Promise Kept, page 1
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BOOKS BY K’WAN
The Promises Series
Promise Broken
Promise Kept
The Animal Series
Animal: The Beginning
Ghetto Bastard
Animal
The Omen
Revelations
Last Rites
Animal 4.5
Executioner’s Song
The Hood Rat Series
Hood Rat
Still Hood
Section 8
Welfare Wifeys
Eviction Notice
The First & Fifteenth
No Shade
Outlaws & Disorder
The Diamonds Series
Diamonds and Pearl
The Diamond Empire
The Black Lotus Series
Black Lotus
The Vow
The Fix Series
The Fix
The Fix II
The Fix III
The Purple City Series
Purple Reign
Little Nikki Grind
Copyright © 2024 by K’wan Foye
E-book published in 2024 by Blackstone Publishing
Cover design by Luis Alejandro Cruz Castillo
Author photograph by Karl McNeill
All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
The characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.
Trade e-book ISBN 978-1-7999-6141-3
Library e-book ISBN 978-1-7999-6140-6
Fiction / Urban
Blackstone Publishing
31 Mistletoe Rd.
Ashland, OR 97520
www.BlackstonePublishing.com
CONTENTS
Prologue
I. She Without Sin
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
II. The Devil You Know
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
III. A Couple Of Kids from Newark
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Epilogue
About the Author
PROLOGUE
Pain . . . Mind-numbing pain that spread from the back of his head and over his face was the only thing that told B-Stone that he was still among the living. He slowly opened one eye and found that he had trouble opening the other. As far as he could tell the eye wasn’t swollen or damaged. It was like his brain couldn’t communicate with that side of his face to send the proper signals to get his eyelid to function.
Pressing the knuckles of both his massive hands into the carpet, he tried to push himself up. More pain shot through his face as half the carpet fabric seemed to come loose in the act. The blood covering his cheeks had begun to dry and cake into a sticky mess. When he tried to sit up, the world swam, and he plunged back down. He lay there like a cripple, breathing heavily as if he had just run laps. He was in worse shape than he initially thought. A murderous fire burned in his heart as he recounted what had happened to him and who had been responsible. He would bring the full weight of his rank down on the head of the white girl and her little friend for crossing him. They’d tried to take him out—and failed. It was a mistake they wouldn’t live long enough to regret.
“Take it easy, blood,” B-Stone heard a voice say. “You might have a concussion.” B-Stone wanted to turn his head to see who was speaking, but he didn’t yet have the strength. When a pair of hands took him under both arms and gently began pulling him from the ground, he didn’t resist. B-Stone had made it as far as a kneeling position before he motioned for whoever was helping him to stop. His head was killing him, and he felt like he might throw up if he did too much too soon.
“Fuck,” B-Stone huffed, kneeling in the middle of the hotel room, rocking back and forth. After a few ticks, the room stopped spinning, and he was able to turn his head slightly. Standing near him was the face of a kid he had seen around the neighborhood, but he couldn’t remember his name. He was from the area, but not a part of the crew. At that moment, it didn’t even matter. B-Stone was just thankful for the helping hand.
“Damn, big man. You look like shit on a stick,” the kid said, running his finger along the thin gold chain around his neck while he watched B-Stone curiously.
B-Stone caught the insult, and normally he would’ve thrown the young civilian a good beating for speaking to him in such a way, but right then wasn’t the time. Besides, all his fury would be saved for the white girl. “Bitches tried to do me in. I’m gonna kill that white whore when I catch her.”
“They’re long gone. I saw them book it down the stairs before I came in here to see what became of you.” The kid sat on the bed, beside where B-Stone was kneeling. “They looked pretty shaken up, especially Promise.”
“Fuck that mutt. She wanna be around waving fresh meat in front of a bunch of wolves all night, and then cry foul when one of us takes a bite. When I catch her, she’s gonna take this dick before I end her life. She can run, but there ain’t nowhere in the Bricks or the state of New Jersey where I won’t be able to touch her. Everybody nigga swinging a red flag gonna be hunting honkie!” B-Stone fumed.
The kid let out a sigh of what sounded like relief, hearing that whatever evil deed B-Stone had intended had failed. “I figured whatever you two came in here to do went to the left when I saw her crying. That’s when I knew what I needed to do. I had to make sure that the monster was really dead for her to be free.”
“What? The fuck is you mumbling about?” B-Stone asked in an annoyed tone. He had only been half-listening to the rambling young man because he was too busy plotting his revenge against Promise. In response, he felt the kid’s arm wrap around his neck in a reverse choke hold and pressure being applied. B-Strone was bigger and stronger than him, but he was at a disadvantage because he was kneeling and badly injured. “You know who the fuck I am?” B-stone asked, his voice strained.
The kid pondered it. “Yes, the monster.” He produced a knife from his pocket and ripped it across B-Stone’s throat. B-Stone thrashed about, desperately trying to claw at his enemy’s face but only managing to tear the collar of his shirt. It was no use. Eventually B-Stone stopped his squirming and went still. The kid continued to hold him for a time, like a parent comforting a child. His eyes stared vacantly at the blood splatter on the bed and wall, as if his brain was trying to pick out a hidden pattern in the spray. He could’ve gotten lost in the mural of blood, but time wasn’t on his side.
He heard a familiar female voice echo down the hallway: “I saw him go in the other room with the white bitch. He’s breaking her in for the rest of the crew. You better hurry up and get yours before there ain’t nothing left. You know blood greedy as hell.”
It was time to go. The killer took one last moment to admire his handiwork while he wiped his knife clean on the hotel bedsheet. B-Stone lay on his stomach, head cocked to one side, and frozen on his face was the terror of knowing that he was breathing his last breaths. His killer had wished it hadn’t had to come to this, but the minute he walked into that hotel room and saw that there was still life in the man sprawled on the carpet, he knew what he had to do. It was one life measured against two, so he did what he felt the universe would’ve wanted and protected what he loved.
B-Stone was a foul dude and deserved what had happened to him that night and then some. He was not a good man, but he was a man to be respected. B-Stone was a decorated general in one of the largest domestic armies within the United States, the Bloods. He may not have had any standing to speak of in any official branch of the military, but in the City of Newark, his rank spoke volumes. B-Stone’s was a murder that would not go unnoticed or unpunished. The city would bleed for this.
B-Stone’s killer crept to the hotel door, silently opening it and conducting a brief scan of the hallway. He was able to match the voice of the girl he had heard speaking with the young lady in the hallway. She was tall, with chocolate-colored skin and hair dyed crimson red. He knew who she was and what would happen if she spotted him coming out of that room. Thankfully, a distraction presented itself. One of the partygoers from the hotel suite three doors down, where the main party was happening, engaged her in conversation. When her back turned to the scene of the crime, the young killer stole across the hallway and escaped down the stairs into the night. By the time anyone discovered B-Stone’s body, he would be gone without a trace—or so he had thought.
The killing of B-Stone had been committed with
It would be two whole days before the murder at the Robert Treat would make the Star-Ledger. The journalist covering it had written a small piece about another young Black man who had added to the city of Newark’s ever-rising murder rate. The only real lead the police had to go on was an anonymous witness’s account of two women fleeing the scene and a strange chain, decorated with what appeared to be gold teeth, clutched in the hand of the victim.
CHAPTER ONE
ONE YEAR LATER
The gentleman’s club known as Dirty Wine—which was a play on words—was a bit more chaotic than usual that night. It wasn’t really a club, more like a bar with a stage built behind the glass horseshoe counter where the drinks were served. Dirty Wine was an out-of-the-way, hole-in-the-wall spot in the Bronx that wasn’t the most well-known on the circuit, but it had its nights. Weekends usually drew a decent enough crowd because the drinks were strong and the door cover charge was only five bucks. But at the time, it was only 8:00 p.m. on a Thursday, and there were already a few dozen people in a space only built to hold about sixty. At that rate, they might have found themselves shut down by the fire department before the real entertainment started.
For the last thirty minutes or so, patrons had begun trickling in. Most of them were the after-work regulars, coming to spend portions of their paychecks on lap dances and beers and fantasies manufactured by the girls whispering in their ears before returning to their realities of wives, families, and the bills awaiting them.
Women of all shapes and sizes pranced around the small room wearing little to nothing at all. The city of New York had cracked down on full nudity in strip clubs a few years prior, but some of the girls danced dangerously close to the line. One girl, who went by Lita, wore only three pasties which covered her nipples and the opening of her vagina. Her big ass swung freely as she passed one of the tables, stacked with bottles, drawing the eyes of every man sitting at it. There was blood in the water, and Lita had a nose better than most sharks.
Not everyone who came in were locals. There were a few unfamiliar faces sprinkled in. Some mingled with the girls, trying to negotiate lap dances, among other things. Those who were handling a few dollars paid the extra charge for private tables and bottle service. They weren’t the heaviest of hitters in the city, but they were players. You could tell by their jewels and designer labels. They took notice of the girls, but for the most part hadn’t come for pussy or lap dances. They were there for the listening party that Dirty Wine had been fortunate enough to be hosting that night.
A local rapper who went by the moniker of Inferno would be the guest of honor. He had made his bones as a battle rapper known for scorching his opponents with his lyrics, which is where the name came from. Over the years he had released a series of well-received mixtapes and YouTube videos, which helped to grow his exposure and put him on the radar, but it was his presence that had record labels salivating over him. Inferno had a personality that could fill a room as soon as he entered it, and his music was something that no one could quite categorize. It was a hybrid of rock music and eighties gangster rap, and he had been known to cause riots when he touched the stage. Most of the larger clubs would no longer book him for fear of the violence that seemed to follow him, which is why he was forced to host his listening party at Dirty Wine.
“Promise, you gonna stand there daydreaming all day or get these drinks over to table five sometime this century?” A voice snapped Promise out of her daze. It belonged to a tall woman who wore a large beehive-style wig that leaned slightly to one side. This was Big Sally, the bartender. She was thick with large breasts and hands that resembled catcher’s mitts. She had knocked out more than a few unruly patrons with those fists, and people who came to Dirty Wine were more cautious of Big Sally than they were of the bouncers. During the late eighties and through the early two thousands, Big Sally had been a legend on the pole, but now that she was creeping on fifty, she spent her nights behind the bar.
“Yes, ma’am,” Promise said obediently, picking up the tray of drinks Sally had set on the bar. She had to steady herself before attempting to cross the room. She hadn’t quite gotten used to walking in the large platform heels that Larry, the owner of Dirty Wine, insisted all the girls wear. Promise was only a waitress and not a dancer, but it didn’t matter to Larry. He made his money promoting sex, not comfort.
Once Promise felt confident enough that she could walk without falling flat on her face, she began her journey. Table five was only on the other side of the small room, but it may as well have been miles away. She had practiced walking in the shoes with her friend Mouse back at the apartment, but walking in heels on carpet was nothing compared to the hardwood floors of the bar. “One foot in front of the other,” she muttered to herself as she made timid steps. She was focused on her feet, instead of what was in front of her, and by the time she looked up, it was too late to stop the collision with a man who had been crossing the room. The tray holding the glasses went up, and Promise went down.
“Stupid bitch!” the man she had collided with cursed angrily. He was light-skinned and well-built, with a short afro and thick beard. He continued to hurl curses at her while looking down at his cream-colored jogging suit, which was now soaked with brown liquor.
“I . . . I’m sorry,” Promise said nervously. She tried to climb to her feet but slipped in the liquor she had spilled and fell back down.
“Sorry ain’t the word. This outfit costs more than you probably make selling pussy in this bitch all week. I should break my foot off in your whore ass!” For a second, it looked like he was about to make good on the threat, but thankfully someone intervened.
“Bone!” someone yelled from behind the man and froze him mid-stomp.
From the deep bass in the voice, Promise expected it to belong to someone larger than her attacker or, at the very least, his equal, but the man who stepped into view was neither. He wasn’t short, nor was he tall. She put him somewhere around average height. He was quite handsome, with sunburned skin, thin bowed lips, and dark silky hair that was braided into cornrows that stretched well past his shoulders. Blue jeans sagged slightly off his hips, and a gold chain with the Virgin Mary hanging from the end of it rested against his black T-shirt. When his eyes landed on Promise, she felt her heart skip. At first glance, they looked hazel, then danced to a shade of auburn, and finally settled somewhere in between. Even under the threat of being stomped, she found that she couldn’t take her focus off those dreamy eyes. Though Promise had never met the man a day in her life, his eyes told her something that his mouth didn’t have to. They told her that she was safe. For as long as she was in his presence, no harm would befall her. At least not from Bone.
“What part of low-key didn’t you understand?” the man with dreamy eyes asked Bone. The bass was gone from his voice, but the weight of his words remained.
