All the Kings Men, page 19
“Kadeem, let him go,” she shouted. “You’re going to kill him. Let him go!” She ran between the two and tried her best to stop them.
I stood there and watched with glee. It was as if I was floating outside myself watching KD go ham! Tasha kept screaming at KD and Chevy. That went on for another few minutes before she was able to get my brother off that nigga.
KD looked like a pent-up lion pacing back and forth. His brown and tan boots had Chevy’s DNA on them.
“He’s just being an ass and I really don’t get why. I’m not your girl, Chevy.”
Chevy rose up slowly with his hand to his mouth. Nigga was spitting blood. His shirt looked ten times too small, like something Kadeem Jr. would wear. Because anger was fresh in his eyes, and we all knew how embarrassed, ego bruised cops could be, it was Tasha that spoke up quickly.
“The neighborhood is watching, Chevy…and at any time Uncle Lo could come back.”
Chevy slowly stumbled backwards. When he thumbed his nose, I knew logic had kicked him in his dumbass brain. “Next time, don’t find your ass by yourself,” he growled at me. “Weird-ass nigga.”
“Shit, that sounds like a threat. One that can be reported, right?” I ran my thumb over my lower lip, smiling. “I don’t know you, nigga. So, whatever you do, do that shit. I’ll be waiting on your dumb turkey neck ass. Tasha is the least of your concerns now.”
“Fuck you,” Chevy barked then looked at Tasha. “I’m not done with you, Tasha. Your stupid-ass is fucking around with the wrong one.”
“Just leave! Please. I’m tired of the shit, for real.” Tasha spat out. “I’m not yours.”
“Yes, you are. I’m not done,” he said stumbling to his car. He looked at us as he flung open his side door. “I’m watching. Know that.”
“And I’m waiting, Sheriff Dumbass.” Kadeem walked to the edge of the lawn with his hands fisted, ready to give that nigga more of the business.
When Chevy drove off, Kadeem turn and thumbed his nose. “If he comes back, or causes some shit, let me know. I’ll handle it or him”
Pissed, my bro walked into the house. I didn’t know where he came from, perhaps work. Who knew? But I was glad he’d shown up when he had.
With a shake of my head, I glanced at Tasha. “Know that you got good pussy, but I’m not that type of crazy. Problematic niggas like him will get a bullet if he steps to me or you again.”
Tasha studied me. Sadness was in her beautiful eyes. “Shut up and come inside so I can clean you up.” Tasha gave me a curious look then walked past me, going inside. I followed. I was pretty sure the block saw that show. That could always work in my favor…
Chapter 23: Prime
“I did what you asked, now please give me my babies back. Please,” Braychelle cried.
He knew that bitch was probably hating the day she got involved with a nigga like Screwface. But that was her problem not his.
“What did you tell Sheriff Duncan?”
“Exactly what you said. I told him about Malcolm and that girl Natasha coming to my house.”
“You file charges?”
“No. That nigga is crazy.”
“Who? The sheriff?”
“Yeah. He was more concerned about Natasha being with Mali than what the fuck I was talking about.”
Just then Dani walked in the door. A cool gust of wind followed her and Michaela. Once again, was shopping with Michaela, spending all my fucking money, Prime thought. Her pussy was good but not that fucking good. Michaela spoke to Prime.
“Who is that?” Dani asked, looking at Braychelle.
“None of your fucking business. How much money you spend today?” he asked sarcastically, not really expecting that ghetto ho to answer.
Dani giggled then shook her head as she set the bags on the floor. She was dressed in black tights with thigh high boots that had her ass and thighs sitting right. However, she couldn’t hold a candle to Michaela. She had on one of those denim tunic things that looked like a short dress. It was cold as fuck outside, but she had her chocolate thighs bare, with thigh high boots that called attention right to her inner thighs. Prime licked his lips. She caught him then shook her head. Michaela inhaled and exhaled like she couldn’t be bothered with him and his lust.
Smirking, Prime turned back to Braychelle. “So you said Mali was with Natasha?”
“Yeah.”
“And they seem close to you?”
Braychelle nodded. “Yeah.”
Prime pointed to the laptop he had pulled Natasha’s picture up on. “And you’re one hundred percent sure this is the chick he was with?”
“Yes, nigga, I’m sure. Where my babies?”
Dani walked over. When she looked at the screen, her face did something weird. Tilting her head, she studied Natasha’s picture.
“What’chu looking at?”
Dani made a face then shook her head. It was almost a look that a chick would give if she was beefing with another female.
“Nothing,” she said. “The jawn just looks mad familiar.”
“Chill out. I ain’t fucking her if that’s what you thinking.”
Dani rolled her eyes. She walked over to where Michaela was standing and snatched up shopping bags.
“Come on, Michaela. Help me take these bags upstairs,” Dani said.
Prime waited until they had disappeared around the corner before saying anything. Dani was always popping off about something. Always accusing a nigga of fucking somebody else. I mean I am, he thought, but not this time. He chuckled inwardly. Prime kinda jigged to being an ain’t shit nigga.
But Braychelle brought his attention back to her when she said, “I kept my mouth closed about everything I heard between you and Screwface. I fucked you when you wanted me to. I did everything you asked me to do…just give me my babies and I’ll disappear. You won’t hear shit else from me,” she pleaded.
She didn’t lie. She knew all about him tricking Screwface into shooting at Mali and even in Throne’s face, she kept quiet. Shorty was loyal as fuck, as she had been for years, but she had to go. He couldn’t risk her selling him out. That was why after Throne left, after asking Prime to meet him at the warehouse, he talked her into going to the sheriff to try to get Mali locked up again. He’d promised her the whole hundred thousand if she did what he asked.
“They’re upstairs. Go chill with them. I’ll get your money,” he lied about the last part.
Neither she nor her children were leaving that house alive.
Chess objective 5: King-safety: Keep your king safe. Try to expose your opponent’s king because an exposed king is very vulnerable to threats.
Chapter 24: Natasha
The next few days were like a blur. After that shit with Chevy, Mali and I laid low and acted as normal as we could. Like clockwork, Mali went to work, and I picked him up at the end of the day. We stayed at his place or mine, most times at his. We laughed. We talked. We watched movies. We even went out. I showed him all the shit that had changed around ATL while he was locked up. When he went in, Atlantic Station was still new so for him to get to walk around and see the changes, shocked him.
Chevy fucked with us every chance he got. I got pulled over and handed more tickets than a little bit. Chevy’s officers harassed Mali by parking outside of the places he moved furniture in when he was working on our side of town. That was until Uncle Lo paid Chevy a visit. Chevy was still pissed, but he stayed away from me and Mali…for the time being.
It didn’t matter. Mali and I kept it moving. I got a kick out of doing couples like shit with him. We even held hands and walked around like we belonged to one another all along. I was happy when he got his first paycheck because he was happy about it. The first thing he did was buy me a big bag of Skittles. Most people wouldn’t get the big deal about that. But it was Mali and that was the most romantic thing I was going to get out of him. I laughed thinking about it. I took him to the bank so he could open an account. I got a kick out of watching him trying to insert my bank card into the chip reader in the grocery store.
Mali had very little patience, and after so many tries, he threw my damn card and walked out the store. I would have been embarrassed, but I was laughing too hard to care that I had to search for my bank card. I showed him how to drive my car. I mean he knew how to drive going in, but cars had changed since he’d gotten out. My car, a 2016 Chrysler 200, didn’t have the normal gear shift. It had a knob that easily shifted into gears with a simple turn.
That shit freaked Mali out. He didn’t like it. Said it was weird and too new for him. After some prying, he finally got into it. I had to make him get rid of the flip phone and get a touch screen. It was foreign to him, but he picked up on it. I found it an anomaly that Mali was well-versed in reading though. He was educated as fuck so I guess being in prison did him one good deed because he was philosophical and could converse with me on just about anything from politics to social justice.
Things couldn’t have been better and yet there were kinks to us. He had to have things his way and if they weren’t, it was a problem. Not big things, but smalls things like he hated all the décor I had in my bedroom so he wouldn’t sleep there unless it was to his liking which was why most times we slept at his place where he was most comfortable. He still hated for me to stand over him or touch him out of the blue. There had to be some kind of prerequisite before I touched him. Like I had to walk up, talk to him and let him get close to me before I could touch him.
He still did things that would be considered prison shit like eat peanut butter on his pancakes. He told me that was one of the things he used to do in prison. When I introduced him to organic maple syrup, he stared at the container for so long I thought I’d offended him. He assured me it was just because he hadn’t been privy to those things for so long that he damn near forget they existed. He always slept on his back and if he didn’t, he slept on his right side with his back to the wall.
Some days he was moody. Other days he was as happy as a kid, playful and excited about learning that I could get internet through the TV and the phone. Playing on the PlayStation 4 was a task, but Mali learned quickly. When my Alexa remote activated and started to speak, Mali damn near swung on me because it caught him off guard.
Every night at eight, Mali left the house to meet with Uncle Lo. He never returned home until well after eleven. I knew those meetings were about him meeting with Throne and Prime. Mali didn’t want to go in halfcocked. I understood it. I helped to set up the escape plan if there needed to be one. He had a team who was going in with him along with Uncle Lo and his men. The twins had become his shadows. They, too, worked for Uncle Lo’s moving company. The job was to cover them as his bodyguards.
The only thing I hated? I didn’t know when or where the meeting was going to be. Mali wouldn’t tell me, which led to fights that had finally boiled over.
“You could have told me the meeting was tonight,” I said to him.
We were standing—more like squaring off—across from one another in his basement apartment. We’d spent the whole day together, just driving around Atlanta, shopping, eating, and randomly taking selfies. He was trying to get dressed but I wouldn’t let him. I had a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach that just wouldn’t let up. I was scared. I was nervous. Something in the back of my mind didn’t want me to let him walk up out of there.
“Why? You ain’t going. So, what difference does it make?” he asked, irritation straining his voice.
He moved around me and tried to snatch up his jeans, but I grabbed them at the same time he did. He sighed, patience running thin. We’d done the same song and dance two times already. He’d reach for his jeans, I’d stop him.
“Stop. Will you at least tell me where it will be?” I pleaded.
“No. I don’t want you anywhere near that place and I know your stubborn ass. You’ll make your way there just to get under my fucking skin,” he said through clenched teeth.
“I can help. I can protect you if you need it,” I said.
“Protect me? You think I need your protecting?” he asked as if the thought was absurd.
“I don’t like the thought of you being anywhere with them alone.”
“I ain’t going to be alone, Natasha. I’m not putting you anywhere near them niggas for them to try to figure out if you’re Jaded or not,” he snapped.
He snatched his jeans from my hand then walked across the room. I felt helpless. I felt like I was watching him walk into another trap, and yet again, I wouldn’t be there to save him.
“Don’t do this, Mali. Please,” I said, finally feeling the heat of tears falling down my face.
He glanced over his shoulder at me but didn’t say anything.
“We can just take them out as planned, right? You don’t have to meet with this nigga,” I yelled, damn near choking on my tears.
I kept replaying that day all those years ago in my head. Standing on the side of that building, feeling useless…helpless. I wanted to do something, anything, but I couldn’t. I was too afraid to move. So I watched the boy I loved get beaten and handcuffed and carted off. I felt the same thing I felt then, only now I felt he was walking into a death trap.
I watched, hopelessly, as he dressed. “Stay with me,” I whispered.
Mali spun around so fast that I jumped back. His gaze bounced from place to place before settling on me.
“Fuck, Jaded,” he yelled. “I just gave you days and days of me, nothing but me. The good, the bad, and the fucking ugly. Let me handle my fucking business. I told you what it was from the jump and you said you were cool with that shit.”
His face reddened and he kept clenching his fists. The muscles in his arms flexed, drawing attention to the tats and scars there.
“That was before you agreed to meet with the men who sent you to fucking prison, the men who tried get you killed while in there!”
Mali shook his head, then snatched up his jacket and cell phone. “I’m out,” he said, heading for the door.
I couldn’t let him leave. I just couldn’t. He didn’t know what he was walking into, and although I knew Uncle Lo was a man about his business, I couldn’t risk losing Mali. Not again. I couldn’t stand the thought of him going back to prison or worse, getting killed.
How dare he talk to me like I was some random bitch on the street when all I was trying to do was save him? He was trying to leave me again and he didn’t give a fuck. He didn’t care that I’d be left back here with my scars and with my fucking demons to mourn—the man this time, not the boy—that he once was.
The more I thought about the time we’d spent over the last few days, the more it dawned on me that he’d been so pliable, had given me all that time because he knew that there was a possibility that he’d walk into a trap, again. He knew that it was possible he would never lay eyes on me again. So he coddled me. Gave me time, love, and sex that I couldn’t even dream of…All because he knew… He had that same nagging feeling in his gut that I did.
In my mind, that was manipulation. As he walked out the door, I rushed behind him, snatched his wife beater in a death grip. It ripped from his right shoulder as I smacked him in the back of the head. The hit was so loud and so hard that it scared even me. I gasped then jumped back when Mali turned on me. The expression on his face was somewhere between shock and bitch, are you stupid?
I was crying. The bottom had fallen out of my stomach and I had an empty space where my heart used to be.
“Fuck you,” I screamed at him. “You’re selfish and you’re full of shit! You don’t care about nobody but you and your own fucking agendas.”
My words were coming out mixed with spit and aggression. He wasn’t leaving here without a fight. Mali’s nostrils flared as he tossed the jacket he had to side. He threw his phone against the wall. It shattered as he stalked toward me. He shoved me against the wall, anger making his face appear contorted.
His breathing was noisy as he got in my face. “You outta your fucking mind?”
He drew his fist back and punched the wall beside my head. I screamed. He roared out in aggression. He drew in slow steady breaths. We were those teenagers again, not knowing how to express ourselves, so we resulted to violence. I stared in his face. Wanted to scream, beg, and plead with him not to go to that meeting.
Instead, I slapped him. He tried to grab my arm, so I swung at with the other one. He had to stay with me. He couldn’t go out there. I slapped him again. Kicked him. Punched. Before I knew it, we were fighting like old times. He yelled for me to stop. I kept screaming how much I hated him. I tore his shirt off of him as we fought. He ripped my shirt, trying to get me off of him.
He finally grabbed my wrist and slammed me against the wall. The crash knocked my breath out my body and made it hard for me to breathe.
“Stop this shit, Jaded. Stop.” His face was so close to mine, our lips brushed when he talked. “What the fuck is wrong with you?” he barked at me.
“You know…you know what’s wrong with me!”
His face was red in the places I’d hit. I couldn’t hold my sobs back anymore. I was sure I looked as if I was losing my damn mind.
“Don’t…go, please,” I breathed out.
He took a deep breath, then laid his head against mine. And for moments all that could be heard was his breathing and my crying. He let my wrists go and caressed the sides of my head. His fingers massaged my scalp as his heart thudded against my chest. He kissed me…well tried to.
I turned my head. He followed my movements. We kept that song and dance up until I finally gave in. I couldn’t really resist him. I was just angry…and scared. I wanted him to stay. Needed him to stay. He couldn’t leave me again. I brought my hands to his waist, trying to communicate what I was feeling inside but it wasn’t working.
