Baller: An Interracial MMA Stepbrother Romance (3 page)

Chapter Five

Kristen

Fifteen minutes later, Kristen was guiding her ’98 Camry through the streets of northern Hartford – rolling past closed up stores and run down hours.

In the passenger seat – looking undignified with his bowed head scraping the headliner – was Hannibal.

“Shit,” the big man growled, peering out of the window as they rolled past a burned out car. “This place makes Detroit look like Disneyland.”

“It’s not
that
bad,” Kristen shrugged. “In fact, if you
really
want all your fans to think you’re gangster, maybe you should hang out here.”

Hannibal’s head swiveled as he watched a group of guys in wife beaters, playing dice outside a liquor store.

“Yeah,” he growled. “Maybe not.”

Kristen snorted, with a wry smirk.

“Don’t give me that attitude,” Hannibal side-eyed her. “I’m not
faking
it. It’s part of a
character
I play.” He turned and looked at her. “When I got my first fight, my manager, Delwood, suggested I get a little
edgier
. He said the fans wouldn’t like me if I looked like one of the Huxtables.”

“So
this
,” Kristen looked Hannibal up and down – his tattoos, and streetwear. “That’s a
costume
?” She rolled her eyes. “Isn’t that more WWE than MMA?”

Hannibal’s cheeks burned.

“Well, that might be true,” Kristen continued, “but
Jules
doesn’t get that. He’s
really
trying to live the ghetto life.” And as the Camry rolled into the streets of the Woodland Village housing estate, Hannibal started realizing just how true that was.

Chapter Six

Hannibal

There was an engine block in the overgrown yard. The air conditioner hung out of the window frame. The door had gang symbols spray-painted across it.

Gingerly, Hannibal weaved his way through the trash, up the pathway towards the bottom apartment of this run-down housing estate.

The doorbell didn’t work. He rapped his knuckles on the door loudly.

Kristen was following Hannibal closely – a little more closely than she’d have wanted to. Arms wrapped tightly around her torso, she kept close to her towering stepbrother, and looked around the run down estate nervously.

Bang, bang, bang
! Hannibal rapped his knuckles on the door again.

“Yo, fuck!” A muffled cry from within. “I’m fucking coming, yo.” And then the door rattled, and Hannibal heard deadbolts and locks being opened, and finally the door swung inward, and a cloud of pungent marijuana smoke drifted out.

Standing in the doorway in boxer shorts and a wife-beater was Hannibal’s younger brother, Julius.

“Baller!” Jule’s red-rimmed eyes opened wide, and he flung open his arms to embrace his brother. “What are you doin’ here, blood?” He embraced Hannibal tightly. “Yo, dawg. This is
tight
seein’ you.”

Hannibal peeled his brother off him. He stank of weed and body odor.

“Hey, Jules,” Hannibal peered distastefully in through the door. A ratty couch, empty pizza boxes and an X-Box 360 comprised all of the furniture. “What’s cracking?”

“C’mon in,” Jules ushered them into the smoky apartment. His eyes flashed when he saw Kristen hiding behind his brother. “And Krissie! Yo!” He made a move to go and kiss her, but she backed off. “Come in, girl.”

Reluctantly, Hannibal and Kristen stepped into the dingy apartment.

It was a wreck. The white walls were stained nicotine yellow. The blinds over the windows were greasy and dark. It looked like a crack den, only without the luxury of any crack.

“Whattya doing here, brother?” Jules swaggered over to the corner, and picked up a half-finished bottle of Red Stripe from the floor. He swigged it. “You come to watch me fight tonight?”

Hannibal wasn’t listening. He was peering around the apartment, skin crawling. For all his bad-boy, gangster wannabe schtick, being this close to the real thing grossed him out. Their mom had always been fastidious about cleaning, so how Jules could even live in this pigsty was beyond him.

Kristen heard, though, and asked: “You’re fighting tonight?”

“Yeah, girl,” Jules swigged his beer. “I figured you’d come to watch.” He swaggered over and punched his muscular brother in the arm. “Bro, it’ll be
tight
to have you in the crowd. The Alexander brothers, yo! MMA’s
first family
.”

Hannibal finally tuned in at that point.

He turned to his brother and looked down at him.

“What are you jabbering about?”

“MMA’s first family, bro,” Jules grinned. “Like the president, or some shit. I thought of it myself. When I move up into the real leagues, we’ll take the championship family style, yo.”

Hannibal narrowed his eyes.

“Move up into the real leagues?” He shook his head. “Shit, Jules. You’ve gotta start at the beginning.”

“Beginning.”

“Of the story. What’s this about you fighting?”

“You didn’t hear?”

“Moms told me you’d got mixed up in some MMA shit and I needed to come and talk some sense into you – but I don’t even know where to start.”

Hannibal looked his skinny brother up and down.

“What’s this nonsense about you fighting all about?”

Jules looked like Hannibal had slapped him in the face.

“It’s not nonsense,
yo
,” he snapped. Pounding his chest, Jules explained: “A couple of weeks ago I got talking with a guy who runs a fight circuit down here. Told me I should try out – that I’d get a fight
easy
, ‘cos I’m brothers with you.”

He grinned a little woozily.

“So I try it, right? And I
kick the guy’s ass
.” He gestured towards the TV in the corner – gleaming and shiny, compared to everything else in the apartment. “Bought that with the purse money, yo.”

Then he snorted.

“Next fight’s tonight. And this time I’m gonna make
bank
.”

Hannibal stared down at his little brother.

This was all surreal. Little skinny Jules – smart, and sassy, and always into a million things at once – wasn’t fight club material. Who’d let
him
enter an octagon?

And even if somebody
did
, how would his runt of a little brother actually
win
?

He guessed he’d find out tonight.

“Yo, yo,” as if reading his brother’s mind, Jules demanded: “You gonna drive me there, or what?”

“Drive you there?” Hannibal narrowed his eyes. “Why can’t you drive yourself? What happened to the Prius that Dad bought you?”

Jules grinned.

Crossing the room, he grabbed a shoebox from behind the TV and pulled off the top.

Inside was stacks and stacks of cash – a good five grand’s worth of twenty dollar bills.

“I sold it, yo,” Jules grinned. “I needed the purse money for tonight’s fight.”

Chapter Seven

Kristen

Kristen actually flinched the moment Hannibal started shouting.

“You
sold the fucking car
?” The walls shook at the sound of Hannibal’s voice. “Fuck me, Jules. Do you know how big a deal it was, Dad buying you a car?” He sniffed. “I sure as shit didn’t get a car when I graduated high school.”

“Nah, it ain’t no big deal,” Jules waved his hand dismissively. “I’m gonna go back to the dealership and buy another one – a
newer
one – with the prize money I get tonight.”

Slap!

Hannibal knocked the shoebox out of his brother’s hand. Twenty dollar bills cascaded to the floor.

“What the
fuck
, Baller?” Jules snapped, dropping to his knees to grab at the rogue twenties. “What is your fucking problem?”

“What’s my
problem
?” Hannibal put his big hands on his narrow hips, and glared down at his brother. “My problem is my ungrateful shit of a brother.”

Jules straightened up and shoved Hannibal right in the chest.

Or, at least, tried to. Hannibal didn’t flinch.

There was a flash of anxiety behind Jules’ eyes when his shove failed to have the desired effect, but he brushed it off, and growled: “I’m gonna win that money back
tonight
, yo.”

“Win? In a fight?” Hannibal shook his head. “Look at you, you skinny little runt. You haven’t seen the inside of a gym in years. You get winded running up the stairs.” And then Hannibal’s eyes narrowed. “And you’re fucking
drunk
and
high
.”

Jules hiccupped.

“I won my last fight, didn’t I?” His eyes narrowed. “You know what, Baller? I think you’re just jealous.” He nodded, as if trying to convince himself. “Yeah, that’s right. Jealous ‘cos you’re not the only big shot fighter in the family any more.”

“Big shot?” Hannibal growled. “You call fighting for shoeboxes of twenties ‘big shot’?” He shook his head. “Yo, I was headlining in Vegas two weeks ago. What you’re doing?” He shook his head. “Fucking playground stuff.”

“We’ll see,” Jules spat.

“Yeah, I guess we will,” Hannibal sneered. “Because I
am
gonna drive you tonight.” He snorted: “I want to see this for myself. I want to see you get your ass beat, and then I want to see your face when you have to tell Pop what you did with that car he bought you.”

Jules stared up at his brother, and hissed: “Well, bro – I want to see the look on
your
face, when you finally realize you’re not the only champion in the family any more.”

And then the skinny young black man pointed to the door.

“Go on, get out,” he snapped. “I need to get ready anyway. Come pick me up at seven.”

Hannibal stood there, staring at his brother for a moment. Mixed emotions coursed through him. Anger. Frustration. Hatred.

But more than that: Concern and pity.

His skinny little brother – drunk, and high, and so messed up in the head. He wished he could help him; but if growing up with Jules had taught Hannibal anything, it’s that the kid never listened to anybody but himself.

Without a word, Hannibal turned and marched for the door. Kristen nervously followed him.

“Yo, seven o’clock,” Julius snapped after them. “Don’t be late!”

Chapter Eight

Hannibal

“So… What do you think his deal is?”

That evening, Kristen and Hannibal were back.

Once again, they were parked outside Jules’ shitty apartment – this time in Hannibal’s Bentley, with the engine running. Hannibal was too concerned about something happening to the car to get out of it – and too pissed at his brother to walk down the path and rap on his door.

Instead he just honked the horn.

“Well?” Kristen repeated.

Hannibal turned to his step-sister. He looked down at her tan, pretty face, and snarled: “What’s wrong with my brother? Where do you want to start?”

Kristen didn’t want to touch that one with a ten-foot pole.

“When that shit with my mother kicked,” she said quietly, “
you
were supposed to be the bad boy. Heading off to Vegas to be a fighter.” She shook her head. “Your dad used to curse you out about that.”

Hannibal snorted bitterly.

“Don’t remind me.”

“But Jules? He seemed to have his shit together. He was going to college. He had a job…”

“Until he got busted for fighting, and smoking weed, and all that other shit.”

“Yeah, well maybe he wouldn’t have got mixed up in that if you’d still been around.”

Hannibal’s eyes flashed, but he didn’t have time to respond. Right at that moment, the front door of Jules’ apartment slammed open, and Hannibal’s skinny little brother came swaggering out.

Jules lurched down the path in a wife-beater and jeans tugged down around his hips.

Kristen looked at him through the windscreen, and asked Hannibal: “Where did it go wrong with you two?”

She fell silent as Jules finally swaggered up to the car, and pulled open the door. Kristen slithered into the back seat, and Jules flopped down onto the luxurious black leather beside his brother.

He reached into his pocket for a packet of Marlboro.

“Not in my fucking car you don’t,” Hannibal knocked them out of his hand.

Jules growled at him, but knew better than to argue. He reluctantly pulled on his seatbelt as Hannibal eased off the brakes and the powerful car rolled forward.

Soon they were out of the city streets and rolling onto Interstate 84.

“Head north,” Jules ordered. “They hold the fights at a warehouse out of town.”

“Sounds legit,” Hannibal said mockingly.

“Yeah, well, I don’t know if the shit’s strictly
legal
,” Jules growled. “But it’s
legit
, bro.”

Hannibal said nothing. He just narrowed his eyes and eased his foot down – rolling the big Bentley up to nearly 90 miles an hour as they roared north.

It didn’t take them long to get there. Jules directed them off a slip road and the Bentley purred into a rundown industrial part of town, full of darkened warehouses and garages.

“Cross the railroad tracks,” Jules ordered – which was always a bad indication as far as Hannibal was concerned.

He was already wondering about how smart the decision to drive Jules to his ‘fight’ was – and how clever he’d been to bring his Bentley. The beautiful grey car was pretty much the only valuable thing he owned at that point in time, and he didn’t like the idea of watching his brother get a beat down, and
then
coming outside to find his car on blocks.

But, as it turned out, he needn’t have worried.

At the end of the road, a warehouse lay behind towering wire fences. Spotlights seared through the darkness, and music thumped through speakers. Parked in the lot were dozens of high end and customized cars – Hummers, Toyota Supras and enough aftermarket neon and chrome to equip a
Fast and Furious
sequel.

“See?” Jules saw the look on his brother’s face. “I told you, bro. It’s
legit
.”

Hannibal whistled through his teeth. Shit, maybe his brother was
right
.

But that didn’t stop an uneasy feeling swimming around in his belly, and that just intensified as the Bentley rolled up to the entrance to this warehouse lot – and two men walked out to block its approach.

They were big, white guys in cheap suits. One held up his hand, and indicated that Hannibal should stop the car. The other marched to the car window, one hand held behind his back.

There was probably a gun tucked into the back of his pants. Hannibal had been to enough illegal raves and parties while in Vegas to recognize that trick.

The towering guard rapped on the window, and Hannibal rolled it down.

“Yo, yo, it’s okay,” Jules leaned over, and peered at the guard. “I’m here to fight, bro. Just ask Red.”

The guard nodded, recognizing Hannibal’s brother. Silently, he indicated that Hannibal should drive on – and the other guard stepped out of the way and let the Bentley past.

“Man, I’ve got a
bad
feeling about this,” from the back seat, Kristen finally spoke up.

“Nah, nah,” Jules waved his hand dismissively. “It’s all cool.”

But Hannibal narrowed his eyes, as he pulled the Bentley to a halt beside a chromed-out Chrysler 300.

He shared Kristen’s concern.