The Last Kings

by C. N. Phillips

  “Please,” she whispered to her cousin. She knew he didn’t understand, nor could she make him understand, but she had to go to that hospital.

  Even though Ray knew Sadie cared about Tyler, his take on the matter at hand never altered. Niggas were going to war on him, and he had to make sure the ones he had left on his team were taken care of.

  “No,” he said finally. “I’ll see you when I leave the hospital.”

  When they got to Ray’s estate, he gave Sadie a hug and kissed her on the cheek. He did the same to Mocha, but she pulled away slightly. Ray and Adrianna switched to his Hummer and prepared to be en route to the hospital.

  “Dev, make sure no one gets in . . . or out. And your guns . . . Make sure the safety is off ’em. I got niggas at the gate armed with orders to dead any unknown face. Be easy and I’m going to get at y’all in a minute.”

  Devynn nodded at her orders in the rounded driveway in front of Ray’s huge brick estate. She looked back and saw Maria opening the door for Mocha and Sadie and turned back to him.

  “You should let her go, Ray,” she told him. “She loves him.”

  Ray nodded. “I know,” he admitted.

  He knew about everything. Ever since Sadie hit age eighteen, he noticed her budding infatuation with his right-hand man. He also noticed how Tyler’s eyes lit up whenever Sadie entered the room. He had long since given them his blessing, but he knew that it would be up to them if they wanted to pursue it any further. Tyler was the only man that would be able to handle Sadie and take care of her the way only a boss could. He was the only man Ray trusted with her heart. That knowledge was the main reason why he would not allow Sadie to go see Tyler in the state he was in.

  “I’ll see y’all after I see what’s up with my mans,” Ray said and shook Devynn’s hand like he would a nigga because that’s how she preferred to be treated.

  Devynn said one last good-bye to Adrianna and watched them drive away until they were completely out of sight.

  Chapter 24

  After Maria made dinner and we all had eaten, everyone ventured off into separate parts of the house. Devynn tried to make small talk with me, but Tyler was the only thing on my mind. I texted Ray and told him to call me as soon as he got there with Tyler’s stats and the doctors’ diagnosis. I lay posted in my window seat overlooking the view before I tired of that. I needed to take a long, hot bath to ease my mind. Dropping my pistol on my dresser, I headed for my bathroom. While running my bathwater, I heard the door to my room open and shut.

  “You OK, Say?” I heard the familiar voice of Mocha ask.

  I turned and looked at her and shook my head.

  “Shit wasn’t supposed to be like this, Mo,” I said, still not able to believe D and Amann were gone, even though I’d seen them both in their caskets. “Kings don’t die.”

  Mocha said nothing. She just came in and sat on the toilet.

  “Niggas just popping up out of nowhere killing muhfuckas. We have never had bad business with anyone since the beginning, Mo, you know this. Pussy niggas can’t even show who they are. I swear on my soul, for every bullet in Tyler’s body, I’ma put in that nigga’s dick. On God,” I was going on a rant; I had to let it all out. “Kings. Don’t. Fucking. Die. D and Amann were Kings, nigga, and that means they’ll live on through me, you—shit, all of us. Fuck the bullshit; this shit ends tonight.”

  I finally took a breath and saw Mocha sitting with her eyes closed. Her long hair fell in front of her face, and her shoulders were hunched. She was shaking like she was crying, but I saw no tears. I went over to her and held her, knowing that she needed me.

  “It’s OK, Mo, we’re going to get these niggas,” I said into her hair.

  She nodded her head and pushed me off of her. She then stood up and began to walk out of the bathroom door. Her back to me, she stopped midstride.

  “I’m so sorry, Say,” she said, and before I could ask her why, she ran out of the room.

  I stared at the bathroom door for a second before I closed it. No one was in their right state of mind at that point. But I knew one thing for sure . . . We needed to get in it. We were all we had left, and an army needed their generals to be strong. I refused to lose my fuckin’ city. I checked my phone to see if I had any message from Ray but saw nothing, so I knelt down to test the temperature of the water with my hand. Under me, I heard a loud thud, but I figured it was just Maria bustling around. I knew no one could ever make it past Ray’s security. Then the door behind me opened, and I heard Mocha reenter the bathroom.

  “What did Maria drop, Mo?” I asked her, and no sooner were the words out of my mouth did I hear gunfire from downstairs.

  I jumped up to reach for my pistol. I knew that whoever it was, was there to try to finish the job that they started.

  “Mocha—” I started as I swiveled around to tell her to follow me—but the person standing behind me wasn’t Mocha. My heart dropped as I recognized the man behind me, and I dropped my gun.

  “Not quite,” the tall man said and smiled the evil smile I remembered like it was yesterday.

  “N-no,” I barely whispered. “You’re dead!”

  “Once again, not quite,” the man said, and before I could do or say anything else, the butt of his gun came crashing into my temple, causing me to fall and hit my head on the edge of the tub.

  I heard laughter and felt pain soar through my body just before everything went black.

  Chapter 25

  Ray and Adrianna rushed through the hospital doors to get to the room Tyler was in. At first, Ray was relieved to know that he was still alive, but once he saw him in his hospital bed, grief overwhelmed him. He went and sat in the chair beside him and listened to the light beeps of the machine he was strapped into. Adrianna stood back, allowing Ray time with his best friend. The top of Tyler’s head was bandaged and so was the majority of his body. She knew only a true soldier could take six bullets and live to tell the tale—hopefully.

  Ray clenched his fists while he looked over Tyler. His eyes were shut, and he was resting peacefully. When he asked the doctor what was the extent of Tyler’s head injury, he received some good news. The bullet never penetrated his brain, and they were able to remove it from where it was embedded in his skull. The bad news was that Ray didn’t know how he was going to tell him that Marie was missing.

  “I always said you were hardheaded, fam.” Ray shook his head at how fortunate Tyler was. He knew it was pure luck. No man would shoot another man that many times if he wasn’t shooting to kill. “Don’t trip though, bro, I got niggas out looking for the muhfuckas who did this to you, D, and Amann. Nobody is going to eat until I got the muhfuckas’ hearts in my hands!”

  Adrianna listened to the words and felt the power in them. She was in tune with every word and went to Ray and clasped his hand in hers. Tyler must have felt them too because his eyebrows furrowed, and he let out a low groan as he came out of his coma. His eyes opened a slit as he tried to focus on them, but couldn’t, and they shut once more. Ray thought he was out again, but then Tyler’s mouth moved like he was speaking, but no words came out.

  “Tyler,” Adrianna said softly at his futile attempt to speak. “You need to rest. You have some pretty serious injuries.”

  Tyler ignored her and still tried to talk.

  “Alanna,” he kept repeating in a gurgled voice. “For Alanna.”

  “Alanna?” Adrianna whispered to Ray. “Who’s Alanna?”

  Ray shrugged and tried to listen more intently to what his mans was saying.

  “Fram Atlanna,” Tyler tried again eyes, clenched shut.

  “Fram Atlanna?” Ray repeated. “From Atlanta! Ty, nigga, what you saying, man?”

  Ray hoped Tyler would be able to muster more, and he leaned forward to ensure that he missed nothing. Tyler took a lot of deep breaths in between his words, but what he had to say was important, even though he was pushing himself and using all of his nonexistent energy.

  “Took Marie. From Atlanta
. . . business. Khiron,” Tyler was able to get out before his monitor started going crazy, and he started coughing up blood.

  An array of doctors and nurses rushed in to tend to him. Ray and Adrianna were ushered from the room, but Ray had heard all that he needed to hear. Khiron was behind all of it. He should have known, remembering Khiron’s last words to him. Ray knew he must have been holding Marie hostage or something. Her body should have turned up already if she was dead. But why? Marie had never been a part of their operation, Tyler made sure of that. But what Ray knew was that if she was indeed still alive, her life was on a countdown, and Ray had to find her before her time was up. One thing Ray should have kept in mind after the meeting with Khiron was never underestimate your opponents.

  Never.

  Now that he knew it was Khiron, he thought back to the meeting at Amore. He kept seeing Khiron’s eyes shift downward. He thought that he was just observing his surroundings, but when he thought more in-depth about it, from Khiron’s seat, he had the perfect view of the entrance to the underground club. Also, as soon as Khiron left, D and Amann made the drop-off. If he was the one who set up the hit at Lace, then that meant his people saw D and Amann remove the money being harbored there, and that meant he watched them take it to Amore. Ray was sure Khiron was already mad about the whole denial of business thing, which made Amann and D the perfect targets, their affiliation to The Last Kings branded proudly on their arms. Ray almost choked on his air while his thoughts spiraled inside of his head. How could he have been so naïve? The nigga was coming at their necks. He wanted the city, but he could only have it over Ray’s dead body . . . and Ray didn’t plan on dying.

  “I need to get to Amore,” Ray said, turning to walk down the long hallway in the hospital. “This nigga is dead. Stay here with Tyler and keep me posted.”

  “Khiron . . . Khiron . . . Khiron!” Adrianna repeated to herself until she remembered where she’d heard that name from.

  Before he went to Jamaica, she remembered Tyler talking to somebody with that name from Atlanta and setting up a meeting with Ray. Ray didn’t put him on, so that was a reason to be bitter—but to start a war? There had to be more to it.

  “Ray, wait!” she yelled and ran after him. “Don’t do anything stupid. Please.”

  Ray turned on his heels and looked down at her. “This nigga is going to pay, ma,” Ray told her, rage in his eyes. “Two of my bros are dead, and this nigga is somewhere prancing around my muhfuckin’ city making his claim! I’ma show this nigga kings don’t fuckin’ die. Say it!”

  “Kings don’t die,” she said up at him. “We live on forever. I’m coming with you, Ray. You need me.”

  “Nah, ma.” Ray grabbed her hands. “Hold it down here for me, a’ight?”

  Before Adrianna could protest, Ray’s lips were on hers. Their tongues tasted each other for the first time, and neither one wanted to let go. Their embrace was one so precious that when Ray finally let her go, Adrianna had tears in her eyes.

  “Promise me I’ll see you again,” she said.

  Ray chuckled. “I promise,” he smiled down at her. “And when I come back, you’re going to have to pack your bags because we’re going away for a while.”

  In light of everything going on, Adrianna somehow reached inside and pulled a smile out.

  “Here,” she reached under her skirt and handed Ray her chrome 9-mm pistol. “I want one of my bullets in that muhfucka.”

  Ray nodded his head and instead of saying good-bye, he planted a kiss on her forehead and left her standing alone in the hallway. Adrianna then turned back to the hospital room that Tyler was in. She stayed outside of the room and looked in through the window, watching the nurses get Tyler situated once more. His eyes opened for a brief second and locked on hers before they put him under again. Her eyes fell on her Last Kings tattoo on her foot, and she nodded her head.

  “Hang in there, Ty,” she whispered. “Kings don’t die.”

  Inside of her Chanel clutch, she felt her cell phone vibrating. Seeing it was Devynn, she answered it immediately.

  “Hello?” she answered.

  “So-somebody set us up!” Devynn choked into the phone.

  “What? Where are you?” Adrianna’s heart froze over, and she listened to Devynn cough into the phone.

  “I got away, but Mocha and Sadie were taken, yo,” Devynn struggled to get out. “Ray’s guards turned A. Them niggas set us up! They let the niggas walk right in.”

  Adrianna went into a Spanish rant, cursing everyone walking the earth at that moment.

  “Bitch, English! They blasted Maria as soon as she opened the door, and I was next,” Devynn informed her. “If I ain’t have on my vest, I’d be dead too. Where’s Ray? Let that nigga know his team ain’t loyal no more.”

  Ray . . . Adrianna forgot all about him. She took off in the direction he’d gone, phone still on her ear listening to Devynn.

  “It was Khiron!” Adrianna told Devynn while looking frantically around the hospital for Ray. She hopped on the elevator to hopefully catch him in the parking lot.

  “That nigga from Atlanta?” Devynn asked. “Fuck! I told Tyler not to welcome that bitch into the city!”

  Adrianna finally reached the hospital parking lot but had no luck in finding Ray.

  “Shit!” she yelled out. “Where you at, Dev?”

  “I took one of Ray’s cars. I’m on my way to the hospital. Almost there now.”

  “I’m in the parking lot. Hurry up. We have to get to Amore!”

  Chapter 26

  The sound of static aroused me. My eyes opened, but everything around me was a blur. I could slightly see a TV on, but nothing was on the screen but a piece of paper. I didn’t move until my vision came in all the way, and when it did, I noticed all familiar surroundings. I was lying down on a soft twin bed in a tank top and a pair of shorts. There was no light on in the room but a little ray beamed through a window above my head. Looking around, I saw all of my stuffed animals atop a chestnut dresser. It was a sight I saw every day in the morning when I woke up at . . . Grandma Rae’s house! I jumped out of the bed but was floored almost the same exact second. The pain I felt in my head was unbearable, but I still crawled to the bedroom door. There was light seeping into the room from under the door, but I saw no shadows or heard no form of life. I struggled to my feet and tried to snatch the door open. No luck. It was locked from the other side.

  “What’s happening?” I said aloud to myself backing away from the door. “Grandma Rae? Grandma Rae!” I called.

  As I backed away from the door, my foot got caught on something, and I fell backward with a loud thud. My hands felt around for the cause of my fall, and I shuddered when they found what they were looking for. I did something I didn’t know I was capable of doing. I screamed. I screamed a bloodcurdling scream because my hands recognized the cold, clammy face they were placed on. Eyes, lips, and nose . . . When my hands reached the familiar texture of hair and felt that the back of the head was completely gone—I lost it.

  “No! No! No!” I cried and clutched my grandmother’s stiff body. “I’m so sorry, Grandma Rae. I love you. I’m so sorry!”

  I didn’t care that her body was cold and lifeless or that I was lying in a pool of blood. I lay there for what seemed like forever crying. When I finally did look up, my eyes, blurry once again from crying, fell on the television. I didn’t notice until then that there was a note stuck to it. Arms shaking, I let my grandma’s body go and stood to my feet. I flipped on the light switch in the room, but instantly wished I hadn’t. Blood was splattered all over the wall in my old room, letting me know it was where my grandmother’s murder was committed. I looked down at my clothes and saw blood there too. I’d seen many dead bodies in the past year; I even helped add to them, but seeing my grandmother’s body brought on a strong urge to vomit. My heart broke inside of my chest, and I couldn’t do anything but turn my head toward the television. I took a deep breath and stepped over Grandma Rae’s body. I c
rept to the television, keeping an eye on the door, half-expecting whoever was keeping me there to burst through and kill me next. No one did. I snatched the note off of the TV screen, unfolded it, and looked blankly at the tiny words staring back at me.

  Press Play.

  I glanced up at the VCR that sat atop the television and saw that a little green light was shining, indicating that it was powered on. Trembling at what I was about to witness, my finger found its way to the play button and applied a tiny amount of pressure. The screen changed from static to footage of a bedroom. The camera appeared to be perched on someone’s bedroom dresser pointing at a king-sized bed. The lights in the room were dimmed, but there was something vaguely familiar about the room. My stomach was slowly dropping as I tried to make sense of what I was seeing on the screen. The room was clearly a large one, but I could only see what the camera showed me. I couldn’t see the door to the room, but I heard it open and shut. What I heard next was enough to twist my falling stomach into knots.

  “Please stop! I don’t want it,” a young girl’s voice pleaded.

  She began backing up unknowingly into the view of the camera wearing only a nightgown. She was brown skinned. Her hair, long and straight, hung disheveled from her head. She was average height, and although she had the curves of a grown woman, she couldn’t have been more than fourteen. She turned facing the camera as a man entered the view as well. The sharpness in her eyes was clouded by the tears dripping down the high cheekbones on her pretty face. I gasped as I stared at myself in disbelief—floored at the sickening realization that Nino had filmed the things he did to me . . . and I never knew.

  It was like reliving a nightmare . . . I didn’t feel like I was watching it; I felt like I was there all over again . . .

  “Nino, please don’t!” I begged my mother’s man in a meek voice. “I do everything you ask me to. Just don’t hurt me anymore.”