Rakim
ABOUT EIGHT YEARS PRIOR . . .
“We can’t wait to see what you do, Godfrey.” Clifton Parks gave me a closed-mouth smile as he extended his white hand.
I smiled humbly, shaking hands with several key players that worked for Steel Fists, my new management company that had been doing wonders for my boxing career from the moment I’d signed with them just a year ago.
The sport had been in me since I was a fucking child, so truthfully, I didn’t need anybody or anything to make me excel, but a boost like them couldn’t hurt.
“Prepare to be knocked off ya fucking feet. No pun intended,” I replied confidently, making Parks toss his head back and laugh harder than I felt necessary.
Shit was crazy how much ass these niggas kissed in the name of the almighty dollar. I was a meal ticket to these niggas, but they were meal tickets to me, too, so it was a quid pro quo situation.
From the first time I’d stepped into the ring, I never had a bad run—being undefeated even before Steel Fists came into the picture—so now at twenty-four years old, I was over-fucking-joyed at the thought of my career going to heights that I could only fucking dream of.
I was following in my father’s footsteps just like he’d wanted.
The only thing that would make shit better would be my father actually being proud, but Nate Godfrey was hard to please. So, a nigga doing what he felt was the bare minimum for any boxer surely wouldn’t have him congratulating my ass any time soon.
Not to mention, he wasn’t too fond of the many articles and sports annotators declaring that I was better than him. Whenever it was said, he pointed out several reasons to my face as to why that wasn’t and would never be the case.
My girlfriend of three years, LaMia, slipped her hand into mine, returning from the bathroom, and the clammy ass texture of her palm caught me off guard. It wasn’t damp from her washing her hands; it had a stickiness to it that signaled nervousness.
“You aight?” I spoke against her temple with a kiss, palming her hip while bringing her into me.
I couldn’t fathom why she would be nervous in this moment. It was simply a celebration for all the talent signed to Steel Fists, nothing fucking more.
“Mhm,” LaMia replied somewhat absentmindedly, refusing to look up into my eyes as she scanned the room anxiously.
My antennas were up, making me, too, sweep the room, hoping to locate what had my lady on edge.
“You sure?” I quizzed for a second time, having been with LaMia long enough to see all wasn’t well with her.
“Yep. Don’t worry about me. This is your night, daddy.” She finally gave me some eye contact.
I held onto it for a moment, reading her bothered ass eyes that didn’t match the artificial simper she was throwing my way.
“Aight.” I skated my lips across hers, dropping the topic for the moment.
However, for the next few hours, I couldn’t get LaMia’s nervous and odd ass demeanor off my fucking mind. She was easier to read than Hooked on Phonics, and I vowed to make her talk once we left the event.
Half an hour later, we’d exited the ballroom and were approaching a black truck we’d be driven in for the night since plenty of alcohol would be served.
I hadn’t indulged like LaMia, feeling off about the way she was acting after coming back from the bathroom that her ass had slipped off to moments before her tenor switched.
“Talk to me,” I said simply, knowing LaMia had been with a nigga long enough to comprehend what I meant.
“It’s nothing, Rah.” She smirked, rubbing my arm and trying to butter a nigga up. “You look so good in a suit.” She bit her lip, lids lowered, and I quickly caught onto the fact that she was trying to distract me.
LaMia knew me, though, so she should’ve known that I wasn’t weak to the flesh. I wasn’t above the shit though. I loved pussy and loved to fuck just as much as the next nigga, but it didn’t rule me.
I never understood how muthafuckas got smoked, set up, or handed their lives over to the system all for a woman who opened her legs to any-fucking-body. I vowed from the moment my dick first bricked up that a woman who meant me no good would never have a nigga under her spell.
“Mia.”
LaMia dropped her act at the sound of me sternly calling the diminutive of her name as we stood beside the black truck.
“It’s open,” my homie and driver for the night, Mylo, rolled the back passenger window down to call out.
I gave him a look that said to hold on, and Mylo fell in line, sealing the window back up. Realizing my girl wasn’t talking, I moved her hair behind her ear before pinching her chin softly and kissing her lips.
“Tell me, baby.” I spoke softly against her lips, feeling her relax against me just as I wanted her to. She needed to know she was safe.
As expected, LaMia nodded, surrendering.
“You remember when I went to the bathroom?” She nibbled on her lip, darting her eyes off nervously since I was staring a hole through her.
My heart began to thunder in my chest as I felt the heat rise within my blood.
While I was a rather laid-back ass nigga, I had a temper, too, but only certain shit could bring out that monster. The number one way was to fuck with my girl, my mama, or my brothers. And judging by the glassy look in LaMia’s eyes, some poor muthafucka would endure my fucking wrath tonight.
“I do.”
I kept my voice cool, palming the side of the truck for some leverage because I was unsure if I’d be able to continue to stand up straight after what LaMia told a nigga. The look in her eyes said a lot more than what her mouth had so far.
“Well when I came out, I ran into Judd . . . Judd Jenkins, and he . . . like tried to flirt with me, and when I tried to move around him, he pinned me to the wall outside of the bathroom and gripped me . . . down there,” LaMia explained, skeptical of how things would go.
I stepped back from her coolly before asking, “You aight? He do anything else?” I took her hands in mine, bringing them to my mouth to kiss and savor because I knew it’d be a minute before I could do the shit again.
“No, that was . . . all. Rakim, what are you doing?” She frowned as I opened the back door to the truck and retrieved my gun as soon as I’d let her soft ass hands go.
While I strived to be known as simply the greatest boxer alive, I couldn’t completely leave behind that other side of me. The side that knew guns better than my own reflection or had to fight my own father to stop him from choking the life from my fucking mother.
I’d been disrespected a lot coming up—especially by Nate Godfrey—and therefore, I didn’t tolerate it all anymore. That mixed with my well-hidden but prevalent temper was a recipe for disaster at certain times, like now.
“Aye, you good?” Mylo had mirrored LaMia’s expression, seeing me grab my heat as if I planned to use it right now at this important ass event. I did. “Rah.”
“Take her home.” I kissed LaMia, ignoring her wide, pleading eyes as I helped her into the back seat.
“Rah, just come on. All he did was grab me and that’s it.” She begged verbally and telepathically through her eyes. “He’s stupid and—”
“Mia, leave it alone,” Mylo instructed her, gathering enough from what she’d just said to know I wasn’t about to just shrug off my woman being groped. Mylo was like me and wouldn’t respect a nigga if I did.
I kissed LaMia once more before backing up from the vehicle and shutting the door.
Concealing my gun under my tuxedo jacket just enough to make it past security—who weren’t even planning to check me because of who the fuck I was—I slipped inside, ignoring the party attendees’ wide ass smiles as they low-key fanned out.
My eyes scoured the ballroom until they landed on Judd smiling down into some woman’s face that, too, looked slightly uncomfortable, and that didn’t do anything to help the feeling that had overcome me.
I hated a creep ass nigga, especially one who was too muthafuckin’ big to be exerting his power over women—like my father. I’d smiled and posed for pictures with the nigga, calling him my inspiration which was partially true, but he was a monster my entire childhood, especially to my mother.
With all that shit swarming my head, a nigga was seeing red as I barged through the fancy dressed partygoers, paying them no mind as they happily acknowledged me in return.
“Excuse me,” I said as politely as I fucking could, offering an almost inconspicuous closed-mouth smile down to the woman being hit on by this nigga Judd.
She stepped back abruptly and with no argument, giving me the vibe that she wanted to get away from the handsy and overly confident ass nigga probably fifteen minutes ago.
“Man, what the fuck—” Judd began, brows bundled together in irritation.
“You touched my woman,” I stated more than asked.
I knew LaMia wasn’t lying, but on the off chance that she was, it would make no muthafuckin’ difference. I would die before I believed a random muthafucka over my love.
“Look—” Judd sucked his teeth—“she—”
Gunshots rang out as soon as I pulled that shit off my hip, firing off in haste and intercepting Judd’s explanation plus every current ongoing conversation.
The nigga saying he hadn’t touched LaMia wouldn’t have made a difference to a nigga, but the fact that he’d said anything but that was enough for me to further solidify an already made decision on taking his fucking life.
A slither of silence hung in the air, Judd’s heavy body dropping to the carpeted floor being the only sound, before high-pitched screams blared.
A cacophony of sounds surrounded me as I stood above Judd’s apparently lifeless body, blood pooling under his head.
Screams mixed with quick patterned runs, shattering glasses, and shouts full of bass all mixed together in a hazy medley as I remained in place, gun clutched tightly in my hand. I wanted to be sure Judd was dead, and if he wasn’t, I was gon’ shoot his bitch ass again until he was.