Blood, Sweat and Payback Page 3

  Choppa grumbled something under his breath. “Look, bring the boy to see me. I wanna look him in the eyes before I welcome him into this family. Can you at least do that?”

  Crystal’s heart leapt. She had always been spoiled, so she thought she had won out on will. “Yes, Daddy, of course. We’ll be up there next weekend. I love you!”

  “Yeah,” Choppa grumbled. He hung up, hoping he had bought himself enough time to do something about the situation.

  Thinking about Crystal only made him madder at Janay for walking away from the family business. After getting shot, Janay went on some holy roller, straight and narrow, want-to-live-my-life-right type shit. And went as far as packing up and moving away. She was adamant about being out of the game, but more so, not being her father’s puppet. With Janay out, he had to put Crystal in charge, but seeing her falling weak for this nigga, Dark, made him regret the day he made that decision. He didn’t like Dark, and he damn sure didn’t trust him.

  “It ain’t over, baby girl,” he vowed, searching his mind for a way to get Janay back in the game.

  • • •

  Joy was the quintessential bad bitch. From the Kewpie doll nose to her dimpled smile, her hazel bedroom eyes to her pouty lips, she looked like Halle Berry in her prime. Her style of dress only spoke Italian and French. She rocked every designer from Dolce & Gabbana, Versace, Valentino, Christian Lacroix, and Jean Paul Gaultier, just to name a few. Her strut was so fierce, her Red Bottoms looked like the blood of the broken hearts she had trampled on. She wasn’t ghetto thick or corporate petite. Her body was perfectly proportioned and turned heads wherever she went. Now that her husband Cisco was gone, all she wanted was more money, power and lots of respect.

  As she walked along the halls of Congress, she was doing just that . . . turning heads. But she remained strictly business and focused on her alligator skin briefcase in her right hand. She knew exactly where she was going, literally and figuratively. Being that she used to be Congressman Duffy’s chief of staff, that last fact was a given. She went directly to his office, knocked, and then politely entered.

  The office consisted of only two rooms, the office of the chief of staff and Duffy’s secretary. Because he wasn’t a ranking member in the House, his accommodations were less than ideal. But thanks to gerrymandering, he now had a district that was 90 percent African American, which all but ensured him reelection for life. A politician with that kind of job security could amass a lot of power, and Joy planned on using it to her advantage.

  When she walked in, she was met by the polite smile of the new secretary, who, to Joy’s amusement, was a cheap knockoff of herself.

  It was obvious Duffy had had Joy in mind when he selected her replacement after she resigned. Seeing the new hire was like seeing a fake Gucci handbag. Joy could tell the woman saw it too, because even though her smile was polite, it was plastic, trying to mask the resentment in her eyes.

  “Can I help you?”

  “I’m here to see Maurice.”

  “Do you have an appointment with Congressman Duffy?” She asked as if she was correcting her.

  “No, but he’ll see me. Tell him it’s Joy Parker. You have my old job.”

  “I’m sorry, but the congressman doesn’t see anyone without an appointment,” she said, happy to find something to deny Joy and acting as if she didn’t know who she was.

  Joy smirked, hit speed dial, and put the phone on speaker.

  “Yeah?” Duffy’s voice came through loud and clear.

  “It’s me, I’m coming in,” Joy announced, more for the girl’s benefit than his.

  “About time.” Duffy chuckled.

  Joy hung up, sashayed over to his office door, and cracked it. She swung her bag over her shoulder, stopped and then told the secretary, “Hold his calls. And I’ll have a bottled water.”

  She closed the door, leaving her knockoff to stew in her own resentment. “Bitch,” Joy hissed.

  When Joy waltzed toward Duffy, he rose from his seat. She smiled at the fine figure he cut. He was only thirty-two, looked like a young Will Smith, and had the charm to match. He was a hell of a politician, and if he could keep his dick in his pants, Joy could see him as the next black president.

  He rounded the desk to give her a warm hug and a warm kiss on the cheek.

  “Joy, Joy,” he said, hitting her with his dimples, “your mother named you well. Are you back for your position? Go ahead, tell Simone she can leave now.”

  Joy snickered. “Flattery will get you everywhere, Maurice.”

  “And with you, everywhere is where I wanna be,” he shot back smoothly and kissed her hand.

  They both laughed.

  “Still the smoothest politician inside the Beltline, I see,” Joy remarked as she walked around the desk and sat in his swivel seat.

  “And you still look better in my seat than I do. What can I do for you?” he asked, propping up GQ style on the edge of the desk.

  She crossed her long sexy legs and let her Red Bottom dangle delicately from her right foot. “It’s what we can do for each other,” she corrected.

  “Reciprocity.” Duffy smiled evilly as the word rolled off his tongue. “The grease that makes this country spin. Better yet, I rub your back and you can massage mine,” he flirted.

  Joy set her briefcase in her lap, faced him, and then popped the clasps. She lifted the lid to reveal seventy-five thousand dollars neatly filling it.

  Duffy ran his eyes over the money but kept it poker. “And that would be . . ?”

  “A campaign contribution . . . the first of many, we’ll call it.” She smirked.

  “Which of my . . . policies are you interested in? Immigration reform, foreign affairs . . .”

  “Law enforcement. Federal jurisdiction. Nicholas Powell,” she told him. Nicholas “Nick” Powell. The number one drug supplier to the city of Detroit.

  Duffy nodded, pinching his lip pensively. “I see . . . Sounds to me like you need a lawyer more than a congressman.”

  Joy saw the game he was playing so she decided to jump right to the point. “There are several vacant federal judgeships. One in your district. The road to confirmation may end in the Senate, but it runs through your office. Nicholas Powell doesn’t go to jail. He doesn’t even go to court. Make it happen. The number is five hundred grand. Do we have a deal?”

  Duffy liked the way she ran it down. She knew politics cold. He had taught her well . . . maybe too well.

  “Leave the briefcase and a number.”

  “Here’s the number,” she answered, handing him a business card. “Our man is one Detective Sherman of the Detroit Police Department. He calls all of the shots for their Drug Task Force. But as for the briefcase . . .” Joy stood up and dumped the money out on the desk before closing and retaining it,“—it was the only mauve one in Milan.”

  He chuckled at her femininity as she headed for the door.

  “Oh, and, Maurice, I ask only one thing of the politicians I buy.” She had his undivided attention as she placed one hand on the doorknob.

  “What’s that?”

  “That they stay bought,” she responded, blew him a kiss, and then she was gone.

  Chapter Three

  I Miss You . . .

  What was it about those three little words that could so easily tug on the heartstrings? They weren’t like the words ‘I love you’ that were in the present and always seemed like something to be desired. Love was so big . . . so vague . . . so all-encompassing. But miss was a word that said despite time, distance, and circumstance, I am thinking of you. It was the one word that let her see beyond those rose-colored memories.

  When her phone chimed, Shan was sitting in the den playing with Li’l Peanut. She picked it up. She didn’t recognize the number, but her heart said it was Briggen. She stared at the screen before opening the text. Her hands were trembling. She knew. She rushed to her bedroom and sat in the recliner next to the window. She opened the text and there they were. Those three w
ords . . . I miss you. Her heart skipped a beat. She closed her eyes and placed the phone to her heart. “I miss you too,” she whispered.

  Shan acknowledged that she did him dirty. Yes, she took his money, refused to help him out while he did his bid. She ran off with his kids. And then there was Nick. She thought that ‘for better or worse’ meant everything to her. And then there was Nick. She felt guilty because she still loved Briggen. In spite of everything that went down, Briggen was her husband. The father of her children. And now it took everything inside her not to call the number attached to the text.

  All throughout the day those three little words interrupted her. At the stoplight, while getting her hair done, or sitting on the couch with her feet curled up under her, while the rain beat a soft pattern on the window. Especially as she sat holding their daughter. She couldn’t help opening the text over and over again, hoping the phone would ring. That’s one of the reasons she never changed her number . . . just in case.

  Then it happened. Another chime. She grabbed her phone, and the next text warmed her up.

  No matter what I’ll always love you. I need you and my kids.

  She rubbed the screen of her iPhone as if touching his face. She knew this wasn’t a good idea, but it did wonders for the guilt she was carrying. Maybe it had something to do with just having the baby. Now she wanted to text back but knew she shouldn’t. Especially after getting a text from Nick not too long ago that read: Be home soon—I love you.

  The guilt. She went to delete Briggen’s text, but couldn’t, and then, as if he were reading her mind, he sent another one.

  Tell me about our little girl.

  Briggen sat back on his bunk waiting for Shan’s reply. It didn’t bother him that she didn’t text back after the first one. In fact, it was a good sign. After all the fly shit she popped about taking the money. If she was still on some bullshit, she would’ve used his emotions to twist the knife.

  Because she hadn’t he knew he had her stuck. Deliberately, he waited a long time to text again, allowing her to stew in her own juices. He knew he had to be extra gentle so he could rock her to sleep and get close enough to do what he needed to do.

  Her name is Brianna Michelle.

  She texted back and included a picture, the one she felt showed that she had Briggen’s eyes and her nose. A perfect combination, she thought like a blending of their best features. The best of them, to make her. Before she knew it, they were texting back and forth about the baby’s weight, her birthday, her ways, and joking about who she got them from.

  The baby broke the ice and helped to melt the tension. She knew she took her anger against him too far. The guilt had been eating her up. Hell, it still was. What did he do to her that justified her to turn all the way against him? How angry was he at her? Did he hate her? She had to know. But the elephant in the room went unacknowledged until Briggen’s next text:

  Can I call?

  Before she knew it she had sent him a text right back:

  Yes

  • • •

  She loved the way the recoil of the 9 millimeter Beretta felt whenever she let it blow. The way it created the tension in her grip, then spit whizzed through the air, matrix-like, until it found the soft flesh of the target. Running her eyes over her vic, she got excited. He stood naked before her, raw fear in his eyes.

  “You bitch!” he gritted through clenched teeth. The vic moved his head away from the gun, attempting to show bravery in front of his homeboys.

  “Bitch, huh?” She gripped the pistol tighter and squeezed the trigger. Like a bolt of lightning, the bullet lodged into his shoulder, instantly dropping him to his knees. He wailed in pain, realizing that she was not playing.

  “Nigga, shut your bitch ass up. It was only your shoulder,” she taunted him. She used to be timid. Shy even, especially around dudes. But it was hard to be scared of niggas when she had seen the look in their eyes when she gripped the steel and aimed it sideways at their dome.

  Fear. And she was addicted to its scent.

  The nigga lay on the floor trembling, screaming out in pain, blood oozing from his wound. “Nigga, you ain’t slick. You think somebody gonna hear you!” The shooter’s partner chuckled, standing over him with a gun in her hand as well. “Scream out one more time, and I promise you, it’ll be the last time.”

  His two friends remained still, barely breathing. Both glad that it was his house and not theirs. What they thought was about to be a freak fest turned into a jacking. Now the only thing on their minds was how to get out alive. The third girl lay naked on the bed, scared out of her mind. She was certain that since it was almost three in the morning Valentine’s Day, someone heard the gunshots. It was obvious these two chicks were not here to play games. Their names were Courtney and Michelle, but tonight they had been Lisa and Monet . . . until the guns came out.

  “Now, I’ma ask you again,” Michelle hissed, squatting down next to dude. He still couldn’t believe she had shot him. She looked way too fine to be so cold, but he learned quickly that looks were deceiving.

  Before she could get the rest out, Courtney spat, “Shit, I ain’t even askin’ no more.” Then Boom! She shot him in the thigh.

  “Aarrrghh, fuck!” the dude bellowed.

  Courtney hit him in the other thigh.

  “Please!” he yelled.

  She took aim at his nuts.

  “Okay!” he agreed with quickness; it was clear these bitches didn’t want to talk. “Okay!”

  “Okay what!” Courtney snapped.

  “My stash is under the floor, in the kitchen. You have to move the refrigerator. I ain’t trying to die for you bitches.” He snitched himself out, almost paralyzed with pain. Three bitches, three niggas. What started out as a night of flossin’ and gettin’ freaky ended up with him and his boys stripped of all of their jewelry, pockets emptied, stripped down to their boxers, and now on the floor kissing the carpet. A bad ending.

  “Lisa, check it out,” Courtney ordered using the alias of her partner in crime.

  Courtney and Michelle had been partners in crime for the last six years. Friends since high school, the two grew up in the same hood. They hit their first lick after some baller talked them into a threesome with a promise of a thousand apiece. After they fulfilled their part of the deal, he refused to give them their pay. Michelle wasn’t having it, and she started calling him all kinds of names: “bitch-ass nigga, broke-dick nigga, bitch-ass nigga,” again and again. After that third bitch-ass nigga he wasn’t having it either, and he smacked the shit out of her. Courtney, the hothead of the two, always carried a pistol. She didn’t hesitate shooting the nigga. And she was a good shot because the bullet caught him right between the eyes. It was Michelle’s idea to ransack the apartment, and they came up with forty-seven thousand dollars and a shitload of jewelry. Their new hustle was found, thus, bringing them into the present.

  Courtney wasn’t actually the leader of the two. She was just the thinker. Darker than Michelle, the Nubian black cat-eyed diva was more ruthless than the average nigga.

  Michelle stood up and waved her gun at the naked chick. “You. Bitch. Come with me,” Michelle ordered, and the girl named Stephanie quickly complied. She was the one who put them onto the pussy lovin’, flossin’ ballers.

  Once they were in the kitchen, Michelle whispered, “Yo, you doin’ good. These niggas dumb as fuck.”

  “Let’s just get this gwap and go,” Stephanie urged nervously, “and please don’t kill these niggas ’cause I ain’t tryin’ to catch no bodies.”

  “I got you.” Michelle winked. “Just help me move this shit.”

  The two of them pushed and pulled until they saw the stash spot hollowed out in the floor. Michelle bent down, ran her fingers over the loot, her heart dropping when she saw the short-ass stacks in the stash. It couldn’t have been any more than twenty grand.

  “Jackpot!” the chick whispered excitedly, eyes filled with greed.

  Michelle looked at her like sh
e had two heads. If that short money excited her, she definitely was in over her head. Michelle grabbed a shopping bag and put the money inside.

  When they got back in the bedroom, Michelle kicked the nigga dead in the ass. “Nigga, you made me move a refrigerator for this?” She spat, holding up the bag with disgust. “You coulda’ kept that short-ass shit in a shoe box!”

  Courtney peeked in the bag, looked at Michelle, and shook her head like god . . . damn.

  “Fuck it. It is what it is,” Courtney summed it up.

  They quickly filled the bag with the niggas’ chains, rings, watches, and earrings. Now, it was time to go . . . almost.

  “Y’all niggas believe in God?” Courtney smirked.

  The words sent a chill through the air that they all felt instantly.

  “Come on, ma. You got that. Shit ain’t that serious,” one of the dudes tried to reason, while keeping the tremor out of his voice.

  “I ain’t ask all that. I just asked do . . . you . . . believe . . . in . . . God?”

  “Yeah, man, yeah,” the bleeding dude answered.

  “He just never around when you need ’im, huh?” She chuckled, letting her snubnose bark.

  Michelle let loose at the same time, and nine shots later, the three dudes lay twitching and lifeless, brains splattered and guts leaking at their feet.

  “You killed them! You killed them! Oh my God, I told you not to kill them!” Stephanie sobbed while out of her mind with fear.

  Courtney and Michelle looked at each other. They hadn’t planned to, but . . .

  “Stephanie, Stephanie, chill, yo, chill.” Michelle tried to calm her. “Relax. You not goin’ to jail, okay?”

  “And neither are we,” Courtney concluded as she put the gun to the back of the chick’s head and relaxed her forever.

  • • •

  After dumping the guns in the Delaware River, they headed over the Ben Franklin Bridge into Camden. The little rented Ford Prius rocked to the old school sounds of Bone Crushers, “Never Scared.”