Chapter 27 - Steel
THORNFIELD FEDERAL PENITENTIARY
I felt the truck jerk as we came to a stop.
It was early Wednesday morning, and we’d been preparing for this all night.
Pops sat next to me, watching me, not saying a word, while Quaid sat across from us doing the same while working on his laptop.
When Deuce asked Neha for her father’s name, I already had plans to do that nigga in.
Of course, the family wanted to get at him, but it was on me to take care of his bitch ass.
Pops came with me for moral support, while Quaid was here to do this tech shit. Jaeda wanted to come, but he told her to sit her ass down and bake his baby, so that was what she did. We’d hopped on the private jet and made the two-hour flight over to handle business.
Quaid did some digging into the backgrounds of every officer on the payroll, to find out which one was the most hard up for some cash.
A nigga by the name of Janson Pollock had a nice little gambling problem, so he was the easiest target.
Pops reached out to a contact of his and set everything up.
We paid him twenty bands to slip us a couple of uniforms and let us in through the delivery entrance.
“You good?” Pops asked.
“I’m straight.”
I was a little in my head about this shit, to be honest. We’d done a lot of shit, but breaking into a prison to commit murder wasn’t one of them.
However, it needed to be done. This nigga was the root of my problem of not even knowing I had a child.
While Neha played her part, the trauma he inflicted over her childhood played a bigger one, and that shit was unforgivable.
I had to do him in.
“I need to talk to my baby,” I said, pulling out my phone.
I sent her a FaceTime call, and she picked up on the second ring.
“Hey, Daddy.”
“Hey, princess. What you doing?”
“Mom’s about to do my hair for school.”
“I know she’s gonna have you looking beautiful as always. I miss you.”
“I miss you too. Can you pick me up today? I wanna see Grandma Tavia and Grandpa Hershel.”
“I got you, baby. I want you to have a good day at school, okay?”
“I’ll try. Can we go to the movies this weekend?”
“Whatever you want.”
“You think KJ will be quiet and not get us kicked out?”
I chuckled. “Daddy ain’t letting nobody kick us out.”
“Good, ’cause I really wanna see the new Zootopia movie. And I want a large popcorn and a slushie. Oh! And some candy. And can we go to the pizza place after?”
“I got you.”
“I gotta go. Mommy’s calling me. I love you. Have a great day!”
“I love you too.”
She blew me a kiss, and I blew her one back before hanging up. Next to me, Pops chuckled.
“Yeah, you’re me when it comes to your sisters, especially Jaeda. She’s gonna spend all your money.”
“She can bankrupt me, and I wouldn’t care.”
Quaid smirked. “I can always reroute funds to your account.”
“That’s why I fuck with your nerdy ass.”
The back of the truck opened, and there stood CO Pollock. Quaid held up a hand to silence him while he clicked around on his computer. Once he was done, he nodded his head.
“Cameras are down, and the live feed has been replaced.”
Pollock looked surprised. “Damn. You did all that?”
“That’s neither here nor there,” I said, standing. “Where is he?”
“He’s on kitchen duty. I can pull him and a few of the other guys away to unload the truck.”
“Put this on.” Quaid handed him a pin. “It’s a camera. I can hear and see everything you do or say.”
“I got you.”
Pollock turned to me and Pop and motioned for us to follow him.
We hopped off the truck, as another delivery was pulling up to the dock, and followed him into the building while Quaid closed the back of the truck.
We maneuvered through the halls with ease, perfectly blending in.
When we came upon the kitchen where about ten inmates were moving about, geting breakfast ready.
There he was, . . . Timothy Oden.
He looked like prison hadn’t been kind to him.
I could tell somebody had been whupping his ass.
It was just like a nigga that loved to hit women to not be able to handle fighting a man.
I couldn’t wait to get my hands on him. Thinking about the way he did Neha made my blood boil.
It was going to make killing him that much more satisfying.
“Jeffries. Dandridge. Pierce. Come with me to the docks. There’s a delivery. Oden, you’re needed in laundry.”
He frowned. “That’s not my job.”
“It is today. Let’s go.”
Timothy muttered a curse as he followed behind the other inmates out of the room. Pops and I both slipped on a pair of gloves as they turned their backs. While Pollock led the other three men to the docks, Quaid was in my ear, guiding us to the basement area, with override codes for the keypads.
As we bypassed the laundry room door, Oden looked confused.
“That’s laundry back there,” he said.
“Keep walking,” Pops said, shoving him forward.
“The fuck are you taking me?”
I turned around and punched him hard in the gut, causing him to double over. Grabbing him by the back of the neck, I yanked him upright.
“Keep. Fucking. Walking,” I said through gritted teeth.
I shoved him forward, and we kept walking until we got to the end of the hall. I punched in the override code and shoved him into a room that served as storage. Grabbing him by the neck, I led him to the very back.
“What the fuck are you doing?” he questioned as I shoved him into a wall.
Pops stood back to let me handle this. A sinister smile spread across my face as I approached him.
“You touched something that belongs to me,” I said calmly.
“How? Nigga, I been in here sixteen consecutive years. That’s one right after the muthafucking other, to make it plain and simple for your ass.”
I chuckled. “You remember the reason you’re in here, Timmy?
The wife you almost beat to death. The children you abused.
One of your daughters is the love of my life.
Because of the trauma you caused, . . . trauma I didn’t know about, .
. . she hid my daughter from me for ten years. I feel some type of way about that.”
He laughed. “You coming at me about some shit I did years ago? So my daughter hid a baby from you, and that’s my fau—”
I punched him in the face so hard that it sent him flying into the wall, knocking the wind out of him.
“Did I ask you for a muthafucking commentary, nigga?”
He coughed as he struggled to his feet. “F-fuck you.”
I chuckled as I went into my pocket to retrieve the syringe and vial I’d gotten from Smoke.
“Do you know what it’s like to feel helpless, Timothy?
” I asked, filling the syringe with the liquid.
“You ever think about your ex-wife laying there feeling the life drain from her body as you damn near beat her to death? You ever hear the cries of your little girls begging you to stop because they couldn’t fight you back while you beat them until they’re black and blue? ”
I grabbed him by his neck and injected him with the paralyzing agent.
“That’s what I’m gonna do to you. You won’t be able to fight back. You’ll feel every ounce of pain. Every broken bone. Everything . . . and you won’t be able to do a thing about it. Helpless, just like your wife and daughters.”
His body went limp, and he slumped to the floor, eyes wide.
I took off my uniform and handed it to my father.
Dressed in a beater and basketball shorts, I cracked my knuckles and neck as I stepped toward Oden.
All he could do was sit there as I beat the dog shit out of him.
His eyes pleaded with me to stop but I couldn’t.
As I delivered blows to his face and body, I heard the bones cracking beneath my fists and feet. It was so fucking satisfying. One thing about me, I was calm and laid-back until a nigga made me sit up. Sure, I was considered the sensitive one of my brothers, but I was also the deadliest.
I didn’t need a weapon.
All I needed was my hands.
“Get the fuck up,” I said, snatching a bruised and bloody Timothy from the floor and pushing him against the wall. The fear in his eyes made me smile as I wrapped my gloved hands around his neck.
“I’m gonna deliver the same fate you tried to give your wife, bitch ass nigga,” I said, squeezing hard. “Nobody is coming to save you. You’ll start to rot before you’re even found.”
His eyes widened as I squeezed the life from him.
I took pleasure watching him slowly drift away, and once I was satisfied, I decided to end his pain and snapped his neck.
His head dropped to the side, and I released him to the floor.
For a moment, I just stared at him before covering him up with a tarp that was lying around and placing several items in front of his body to conceal him.
“You got it out your system?” Pops asked.
I nodded. “Yeah. I’m good.”
“Good. Let’s get the fuck outta here.”
I put the uniform back on, and we made our way to the door. After checking to make sure the coast was clear, we left the storage room and headed back to the docks. The other delivery truck was gone, and Pollock was nervously waiting for us.
“Is it done?” he asked.
“Don’t ask no fucking questions,” Pops said. “You don’t know shit, and you ain’t seen shit. And if you say shit, you’re gonna be next. You feel me, my nigga?”
Pollock nodded frantically. “I feel you.”
Pops knocked on the back of the truck with the combination we told Quaid. The gate opened, and he stepped inside to retrieve the payment he promised Pollock.
“Our business here is done,” he said, handing it over. “Don’t spend that all in one place.”
I stepped into the truck and closed the gate. The engine came alive, and we pulled away from the docks, back to home, . . . back to my babies.
All three of them.
It was Sunday, and that meant family dinner.