Now, she’d been snatched by these hex-casting chicken-beheading ass O-Town Haitians, who had no loyalty and gave zero percent of a fuck about murdering anyone.
“Mecca, we can handle this. We’re your soldiers,” Torch said from the back seat as he slapped a magazine into his weapon. He had recently completed a sort of military-like boot camp a few months ago, and he’d had advanced weapon’s training. During his drills, his instructors discovered he had an eye, and qualified as a fierce sharpshooter.
Anybody I considered a soldier had some level of training and discipline, because I sent their ass to boot camp. It was another in a line of my ideas I had convinced Raymond to consider.
Sending the men to bootcamp was something I had advocated for years after I was beaten up and robbed. I had enlisted myself in several bootcamps geared towards training young adults for a career in the military. Except, I used the camps as a way of better disciplining and protecting myself.
Raymond thought I was crazy until he realized I had turned myself into a one-woman army in comparison to the immature and impractical moves the others were practicing on the streets.
I became addicted to the training, arming myself with more skills, and didn’t hesitate to pay for professional trainers and instructors. Since I believed my life was destined to end on these streets, I was determined not to make it easy.
Although my instincts were telling me to follow my decision, the move I was about to make with the Haitians, wasn’t the best.
“I know you can handle it, Trenton,” I finally replied to Torch. “But, what kind of leader would I be if I tiptoed around danger. This type of shit raised me, and I have no doubt I’ll die in it. What do I always tell you about being afraid to die in this world?”
I knew as well as anyone in the game that there was a bullet or two out there with my name on it. I hoped that the slug, when it came for me, did what it was intended to do and killed me instantly. If it didn’t and I survived death, I knew that I would end up being a devil set loose on earth, hunting down everyone that had something to do with an attempt on my life.
I had flirted with the dark side of my mentality a few times when I’d had to unleash it in order to survive. There were times I scared people, including myself, when I went dead and cold inside. I preferred not to embrace that part of me because I didn’t want to turn into something I couldn’t come back from.
Now, I had to call on all sides of my mentality. How was I going to get Tash back from these insignificant assholes? We drove up to the location, which the leader, Trench, had given me during our short phone conversation. His face was the first I saw.
“There goes that tarantula-faced-looking motherfucker right there.” Shockey pointed out, ironically pulling a word out of my thoughts. Torch laughed at Shockey’s comment, although the situation wasn’t funny.
In Shockey’s defense, Trench was an ugly man. I always felt the need to offer him lotion as his skin was always ashy. His mouth stretched across his face and he wore a permanent frown, even when he smiled. His dreadlocks looked like a group of black tarantulas fighting on top of his head.
There were two men on each side of Trench and at least six more planted in the surrounding areas. Training and a roving eye helped me pick out their best vantage points, and I spotted four more of them easily. I didn’t need to be seasoned law enforcement to know others were hidden with guns at the ready.
Once the vehicle stopped, I eased my door open and lowered my heels to the dirty street. Before I was fully out of the vehicle, my guys swarmed around me like a bunch of protective soldiers surrounding their queen.
We could have been walking to our deaths, and they would have still walked into the gates of hell with me, knowing what the outcome would be.
The weathered brick buildings of the area appeared to have been the passageway to hell. The dark red bricks on most of the buildings, which stood four levels high, were stained with dirt and mildew and appeared black in areas.
Large chunks of bricks on the outside walls were knocked off, shot off, or were just tired of hanging on, so it appeared that cannon fire was blasted at the apartments.
Trash littered the streets and the stench of piss was as much a part of the neighborhood as the people. Broken down cars missing tires, trash piles stacked where the dumpster should be, and some apartments were missing windows and front doors.
“Where’s Tash?” The question was my greeting to the smug face Trench flashed in my direction. He stood straighter than the building behind him. His eyes ran up and down my body like a dirty hand.
He gestured his hand towards the building behind him, beckoning for someone. With a man-child on each side of her small body, Tash appeared with tears streaming down her face, some dried on her ashen cheeks.
Her normal brown glow was a dull gray-brown mix, a sign that her life had been being sucked from her. She had a slight limp, and her clothes where dirty and disheveled, unlike Tash, who was always neat and fresh. I pray for their sake they hadn’t forced themselves on her sexually. The bruises on her arms and the few visible around her neck, said otherwise.
Tash was a good girl when it came to men and boys, but she was petite and cute, so she often attracted unwanted attention. The Haitians were ruthless enough to take from her what didn’t belong to them. The thought alone had me plotting how many of them I wanted to kill.
“There’s your precious little gem,” Trench stated before groping his dick, answering the question that I prayed was speculation. The arrogance in his tone had my trigger finger itching. The notion that he had forced himself on her had just increased the number I had in my head.
“What the fuck do you want, Trench?” I spit my question through clenched teeth, fighting to contain my rage.
“In exchange for your little jewel, I’d like to expand our territory to Leven street, as well as you becoming our supplier.”
I failed to suppress my laugh, and the sound caused Trench to turn up his nose and bite into his weed-pinked ashy ass lips.
“Have you lost your weed-soaked mind?” I asked him. “There’s no way in an infinite number of fucks am I supplying you. It’s because of the treaty your uncle had with mine that you have the territory you already have.”
Pointing, I shook one of my manicured fingers in his direction. The nails were blood red, an accurate representation of the blood I wanted to spill.
“I’m an ass scratch away from taking what you already have, Trench. Don’t insult me by asking for more.”
“They said you were a bossy bitch. A mouthy one too.”
He turned to his men that had Tash. “String that little bitch up. Let’s see how much negotiating, Mrs. Boss Bitch is willing to do.”
At those words, his men put a fucking noose around Tash’s neck and led her to a nearby pipe fitted between two poles.
“Don’t do this shit, Trench. She has nothing to do with the decisions I make.”
A pair of old black tennis shoes swung from the rusted pipe above, showing me what they were planning to do to Tash. One of the men tossed the long end of the rope they had around Tash’s neck up, and across the pole and pulled it taut enough to lift her up onto the balls of her feet as she clawed at her neck.
How the fuck was I going to save Tash without killing half the hood?