Ray a few nights ago.” Khiron’s intentions were no longer to keep his words sweet. He wanted to cut her deep—to the core. “That nigga, he’s a true boss. I’m not going hate on ’em. But every boss gets caught slipping, right?”

  Mocha stopped dressing herself and stared at Khiron in only a pair of shorts and her bra. The mood had been killed for her, and her mind-set was changing from girlfriend Mocha to Last Kings Mocha. The man before her was not the man she loved. The look in his eyes held something completely different now. It was the look of a hungry dog.

  “The fuck are you talking about, Khiron? The Last Kings don’t get caught slipping, least of all Ray, so quiet that noise.”

  Khiron stood up and walked slowly to the nightstand beside his bed. From it, he pulled out a machete. The same machete he used to kill D and Amann, in fact. It still was stained with their dried-up blood.

  “I’m assuming that’s what those other two niggas thought. Right?” He smirked at Mocha, and her mouth dropped.

  “Y-you?” Mocha’s mind reeled looking at the weapon. “You killed my brothers?”

  Khiron’s connect was just sent to prison, and he just said he had a meeting with Ray. She remembered Adrianna mentioning something about a meeting with someone from Atlanta that he turned away. Mocha didn’t really pay her any mind since Ray had a lot of business meetings. Standing there, she wished she’d paid more attention and didn’t leave her gun in the car. She backed up as far as she could until her back was pressed up against the wall, and Khiron advanced on her.

  “What do you want, Khiron?” she asked him. “Why did you kill them?”

  “I want it all,” he smiled, knowing his answer answered both questions. “I’m going to kill anyone in the way of what’s mine.”

  In Khiron’s crazy way of thinking, Ray’s operation was rightfully his since it was given to him by his father’s killers.

  “No!” Mocha cried out. “You bitch! You didn’t come here to see me . . . You’re trying to take the city; our city.”

  “Yea,” Khiron shrugged. “Pretty much . . . and you’re going to help.”

  “Fuck you.” Mocha tried to make a dash for the door, but Khiron grabbed her forcefully by her neck.

  Mocha was a fighter, but her punches did nothing to Khiron’s big build. Her energy was fading, along with her breath so she stopped fighting after a few seconds. Khiron pinned her back up against the wall, but as he opened his mouth to speak, his phone vibrated with a message. Knowing what it was about, he glanced at it, smiled, and turned his attention back to the woman he was suffocating.

  “I don’t want to kill you, Mocha, but I swear to God, I will.” His voice was like venom, and Mocha’s body was paralyzed.

  She felt hot tears coming to her eyes as she gulped for air and stared into the cold eyes of the man she once loved and now felt nothing but hatred for. She saw her life flash before her eyes when his grip around her neck tightened, and then loosened.

  “I know you, Mocha. You’re not a hustler, and you’re not a killer. You kind of just fell into this profession, and I want to take you out. Your place is beside the man in char
ge.” Khiron decided to change up his approach. “I’m so sorry, babe. I don’t want to hurt you. You know I love you, ma, but this is business. A woman of your caliber shouldn’t have to work . . . ever. Help me, ma. I promise I got you.”

  Mocha’s mind was reeling. Her loyalty was to The Last Kings, and a part of her wanted to spit in his face for what he was implying she do. But another part of her had to admit that he was right. The cartel was, and had always been, Sadie’s idea; Mocha was just ride or die. But now, faced with the presence of death, she knew she wasn’t ready to perish. The lavish life she lived came with a price, and with every heart her bullets pierced, a piece of her soul left her body. She felt like a traitor. She had said she would go to the grave for her team. The tattoo branded on her body made that promise . . . but promises were meant to be broken. After the deaths of D and Amann, the pain she felt was unbearable, and feeling the tears trailing down her face, she knew The Last Kings would never be the same. She knew she only had seconds to make her decision . . . So she did.

  “Just promise me one something.” Mocha choked on her tears and closed her light brown eyes. “And I’ll do whatever you want.”

  Khiron felt the sticky smile forming slowly on his face. “Name it, ma.” He wiped the tears from her face like he wasn’t the one causing them.

  “Sadie lives.” Mocha’s eyes shot open, and there was a fire so strong in them, Khiron almost took a step back.

  He studied her, knowing that if he said no, he would have to kill her and find another way of getting to Ray in a day’s time. But he also knew that what she was asking for was a promise that he couldn’t keep. Still, he looked into her eyes and put on the most sincere face he could muster.

  “You have my word, ma.” The lie burned on his tongue, and he cupped her face. “I promise.”

  Chapter 23

  Ray stood in an all-black suit watching Adrianna say her last good-byes to Amann and D once they were in the earth. Sadie, Devynn, and Mocha already said theirs and were in the backseat of the limousine that was waiting to take them all back to Ray’s home. Although covered by a black lace veil, he could still read the sadness drenched on Adrianna’s face. She wore a black Versace dress that stopped just below her knees and a pair of all-black open-toe Christian Louboutin four-inch heels. Her lips, stained with lipstick the color of red wine, were pursed as she dropped the roses on their tombstones right beside each other. The deaths of two of their own hadn’t really set in until she saw them lying lifeless in their coffins. The coroner had done a good job. He’d made them look as if they were asleep. Buried like two bosses. They were in tuxedos, and the collars covered their severed necks. The two of them came in the game together, so it was only right for them to leave the same way . . . just not like that. The way they were murdered was malicious intent and with no reasoning. She could have seen if they had started a war with another territory, but truth was, they were too busy making money to pay attention to the moves of the other cities unless they were on the come up. She knew it couldn’t have been either of the six they had business with. But who?

  “Whoever did this,” Adrianna spoke when she felt Ray creep up behind her, “will burn. I put that on my life.”

  Ray nodded his head in agreement. Adrianna turned to Ray and looked at him through the veil on her face.

  “They didn’t deserve this!” she exclaimed, tears forming in her eyes. “They were just supposed to be dropping off the money and coming back to meet us! When they didn’t call, I didn’t trip because I thought they were with you and—I should have called or something. Fuck! How did this happen?”

  Nothing hurt a leader more than losing his own to the unknown. Since the day Ray found out about their deaths, he had his people on every block looking for anything that seemed even slightly out of place. So far nothing. It was pissing him off to the point of no return that nobody had any info. He’d even contacted a few people in other cities, high and low, to see if anyone had any wind of a hit going down in Detroit. Nobody knew anything. He knew he had to grab the situation by its reins before Vinny thought he was losing control of the city. Ray ran the city with power but also with love, and it showed him love back. He knew that it couldn’t have been anyone there who killed D or Amann.

  “I got niggas on every block looking for unfamiliar faces, ma,” Ray told her. “I’m trying.”

  “Not hard enough!” she barked, her accent thick. “Their blood should be streaming through the streets of the fuckin’ city, just like our brothers’!”

  “I can’t dead a fuckin’ ghost, Adrianna!” Ray yelled back.

  He had never raised his voice at a woman, but the truth was, the fact that he had no leads and no idea of who committed the murders was eating away at him. He was supposed to be in tune with every happening in his city, but somebody got him. He knew that whoever did it was bold, but not bold enough to come at him directly. Instead, they went an even smarter route. Most niggas would want you to know the damage they caused, but whoever it was wanted Ray to be in a distraught position. He knew that much because it was what he would do, and knowing that, he knew he needed to clear his mind. Adrianna looked slightly taken aback, and Ray instantly felt guilty.

  “My bad, ma,” he said.

  Adrianna and Ray never crossed the boundaries between business and work; but it couldn’t be denied that there was a spark. He had a soft spot for her, and over the time of The Last Kings’ takeover, it had often been tempting to make her wifey. She was everything he needed in a woman, nothing like the women he one-nighted and sent on their way. She was the type of woman that would be a forever thing. But he knew it couldn’t happen; just like she did. Ray respected her business mentality and the fact that she never overstepped her boundaries. But right there, in that moment, the pain Ray saw on her face was almost unbearable. He pulled her into his wide chest and held her there. Adrianna clenched the back of Ray’s suit jacket in her fists and buried her head in his long dreads. She could stay in his arms forever.

  “Promise me that when you find out who did this,” she whispered, “that you’ll bleed them dry.”

  Ray’s face was atop of her soft hair, but his eyes were on the graves. His little brother’ deaths wouldn’t be for nothing, he knew that.

  “I promise.”

  The two separated, and with one last farewell to their brothers, they made their way to the waiting limousine.

  “You OK, ma?” Devynn asked Adrianna when she sat down next to her.

  “No,” Adrianna answered truthfully as the limo pulled off, making its way to Ray’s estate. “And I won’t be until whoever did this is in a fuckin’ body bag.”

  Everyone but Mocha nodded in agreement. Instead, she turned her head to look out the window.

  “Where’s Tyler?” Sadie asked her cousin, hoping he knew.

  She’d called him a few times since they parted ways after touching down back in Detroit but received no answer or callback. Before Jamaica, she and Tyler didn’t really talk like that, but she knew he wouldn’t just automatically switch back into that mind state. Not after everything. She knew he was going to get Marie, but no one had heard from her either. She was surprised Ray wasn’t livid when he didn’t show up for D and Amann’s funeral, but he said his man just didn’t do funerals. That would be understandable, had it not been for the fact that Sadie saw the look on his face when Devynn delivered the news. Something was wrong; she could feel it in her gut. Ray’s phone rang before he could give her an answer.

  “Hello . . . This is him.” Everyone in the back of the limo watched Ray’s face drop even more than it had already been. There was a long pause as he listened. “He’s alive? OK. Thank you.”

  Sadie was too afraid to ask him what was just said over the phone once the call was disconnected.

  “What happened, Ray?” Devynn asked forcefully.

  “They found Tyler’s body this morning.” Ray’s lips moved, but every other feature was frozen in place. “Six bullet holes; one to the head.
They got him in an induced coma.”

  He sucked his lips in and nodded his head. His best friend and his right-hand man. Whoever was behind the hits on The Last Kings had hit the wrong man. Sadie let out a small cry, and tears filled her eyes.

  “One by one, they’re killing us off,” Devynn spoke in a low tone. “Who the fuck is doing this shit?”

  No one spoke because no one had an answer. The only thought going through Sadie’s mind was that she needed to get to the hospital Tyler was at. She needed to see him. The fact that he was still alive said nothing about how much longer he had to live. Any thoughts of Marie and her whereabouts fled her mind. All she cared about was him.

  “Take me to the hospital,” she called to Pierre.

  “No,” Ray said forcefully. He was taking charge. “Pierre, I want you to get Sadie, Mocha, and Devynn to my house. Adrianna, you come with me to the hospital.”

  “No!” Sadie screamed. “Fuck that shit! I have to see him, Ray. He needs me right now.”

  Adrianna looked into Sadie’s tearstained, longing eyes and knew what she’d known since the beginning of The Last Kings. She loved Tyler, more than anything. After losing two of the loves of her life, she knew how unbearable the pain was, and the fact that she never got to say good-bye pushed the knife even further into her heart. Sadie had that chance if Tyler didn’t make it, but she could tell that Ray’s word was final.

  “Sadie, shut the fuck up and listen to me.” Ray raised his voice at Sadie, seeing her once again as his little cousin that he had to protect instead of his business partner. “That’s three down! The safest place for all of you is my house. It’s not negotiable.”

  Sadie knew she could argue and fight all she wanted, but Ray would make sure she got out of the car at the house, especially once she knew that Devynn would be given orders to not let her leave. Her heart was breaking all over again. She didn’t want to lose Tyler right when she got him.