Chapter 5
Dominic
Tupac blasted in my ear, making the day go by much smoother.
I was looking forward to going home for the evening and chilling in front of the TV.
The last few days had been bananas between the fight with Chrome and me and the one that jumped off at Black Diamonds.
I needed to stay out of trouble and keep a cool head with Chopper’s threat about fines and suspension hanging over my head.
I thought back to Charly and the tension between my brother and her, and I wondered what that was all about. I hated that he’d gotten involved with her while I was locked down. When I first returned home and learned about that, it messed my head up.
Everyone had wanted to tell me before, but I refused any visitors and had already told them that I didn’t want any mail.
When my mail arrived, the prison knew to return it to the sender because I wasn’t accepting any.
The only person I spoke to while I was there was my ex-girlfriend, Tracy.
I wouldn’t even let her visit me. But she kept money on my books, so I figured it was no biggie to stay in touch with her.
It wasn’t like I was expecting her faithfulness.
I couldn’t count on that when I was out, let alone while I was locked down.
Besides, we weren’t even a thing anymore when I went inside, just friends with benefits.
My parents held a big dinner for me when I got out, and that was when I learned that my brother was kicking it with my best friend. What could I say? I’d told her that I didn’t want her like that, and I had told him that I would never get with her like that.
It wasn’t that I didn’t have feelings for Charly though. I loved that girl with my whole being, but I would sacrifice for her every time just to keep her heart, mind, and life safe. Rocking with a nigga like me, who trouble followed wherever he went, wasn’t good for a girl like her.
Charly was tough, but I knew that I lived life on the edge, and I never wanted her to get caught up in that. She was bright, beautiful, and witty. She had too much potential to get caught up with the likes of me.
I had always been the bad seed of the family, always getting in fights, getting suspended, mouthing off to the authorities, and barely staying out of juvenile as a kid. My father had made a name for himself in the streets, and that name carried weight. He had cops on his payroll.
And while he didn’t want any of us to follow in his footsteps, because he had better plans for us, I wanted to be exactly like him, from securing and selling personal protection for clients in need of defending themselves to street pharmaceuticals, to procuring unsecured vehicles and distributing their parts to willing buyers.
I did it all, just at a much lower level than he did.
I aimed to persuade my father that I could do what he did and that he needed to groom me to take over his business.
But he wanted all his sons to be legit. He’d long ago declared that the only reason he’d done what he had was because he dropped out of school to take care of his mother and siblings after his father died.
I had built up a lucrative little business for myself before I went down.
Luckily for me, I didn’t go down over that, but instead over my knuckleheaded brother’s simple-minded crime.
The day that I went down, I had just dropped off a large package.
Thankfully, it hadn’t been on me when the fight jumped off between him and his ex’s supposed lover.
That would’ve sat me down for a long time. I only had some weed on me.
Since I had been out, I still had some of the things going on that I had before, but it was not my primary focus.
I had been trying to give my father what he wanted from me all along by going legit.
If I could get this street racing to take me to another level, I swear that I would let it all go.
But I didn’t want Charly sitting around waiting for me. That wasn’t fair to her.
I sprayed the wall with a heaping dose of the disinfectant solution to cleanse it of the blood. When I got out, I had to get a job. While it wasn’t easy just getting any job, I didn’t want to work in a fast-food restaurant or anything like that.
When nothing else panned out, I had hooked up with my father’s brother, Uncle Chris, for a job at his company, Strong Restoration.
He knew my background, so there was no need to go through a background check or drug screening.
It had been my father’s money that had created the opportunity for Chris to have his own business.
Chris had been in the streets for a while, but he wasn’t cut out for it.
He assigned me the most gruesome jobs, though, and I didn’t mind.
He knew that I wasn’t interested in cleaning toilets or things like that.
So whereas he went out on jobs to restore homes and businesses after fires, tornadoes, and other devastating events, he kept the specialty jobs for me and one or two other men on his crew.
I cleaned up crime scenes and places where someone may have died of natural causes.
Because I had become so good at it, my father even hired me for his personal services whenever he needed someone to clean up behind his antics.
It had been my job as a cleaner of the dead that earned me the street racing name Reaper.
This particular scene was at a used car lot office on the West Side.
Some dudes had broken in last night, just after the lot closed, and robbed and killed the owner.
Or so they said. I happened to know that it was a hit on old boy because he owed some drug lord an exorbitant amount of money that he hadn’t paid up on.
But that shit didn’t have anything to do with me, and I didn’t get paid for my knowledge but for the work that I did.
So, I kept my mouth shut and my nose out of other people’s affairs.
A soft tap on my shoulder jolted me from my thoughts. I removed my gloves and then removed the AirPods from my ears before I turned around.
“Aye, I was just about to let you know I’m heading out. But I wanted to check with you first to make sure you didn’t need any help,” Brandon, one of my co-workers, stated.
“Nah, I’m good. As soon as I finish this wall, I’m out too. I just got this last section to do.”
“A’ight, money. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“A’ight. Be easy,” I replied and stuck the AirPods back in my ear before I slid my hands back in the gloves and resumed cleaning.
I had just finished the last bit of cleaning when my phone buzzed back-to-back with text messages. I put all my cleaning equipment and supplies away before I removed the hazmat suit and gloves that I wore and disposed of them properly.
I pulled my phone from my pocket and saw a text message from Karter. But there were no words, just picture after picture that had my blood boiling.
KT: image
KT: image
KT: image
KT: image
KT: image
“The fuuucckk!” I threw my phone against the wall. It fell to the floor and shattered. I didn’t give a shit. I left my phone on the floor and rushed out to the truck. I broke every speed limit on the way back to the office to turn the truck in and pick up my car.
I cursed the truck for not moving as fast as my vehicle did. And when I returned, I didn’t bother to sign the truck back in, remove the equipment, or properly clean it. I dropped the keys on the counter.
“Hey, are you gonna sign back in?” Melinda, the receptionist, asked.
Not bothering to answer her, I shoved the doors open again and hopped into my car.
Usually, we showered at the site before leaving for home, but I didn’t give a damn about any of that.
I paid no attention to the speed limits or traffic lights.
I knew that I’d blown through at least a few of them because I had to avoid a few collisions.
When I pulled up in front of Karter and Tunisia’s house, I barely shut the engine off before I jumped out and ran to the door. I pounded on it like I was about to bust it down.
“Aye, before you do anything crazy, chill yo’ ass out. Ya hear me?” Karter demanded, placing his hand in the center of my chest and backing me away from the door.
“I can’t even do it. Where is she, Karter?”
“She’s in there. Listen, I know that you love that girl. I knew you’d be pissed. She made me promise not to tell you what happened, so I didn’t tell you. But that didn’t mean that I couldn’t show you what happened. Don’t upset her more than she already is.”
“Whatever,” I grumbled and walked by him the moment that he dropped his hand.
I barged into the house and headed toward the family room.
I stopped in my tracks when Charly turned from the TV to look into my face.
She looked like a deer caught in the headlights, and then her eyes watered like she wanted to cry.
“What . . . what are you doing here?”
“Who did it?”
Her bottom lip trembled.
“Either tell me who did it, or I’m making assumptions and ’bout to yoke up a whole lotta niggas and bitches on the street to find out who did it.”
Tunisia barged into the room with KJ in her arms and looked between Charly, Karter, and me. “What’s going on here? What’s he doing here?”
I didn’t respond but kept staring at Charly.
“He’s trying to find out who did this to Charly,” Karter answered.
“How did he know? Did you call him, Karter?” she demanded.
“No, I didn’t call him.”
“And you didn’t know he was coming?” Tunisia demanded.
“Charly,” I warned in a low voice.
The argument between Karter and his wife could wait for later. I was impatient, and I wanted answers now, not to get caught in their inconsequential bickering.
“Ramon.”
Her voice was so soft that I barely heard her. And although I suspected that it was my brother who had done this to her, hearing it fucked with my head something terrible. I had a hard time believing that, and I had hoped she would tell me she’d gotten into a fight with a female.
Knowing that he’d put his hands on her the way he’d done had me losing my mind. I turned back to the door, and Charly jumped up and ran after me with Tunisia and Karter hot on her heels.
“Where are you going?” Charly asked.
“To see Ramon.”
“Please don’t,” she pleaded.
I spun around so fast that she halted in her steps immediately and caused Tunisia to run into the back of her and Karter to grab Tunisia’s shoulders to keep her upright.
“Don’t you dare fucking beg me for that nigga’s life after this shit.”
“I’m not begging for his life, Dom. I’m begging you not to get into trouble again. I can’t take another year, two years, or even a day with you on the other side,” she cried out as tears ran down her face.
“No, he’s gon’ pay for this shit today.”
“But it’s your brother we’re talking about,” she pleaded and grabbed my arm.
I nodded and clenched my fists and jaw to try and maintain control and direct the rage flowing through me to its intended source and not onto her. “Yeah, it’s my brother.” My lips drew back in a tight line, and my eyes narrowed in rage. “It’s my brother. He knows exactly how I feel about you.”
I snatched away from her and jumped back into the car while she pleaded with Karter. “Stop him, Karter. Please don’t let him go.”
I peeled out of the driveway and sped twenty minutes away to my brother’s house. I knew he worked from home some days, and this was his lucky day.
I jumped out of the car and banged on the door. Impatiently, I alternated ringing the doorbell with banging my fist on the door.
It jerked open after a couple of minutes, and my scowling face met my brother’s.
“The hell is wrong with you?” he asked.
His tie was untied, and his hair was ruffled. He looked as if he’d been drinking from the bleary look in his unfocused, bloodshot eyes.
“You had one job. The only thing I ever asked of you for the sacrifice I made for your sorry ass was to protect her with your life.”
He sneered. “Should’ve known your punk ass would come running like Cap'n-Save-A-Ho. What did she tell you?”
“She didn’t tell me shit, nigga!” I hit him in the jaw and followed up quickly with a shot to the mouth and two to the dome before he found his bearings. He came back at me with full force and caught me in the jaw and the eye.
I punched him in the stomach and used the force to push him backward into the house. We crashed into the foyer table in the entryway, and I heard several things crashing down. For several seconds, we exchanged blow for blow as we rolled on the floor.
“You’re fucking jealous ’cause I fucked her first,” he grunted.
I punched him in the mouth. “You had one fucking job!”
“And I did it well every time. Ask her how she screamed my name.” He hit me in the eye.
“I sacrificed two years of my life for you, you piece of shit!” I punched him in the ribs.
I grabbed his head and slammed it against the floor.
Ramon immediately released his grip on me, and I rolled off him.
I jumped up seconds before he did. He rushed me and slammed me against the wall and held me there while I headbutted him repeatedly.
The final hit was to his nose, and he released me and staggered back.
I slammed my fists into his face over and over again and beat the hell out of him until he lay on the floor. His face was bloodied and bruised. I kicked him in the ribs.
My chest heaved as I stared at my brother lying on the floor. “You broke a brotherly bond over pussy. I can’t fucking believe you,” he muttered.
“When I went down, you asked how I felt about her, and I told you that I loved her. I told you the only reason that I didn’t get with her was because I didn’t want to drag her down.
I asked you to protect her with your life because I’d been doing that shit since I was eight.
That’s all I asked in exchange for me taking a rap for you so that your sorry ass wouldn’t sit down for two years, lose your scholarship and internship, and fuck up your life.
You couldn’t even look out for me, . . .
your own brother. You preyed upon her, dragged her into your world, and treated her like you have every other female you’ve been with.
That’s how you feel about me as your brother. So nah, nigga. You broke the bond.”
I limped out of his house with my heart hurting. I loved both of my brothers, and I had already proven there wasn’t shit I wouldn’t do for them. But some things couldn’t be overlooked. Ramon had used and abused my love for him the same way he’d done with women in the past.