Greed the 3rd Deadly Sin KINDLE Read online

  Chiney was cool, though. I liked her right away. She knew all about the drama I had gone through with G in the G-Spot. She said every damn body in Harlem knew about it. She told me that a lot of people had felt real sorry for me when word got out about what G had done to me. She also said that no matter how hard folks had smiled all up in G’s face and kissed his ass when he was alive, a whole lot of them had been real damn happy when they found out he was dead.

  Chiney was locked up on a parole violation and only had a month left to serve. She was definitely a butch, but that didn’t bother me because she wasn’t coming at me with nothing but friendship.

  So, instead of laying down on that hard ass bunk and crying myself to sleep, I stood facing the wall as me and Chiney took some crazy trips down memory lane. As bad as I missed Gino, and as much as I hated jail, I actually laughed once or twice when she reminded me of something wild that Jimmy had done or said.

  “Your brother was fine, but he was crazy as shit you know,” she laughed. “I fucked with dudes back then, and one time he snuck me inside your crib so I could give him some pussy. But then your grandmother came home. We heard her coming up the stairs and Jimmy made me go up on the roof and hide.”

  “Speaking of brothers,” I began, but then I had to swallow real hard to pull myself together. Me and Chiney had something real important in common, I realized. We had both lost our brothers because of G and his coldblooded way of life.

  “I was real sorry to hear about your brother Cooter. He was real good to me. I think he just felt sorry for me. He used to look out for me all the time. “Matter fact,” I closed my eyes for a quick second and I could’ve sworn I smelled that pissy mattress in the funky Dungeon of the G-Spot.

  “As a matter of fact,” I continued, “It was Cooter who helped me get out of the G-Spot when the rest of them niggahs wanted to kill me.”

  “For real?”

  I nodded as a tear slid down my face. “Yeah. It was the night that Jimmy shot G and then killed himself. They were getting ready to go get rid of the bodies. Cooter came downstairs with a key. He unlocked my chains and gave me an envelope full of cash that Moonie had left for me. Cooter said he was just doing for me what he wished somebody had done for your sister Charlene.”

  I could hear Chiney’s sigh of sorrow through the crack in the wall. “Charlene was so young when she died. She never really got to live at all. Yeah, she was hardheaded and wild, but it seems like God woulda protected her, you know? The way he protects babies and fools.”

  I understood how she felt. Just last night Grandmother had come to me in my dream. I had laid my weary head in her lap and asked her what I had done that was so wrong that God had to punish me like this. Grandmother had stroked my hair and told me, “God loves you, Juicy. He chastises, but he also rewards. You just keep the faith, baby. Fight the good fight. Your reward is coming.”

  “You know, after Charlene died my moms was useless,” Chiney said sadly. “She was in so much pain she just couldn’t do shit for the rest of us. So, we took care of ourselves. I hated G. We all did. I used to dream about burning the G-Spot down. Just burning that bitch down to the ground with everybody in it.” She paused for a second and then asked, “Was you really fucking G’s son like everybody said you was?”

  “Yep,” I went on and ’fessed right up. “Gino was my man. I loved him. And he loved me.” I thought about our baby, then quickly pushed him out of my mind. “We were planning to get married. But we never got a chance to take our vows though….”

  “Married? How old are you?” she asked.

  I paused and swallowed hard.

  “I’m twenty,” I told her. “As a matter fact, my birthday is today.”

  “Damn,” she said. “This is a fucked up place to celebrate but happy birthday anyway.”

  “Thanks,” I took a deep breath and wiped the tears from my eyes and changed the subject. “Anyway, like I said, I’m sorry your brother is dead, Chiney.”

  I thought about how Jimmy had shot and killed two men just to save me. “And I’m sorry my brother is dead too,” I added. “In a way, I owe my life to both of them.”

  “Yeah. Harlem has a way of chewing good people up,” Chiney said. “And then shitting them back out. Are you sure you don’t remember my other brother, Trey? He played mad ball back in the day. His friend Mayhem got shot at a basketball game and Trey killed the dudes who shot him. It was on the news and everything, and people all over Harlem was talking about it for a real long time.”

  “Ohhh, I remember!” I nodded as a picture of a real fine dude with the same beautiful eyes as Chiney’s popped into my head. I used to see him ballin’ at Rucker Park back when I was in middle school, and I’d had a big crush on him too.

  “Yeah, I do remember Trey. I think I was in the middle of my freshman year when all that happened. I remember him getting locked up, but didn’t he get back out just a couple of years later?”

  “Yeah, he did. They kept Trey down for about two years, but then his conviction got overturned when a new prosecutor dropped the charges. But even still, Trey wasn’t the same no more after that. Everything about him had changed.”

  I nodded again in the darkness, even though I knew she couldn’t see me. I could definitely understand people changing. Life had knocked me down on my ass too, and nothing about me would ever be the same again either.

  CHAPTER 14

  Antonio “Trey” Jackson was putting in work. It was six o’clock in the morning and a fine little honey was moaning on her hands and knees as she took his ten-inch wood from the back.

  Nicole was a corporate attorney. They’d met while Trey was in jail fighting a murder charge. The two had stayed in touch while Trey was locked up, and when he came home from upstate and enrolled at Harvard Law School they hooked up as study partners and fuck buddies.

  “Aye! Aye! Aye!” Nicole screeched. She peered over her shoulder as Trey pounded his dick inside her all the way down to the root. She lifted herself up on her toned arms and threw that ass back at him, bucking and grinding and taking his battle meat like a real troop.

  “Fuck this pussy!” she panted, clenching his dick between her magnificent ass cheeks. “Fuck this goddamn pussy!”

  Trey let her have it. Clenching every muscle in his six-pack, he banged up in her guts until she squealed in surprise and tried to run from his dick. Locked together like stuck dogs, they bounced all over his bed getting sweatier by the second.

  Nicole reached between her legs and spread her fingers on either side of Trey’s big dick and squeezed. Gathering their juices, she massaged her tingling clit and grit her teeth as her second orgasm tore through her and she soaked Trey’s condom with her cum.

  “This your pussy, baby,” she panted, tossing her hips. “Take it! Fuck it any way you wanna fuck it! It’s yours, Trey. I swear to God, it’s yours.”

  Trey pulled out of her sucking hole and tapped her on the hip. Her hair had sweated out and random strands stuck to her face. Following his directions, Nicole flipped onto her back and pointed her long, beautiful legs toward the ceiling.

  She stared up at Trey’s chiseled, athletic physique. Every damn thing about him was perfect. His dark brown skin, his rocked-up muscles, and the neat, velvety dreadlocks that hung down past his shoulders.

  “You fuck so good, Trey,” she moaned. “Your black ass is fine as hell and you got a big dick! You the best baby! Yum! Your dick is the best!”

  Trey grinned and his even white teeth flashed in the near-darkness. He gripped his dick at the base and checked to make sure his condom was still good, and then he splayed Nicole’s legs over his broad shoulders and went in hard again.

  He groaned as his balls slapped her ass and her juices sloshed out and soaked them. The heat coming off her was amazing and Trey’s knees shook as his dick strained and swelled as he banged her walls from one side to the other.

  Trey reached down and dipped his finger in Nicole’s puddle of juices and brought it to his lips an
d sucked. Moments later he lowered himself down on top of her and kissed her lips, then moved further down and licked her collar bone as she grinded hard and gripped his muscular ass, drawing him in even deeper.

  They mashed it up, both of them growling, moaning, and making ugly faces as they fucked the sheets off his bed. Trey grit his teeth as he felt a big one building in his nuts. Nicole felt it coming too, and she wrapped her legs around his waist and held on tight as he impaled her pussy over and over again.

  “Arghh!” Trey struggled for control as his dick jerked and skeeted, filling the condom with a gallon of warm cum. Nicole sure had some good pussy. His dick stayed hard long after the last drop had been squeezed from his nuts, and if he didn’t have someplace to be in a couple of hours he woulda changed his condom and gone in for round two.

  Trey knew exactly what Nicole wanted next, and for about ten minutes he let her have it. Pulling her into his arms, he stroked her back, hair, and legs, and she snuggled close to him enjoying that beautiful after-sex glow, their wet bodies sticking together as their breathing returned to normal.

  Eleven minutes later Trey glanced at the clock on his dresser. It was time for her to go. He slid his arm out from under Nicole’s head and prepared himself for the twenty questions. It was always the same thing with the women in his life, and Trey always had the same truthful answers. Yes, they were beautiful. Hell yeah, he dug the shit outta them. No, he wasn’t in love, but yeah, he definitely cared.

  Trey got up and walked into his bathroom. He peeled off the soggy condom and flushed it down the toilet, and then turned the shower on high. He waited until the water was flowing nice and hot, then he went back into his bedroom to get Nicole so he could rub soap all over her body before he asked her to leave. Thirty minutes later they were both showered and dressed and Nicole was standing on the other side of his door.

  “So you’re gonna call me later, right?” she asked, standing on her tippy toes as she reached for a goodbye kiss.

  “Nah,” Trey told her truthfully. “I got a lot to do today. I’ll holla at you tomorrow though.”

  Nicole was a real dime. He kissed her, then touched her hair as she turned away.

  Trey called her back. “Yo, hold up for a minute, okay?” He dipped back inside his apartment and went into his bedroom. He attacked the bed slowly but thoroughly, running his hands under the sheets, between the mattress and the box-spring, and even behind the headboard.

  He found what he was looking for wedged deep inside his pillowcase, and he retrieved the skimpy red panties and sniffed them as he headed back to the door.

  “You forgot something.” He grinned and handed Nicole her underwear. The last time she spent the night he’d found one of her earrings stashed in his silverware drawer, and few of his other girls were always good for leaving a bra or some stockings or even an unopened tampon under the cushions of his sofa.

  Busted, Nicole grinned sweetly.

  “You can’t blame a girl for trying,” she said.

  Trey understood. He pressed his lips to hers again, and then stepped back inside his crib and closed the door.

  Trey locked his door and shook his head. He’d been through this type of thing countless times with countless beautiful girls, but no matter how good his chicks threw him the pussy, or how much they schemed and tried to hook him or catch him out there sleepin’, Trey was a solo roller.

  Yeah, he loved him some gushy, and hell yeah, he treated all his honeys like they were his queens, but Trey Jackson didn’t have no woman.

  And he wasn’t looking for one neither.

  $$$$$

  Trey Jackson coulda been any damn thing he wanted to be. A doctor, a dentist, an athlete, an accountant…all of that and more coulda been in his future, and even though he had a law degree from one of the most prestigious schools in the country, in the city of New York Trey was best known as an ex-convict and a killer.

  He glanced around Second Chances, the first Harlem barbershop he had bought and opened. He’d done all right for himself, and it hadn’t taken him long to open a Third Chances and a Fourth Chances too, and all of his shops were highly profitable anchors in the community.

  Two years ago Trey had been a major player on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange. He had a nose for picking winners, and he’d made a lot of money while the market was in an upswing. He’d hung all of that profit and excitement up for a chance to chase his real dream, and even though he wasn’t trading commodities anymore, Trey was content with the path in life that he had chosen. It had had its share of pitfalls and hard knocks, but he had learned to take shit on the chin, and he wouldn’t have wanted things any other way.

  It was early Monday morning and as usual he was heading out to Queens for the day. He had stopped by all three of his shops and took care of some business so his managers would be straight while he was gone for the day. Confidence was in his stride as he walked down the streets and watched his beloved Harlem wake up to greet a new day. This was his town. The blood of his family had run in its gutters, and he claimed a stake in it.

  Standing just over six-feet-three and packing a little over two hundred pounds of iron-hard muscle, Trey looked just like the beast that he was. Church ladies, winos, and corner boys alike greeted him with mad street love as he walked by, and he had a smile, a strong dap, or a casual ‘what it do’ for almost everybody he ran across too.

  “Sup, Leek,” Trey walked up on a street-hardened young trap boy who was putting in early morning work on a busy corner.

  The tall, slim kid barely glanced his way as he spoke back. “What it do, Trey?”

  “It do what it do,” Trey responded with a grim look on his face as he paused to eye the young’un. “Yo, I heard your moms was back in the hospital, man. I’ma swing over there and check her out later on. How’s she doing?”

  The boy shrugged like his eighty-pound mama laying on her death bed in Harlem Hospital was a real small thing. “I guess she a’ight.”

  Trey watched as Maleek conducted his street bizz. Their families went way back, and the boy was deep in his heart. No matter how many kids Trey had helped save from the grimy clutches of Harlem’s trenches, it fucked him up that Maleek who had fallen headfirst into the gutter, and he took the boy’s fearless devotion to the street life as a personal failure.

  “Yo check it out,” Trey went at him. No matter how hard the boy tried to tune him out, Trey was either gonna try or die.

  “I’m about to put together an all-star team at The Crossover. We could use a starting point guard with good speed and sick handles. Your skill set is ice-cold, Lil Leek. We’re gonna be ballin’ in front of a lot of big time coaches, yo. You could pick up right where your brother left off.”

  “Nah, I’m good,” the teenager said, keeping his eyes glued to the action on the street. Posted up with his hands thrust into his pockets, he looked just like all the other life-hardened sons of the ghetto who sold tan goods in Harlem.

  “I know you good, man. But you could be even better. You could shine out there!”

  The kid shrugged again as he stepped forward to get at a customer. “I’m shining pretty bright right here where I’m at.”

  Trey didn’t respond. He watched as the sixteen-year-old transacted some quick bizz with a bone-thin, fast-walking girl who couldn’t have been much older than he was. Their transaction was a slick blur as money and drugs changed hands in just a fraction of a second.

  Trey peered up the block and spotted a squad car coming down the ave.

  “Yo, Jake is riding,” he warned as he eyed the police cruiser approaching at a fast clip. “You prolly gon’ wanna stash that work.”

  Maleek turned and jetted, walking briskly in the opposite direction.

  Trey held his ground as the cop car slowed down. The officer who was riding shotgun aimed a menacing look at Maleek’s retreating back, but the car kept on rolling.

  Trey chuckled as he watched them go.

  Bum muh’fuckas.

 
As much as the local police were gunnin’ for young’uns like Maleek who populated the streets with illegal drugs, they hated Trey and his partners even more.

  It was understandable when you considered that businessmen like Trey fucked with the side stash in the police force’s pockets. The local grocery store, your favorite deli, even your friendly neighborhood funeral home had to pay up for protection in this town.

  But the little bit of cash that was strong-armed from small businesses was just the cherry on top of the police force’s sundae. It was the big willies who paid out the ass. Ice Man Reynolds, Big Sonny Dawson, Granite McKay, Hurricane Jackson…all of Harlem’s major kingpins had laid out premium dollars to keep their protection up and the local police force in pocket.

  And since shit rolled downhill, of course the willies had to get their money back, so they robbed small business owners to reimburse themselves for what they had dished off to the cops.

  But entrepreneurs like Trey refused to cough up the kickbacks. Instead, they formed their own security coalition and handled their own bizz.

  Trey walked the few short blocks to the community center and gym he had founded. He stopped out front and looked up at the illuminated basketball logo that was superimposed over a bridge and read, The Crossover Community Center.

  He’d started the center so he could help local kids and athletes learn job skills so they could stay off the streets. Trey did all kinds of things to make sure that every kid who wanted something better was given the opportunity to have it. He took up collections from local business, organized fundraisers and clothing drives. He put his money where his heart was too. Almost every barber who worked a chair at one of his shops had come through his center. Trey paid their tuition through barber school, and gave each one of them a full set of barber’s tools as a graduation gift.