Threefold: Part 1

by Shanicka White

  “NIA.”

  “Yeah? What did you say?”

  “Damn, is you high?”

  “What the hell do you want?”

  “Watch that tone muhfucka”, he inhaled and exhaled on what I knew was a wood filled with OG.

  “You got the nerve to be mad at me? Where’s my money?” He asked.

  “It’s been two years and you pop back in the city with a price on your head to ask me for that now?” I asked.

  “What you mean, now? You thought a million dollar debt was gonna’ erase with time? I’m supposed to let you run off into the sunset with your rich husband and pretend like you ain't help orchestrate a hit on my life?”

  I rolled my eyes, “It’s always drama with you, how would I be a part of that Free?”

  Free

  I should have killed this bitch when I had the chance. That night I walked in the restaurant bathroom and saw her standing at the mirror, those were my intentions. I was there handling different business and saw her by pure coincidence, the opportunity was too perfect. I was always strapped, a beretta with a silencer at the end was tucked in my black jeans. I could have easily painted the walls with her brains and left without even being noticed but fuck, old habits die hard. I distracted her at first, kissing down her neck, hitting her spot but as I reached for the gun she pushed that ass on me and in the mirror she had that look on her face, it always did something to me. It was a look letting me know that she needed me, like she always did and there was a point in time where I needed her more than anything. Besides, it had been three whole months since I’d even smelled some pussy, with all the chaos in my life time for women is an expense I just can’t afford. And she was so fucking wet, it was like her pussy said ‘welcome home’ as soon as I slid in. My emotions and my dick got the best of me, like they always did with her.

  Shit, I ain’t gon’ lie, I used to be all the way in with this girl, riding with shorty 100%, she could get whatever from me. During our five years together, marriage often crossed my mind but something held me back. Whatever the reason, my intuition was right. Nia had cut me like nobody ever had and never will again. Some years back me and my crew ran drugs and did a whole bunch of other illegal shit for a well-feared kingpin named Larry. My crew, Slime, Raheem and Draco were basically my only family. I met each one of them at a different point in my childhood and each time I was living in a different foster home. Like me, they were also in the system and struggling to survive it. We looked out for each other, we kept each other alive and when the time came we all dived headfirst in the drug game and made hella money together. About a year after we graduated high school, Larry got involved in some type of drug war and ended up losing. I’d never forget the man who murdered him and took his spot actually showed up to the funeral and nobody had the balls to touch him or his people. He came over and introduced himself to me and my crew, already knowing who we were.

  “I’m Chino. You four can either work for me now, basically doing everything you been doing while making double the profit or you could opt out today and I’ll leave you alone. But if you do that, I bet not ever catch you moving weight in this state for nobody else or I’ll take that move as blatant disrespect and I have no tolerance for disrespect. None”.

  Chino was a short, mean looking muhfucka, he had tattoos only on one side of his face and they all rep’d his Puerto Rican heritage or his gang. With our old boss now dead, I took that as a sign to finally get out the drug dealing life and focus back on college, I had been accepted to UIC fresh from high school but after completing two years I lost focus and drive and dropped out. My money making habit was a distraction, I thought maybe then was the time to go back and finish my degree in psychology. Plus, Nia had been on my back about going legit for that past year and I was finally on the same page but my crew convinced me to do one more year in the game. With as much money as Chino was offering I could stack up enough where me and her wouldn’t have to worry about shit for a minute so I took him up on the offer. For a while things were going smooth, in only seven months I put away half a mill, me and my girl was taking trips damn near every month and I was financially comfortable and worry free. But all that changed in one night, all of our stash houses, every single one of them got robbed. Money, drugs, jewelry, all gone. It made no sense, me and my brothers were all lowkey, none of us were flashy or bragging about shit and we never brought a single soul to the spots, not even Chino knew where we stashed his own product. Plus the spots weren’t even near each other, we had a place up north, one on the southside, over east and out west. How could somebody know the exact location of every single one? It only made sense that it was an inside job, someone wanted to set us up. When Chino first transitioned us into his crew the other members accepted us for the most part except this one Dominican muhfucka named Kiyon, never knew what his issue was with us but the muhfucka had one so we automatically suspected him. Two days after the robberies we caught this fool at the strip joint, throwing $50’s and $100’s in the air like it was nothing to him. We walked over and straight up asked him if he was the one behind everything and he laughed in our faces.

  “Man, y’all look like four stud bitches, raise y’all young asses up out my face. If I did take y’all shit then what? What you gon’ do, puta? Niggah, get out my face?” His people start laughing in our face too.

  WHACK!

  Slime hit Kiyon so hard in the face he broke his nose, blood was all over his shirt. “Kill these lil’ niggah’s!” Kiyon screamed. Guns came out, shots went off and the innocent club goers stampeded towards the door.

  “Ah fuck!”, in the middle of ducking and firing I heard my boy Slime scream out.

  “You good?” Draco screamed. Slime was holding his stomach and coughing up blood, fire rushed through my veins. I was so angry my boy got hit I came from behind my hiding spot and aimed directly at Kiyon, not giving a fuck who was in the way. Pow!

  All it took was one shot and Kiyon’s body dropped with a hole in his head. My boys handled the other opps and made sure every one of them was laid out before we cleared while I half dragged, half carried Slime to the car. We tried to rush him to the hospital as fast as we could but he died on the way, right in my arms. Man, that shit fucked something up inside of me. Meanwhile Chino got word of what went down, in his eyes almost a million dollars’ worth of his product was missing and one-third of his crew just got gunned down by some lil’ niggah’s he didn’t even know that well. Within two hours we all had a price on our head. We had no choice but to drop Slime’s body at the hospital and then I dipped off to go get the lowkey money and gun stash only I knew about, my crew planned to meet up at a spot outside the city and take off until shit cooled down. I remember blowing Nia’s phone up like crazy on my way, but she wasn’t answering and it was barely midnight so I knew she wasn’t sleep.

  “Bae, call me the fuck back, where are you? If you still out with your friends don’t go back home and if you’re home leave now. Call me”.

  My Camaro was pushing 80 down 91st street while I called this girl back to back, praying Chino hadn’t touched her then out of nowhere a car sped up on the side of me and slammed me off the road, I hit the brakes and swerved so hard my car flipped twice.

  “Uuggh”, I was in and out of conscious, blood was in my eyes and I could feel glass slicing me all over. From the cracked windshield I saw a pair of wheat Timbs walk towards me and snatch open the door, I could feel my body being dragged from the upside down car. “Stupid muthafucka”, a voice said. A single punch to the head made everything fade to black.

  “Helloooo, Free? I’m about to hang up”. Nia’s voice screaming in my ear brought me back to the present.

  “I’m not about to play mind games with you”, I caught myself. “I want my money seven days from now or I’m putting you and yo’ lame ass fiancé in Oak Wood Cemetery”.

  She smirked, “You wouldn’t do that to my mama”.

  “Really? I got 1.1 million reasons saying I would”. I hung up, I
didn’t need to hear anything else from her in the moment, my reminiscing stole my focus and I needed that 100% when I was dealing with her.

  “You want another round?” the bartender came over to my seat at the bar. I tilted the last of the Jack in my glass towards my lips. “I’m good”, I replied.

  I looked back over at the person I was focused on earlier. He leaned in and whispered in the sexy girl’s ear, whatever he said made her smile and lower her hand to his thigh. They kissed intimately, almost like they knew each other on a deeper level. It was a rainy night and I was in a lowkey lounge over east, near 83rd and Jeffrey. They played the R&B oldies, had a pool table that was leaning and a karaoke machine for the drunk and the brave. Which is why I was surprised to see him in here, not only that but looking like it wasn’t his first, second or third time visiting. Suddenly he grabbed his coat from the back of his chair and she grabbed her purse from the table.

  Fuck they going?

  I waited until I saw him and shorty walk out and pass the lounge’s front window before I grabbed up my shit and made an exit.

  It was never my intention to end up keeping tabs on muthafuckin’ Monti Asante but this niggah was interesting. All the money, all the respect, all the pussy, his for the taking and he didn’t know how to handle it. From what I saw in the past three months he lived almost a quadruple lifestyle, his employees in his downtown offices saw a reserved, well put together mogul. His family saw an oriented son devoted to his mother who has a serious reversed Oedipus complex and Nia. Nia saw a man with money that chose her from a coochie platter of other women. In reality, however, Monti was none of that. Once he was done feeding bullshit to his job, family and Nia he saved he best for last, himself. Most nights he made his way to the hoods of Chicago and entertained women in secluded spots, far away from his realities. It was odd as hell, why come to the hood? He could probably pull Halle Berry with the right opportunity but he wanted Keisha from the low end. It was nothing wrong with Keisha but damn, I was having a hard time figuring dude out in general.

  The rain and wind came down hard on my cheap ass umbrella as I moved about 20 feet behind him and the woman in leggings and heels. She held on to him while they crossed the street and I decided to lean on the corner of the nearest building, backing myself away until I wasn’t as obvious and pulled out a rolled wood and sparked it in case I was. Him and shorty laughed in front of his black Benz. He leaned in and kissed her and then removed his umbrella until they were exposed to the rain. She screamed but laugh, moving away to spin around like she was in The fucking Notebook. He laughed and they kissed again then he moved her body back towards the alley behind them, until her back rested on the apartment building right by. When I noticed he was actually unbuttoning her jeans and his I had to catch myself from inhaling on the weed too hard. He grabbed her waist and moved her deeper into the alley until I could only see their silhouette. He wrapped her thick legs around his back and she grabbed the back of his head while they made out. In their shadows I could tell he pulled back and his left arm traveled from her ass to her neck.

  What the fuck?

  I could see something spraying from her neck, it was a steady stream of liquid. When her head dropped to the right and her body went limp I ashed my wood out, moving a little closer. He unwrapped her legs and caught her body before she slid down the building, it was clear that she was unresponsive. He still kissed her though and made out with her lips like she wanted him to, then his head moved towards her neck and caught the stream that was still squirting out her neck. The OG could have been fucking me up at this point but I swear I heard a growl through the loud rain, I watched as he let her body fall further to the ground while still making out with her. She was dead, that’s all I could think. I dropped my umbrella, felt for my baretta in my black sweatpants, pulled it out and swiftly ran across the street, watching as his back was still turned to me. He was feeding on her neck then going back towards her lips to kiss them. Once I made it to the sidewalk and walked closer to their spot in the alley suddenly his head whipped around and his eyes were the color of gold and glowing in the dark. His face was covered in blood and when his mouth growled at me like a Pit Bull defending his food I instantly pulled the trigger on my gun and put a hole in his head. His body dropped onto the girls. As I tried to take in the scene her body started moving under his.

  “NOOOO!” her eyes popped opened and she screamed out. “What’s going on, why did you do this?” she cried out to me.

  Rain poured down on us hard as I looked at her, blood still squirting out her neck. I backed away, for the first time truly terrified of something, I felt like I was in a nightmare.

  “WHAT DID YOU DO?” she looked at me and screamed. By instinct I wanted to put a bullet in her head too but the niggah in me said run so I did. I took off towards my car, got in and peeled off.