Chapter 2
The club was silent. Dawn did the club no justice.
As the sun cast an orange hue through the dirty windows, Demi waited patiently, staring at the empty stage.
It was too small of a stage for Charlie.
Her voice. Her face. Her aura. Everything about her was big.
He was surprised the stage could even hold her.
He had met her hours ago and here she was invading his mind when he was supposed to be focused on other things, heinous things.
Something that was supposed to be taken care of the night before had been put off until morning and that uneased Demi.
He was a surgeon about his business. Precision and punctuality were important.
When niggas got distracted, they usually made mistakes.
He knew this. He had beat this into the heads of his team for years and still here he was playing fucking Mariah Carey lyrics back in his head.
Her voice filled these walls even when she wasn’t there.
The doors of the club clanged as they opened and he heard footsteps echo as he leaned over, rubbing his goatee as he waited.
The owner of the club, Frankie “Big Bands” Banks, stopped walking as soon as he saw Demi.
“Demi, man, I got what I owe,” Frankie said.
“You sure? Cuz I was told you weren’t paying me shit and that I needed to come see you if I wanted my paper,” Demi said.
He pulled on the heavy herringbone chain that rested against his white t-shirt.
“I try to show you niggas love out here, man. Try to be fair, but you ungrateful motherfuckers always got to try me. Apparently, niggas think cuz I ain’t out here mobbing no more that shit sweet.
That’s the problem, when you get rich. Niggas think you go soft.
Since when you ever known me to be that? ” he asked.
Frankie and Demi had come up in the streets together. He knew more than anybody that Demi didn’t take disrespect well.
“I got the bread, man,” Frankie said.
“You should. You running my shit through this club, you ain’t slick, nigga.
Business ain’t that good in this bitch. You pay me on time every time,” Demi stated.
“Or I’ma send somebody to come see about you, homie.
Don’t play with my FUCK-ING MO-NEY.” Demi was still seated, rubbing his hands, squeezing his fists as he looked up at the man over a stern brow.
He was really trying to practice some self-control.
“Man, we can just go to the office. It’s in the safe. I don’t want no problems with you. Shit went left with your man because he came in here disrespectful. It’s all respect between me and you, though, Demi. I was always going to pay you,” Frankie said. He was now singing a different tune.
Niggas so fucking scary. Stand on your word, Demi thought, as he recalled how his man had come back to him with a version of events that was filled with disrespect.
“You running ‘round this bitch feeling like the man cuz you pack this little-ass shit out every night. I heard you was saying sum’n different. Something like, ‘that nigga, Demi, can suck my dick, I ain’t paying him shit,’” Demi stated calmly. “That wasn’t you?”
Frankie’s eyes doubled in size. “Ya man putting some extra on it. I told him that shit, man, it wasn’t nothing against you. I would never disrespect like that. We been square, my nigga. It ain’t like that.”
“Take me to the safe,” Demi ordered. He stood, hiking up his pants as he followed the man to the back office. He was in a mood now. Charlie’s voice was getting smaller and smaller now.
“It’s in the closet,” Frankie said.
“Nigga, open that shit. I ain’t gon’ hit you in the back. Any nigga I ever closed the casket on looked me in the eyes before he left this side,” Demi stated. “But you better be smart.”
Frankie reluctantly turned his back to Demi. There was a pistol in the safe. Demi was sure of it. So, he kept his hand ready on his waistline. It was nothing to pull the trigger. In a gunfight, he would always come out on top.
Frankie put a hundred thousand dollars on the desk.
Demi walked over to the desk and eyed the money on top of it.
“Do I need to count my money?” he asked.
“It’s all there,” Frankie said.
“I got better things to do with my time than chase a nigga on some street shit, Big Bands.” His level of irritation couldn’t be hidden. “You disrespect anybody we send up in here that’s the same as disrespecting me. I don’t care if it’s the mailman.”
Without warning, he grabbed the letter opener from Frankie’s desktop and viciously stabbed it through Frankie’s hand. His scream was deafening as Frankie grabbed his wrist with his uninjured hand. Demi gripped the back of the man’s neck, slamming it down to the wooden desk.
“Next time, you lose your life,” Demi said.
His calm didn’t match his crazy. The place he had stabbed, dead center, missing the fragile bones between Frankie’s middle and ring finger, hitting soft cartilage only, no bones, was like target practice for Demi.
A flesh wound. A deep one, one that would teach a lesson, without disfigurement.
It was more blood than pain because Demi was sure shock acted as an anesthetic.
“Clean your shit up and give my money to that pretty-ass girl you got singing in here. Every payment is to go to her from now on. The first time you short her...”
“I won’t be!” Frankie wailed, holding his bleeding hand as he held it up while shaking uncontrollably from the pain. He was leaking blood everywhere.
Demi knew his money wouldn’t be a problem again.
Both he and Frankie knew that he had gotten off easy.
Demi was known for his murder game. He had a reputation for two things: getting money and being heartless.
He had killed without remorse for much smaller offenses than the one Frankie had committed.
The barking that broke up her sleep made Charlie groan in complaint as she tried to hold onto the dream she had been indulged in.
“Okay, okay, Bails. Mama’s coming,” she whispered to herself as she climbed up, glancing up at the sky and then down at the evidence of last night’s events.
When she saw the stack of money beside her, she gasped.
“What the fuck is wrong with him?” she said.
Ten thousand dollars for a song, and her company apparently, was the going rate.
Charlie picked up the money and his card before rushing inside.
“Come on, boy,” Charlie said as Bails followed her inside.
She put the money in her nightstand and then plopped down on her bed, tapping his card against her palm, biting her lip as she thought about calling him.
“What you think, Bails? To keep or return the money? That is the question,” she said.
She dialed the first three digits of his number and then stopped.
“He’ll call,” she said to herself. Her ringing doorbell pulled her to her feet and Bails led the way to answer.
Charlie knew who it was before she even pulled open the door.
“Only you would lay on my doorbell, you asshole,” Charlie greeted, stepping aside to let her sister in.
“Bitch, my hands full as fuck. It was either lean against the doorbell or drop breakfast all over your porch.”
Stassi handed a bag of groceries to Charlie as they made their way to the kitchen.
“Why do you look like you been freshly fucked?” Stassi said as she put the bags on the table.
Charlie frowned. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Charlie’s words denied what her face revealed.
“Then why you looking like you looking? Like good dick just snuck up out of here through the back door?” Stassi asked.
Charlie pulled the contents from the bag and her guilty smile made her sister’s mouth drop.
“Charlie!” Stassi exclaimed. “The guy from last night? The random? You slept with a nigga on the first night?”
Stassi and her assumptions. They seemed to come one after the other these days. Charlie knew she didn’t have the best track record with men, but she did have some standards in place.
“Relax. You always got to take it all the way. I didn’t sleep with him. We just talked,” Charlie said. “He was...” Charlie paused and scoffed as her mind ventured to the night before. “…weird,” she finished.
“Weird?” Stassi questioned.
“That’s the only way to explain him,” Charlie replied as she pulled the mixing bowl out of her cupboard.
Charlie stood in her kitchen in boy shorts and her midriff shirt, mixing pancakes as she thought of calling him.
“He left his card,” Charlie said.
“Doesn’t mean you have to call,” Stassi said.
Of course, she would say that. It was the opposite of what Charlie wanted to do; it was just like Stassi to be judgmental.
“But would it really hurt to just call?” Charlie asked, skeptically.
“You like him?” Stassi asked, shocked. “What happened to your plan, Charlie? You know, focus on yourself, heal? You’re just now starting to get your shit together.”
“What are you talking about?” Charlie said defensively. “He was company for one night. You act like I’m marrying him or something, Stassi, damn.”
“I’m just making sure you’re okay. You don’t have to jump right back into something just because you’re lonely. Just slow it down.”
“I’m not afraid to be alone,” Charlie said, irritation lacing her tone. “And who made this rule that you have to be alone to heal, anyway? What if you find someone that accelerates the healing?”
“Niggas like the one you were with last night do more damage,” Stassi said. “Trust.”
“I’m not talking about him. I can’t speak to who he is and I’m never vouching for a nigga I don’t know cuz a nigga will have you defending him knowing he foul.
I’m just saying in general.” Charlie poured the pancake batter onto the electric griddle, making six perfect circles.
“I don’t have to seclude myself to love myself better.
I got this. I don’t need you down my back watching my every move. Just be here.”
“Alright, Charlie,” Stassi said skeptically. “You remember what happened last time...”
“I’m not that same girl,” Charlie snapped. “If you knew me then, you don’t know me now. Shit ain’t the same.”
“Well, if you’re not the same, toss that nigga card in the trash and focus on you,” Stassi urged. Charlie put down the spatula.
“You know what? Just so I don’t have to hear your mouth.” Charlie grabbed Demi’s card and dropped it in her trash can. “Happy now?” she asked, resuming her pancake duty.
Charlie flipped the pancakes as her nostrils flared.
She was 24 years old and Stassi was only two years older than that.
She didn’t need her sister preaching to her about shit she couldn’t change.
If Charlie hated nothing else, it was to be judged.
“And, bitch, scramble an egg or something. I ain’t your damn personal chef.
This is sister’s brunch and you the one with the damn culinary degree, so get to cooking something,” she snapped.
Charlie and Stassi had spent every Sunday like this for the past six months. Reacquainting, reuniting, after many years had kept them apart.
“What about you? Who you entertaining these days?” Charlie asked as she pulled a bottle of champagne from her refrigerator. One orange juice, one pineapple.
“Nobody, girl. This damn business is my boyfriend. I feel like all I do is cook and eat. I can never find a date because I’m always covered in food, looking crazy.
Let me tell you how I met this nigga in the grocery store.
Fine-ass fucking man named Day. I’m walking through there with a damn apron and flour all over me because my egg delivery didn’t come in this week and I ran out in the middle of baking this girl’s birthday cake.
So, boom, I shoot to the store and bump into the finest fucking man.
Nigga legit smelled like money. Like he in there high as fuck, smelling like kush, looking for sunflower seeds cuz he got the munchies.
Nigga legit walked up on me, talking about can you show me where the nuts and shit at? ”
Charlie giggled. “I mean, you do keep that damn apron on all the time.”
“Bitch, I don’t work in no fucking grocery store! I mean, don’t get me wrong, ain’t nothing wrong with working at the grocery store, but I shouldn’t be walking around looking like I know what’s on aisle 2!”
“So, what did you say?” Charlie asked, her eyes smiling in amusement.
“I cussed his ass out,” Stassi replied, sipping her mimosa.
“And he hired you after that?” Charlie asked, eyes wide. “How you parlay that to a job?”
“Girl, so he looks me up on Instagram. I mean, like right there on the spot cuz I was going in on him, talking about I’m a business owner, yada, yada, right?
” Stassi paused to take a bite of the bacon Charlie had just finished frying.
“So, he liked what he saw, and he booked me on the spot. Cash App’d me the deposit and everything.
It’s a fifty-thousand-dollar job. Some showcase at his company. ”
“Oh my God! That’s so good!” Charlie was genuinely ecstatic for her sister. They never competed. Even as kids. When one won, they both celebrated; no matter how much their mothers hated it. They had refused to put the step in their title. They were sisters. Not by blood, but by love.
“Soooo… you got to come with me,” Stassi said.
“Stassi, no! Don’t nobody want to come to work for free!”
“Come on, please, Charlie? You don’t even have to do anything. I just need you there for moral support. This guy is a big deal. You can just come and vibe out. I just don’t want to walk in alone,” Stassi said.
“I’ll help,” Charlie said. “But you owe me.”