1. Rakim Godfrey
ONE
rakim godfrey
THREE YEARS LATER . . .
I did my best to keep calm, but it was a difficult task knowing I would be leaving the place I’d been calling home, also known as California State Prison, in just a few damn weeks.
My plan had been to simply get out and surprise everybody, especially LaMia, but because my lady had been waiting forever for me and I wanted to give her a little something to hold onto, I was gon’ let her know the good news ASAP.
“Can’t hold it in, huh?” Joe, one of the niggas I’d become somewhat cool with during his time here, asked.
Joe had two life sentences for a murder committed similarly to the one I’d done—out of love.
Only difference was when Joe found out his wife had been fucking his homeboy, he took forty-eight hours to make his move, and therefore, the charge was for first degree murder instead of the voluntary manslaughter I’d been convicted of.
Premeditation made a huge difference in the name of sixty fucking years.
“I can’t,” I said, shaking my head and unable to hide the smirk spilling onto my face.
I knew from being held here that niggas could sniff out when an inmate was close to release and would test you out of jealousy. A person serving the rest of their lives in this bitch didn’t wanna watch the next muthafucka get out and move on with their lives.
Joe was different, though, being older and having committed his murder back in the early 2000s, so he couldn’t fathom a life outside of these walls and was therefore perfectly content where he was.
That shit was unfathomable to me, but when he expounded on how he wouldn’t be able to cope on the outside, I understood the shit.
Me only being down for three years made an older black man like Joe happy to see someone my age get some rehabilitation and a chance at a new life. By saying that, he was the only one I confided in.
Sitting down, I held the phone to my ear, leg bouncing impatiently as my free hand rested upon my fade. Like always, I kept my back to the phone receiver, never being one to leave myself exposed, while I waited for LaMia to pick up. I didn’t know why I felt so much fucking anxiety, but I did.
“Hey,” she answered after accepting the charges, tone a little less enthusiastic than it was a few days ago when we’d spoken.
My anxious ass thoughts multiplied at the sound of her voice.
“What’s up, baby. You aight?” I quizzed, brows bunching.
I hated this shit, being locked away, but the worst fucking part was leaving my baby out there in a world full of wolves.
Same time, I made sure LaMia was well taken care of in all ways financially. Her bank account stayed full, I still paid all the bills, and did all the same shit I had when a nigga was free.
Only difference was I couldn’t lay up with her. I shut my eyes at the thought, eager to bury my fucking face into LaMia’s neck to smell her sweet perfume, feel her soft skin, and most importantly, be back inside of her. I needed my baby.
“I—” LaMia cut her own sentence off to sigh dejectedly, causing me to sit up straight as a pin needle.
My forehead creased as the same feeling I’d had the night I’d smoked Judd crept into my bones. I was beginning to feel lame as fuck as a man, unable to keep my girl protected at all times.
Several times during my incarceration, I wondered if I’d done the right thing by killing that nigga Judd and leaving LaMia lonely for over three years.
Every time, though, I’d come to the conclusion that I wouldn’t have been able to walk this earth knowing another nigga had violated my woman and went on about his fucking way.
“Let me know something, baby.” I urged her along, becoming more ardent for every second she stayed silent.
“I can’t do this anymore, Rah.” LaMia expelled a breath at the same time she spoke those words, hitting a nigga almost as hard as the bullet I’d shot into Judd Jenkins.
Massaging the bridge of my nose, I closed my eyes, something I rarely did inside of this prison—even while asleep—trying to make sure my ears were working properly. Or shit, that I wasn’t in some fucking dream-like state.
“You can’t do what?” I kept my cool, not wanting to blow the hell up until I fully understood LaMia’s words. She could’ve been talking about any fucking thing. I hoped.
“Us. You being away and—”
“I get that, baby. I do. Trust me, but that’s why I called instead of just making you wait and surprising you. I’m out of this muthafucka in a few weeks.” I dropped my voice a few octaves to a whisper, heart still galloping in my fucking chest.
“Y-you are? I thought you weren’t due to get out for another two months?” LaMia queried, and sadly, I couldn’t ignore the lack of excitement she possessed.
Nodding before I could say a word due to the jumble of thoughts in my fucking head, I replied, “I know but umm,” running a thumb across my bottom lip and feeling the searing pain in my fucking head and chest at the way this conversation was going.
“This shit is overcrowded, and I been on my best behavior. Not to mention I ain’t got much time left, so they lettin’ a nigga out. ”
“That’s great, Rah . . . I just . . . I don’t think that . . .” LaMia couldn’t forge the words, but even without a viable sentence I had easily figured shit out.
Even worse, I’d caught on to the fact that the reason for all this was because she’d ran into another nigga.
I’d feared this would happen and knew the shit was very much possible, but after LaMia had kept her word this whole fucking time, I assumed we’d gotten past that hurdle.
I never expected such a wrecking ball to come in only weeks before my fucking release.
“You mean I ain’t the nigga you met, and now you don’ moved on.” I kept it real.
Shock had crept in, burrowing its way through to the pit of my fucking stomach. I wasn’t even gon’ front, . . . a nigga was sick.
“No.” LaMia snickered nervously. “I—”
“You said you couldn’t do the long-distance shit, I tell you I’m coming home in a little bit, and you still saying you can’t do it. So help me understand what it is, Mia, if it ain’t the fact that you don’ found a nigga who can do what I used to do?” I reiterated.
As soon as I’d pulled the trigger on my peer, I knew my career as a boxer was over with. And now, after three plus years, a lot of things had changed, including me going from being one of the highest paid and most talked about, to being a nobody in that regard.
I was cool with that, the wheels already turning on how I’d planned to take the millions I’d saved and funnel it into some other shit to make money.
I wasn’t worried, because all I’d lost was the fame, and true enough, I could do without that shit. In fact, it was preferred. At the end of the day, a nigga was a hustler at heart, always had been, and was never too much worried about making a dollar.
Shit, I’d kept up LaMia’s lifestyle the entire time I was locked up, and she never once questioned how, despite me having lost everything, because that was just the type of nigga I was.
I always got the job done to the point where it was expected of me.
No one asked how or why because when Rakim was involved, shit always got handled.
“That’s not true, Rah.” LaMia volleyed.
“So you don’t have a new nigga? And you don’t wanna stop fucking with me because I ain’t in the ring winning belts no more?” I threw out, smiling a bit, not out of humor but, instead, disbelief.
Had LaMia told me this shit two years ago, I would’ve been fucked up about it, no doubt, but I would’ve understood it, nodded my fucking head, and told her to be happy.
Now, I saw shit differently, wondering how long she’d been allowing a nigga to foot the bill for her lifestyle while she was sitting on another nigga’s dick.
“Rah, this isn’t fair. I—”
“Aye, you got—” A deep baritone that felt like shards of glass penetrating my damn ears cut into LaMia’s sentence before stopping itself.
For a split second, I was speechless, replaying the voice in my head over and over like a broken record.
“My brother?” I quizzed, irate, floored, bamboozled. “Was that Ayan?”
Just this morning, I’d been sure this day would be one for the fucking books, and I was right. However, I assumed the shit would be more positive instead of one filled with negativity and betrayal.
“I have to go, Rah. Congrats.” LaMia spoke quickly.
“Mia! LaMia!” I shouted louder than I’d ever had at her before the line went dead.
For a moment, I sat there, phone still in hand and pressed flush to my face, staring off into what was no longer the confining walls of a fucking prison but the dark, depressing abyss.
“She excited?” Joe walked back up, eyes twinkling in anticipation to hear what he assumed would be a nigga gloating.
“Something like that,” I replied somewhat absentmindedly, more focused on the fact that Ayan’s spot would be my first stop upon release.
* * *
RELEASE DAY . . . FEW WEEKS LATER . . .
Mind elsewhere, I grabbed my belongings that the officer handed over to me before dryly directing my ass toward the exit as if I needed the instruction.
Half of the shit in the bag, I didn’t even recognize due to how long it’d been since I’d harbored it.
“Fuck.” I grumbled at the bright ass sun shining down on me, just as I witnessed a fly ass truck that looked like it came from the future pull up.
I’d been locked down, but I didn’t think I’d been away long enough for niggas to be whipping cars that looked like they could also take flight.
Before the tinted windows even lowered, I smirked, already knowing it was my little brothers, Zaire and Josias.
“My nigga free!” Josias, the wilder of the two, flew from the back seat of the truck as I started toward him.
Zaire, rounding the back of the truck since he’d clearly been on the driver’s side, trailed his excited ass twin with a grin on his face.
“What’s good, nigga?” I tried not to laugh as Josias rushed me, embracing me like a fucking kid.