Torn by the Code

by Eureka

  When I met up with Karry that night, it would change my life forever. I sat across the table from him and looked him square in the eyes. When he reached under the table, he came up with a Glock 9. This was the type of firepower I loved. He aimed it right at my head. I smiled. He looked confused. “You’re not scared, puta? You’re about to meet your Maker,” he said, laughing with the gun still aimed at my forehead.

  “See, the difference between you and me, you fat, sloppy muthafucka, is the fact that I fear no man.” I laughed at him, staring right down the barrel of his gun as if he said a joke. Just like the archangel he is to me, Flex came behind him and put one right in the back of his head. I watched his body fall like a ton of bricks on the table. Then I walked over and laid a passionate kiss on Flex’s lips.

  “Here, baby, I thought you’d need this,” he said to me as he lifted my prize possession, my double-bladed machete.

  “You know me too well, baby.” I walked over and lifted Karry’s head up from the table. I took the machete and severed his head from his shoulders. “Give me the duffel bag, bae.” He passed me the bag, and I placed the bloody head, along with a few pounds of cocaine, inside of the bag.

  A few days later after the brothers got back and word had spread about their beloved uncle, a bounty was placed on the head of the person who did this. Of course, no one ever came forward. After it died down some, the brothers made good on their word. They called me to their yacht on Lake Michigan. I showed them their uncle’s head. One of the brothers threw it overboard, and the other gave me my new world. I became one of the most powerful bosses Chicago ever saw. My name rang loud in the street. Dutchtress. But to the world, I was Elana Dolvan.

  When I made moves, I took no mercy. I guess that’s because of my mother and crackheaded-ass aunt. I owe all that I am and all I have to Flex. He stood there with me, even when I left to pursue a career and education. He found me and never left my side.

  “Fasten your seat belt. We are about to enter and land in Kingston, Jamaica,” I heard the pilot say over the speakers. I sipped the last of my rum; then I started feeling nervous. A year has passed since I have seen my son. I wondered when I finally lay eyes on him will I be able to look past the fact that he looks so much like Flex? My heart ached for them both. I missed Junior’s little smile and bright gray eyes. And the way he tilted his little head slightly when he would try to get his way. Much like Flex, with his steel-gray eyes and his cocky smile. He always had me in full confidence that he had my back.

  I felt a tear start to well up in the corner of my eye. “Flex, why did you leave me? You said us against we, death before dishonor. Baby, I miss you. I need you,” I spoke aloud as I felt the plane start to descend for our landing. A lone tear cascaded down my cheek.

  “We have landed safely, ma’am. Enjoy your stay on the lovely island of Jamaica. Make sure you take in some of the beautiful sights on your visit.” The pilot was very polite. He made the flight over very pleasant. Being here for a nice visit was the furthest thing from my mind, however. When I get my son to a safe place out of harm’s way, I am going to unleash pure hell on Naheri’s entire family.

  I kissed a necklace that Flex had given me two years ago that read “Forever us against we.” “Be with me, baby. Our son needs me. I love you, Flex.”

  Chapter 32

  All of the Queen’s Horsemen

  “Come on, Flex, man, what we gon’ do with her? Her ass heavy as hell, and trying to get a pregnant bitch on the plane is hard as fuck,” Vell said as he paced the hotel room floor. Knight didn’t say a word. Instead, he focused on Peanut. From the time they were in the basement, he felt something wasn’t right with their longtime friend.

  “What’s wrong, Joe? Why you looking like that?” Peanut asked as he sat on the windowsill.

  I was so into Netta, and how much she resembled my beloved Dutch, I hadn’t noticed Peanut acting nervously.

  In fact, the only one who paid full attention was Knight. “Man, nothing, man. I’m just trying to piece some shit together.”

  “I feel you, man. We got to be out of here. I’m ready to get back to my fam, my city, the Chi,” he said with a little too much eagerness for Knight. Vell stopped pacing the floor long enough to catch the expression that adorned Knight’s face. In his mind, something wasn’t right with the way Peanut had been acting. If they weren’t in a rush to get out of that death trap saving Flex, he would have called Peanut out on it. The one thing Vell hated the most was a disloyal muthafucka.

  Vell walked over and stood close to Peanut. He noticed a light blinking from the side of his pocket. Vell looked over at Knight, who then looked over at me. I then took notice of the building tension in the room. Netta lay unconscious on the bed. Her stomach moved up and down as the baby switched its position. I was relieved we hadn’t hurt her baby. I nodded toward Knight. “Aye, Joe, let me step on this balcony to get some air and call Polu. Let that nigga know to get shit ready.” Knight nodded his head but never took his eye off of Peanut. Vell caught the hint and turned his attention back to the light inside of Peanut’s pocket. He wanted to know what that was and where it was coming from because Peanut had his cell phone in his hand already. The light blinked faster and faster.

  I stepped onto the balcony and took a deep breath. The fresh air and cool breeze were welcoming to me. I started reminiscing on the times Elana and I came to the island. It was supposed to be business, but before it was all done, we turned it into pleasure. Every time I thought of her, my heart ached. I would touch my chest and remember what those days meant to both of us.

  The way I found out about her death was too much for me to take. I vowed then that I would find my son, our son, and make Naheri pay for what he did. He took her from me. He killed her. I couldn’t believe she was gone. I thought back to the time when Dutch and I danced on the beach to Sean Paul’s “Still in Love” which played softly on my iPod. “I’m still in love with you, boy . . . oo.” It felt like she was standing right in front of me as I remembered her singing to me that day. “Damn, I miss you, baby girl. Until we meet again, save me a seat in heaven, or in our case, throw some ribs on the flames for me.”

  I stood in my thoughts for a little while longer—until a loud crashing noise caught my attention. I turned around to see Knight picking Peanut up by the throat and slamming him on the floor as Vell held Netta down.

  “Aye, what the fuck you doin’, Knight? What the fuck’s goin’ on?” I yelled as I ran inside from the balcony. Vell had his hand covering Netta’s mouth. “What the fuck! Vell, man, what the hell happened?” I asked again confused and shocked.

  “This mutha . . . This nigga is a fuckin’ rat, Flex. He set us up,” Knight said breathing hard as he tightened his grip on Peanut’s throat.

  “Ma-an, I-I don’t know what you talkin’ about. I ain’t no rat, nigga. Let me go,” Peanut said as he struggled to break from the hold Knight had on him.

  “Bitch, if you scream or even say a syllable loud, I’ma snap your fuckin’ neck,” Vell said as he slowly moved his hand from Netta’s mouth.

  “Man, this nigga foul, Flex. He has been workin’ with that nigga’s brother for the longest. That’s why when he came to you about the whereabouts of Junior, it was all a setup,” Vell said with sadness, then anger in his voice as he looked over at Peanut.

  “Flex, it’s true, man. Look at what this nigga had on him,” Knight said as he passed me a small device.

  “Look at it. It’s a GPS. This nigga is leading them right to us. I’m guessing we got a few minutes before shit gets real. When ole girl came to, she looked at him and called him Maurice. That’s this nigga government.” Knight was way past angry. If I wasn’t mistaken, I could have sworn I saw a tear fall on his cheek.

  “This some fucked-up foul shit, Peanut man. We go back to the cradle. How could you, man? Why?” Vell was so angry he charged toward Peanut as his feet dangled from the floor.

  I couldn’t believe everything. I took the GPS device and smas
hed it to the floor and stomped it. Then I walked over to Knight. “Let him go, man. Let him go!” I bellowed. Knight looked at me with a mean scowl on his face. “Bro, I got this. Let him go.” He took one more look at Peanut and dropped him. Peanut fell to the floor gasping for air and holding his throat.

  “Flex, man, they lyin’, I swear. Man, fam, we been down like four flat tires for life. Why would I go against the family, man? Come on,” he said as he pleaded his case. Knight rushed over before I could stop him and kicked Peanut right in the face. Trying to pull Knight back was like trying to stop a charging bull.

  “Fuck you mean, nigga. Fuck you mean? I trusted you; we trusted you. You lyin’-ass, bitch-made-ass nigga.” Knight tried to get one more good kick in. I pulled him back with so much force he almost flew through the bathroom door.

  “Enough! I said I got this.” I watched Vell make a motion toward Peanut. “Whoodie, I got this.” I calmly walked over to Peanut and helped him up from the floor. Then I looked back at Netta. The cold stare I gave her let her know that by all means, she and her unborn child will die if she doesn’t tell the truth. “Do you know him?” I asked her.

  She lowered her head. “Yes,” she said in a low tone.

  “Speak up, shorty. I wanna make sure I heard you correctly. Do you know this nigga?”

  “Yes, I know him.”

  I chuckled lightly. Inside I was fucked up. Peanut was my li’l nigga from the hood. I practically raised him, fed that li’l nigga, and taught him the business. I didn’t give him; he earned. I always go by the code if you give a person food they will eat for that day, but if you teach them to hunt, they will eat for a lifetime. I looked him in the eyes. I wanted him to see the pain and pleasure I will soon be having.

  “Flex, that bitch lyin’, I swea—” I placed my hand over his mouth.

  “Go ahead, sweetheart, tell us where you know him from.”

  She cleared her throat, then looked over at Peanut who had pleading eyes begging silence. She turned toward me. “I know him from my brother-in-law Kainmen. Last year when we all took a trip to Chicago, I was in the car when he and another guy met with Kainmen and my husband, Naheri. I didn’t notice him at the time until I heard someone mention the name Dutchtress. That made me take notice because I’d heard my husband mumble this very name in his sleep. When Naheri and I were back at the hotel, he told me everything. Even told me the names of the men they’d met with. I watched him that night put an envelope up in a safe. He told me if anything ever happened to him, give it to the police. He said he didn’t trust the guys.” She looked over at Peanut who was now sitting in a chair as Vell towered over him.

  “Go on, finish,” Knight bellowed across the room in a tone that could almost shake glass.

  Netta nervously rubbed her hands together and continued to tell us everything.

  “The fact that he met with this nigga and sold you out, us out . . . Come on, Flex, let me kill this disloyal-ass nigga right here,” Vell said as he pulled his gun from his side.

  “Naw, man, not right now. We ain’t got that much time if this shit is true. That GPS shit got them muthafuckas on us like white on rice. So we gotta wrap this shit up.”

  I turned back toward Netta. “Please, sweetheart, continue.” I wanted her to trust me, and I wanted to make her feel at ease.

  “When Naheri told me that his son’s mother died in a fire, he said you were with her, and the one who set it was you. So, he went on a search to find out if you were, in fact, dead. That’s when he came across your brother over there. Then Kainmen, Naheri’s brother, got involved and found out about you still being alive and . . .”

  “And what? Go ahead and finish.” As she opened her lips to speak, we heard a loud booming sound down the hall.

  Vell rushed to the door and opened it to peek out. He quickly closed it. “Come on, let’s get the fuck outta here. The nigga down the hall at the wrong room,” Vell said as he rushed over to the balcony. The good thing about the room was we were not too far up so climbing down was not as hard for me, Knight, or Vell. But getting Netta down and Peanut would be the hard part. I wasn’t done with Peanut. I wanted to get some more answers from him before I put his ass down for an eternal nap.

  “Get up, nigga, let’s go.” I snatched Peanut up from the chair. Then I rushed Netta over to the balcony. We tied sheets together quickly and used them as a rope. Knight took Netta on his back and climbed down first. Vell was next; then I forced Peanut down before me. By the time we got to the ground, I heard a blast from up in the room. I rushed over to a cab, and we all got in.

  “Where the fuck you supposed to pick up your money, you bitch-ass nigga?” I asked Peanut as he sat scared in the middle of Knight and Vell. I sat Netta close to me. Peanut’s head hung in shame.

  “At the airport,” he said in a low voice. “Dude got a private plane waiting for me to get back to the Chi.” He lowered his eyes toward the cab floor. I looked at him with nothing but disgust and hate in my heart. The man I thought of as a brother turned out to be a foe. “I should have listened to Dutch when she tried to warn me about you when you were coming up in the ranks. She always told me to keep an eye out on you. ‘The worst thing you can do is let a hungry dog know where you keep your food,’ she would always say. But I stood up for you. Hell, we all did, and this is how you repay us.” Knight sat quietly looking out the window. Vell kept a mean scowl on his face as he focused his attention solely on Peanut.

  “I wanna know one thing. Who was this other muthafucka who betrayed us?” Knight asked, never taking his attention from the window. The stern tone he used had Peanut scared to speak.

  I looked at him. “Yeah, Peanut, who is it? I mean, since the cat’s out of the bag and shit, you already know how this shit roll. ‘Honor the family, death before dishonor.’ Remember? That shit used to mean something to niggas. Now it’s all about self. Me against we, that’s how muthafuckas like you get down now.” I was past mad.

  After this last year, almost losing my life and losing the love of my life, and our son, the last piece I have left of her all taken from me, I wanted to reach out and blow this nigga’s brains across the backseat of this car.

  “Man, what the fuck would y’all have done in my place? Money was low, and the streets was dry. I was barely eatin’. I mean, me, my moms, and my girl with my shorty on the way . . . Damn, Joe, y’all tell me y’all wouldn’t have went for the money?” Peanut asked in his defense.

  Knight slowly turned his head from the window to face Peanut. “Nigga, you mean to tell me you put money over family? For real? Fool, when your ass was breaking and had nothing to call your own, family, this family, fed you and yours. When your moms sat out over on Sixty-third and Laflin, and you called me at 1:00 a.m. to help, nigga, I got up out of some good pussy to help. Better yet, when them Mexicans over on Forty-third and Honore offered niggas ten stacks for your head, we went to war for you and dared any nigga to touch a hair on top of your fuckin’ head. I saved you; I made you; I gave you—bitch.” Knight reared up and beat on his chest with every word. This touched him far worse than it did us. I didn’t know about the hit that was on Peanut’s head.

  “Look, man, the way I see it, y’all, my so-called fam, gon’ kill me anyway. So what I did that shit? If that bitch Dutchtress hadn’t killed my uncle and started all of this shit, maybe I would have done shit different. I was gonna make sure I stomped on that bitch grave when I got back to the Chi. Oh well, I guess I will have the bitch suck on my balls while we both burning in hell.”

  I lunged over before anyone could react and started beating him with the butt of my gun. The muthafucka had the nerve to speak of my love like that. The one who made sure his disloyal ass was fed and protected. I beat him until he was unconscious. In my rage, Netta cowered over in the corner. Knight looked on, and Vell grit his teeth.

  “Kill that nigga,” Vell said aloud. I stopped when the cabdriver shouted from the front of the car.

  “Ya no do dis, er, not in mi ride.�
�� He started to pull his cab over to the curb. “Get out, and get out of mi ride. Get—”

  I placed the gun directly up to his nose. “You really want to do that?”

  The cabdriver looked down the barrel in fear. “No . . . No.”

  “Good. Keep driving.” I put the gun back down as Peanut’s blood trickled down my hand.

  Knight looked at Peanut’s unconscious body. “I should have let them niggas smoke his ass.”

  “It’s all good. We got something for this fool,” Vell said as he shoved an unconscious Peanut to the floor of the car and put his foot on his back. Netta slowly repositioned herself back in her seat. Fear was etched all over her face.

  “Where to now? Until this fool regains consciousness, we don’t know which airstrip the plane is at,” Knight spoke as he lit up a Black & Mild cigar.

  “Hey, yo, driver, what you know about Mona Red?”

  He looked through the rearview mirror, and his eyes were full of terror. “She runs the brothel across town.”

  “Good. Take us there.” I sat back in the seat with my eyes trained on the driver and Netta at the same time.

  Chapter 33

  Long Live the Queen

  Dutchtress

  I exited the plane with my Versace wide-rimmed shades over my eyes. I felt something in the air. I didn’t know if it was because of the fresh island breeze or the bright blue sky. All I knew was it felt different. I had been so down in my spirit for the longest of times, but being this close to my son restored my hope. I envisioned several thousand ways I was gonna kill Naheri the whole trip over.

  “Ma’am, can mi take yo’ bags?” an attendant asked me as I stepped into the carport area.