Betrayal The 2nd Deadly Sin KDP Page 4

  “We can be broke as hell, but we ain’t gotta be nasty,” she had chastised him one day as he came out of G’s private bathroom. It had been two weeks since him and Ace had come back from Cali empty-handed, and outta nowhere this broad had been underfoot 24/7. “You just take your grown-man ass right back in there and flush that toilet and wash your hands,” Salida bossed him.

  Pluto had wanted to put his foot up in her ass, but instead he went back inside the bathroom and did exactly what she said.

  He just didn’t fuckin’ get it. Somebody musta told Salida that since she was G’s wife she was entitled to run shit, because suddenly that bitch thought she was in control. That whipped niggah Ace had called some bullshit-ass emergency meeting and let Salida stand up there and talk shit like she was a true Queenpin. Ace had sat there staring at her like Salida was his kinny-garden teacher or something, and Pluto was stunned when his manz let it be known that he would check the first muh’fucka to get outta pocket with her too.

  “I don’t know how Granite was running things when he was alive,” Salida said with her nose turned up, “but his ass is dead now and this situation is critical.”

  She had spent the past week going through every single file cabinet in G’s office, and examining his computer files with a magnifying glass too.

  “It’s a whole lot worse than I thought it was around here,” she said, giving Ace and Pluto both the snake eye. “You two done fucked the cut room up so bad it’s almost dry. Y’all also missed the last two payments to the chief of police, and now it’s going to cost us double just to keep the cops in our pocket.

  “On top of that,” she pressed on, rubbing shit in, “since neither one of y’all were smart enough to find out who G was getting all his dope from, your lil boys on the street are running out of product and sending our loyal customers jetting over to the competition.”

  She glared at Pluto. “Did you know the liquor license had expired?”

  He shook his head dumbly.

  “Well it did, genius. And from what I’ve learned, it takes big-time money to get it renewed under the table.”

  She got on Greco next.

  “I guess pussy ain’t selling at a premium no more, huh? Tell me why our girls are never fully booked? Every time I look up them hoes are watching movies, eating cookies, and running off at the mouth. This ain’t no damn sorority house! Hell, the IRS is hounding us for back taxes, and if we don’t make a payment soon we’re gonna have to walk away from some of G’s other businesses too.”

  Salida paused to let that sink in, and then said, “So, we’re about to make some big time adjustments around here. We’re going to start with the cut room. It’s mine now. I’m gonna run it.” She held out a sheet of paper. “But I also made of list of some other things that are gonna have to change…”

  Pluto sat there on boil as Salida spouted off at the mouth. Disbelief spread over him as she read from her shitty little list. Not only was this throwed-off bitch tryna completely get rid of the cover price at the door, she wanted to overhaul the G-Spot so that it catered to a set of young musicians, rising ballers, and come up playas and pimps.

  “So yeah, we’re gonna have to kill the cover charge altogether,” Salida declared, taking a seat behind G’s great big desk and propping her slender legs up and crossing them at the knee. “That’s the only way to get customers to come back. Then once they get to liking all the new set-up we’ve got, then we’ll raise the door charge back up again. Hell,” she chuckled evilly, “we’ll double it.”

  Pluto almost jumped on that bitch over the next thing outta her mouth.

  “So tomorrow morning, Pluto, I want you to go get me some of those dumb-ass boys you got working half-days selling crack. Send their asses upstairs to the cut room. We’re about to turn this mutha out.”

  Later that night Ace shrugged shit off when Pluto bitched about Salida’s long list and her grand plans for the cut room. Ace thought she was right on point.

  “Salida’s got some real live ideas, ak,” he told Pluto as they shot a game of pool. “Times are changing, man. Me and Greco was just talking about that shit the other day. The old heads are falling off. It’s all about the tykes and the young’uns now.”

  “Hell, nah,” Pluto protested ready to put Salida’s 7:30 mental ass on a bus straight back to the nuthouse. He was about to line her up in his crosshairs, and he was truly itching to pull the trigger. “She’s fuckin’ everything up,” he insisted. “That broad is tryna do too much.”

  “I don’t think so,” Ace disagreed. “Look around, niggah. You see any fuckin’ body large chillin’ up in here? Bizz is bad, man. If anything we gotta do more. We done walked away from the bakery and the rib shack. The cleaners, the fish joint, and the check cashing place are gonna be dead in a month. Yo, Salida got a nose for sniffing out business, and I think we should let her use it.”

  Pluto jumped off his stool and shook his head. “We don’t need that bitch! All we need is a big buy, ak! If we can just flood the streets with product like we used to do, there’ll be so much doe rollin’ in it’ll bust down the fuckin’ door!”

  “Yeah, flooding the streets would work,” Ace admitted calmly as he lined his cue stick up and tapped his ball into a corner pocket, “but me and you ain’t got the connections to be making that kind of quality buy. If Salida wants to restock the cut room with club drugs, then I say we should go for it. We can’t dominate in every sector no more like G used to do, man. Them come-ups is getting their hands on big-time product at cut-rate prices while we over here just scraping up the crumbs. Fucking with these lil low-level suppliers is gonna cost us in the long run, ak. Our territory done already been reduced by more than half. Remember, we gotta pay them taxes and pay our crew too, my niggah. So, if Salida can run the cut room half as good as G did, then I see it as more doe in our pockets and more power to her.”

  The next morning Pluto had reluctantly sent a few members of his street crew upstairs with brooms, mops, and bottles full of Lysol. The cut room was in shambles, but not a single one of those corner boys had bitched or complained as Salida worked the shit outta them. She had them scrubbing floors and washing walls like they were a crew of janitors, and she watched over them like a jailer the whole time.

  Later on that night, Pluto snuck upstairs to see what he could see. Standing in the middle of a complex room that had once been a bustling, vibrant hub of drug activity brought it all to a head for him. The G-Spot was his home, and a sad realization washed over him as burning tears of rage came to his eyes.

  Things were never gonna be the same again. They had gone from the mountaintops down to the grimy gutters, and if they didn’t do something drastic they risked losing everything.

  The fucked up part was, as bad as he hated to admit it, Salida’s vision was probably dead on. They were gonna have to make some desperate moves just to survive, but that didn’t mean he was gonna lay down and roll over for G’s old piece of pussy, though.

  Pluto figured he would play Salida’s game for as long as it took to get their cash right. But once their business was back on the map and the cream was once again stacked mile high, Salida was gonna be lined up in his crosshairs for real, and all grimy bets would be off.

  CHAPTER 8

  Cara. Aunt Ree. Grandmother. Dicey. Jimmy. And now Gino and our precious, unborn baby boy, too.

  You would think I’d get used to losing the people I loved, but Gino’s death and my miscarriage cut me so deep that I didn’t think I was ever gonna be right again.

  Back in downstairs in my own room I stretched out flat in that hospital bed and just soul-cried. I grieved so hard that I was literally trying to die. I was just begging God to take me. Begging him. I couldn’t see anything except a big black hole of emptiness where my life had once been. All that madness I’d survived in Harlem…losing Grandmother, the rapes and beatings, Jimmy blowing his brains out all over me…None of it even came close to touching what I was feeling now. Seeing Gino stretched out in
that hospital bed like that…all swole up and with no life left in him. It just hurt so bad. I prayed to God to please just make my heart stop beating so I could escape my pain too.

  Renata came to visit me a lot.

  Most of the time I didn’t even talk to her. She still came. She would sit beside me and stare out the window, while I laid in the bed staring at the wall.

  Sometimes she held my hand. Sometimes she just let me be. Sometimes I cried. And sometimes she cried too.

  At some point she asked me what I wanted to do about planning a funeral for Gino. I didn’t know what to do. I couldn’t even think about putting my man in the cold ground.

  So Big Frank handled it. He called around and made all the arrangements and said The Organization would pick up the expenses.

  None of this is real, I told myself a week later as I sat in the chapel of the same church that me and Gino had planned to get married in. I had been out of the hospital for two days, and Renata had taken me straight to her plush crib and set me up in one of her caked-up guest rooms.

  This is just another one of them crazy-ass nightmares, that’s all, I told myself. And as they rolled Gino’s casket down the aisle, I closed my eyes and pictured me and him holding hands and walking down that same aisle. Together, the way we had planned. With a wedding song playing, and all our guests smiling happily at the promise of our union of love.

  This is just another bad dream that’ll go away as soon as the sun comes up.

  Organ music played softly in the chapel as our friends walked past Gino’s royal blue grand deluxe coffin to pay their last respects. It was a real small crowd. Just a few people that me and Gino had met over the past few months. There was security out the ass though, and of course all the staff at The Organization had showed up to say goodbye with their families.

  I understood why most of the people who had shown up for our wedding were missing-in-action for Gino’s funeral. Wasn’t no lobster and barbeque ribs being served afterward, and most of them were scared to come in case the church got shot up again. But still, for somebody as large and full of life as Gino had been, I felt like the whole place should have been packed out.

  But what really hurt me to my heart was that none of Gino’s family was here to see him laid to rest. Instead, with his mother and father both dead, my man was going to be buried way out in some lonely cemetery in Cali. Where almost nobody really knew him except me.

  “That’s the way it has to be,” Renata had told me when I started crying because she wouldn’t let me call Gino’s aunts and tell them he’d been killed.

  “His aunts love him! They deserve to know what happened to him!”

  “Tell me,” Renata had asked bluntly, “where is Gino’s mother?”

  I shrugged. “I guess dead. She disappeared when Gino was just a kid. A lot of people say G killed her.”

  “Okay, there’s your answer. You don’t think the people who are loyal to G might find out that Gino’s gone and come after you too? That’s the main thing Gino was worried about, wasn’t it? Protecting you?”

  “But they’re his aunties. They love him,” I insisted weakly. “The least I can do is call them.”

  Renata shook her head with a quickness. “You’re gonna have to trust me, okay Juicy? I know it’s hard for you to think straight right now, but please trust me. Whoever you and Gino were running from six months ago is probably still after you today. In fact, they’re probably more of a threat to you now than ever before because Gino isn’t around to protect you.”

  I got defensive. Renata was real cool, but she didn’t know me like that.

  “What makes you think we were running from somebody?” I asked her with my New York attitude showing. Right from the jump me and Gino had agreed not to confide in anybody about our troubles back home in Harlem. “I told you we came out west so Gino could find a job.”

  “Yeah? Well, Gino told Frankie a different story, Juicy. In fact, Gino told Frank the truth about everything. But don’t worry. We’re not here to judge you. Nothing about our lives is squeaky clean either, so your secrets are safe with us. But we can’t keep you safe if you don’t listen to us.”

  “But his family…”

  Renata’s voice was firm. “I know it hurts, but you’ve gotta leave the past in the past, Juicy. You can’t tell anybody that Gino is dead. Absolutely nobody. In fact, you should forget about New York City and everybody in it. I did, and I’m surviving. Gino was smart enough to get you out of there. I’m sure he loved his family, but he knew better than to tell them where you guys were hiding. There was a reason for that.”

  I was so hurt and weak that I just gave up. She was probably right anyway. After all that ducking and dipping me and Gino had done trying to make sure we didn’t leave any tracks leading back to Harlem, we had run smack into the same kind of trouble we had been running away from in the first place.

  And now, as I watched the last few mourners file past Gino’s coffin, a big fat tide of tears flowed from my eyes.

  “Juicy,” Frank said softly. He was standing over me, holding out his arm. “Come on, dear. It’s time to say goodbye to Gino.”

  Somehow I reached out and clutched Frank’s warm, steady hand. My feet felt like rubber noodles as I took small, shaky steps toward the front of the room.

  Dear God. You know how much I need him.

  I pressed my hand to my empty stomach. My baby was gone, and my man was too. My whole body started shivering, and the closer we got to the open casket the colder the air around me got. It was like I could feel the chill coming off of Gino’s dead body. All the heat in his big heart, all the comfort and warmth in his strong arms and in his big smile, was gone.

  It’s just another crazy nightmare, Juicy. Everything will be cool when the sun comes up.

  But as I listened to the funeral music being played on the organ and gazed at Gino’s body stretched out stiffly in his casket, I knew that was a lie. The sun was never gonna come up over my head again. No matter where I went, or what I did, the sun would never, ever shine on me again.

  Tears bubbled up outta me from a place I didn’t even know I had.

  I need him.

  They dripped from my eyes and slid down my face.

  I need him.

  They splattered on my breasts and wet up my hands.

  I stared down at my man with anguish radiating from my eyes. Gino looked just like he was sleeping. He was dressed in a navy blue French-cut suit that he had planned to wear to a formal dinner during our honeymoon. His skin was chocolate-smooth. His wavy hair was jet-black and shiny. A sparkly diamond glittered from his ear, and the onyx wedding band I had bought for him was on his ring finger.

  I moaned and gasped.

  “Let it out, Juicy,” Renata whispered softly. She stood on the other side of me and used her handkerchief to wipe my snotty nose. “It’s okay to let your pain out.”

  But I couldn’t let it out, and I couldn’t keep it in neither. I couldn’t breathe and I couldn’t think. All I could do was feel. And what I felt was a pain so deep and so fuckin’ unbearable that it nearly split me down the middle. I felt my chest tearing in two. My throat clogged. My skull throbbed and my knees gave away.

  I need him!

  I reached for Gino. I mean I really, really, really reached for my man. And the moment I touched him all my pain disappeared. The room got quiet and my whole body went numb. The coldness swallowed me up, and the last thing I felt was my knees bumping hard against his casket.

  And then God was finally merciful to me.

  I didn’t feel anything else. I passed out.

  CHAPTER 9

  “You like this shit, don’t you baby? You want it like this? Or you want me to stroke it right there?”

  Marguerita Gonzales was in poon-poon heaven. Her man Dutchy Gaines was hittin’ her sweet brown pussy from every angle imaginable.

  “Right there, papi…ooowie…oh yes!” She crawled onto her hands and knees and backed her shapely hips up to meet
his powerful thrusts, “Fuck me right there…”

  “I got you!” Dutchy panted, spreading her brown ass-cheeks and widening her sopping pink slit. Her small titties jiggled under his onslaught as he pounded her so good her head bounced off the wall.

  “Ouch! Ouch! Ouch!” Rita squealed. Her forehead was getting dented, but she was steady pumping her hips, loving her joy ride and refusing to let a little pain slow her down.

  “You want me to quit?” Dutchy teased, slowing his grind. He revved his hips behind her, stirring her juices with his love stick. Her snatch was warm and soft like a fresh-baked bun. “You still with me or you need a break?”

  Rita shook her head furiously.

  “Don’t stop!” she moaned, pushing against him forcefully with her soft, fluffy ass. “No breaks, baby. Just fuck this pussy. Bang this pussy up!”

  Rita loved the feel of Dutchy’s heavy balls slapping against her wetness, and there was no way in hell she wanted him to stop. “Keep going,” she ordered him as he gripped the base of his dick and slowly pulled it from her sucking cave. Tendrils of sweet juice dripped onto the sheets as he rubbed the erect, helmet-shaped head of his dick between her ass-cheeks and probed her sensitive hole.

  Rita sucked in her breath at the tingling sensation his slippery dick created as he slid it from her wet pussy and up to her puckered starfish. Aiming low, Dutchy stuck the head in her pussy, then quickly extracted it and probed her asshole. Groaning, he swiped his dick downward again and shoved the head right back into her gaping pussy, and then he quickly withdrew and pushed gently against her back door again.

  Rita began humming with glee as her asshole got creamy and wet from her sticky pussy juices. Over and over again Dutchy probed her asshole just enough to stimulate her without actually entering her, and just the thought that he might stretch her out back there excited Rita to no end.

  Sensing her orgasm building, Dutchy licked his thumb, and then rubbed it around her booty hole. Without warning, he slipped it deep inside her ass while plunging his dick into her pussy at the same time.