Chapter 23
RAH
The rage I felt was something I couldn’t even put words to. I could still hear the click of
Moses’ gun in my head, like it was laughing at me. If that gun hadn’t jammed, I’d be gone right now.
I’d already been thinking about killing him.
It had been in the back of my mind ever since I killed Carlos.
Moses was the only one who saw what went down and the only one who could tie me to it.
That made him a liability, and liabilities didn’t get to live long in my world.
But I’d been keeping the idea tucked so I wouldn’t draw more heat on myself.
But he’d just sealed his own fate the second he pointed that gun at me. Moses was a dead man walking. Family or not, I couldn’t let him get away with that. You try to take my life, you forfeit yours. Simple as that.
By the time that the bar closed, I was still heated. Everybody around me was playing me like I was soft.
“Lavell, Caine, Nell! Get the fuck in here!” I shouted out of my office door.
Watching the cameras, I knew that Caine had just let the last customer out and locked the door. I watched as they all said a few words to each other and then made their way back to my office.
I was standing in the middle of the floor as they filed in. I looked at Caine and ordered, “Have a seat, nigga.”
His dumbass looked confused but sat in the chair in front of my desk.
Without warning, I snatched the gun from his waist that he had been securing my spot with and put it to his head.
“Yo’, what the fuck?!” Nell spat. “Man, that’s your cousin!”
“Shut up!” I warned him. “I don’t give a fuck who he is!”
I grabbed the pair of vise-grips from my desk and told Caine, “Open up, motherfucker.” When he took too long, I pressed the gun to his head as if I was trying to push my way through it. “Now!” I bellowed.
He opened up. I could feel him starting to shake. I could see Nell and Lavell looking on like fucking cowards as I clamped down on Caine’s tongue with the vise-grips.
“Aaaaaah!” Caine squirmed.
“This what motherfuckers get for talking too gawd damn much.”
Then I snatched the razor blade from the desk and started to saw at his tongue.
“Aarrrrgh!” Caine tried to scream as blood gushed everywhere.
“Oh shit!” I could hear Nell curse as I sliced Caine’s tongue in half.
Lavell sounded like he wanted to throw up. “What the fuck?”
“Arrrgh! Ahhhhh!!!” Caine screamed as half of his tongue finally split from the other.
I turned around and waved it at Nell and Lavell, who jumped back and squirmed like bitches.
“Anybody else wanna keep bitching about that fucking robbery?! Huh?!”
As Caine continued to wail in pain behind me, Nell and Lavell quickly shook their heads.
“This what happens when niggas act like they gon’ talk!” Then I slammed his tongue on the ground, turned, and fired a bullet into Caine’s head. His body slumped over in the chair just as I turned and marched towards the office door. Nell and Lavell jumped out of my way.
“Clean that shit up and get rid of that nigga.”
I didn’t hear another word as I marched through and out of the club towards my ride.
I hopped in, still fuming. I had taken a lot of the anger I felt for other motherfuckers out on Caine, but that shit needed to be done to ensure that Caine never talked and that Nell and Lavell never said a word.
I was in need of some cash, and I needed Nell and Lavell for the next lick, so they needed to know to shut the fuck up and do as they were told.
“Where you been?”
I sneered at Felicia as I walked into the bedroom. “What did you say?’
“I said where you been?” she repeated as she stood up and walked towards me. “I been calling you all day. You can’t answer the phone?”
I watched her but could only see her lips moving. I heard nothing but my anger simmering and my patience running thin. I just wanted her to shut up and quit nagging.
I had moved in with Felicia once I got out of the hospital.
It was the last thing that I wanted to do, but I didn’t have a choice since Solae and Aaliyah weren’t options anymore.
Felicia’s crib was the only place where I could lay my head for free while getting fucked, sucked, and my wounds tended to.
She naively assumed that I was here because I wanted to be with her, but as soon as I hit a lick, I planned to be out of there.
“You could have answered the phone!”
I drew my hand back and then threw it forward so hard that it whipped across her face. My hand connecting with her cheek caused a cracking sound to echo in the room. Her head jolted back as she grabbed her face in awe.
“Arrrrgh!” she screamed as she fell back on the bed, looking up at me with tears in her bulging eyes.
Not one organ in my body could produce any guilt for what I had just done.
“Don’t fucking question me! You think because I live here that you run shit? You don’t run shit! I run this! You hear me?!”
“Okay, okay!” Felicia conceded, scooting back on the bed away from me.
“Guess you want me to leave now, right?!” I barked.
“No, baby. No! I’m sorry,” she pleaded with tears streaming down her face which was now red.
A triumphant grin spread across my face. “Act like it then,” I told her as I started to unbuckle my pants. Pulling my dick out, I ordered, “Show me. Come suck this dick.”
Crawling on her knees, she hurried towards me. When she hungrily took my dick into her mouth, I palmed the back of her head and started to fuck her face so hard that I could hear her choking. The sounds of her inability to breathe made my dick even harder.
The next morning, I was back to wreaking havoc on motherfuckers.
Aaliyah thought she had pulled a fast one on me, but I had always been the type of nigga to show a bitch that I played no games.
If my thirst for riches was real before, it was definitely in rare form now.
She had lived off of me for a year; she wasn’t about to play me and keep living off of my cash.
I had been blowing up her phone, but it was obvious that she had me on the block list. My calls went to voicemail.
I had left a bunch of threatening messages, but none had been threatening enough to get her to bring me back my bread.
I had looked everywhere for her; at school, all her hangout spots, her friends’ cribs.
She was nowhere to be found. So, if she wasn’t going to come out of hiding, I was going to bring her out.
“Hello? How may I help you?”
I gave the receptionist a friendly smile, along with a smooth, sultry voice to seduce her into doing what I needed. “Hey, beautiful...” When she blushed, I knew that I had her. “I’m here to see Ethel Grant.”
“And you are?” she asked with a beastly smile.
“Rah. Her son-in-law. Soon to be anyway, I hope.”
She perked up. “Oh! You’re that beautiful baby’s father. Aaliyah brought him in a few weeks ago.” Then she looked around, puzzled. “Where is Aaliyah?”
“Well, ma’am...” Then I sighed and let a gloomy look come over my face. “That’s what I need to talk to Ethel about.”
She gasped and brought her hand to her chest. “Oh no! Is everything okay?”
I pretended to get ready to say something, then paused. “I prefer to talk to Ethel first, if you don’t mind.”
She stood and walked around the desk, saying, “Okay, baby. Come on.”
As I followed her, I asked, “She in her right mind today?”
“She’s having a good day,” was all that the lady said as she continued to walk down the hall.
Good, because I needed answers right now.
As we walked up on a room, the receptionist stuck her head in and said, “Ethel, you have a visitor.”
“Okay,” I could hear someone say as the woman looked back at me, stepped out of the way, and gave me room to enter. This old bitty had the nerve to look me up and down with some funny look in her eye. Instead of smacking her for having the audacity, I forced a smile, walked in, and closed the door.
I was hoping to catch Aaliyah up here, which would have been even better for me, but her mother was the only person in the room.
Ethel was looking at me as if she was wondering who I was.
She actually did look like an older version of Aaliyah.
I had never seen the broad before because I wasn’t all into getting to know her family and shit.
“Who are you?” she asked, looking at me and squinting her eyes.
I rushed towards her. “Don’t worry about who I am, bitch,” I growled.
She gasped, watching me rush towards her bed with bucked eyes. Before she could yell for help or scream, I had my hand tightly wrapped around her neck. “Where is Aaliyah?! Has she been here?!”
“Who...” She forced out as she clawed at my hands. “Who is Aaliyah?”
“Don’t play with me!” I growled into her ear. With my free hand, I went into my pocket and pulled out my gun. Putting it to her head, I pressed it hard against her temple. She squirmed and squealed, and then suddenly, I smelled the scent of urine. “I will kill you. Where is she?”
Her eyes darted around nervously. Her frail fingers clawed at my hands as I squeezed it so tight that I could feel her esophagus. Tears started to run down her eyes, but she said nothing. Her eyes looked empty and confused.
“You stupid bitch. You don’t know shit.” I let her neck go with a jerk.
She started to fall to the side but caught herself with her hand. Resting on it, she started to take in heavy breaths as she was catching her breath. She glared at me as I kept my gun on her. “I’m sorry, sir. I don’t have any money.”
I scoffed. This lady was looney. “You better not say a fucking word about this.”
I didn’t wait for her to respond. I made my way towards the door and out of the room, closing the door behind myself. Luckily, the ugly broad was standing with her back turned talking to some nurses, so I got the fuck up outta there quick.
I wasn’t worried about Ethel saying anything. Her crazy ass probably couldn’t wrap her head around what I had said or done. Since she had dementia, I figured she would forget what had happened before I even got in my car.
But if she didn’t, I hoped that she relayed the message to Aaliyah so that she could understand that shit had gotten real and I was not to be fucked with.