Epilogue
Niko Freeman
What Happend…
My adrenaline was pumping as sweat dripped down my brow.
My heart raced as I tried to wrap my mind around what I had to do.
Being the oldest of my momma’s five boys I always felt like it was my job to protect and keep all of my brothers safe.
Even though each of my brothers were grown, had their own minds and did their own shit I still took my role as big brother seriously.
When I said I am my brothers keeper, I meant that shit and that’s why this shit was fucking we me so bad.
I never thought I’d see the day when my own blood would turn against me.
Growing up, we ain’t have the best childhood, our mama was fucked up.
She often tried to pit us against each other.
For whatever reason in our mama’s fucked up head she wanted us to hate each other.
I thought all of us had overcome the division our mama was trying to create between us.
Between Ya’, Titon, Nakeem , Sonni and me, everything was supposed to be good.
It was petty fights and shit between us but we were brothers that was to be expected.
I didn’t think anything was serious enough for us to end here.
My brothers and I worked our asses off together building an empire together.
Our shit was air tight, nothing could break the bond we built.
At least that’s how I was thinking, clearly a nigga was wrong as fuck.
A nigga was so blinded by loyalty that when shit started to go wrong, I turned a blind eye to the shit that was going on right in my face.
I couldn’t grasp that a nigga I’d love since we were kids would do some fuck shit like this.
My blood brother was willing to betray us for a little bit of extra money.
It ain’t make no sense to me. Sonni was my mutha fuckin’ heart, I loved the fuck outta my little brother, gave his ass the fucking world.
Anything he wanted he had. The only reason he was getting his hands dirty was because he wanted too.
Claimed he didn’t want to depend on his older brothers for the rest of his life.
He wanted to be a man and I respected that to a degree.
Still didn’t want to put him on but our mama convinced me otherwise.
She had a way with making mutha fuckas bend to her will.
I regretted not standing firm in my decision I should have kept Sonni out the streets.
I didn’t though and now I was stuck with making the hardest choice of my life.
My heart broke the more I had to face the reality of this shit.
“How you wanna do this?” Ya’ asked, looking over at me as he drove the slider we were in.
Titon and Nakeem were in the backseat, as we all rode in silence as we trailed our baby brother Sonni.
Each of us in our own thoughts. The heaviness of our reality was finally settling in.
If this was any other nigga it would have been a no brainer on ending the niggas life.
Stealing from us was a no go. Everybody knew that if you took something from us it meant death.
To add insult to injury, putting a hit out on us and our families was an entirely new form of being diabolical.
Sonni had let money change him into a new nigga who gave no fucks about us.
He wanted all four of us dead, including Nakeem’s baby mama and their daughter.
That was some sick shit I couldn’t get past. To put a hit out on us was fucked up but your niece was sick as fuck.
“Shit, cut the nigga off at the light. Let’s get this shit over with,” I mumbled lowly.
A part of me wanted Sonni to admit to his wrong doing.
Ask for forgiveness so I wouldn’t have to end his life.
I needed the nigga to ask for help or something.
I prayed for some kind of resolution that didn’t end in Sonni losing his life but in the pits of my soul I knew that wasn’t going to happen.
Sonni had become grimey as fuck in the streets.
He didn’t give a damn about anybody but his own well being.
He didn’t even give a fuck about his own seeds.
Sonni just didn’t give a fuck about shit besides money.
I hated the nigga he’d turned into. The nigga had gotten an ego out of this world.
He really believed he ran shit and thought he was untouchable.
He failed to realize he was untouchable because he had the four of us behind him.
Plenty of niggas wanted his head but they knew they would have to go through us and that wouldn’t have been easy.
Sonni was so fucking arrogant he hadn’t noticed we’d been trailing behind him for the last thirty minutes.
His lack of awareness showed how green he really was to the streets.
Sonni pulled his flashy ass lime green G-Wagon to a stop at a red light. Quickly Ya’ skirted from behind Sonni cutting him off from leaving. Without saying a word all four of us were out the car, guns in hand, we surrounded Sonni’s car.
“What the fuck y’all niggas doing?” He angrily spat balling his face up once he saw all of our faces. There wasn’t a point in any of us wearing mask, we weren’t leaving any witnesses behind. He rolled down his window where Ya’ and I were.
Nakeem tapped on the window with the butt of his gun and Sonni lowered the passenger side window.
“Shit,” I calmly responded. “Tryna catch up with our baby brother.”
“Y’all nigga coulda called me instead off hopping out on a nigga at a light like we got a problem,” Sonni’s eye twitched, something it did when he was nervous.
“Joi, might not fuck with you no more.” Nakeem gritted out through clenched teeth, he was on the passenger side of the car, glaring at Sonni with hate and hurt in his eyes. He was the maddest of us all. Sonni had placed a hit on his daughter’s life and that broke something deep in Nakeem. ‘
“I-i ain’t did shit to Joi’s crazy ass,” Sonni nervously stuttered.
“You coulda fooled the fuck out of me,” Nakeem bitterly replied.
“Tryna kill yo’ family for a little bit of money, Psst. I never would have expected that from yo’ pussy ass.” Titon snickered.
“Fuck you nigga. Ion know what the fuck yo’ weird ass talking about,” Sonni spat glaring at Titon. The tension between the two of them was always thick. Sonni would never go into detail about his issue and Titon always said he didn’t like any nigga that didn’t like him.
“So you ain’t put A’milli on our heads?” Ya’ asked grilling Sonni, who couldn’t even look him in his eyes.
Sonni opened his mouth to speak but Titon cut him off.“Befo’ yo’ bitch ass lie, you know A’Milli been my nigga for years.”
Sonni kissed his teeth, as he peered up at me. “Come one Niko, you know me I ain’t that nigga to do some shit like that.” Sonni tried to seem sincere but the subtle smirk on his lips said other wise.
“A few years ago I woulda thought that too. I can’t deny what my own ears heard.” I replied emotionless. My feelings had gone numb.
“Wwhat you mean?” Sonni fearfully stuttered.
I looked over at Titon, who’d pulled a burner phone from his pocket pressing play. He allowed the audio call between A’Milli and Sonni to play.
“I want all them bitch ass niggas dead,” Sonni angrily yelled into the phone. “They think I’m a bitch ass nigga I got something for their asses.”
A’Milli’s eerie voice replied. “I’m not cheap,”
“I got the fucking money,” Sonni replied evilly.
Then Titon cut off the recording glaring at Sonni as he asked, “That’s not you?”
Sonni rested his head back on his seat looking forward, his facial expression went blank. All of us, silent waiting on the next move to be made.
Out of nowhere Sonni began laughing crazily. “It took y’all ho’ ass niggas long enough to figure this shit out. I shoulda just killed you bitch ass niggas myself.” He said with an uneasy expression on his face.
“You wanted to kill us and yo’ niece for some bread?
” I snapped, losing my cool. “All the shit we did for you ungrateful ass. We got it out the mud so yo’ bitch ass could have an easy life and this how you wanna repay us?
You wanna take our lives?” In my rage I punched Sonni through the window with my free hand.
His body went flying towards the passenger side of the car.
It took Sonni a moment to get back up but I was so mad I had tears falling from my face. I couldn’t believe Sonni was really going out like this.
“Fuck y’all niggas! Long Live King mutha fuckin’ Sonni!” Sonni yelled as he leaned forward reaching for something.
When I saw the shiny metal handle of the gun, I lifted my gun up letting off three shot as tears rolled down my face. Damn Sonni…
***************
Back To Present Day
Niko Freeman
“Our mama and our brother really tried to kill our asses,” I shook my head looking at Ya’ as we stood on my back porch.
“Jealousy is a mutha fucka,” Ya’ chuckled.
“It ain’t like we had shit they couldn’t have,” I sighed taking a drink of my beer in hand.
“You wrong. They could never have what we have because they wanted our shit not to have shit of their own. They would have never been happy because it would have never been exactly what we have.”
“You right,” I nodded in agreement.