Clark
My eyes scanned the area as I watched the people.
Some of the faces were of those whom I had put in positions in which they could no longer care for their families, while other faces were unknown to me.
I scoffed at the neighborhood as I thought about Naheem resorting to the lower class and living in the very same place he had declared he hated.
I heard he and Fiona had gone missing, and that wasn’t like them.
If I had to guess, the tyrant had something to do with it, but I needed to know for sure.
I stepped out of the car and headed toward the cheap, dirty apartments he lived in. As my expensive flats stepped into the rotten streets, a group of young boys stood before me.
“Look at this nigga,” one of them said.
My eyes rolled toward him. “Do any of you know Naheem?” I asked.
One of them, who looked no older than sixteen, laughed. “The burnt man? Yeah, we know him. Why?”
The more his ass talked, the more irritated I became.
I watched as one of them sat back, his eyes narrowing in on me.
He was an ugly bastard. However, something about him said he was the true animal of them all.
He rolled a toothpick in his mouth as he slowly came off the wall, walking toward me.
He pulled the toothpick from his mouth, then sucked on his teeth.
“That nigga Naheem is a bitch, and based on the universe—” he tapped his finger on his tongue and held it in the air, “—that muhfucka is dead,” he grumbled.
“Hmph, what’s your name?”
He didn’t smile. Instead, his chin rose slowly. “Jungle.” He winked.
He held a thick southern drawl, which made sense because the gritty, untamed, and pure savage pouring from him told me he wasn’t from here.
A sinister grin eased on my face. “Can you get into that apartment?” I asked, pulling a wad of cash from my pocket.
“Yuh.”
I nodded toward the apartment. Jungle glanced back at his friends before leading the way.
Once we were inside the building, he stopped and turned to me.
I knew this was him nudging me to give him money.
Peeling a few hundred dollars from my wad, I handed it to him.
He then proceeded up the steps. When we reached the door, the goddamn door was off the hinges with huge claw-like marks on it.
“You hustled me.”
“Nah, you hustled yourself, mayne,” he said as he walked off.
I stepped into Naheem’s place that had been stripped of everything but the walls. Even if I came to look for signs of life, there were none. I didn’t even bother to go through the place before deciding to leave.
When I exited the building, I walked over to Jungle. “Do you have a car?” I asked.
“Does a woman have a pussy?”
“Yeah, you’re the type of person I need. I have a job for you if you’re willing to take it.”
Although the way he was talking to me was something that could have easily gotten him killed, he possessed the type of animalistic savage I needed for the Tyrant.
He reminded me so much of him, but better.
I knew, with everything that had happened, from me losing most of my income because of Cynthia’s need to feel remorseful to now losing my job, the only way I would get back what was taken from me would be if the Tyrant died.
This wouldn’t be just him, but his entire family.
There was no more room for mistakes. Everything had to be precise.
When going against a man who thought he was king, it was like going into the savanna and standing before a pack of lions who paced their territory waiting for the moment someone crossed over into their space.
However, I was going to do the exact opposite.
I was going to shake things up, forcing him out of his savanna and to come to me.
After leaving Naheem’s, I felt that arsenal in my chamber was almost complete.
I stood at the door of a home that I devoted my life to.
Beyond those walls sat Cynthia, the woman who stole my heart all those years ago and betrayed me just as Dolly did.
How could she sleep so comfortably while knowing that our grandson was the cause of our downfall?
The child we raised gave birth to a demon whose goal was to wreak havoc on our lives.
Leaving him with Matthew was supposed to be the end of my worries; yet, it turned out to be the worst mistake of my life.
Cynthia hated me for it all. She hated me for not saving Grace, but the reality was that she had fallen from grace.
It was she who summoned him here. It was she who gave him hope that he had a family that was open to loving him.
It was she who couldn’t move on, and now it was me suffering behind it.
I glanced at my watch. Time had started ticking.
The war would start shortly, and it was time for Cynthia to get on board.