2. Demetrius “Echo” Cannon
DEMETRIUS “ECHO” CANNON
THE KING OF REJECTORS
I had a love-hate relationship with my hometown.
But as of late, I wanted nothing more than to burn it to the fucking ground and watch the flames engulf everything and everybody. Then, maybe I could sleep peacefully for one night.
One night, it was all I needed.
My gaze shifted from watching my sister pace her corner office, from the building directly across mine, and to the text that’d come through on my encrypted line.
Two weeks.
“Fourteen days,” I muttered to myself, fingers itching to punch something as I returned my attention to Solei and found her watching me now. “Three hundred and thirty-six hours.”
She lifted both hands and flipped me off, but even from this distance, I knew she was smiling.
I chuckled and returned the sentiment.
Being part of this family wasn’t easy, but she and our brother Oliver made it worthwhile. If it weren’t for them and the promise I broke after my father met his demise, Everwood would’ve swallowed me whole by now.
There was an unspoken rule in this city: Never go against the Collective.
It was easy enough when they owned you and everything you were, when they made you and could easily break you. Most families pledged their loyalty to the collective and lived a good life.
Me and mine didn’t like or want to be put into a box. For eight generations, we’d been saying fuck the system , while building and perfecting our own.
My father had gotten greedy; he didn’t want to be the family that rejected anymore.
He wanted everything they were willing to offer and lost his life in the process. Even still, he made me promise to crossover.
The Collective came for you at eighteen. You either accepted and they initiated you into their ranks, or you rejected and were left to fend for yourself. Everwood was built on the backs of the not-so-secret society, at least to the people who lived in it.
We were as big as neighboring Philadelphia, but less accepting of outsiders.
“ They’ll take everything if you don’t ,” my father had said. “ Look at all we have now and think about how much better it can get .”
At the time, I didn’t understand; all I knew was our family didn’t answer to the society. We’d separated ourselves from the pack.
“ Don’t you want more for us, Demetrius? ”
To me, we had it all.
His arms had been stretched wide as if to make a point.
Around us were the buildings and businesses the family owned and rented out, the same buildings I stared at now.
But right in what my great-great-grandfather had worked hard to make solely ours, a neutral zone to all citizens looking for a safe haven.
The Collective proved who had the real power and put him down in front of me.
Doing it was a warning I hadn’t and still didn’t take lightly.
I shook my head when I heard my brother’s voice out in the hall. There was a loud commotion, with something hitting the wall a few times, and then… nothing .
Instead of moving to investigate, I kept my gaze pointed at the night sky.
Eventually, the door opened, and Oliver said, “Welcome back. First order of business.”
A thud followed, and I turned, tipping my head at the hog-tied man in the middle of the floor. I’d only been back in the city for less than a week after being gone for more than six months.
“Fuck you bring him here for?” I asked, rolling up my sleeves.
Oliver shrugged.
“He brought himself here. I did you a favor and tied him up…” He kicked the man. “Tell him what you told me.”
When his response was nothing but a muffled mess, Oliver kissed his teeth and leaned forward to snatch the gag out. My little brother’s ability to get flustered over the smallest shit amazed me.
“There’s a price on your head,” Mr. Hog tied blurted.
As I leaned against my desk, I stared at the man I didn’t care to have a name for. Oliver wouldn’t have tied him up if he weren’t a threat to us or my plans.
“Oh yeah? Should I give a fuck or…”
Oliver chuckled and put a bullet in his head without permission. Not that it was needed.
“I tried to tell him there’s a price on your head at least twice a year.” He whistled, and our head of security walked in and dragged the dead man out. “Did you secure what we needed?”
“I’ll invoice you the cleaning fee,” I said, eyes on the bloodstained carpet. “I did what needed to be done. First shipment comes in two weeks from now.”
“You know once you make the first move, there’s no guarantee you’ll live through it, right?”
I didn’t need to be reminded, nor would I be deterred. The Collective had something of mine, and I planned to take it back or die trying.
“You tryna talk me out of it?” I asked, lifting my gaze to meet my brother’s light brown hue.
He looked exactly like our mother, had her eyes and personality, too. She sacrificed herself for the greater good, letting them take her to protect the rest of the family. I would always blame my father; fourteen years later, and we were still dealing with the consequences of his actions.
Oliver put his hands up when our gazes met.
“Nah. But as your brother and right hand, I had to ask.”
I was tired of being questioned. He knew what fuck was at stake. Yet here we were still discussing it like I hadn’t already ventured outside of Everwood and made a name for myself.
“Don’t ask again. I mean that shit, Oliver.”
He nodded and looked down at his phone, then angled his head toward the door.
“Your sister is requesting an audience…” He smiled when another text came through. “That isn’t a request…” he added, already out in the hall. “Her words, not mine.”
My siblings acted as if they’d raised me instead of the other way around. Being the oldest didn’t matter until one or both of them needed something from me.
We left the building, eyeing our surroundings since the hit had been confirmed.
“Something out of place to you?” Oliver asked nonchalantly after pulling open the door to Solei’s building.
I shrugged, hoping whoever was watching from one of the many cars lining the street came prepared.
Because me and mine sure as fuck were.
“After being gone for damn near seven months, don’t you think you should see your sister before returning to business as usual?” Solei asked, tossing her squishy stress ball at my head after Oliver cleared a path for it. “I was worried fucking sick!”
I smiled.
“Aww,” I mused, picking up her sorry excuse for a weapon and returning it to her. “You actually thought I’d die.”
Had I gambled with my life fucking with multiple organizations outside of Everwood? No doubt about it. But did I secure an alliance with the head of the mob in New York, who had an ironclad partnership with The Delegation? Without question.
The Delegation wasn’t a secret society within a society, but an entity comprised of six Black families deep into organized crime. I wiggled my way into the O’Sullivan family’s fold by accident, but I liked them, especially the Don’s wife, Blair.
It’d been her I wanted to work with, and then I met her husband, and those plans shifted for the better. They got something that always belonged to them and I got a gun supplier who wasn’t pussy.
Solei scoffed.
“Die? No, dickhead. I thought I’d have to deal with your brother for another six months alone. And your grandmother, don’t even get me started on her.”
Oliver, who had already stretched out on the sofa, lifted his middle finger.
“Fuck you, Solei. Stop trying to deflect and tell him why you really called us over here.”
I looked between them, wondering what the fuck they’d been up to while I was away.
“I broke a rule,” she confessed.
The frown pulling at my lips deepened.
“Are you trying to piss me off? Elaborate and do it quickly.”
I knew my siblings well. The only rule Oliver had broken and would probably continue to break was fucking on women from the society. He liked playing with fire.
But Solei was a wildcard.
There were too many messes of hers I had to clean up over the years. Most of them…
“What’d you do with the body?” I asked as soon as she opened her mouth to speak.
Oliver started to laugh, and I knew I’d gotten it right.
“Just outside the city,” she whispered, avoiding eye contact. “Like before.”
I closed my eyes and took a breath before turning to open the door.
“Let’s take a ride,” I ordered, walking away before I talked crazy to her. “Both of you!”
Solei had a problem, but right now, mine was more important. Dealing with her habit would take a special kind of patience I didn’t fucking have at the moment.
“Are you mad?” she asked, leaning between the seats once I pulled from the curb.
I ignored her and eyed the cars on the left side of the street as we passed them. My gaze shifted to the rear view just in time to catch the dark blue Nissan Sentra hit a U-turn and follow after we cruised onto the next block.
“What was the reason this time?”
She flopped back with a huff.
“Found him digging through my office drawers,” she said. “It was either I dead him right there or do it later and run the risk of information being passed along.”
I let what she said marinate before replying.
“Or,” I started, hitting my turning signal and driving in the direction that took us out of Everwood. “You could’ve knocked him out until Oliver got there.”
At the first sign of shit not going how she expected, Solei’s default was to end a life. Not every man she’d killed had been up to no good, though.
“He deserved to die right then.”
My lips curled without permission.
“There she goes,” I muttered, shifting my gaze to see if I spotted my tail. “I’m not mad as long as you handled it how I taught you.”
Oliver yawned.
“Just be who you are, Sol,” he said, going into lecture mode. “If you wanna dead niggas for a living, do that shit. Nobody gives a fuck.”
I scanned the road as we drove further from the city, confirming my tail had turned back.
“Might know the perfect person to help with that,” I mused, smirking at the way she popped between the seats again.
“Who?”
I nudged her back with my elbow.
“Prove to me you got some self-control first, and I’ll see what I can do.”
She mumbled a halfhearted response, but I knew Solei could show restraint. With a little guidance, my little monster would be the perfect weapon in the near future.
We rolled into unincorporated territory forty minutes later. Our family purchased private land a decade ago and built a small community of our own, although we’d done the same on Everwood soil and lived there full-time.
“House on the end,” Solei directed.
I let them lead me inside, nodding at the thermostat.
Sixty degrees.
Down in the basement were two fifty-five-gallon drums. I could tell which one was new and walked toward it, running my newly gloved hands along the edges to see if she’d sealed it correctly.
“You did this alone?”
“Wouldn’t let me do anything but watch,” Oliver answered for her as he dropped on the steps.
I nodded and faced my sister. She wasn’t a fourteen-year-old anymore, but a grown ass twenty-six. Coddling her would only bring us more problems. If this was the life she wanted to live, then it had to be done right or not at all.
“Break it down to me.”
“I used a shit ton of biological washing powder and mixed it with warm water. He’s been in there for about two months and probably needs fourteen more days before I can transfer the bones and what’s left to a sulfuric acid solution.”
Our mother had been a brilliant scientist; she freelanced for a cleaning company that specialized in removing human remains. It’d been her who taught me what simple household items could do to the body with a little patience.
The enzymes in biological washing powder broke down fatty material, stripping soft tissue from the bone over time; sulfuric acid always finished the job.
She’d had done good, but even if she hadn’t, I would’ve fixed it.
“If something happens to me—”
Solei shook her head, stopping me before I could get the words out.
“Nah, keep that bullshit to yourself,” she cut in. “If you go, we both going with you soon after, and that’s nonnegotiable.”
“If something happens to me,” I started again, looking between them. “Remember every fucking thing I taught you. Am I understood?”
“Understood,” they mumbled in unison.
They didn’t want to hear me speak on death so openly, yet had no problem reminding me I could die at every turn.
“But I’ll do my best to pull through unscathed,” I added, giving them what they wanted to hear even though it was all bullshit.
One day I would die.
We all would.
I lived like there was no tomorrow for that reason alone.