Checkmate: The Baddest Chick (18 page)

She started to dance with him, and it felt like they were on clouds. Apple didn’t want to look down from his eyes. She wanted to stay connected with him. She wanted that bond to become concrete. She fixed her eyes on her king and strengthened her grip around him.

“I got you, baby,” he said.

She nodded.

They continued to dance. Then slowly her dress started to peel away from her skin. And then she found herself naked in his hold. Apple didn’t mind; she wanted him to stare at her curvy waistline, succulent tits, and round, juicy ass. She knew her body would captivate his attention.

Her king squeezed her harder, indicating his approval, and they kissed passionately. His hands explored every curve of her body.

She moaned, savoring his touch, enjoying the warmth of his breath against hers and the way his strapping chest pressed against her breasts. Everything about it was pleasurable.

“Your face is so beautiful and angelic,” her king spoke.

Apple blushed. She soon found herself floating on her back, and he was naked. His manhood was hard and pulsating, and it was waiting to be pleased. She wanted to feel him inside of her, her pleasure box throbbing out of control.

He pushed himself inside Apple. She drifted into the rapturous thrusting, as his big dick filled her completely.

She gripped his shoulders, straddled her legs around her king, and panted like a winded runner. It was so good; she almost lost consciousness.

Apple closed her eyes and enjoyed the bliss of their naked flesh wrapped tightly together. Her king was a gorgeous specimen of a man, and he was devouring her sex as if he needed it to live.

Apple came, the pleasurable moment escaping her lips as her body rattled underneath his sweaty flesh.

Abruptly, her king stopped with his heated passion, and a look of shock registered on his face. He pulled himself away from Apple like she had the plague.

“What’s wrong?” Apple questioned.

Her king looked speechless. “What are you?”

“I’m your queen?” she replied meekly.

“You’re a fuckin’ demon! That’s what you are!”

Apple didn’t understand what was happening. She went to touch her face and suddenly felt it melting away. She jumped up and ran toward the mirror. The reflection she once saw, the one that made her smile and feel perfect, was gone. She saw an image that horrified her. Her skin was melting and becoming loose and slacking, and it burned.

Apple screamed. She then looked back at her king and yelled, “Chico, don’t leave me! Help me! Please! Help me!”

Chico began to fade away into the darkness, leaving Apple to bear the pain alone. She screamed out louder and then heard a big bang. The banging grew louder and louder.

****

Apple stirred from her sleep, oblivious to the chaotic noise outside her door. It sounded like a war in the hallway of the whorehouse. There was screaming and gunfire. The whores were yelling, and there was running and fighting.

She remained slumped against the mattress. The heroin that flowed through her bloodstream had her body listless, and the haze still lingered in her mind. She was in her own world.

Bak! Bak! Bak! Bak! Bak!

The sound of gunfire grew closer to Apple’s room. The walls started to shake. There was loud rustling everywhere, but Apple still laid there, lifeless.

“Yo, check that fuckin’ room!” a man yelled. “Check that fuckin’ room!”

Apple’s door was abruptly kicked open, and two masked men came rushing inside wielding heavy assault rifles. They looked around the room in a hurry and saw Apple lying on the mattress.

One of the men yelled, “In here!”

Another masked man walked into the room, and his beady eyes zeroed in on Apple from behind the mask.

“Is this her?” one of the masked men asked.

He nodded.

Apple felt a pair of strong hands reach down to lift her up from the mattress. He cradled her in his arms and said, “Don’t worry, I got you now. It’s gonna be you and me again.”

Apple heard the words, but she didn’t know what was going on. It felt like she was floating on air. She couldn’t see anyone’s face clearly, even if they didn’t wear masks. She was completely fucked up. Her mind was drifting and incoherent because of the drugs, and her body was weak, exhausted from everything that had happened to her.

Apple was carried out of the room. The hallway was scattered with bodies, mostly dead thugs on Shaun’s end. The whores either ran for safety or cowered in their rooms or in the corner. No one wanted to fight, and no one wanted to die. The three masked men came heavily armed and were well prepared for a battle. But none of the bodies that lay in the pool of blood in the narrowed hallway were Shaun. He had been absent from the massacre of his goons.

Apple soon felt fresh air against her skin. She knew she was outdoors. It was dark out. She felt a gentle breeze. The man carrying her had strength and didn’t grow tired with her in his arms. She felt herself being laid gently into a luxurious backseat. It had been too long since she’d been in a vehicle. She felt the rich interior against her skin and smelled the vivid aroma of expensive leather, and it suddenly became all too familiar to her.

“Chico,” she uttered out. “Chico, I knew you would come for me. I knew you would, Chico. Chico. Chico . . .”

“I’m here now, Apple. I’m here now, and ya good,” the man said.

The doors were shut, and the Escalade sped away from the scene.

Apple was spread out in the backseat still in her drug haze. She felt the truck speeding and repeated one last time, “I knew you would come for me, Chico. I knew you would.” She then closed her eyes and dozed off.

CHAPTER 16

K
ola stood like a ghost in Mt. Zion Cemetery, right off the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway, clad in a simple black dress and a pair of Fendi sunglasses to hide her teary eyes. Standing tall in her four-inch heels, she stared at Candace’s casket. She couldn’t believe her friend was dead.

She really couldn’t believe that Edge had the audacity to show up to Candace’s funeral. Kola plotted her revenge, glaring at that asshole from behind her large shades. The cemetery had too many witnesses for her to do anything to him—over two-dozen mourners had shown up to the burial—so she held her rage and continued to stare at the roses on the stainless steel casket.

Kola stood opposite Cross and Edge, who were both clad in dark suits and shades. Kola didn’t know if Cross was involved with the massacre, but she didn’t trust him.

She didn’t trust anyone. She felt alone. She felt angry. Candace was dead, her crew was dead, and somebody had to pay.

Everything pointed back to Edge, and probably Cross. Kola knew there was no way one man could get the drop on Candace. She was too good. It had to be a team of men that invaded her stash house.

When Cross tried to console Kola, she refused to accept his help or tell him her worries. She’d heard rumors that he was living in Brooklyn with Cynthia. She started to hate everything about Cross. Her love for him had changed into contempt and anger, and she felt caught in a web of betrayal and death.

Kola looked around the cemetery. Pastor Jones was saying a few words about the deceased, but she wasn’t listening. Her mind was too focused on revenge. She continued to glare at Edge from behind her shades. He had to go. She’d already devised a plan to kill him once and for all, and maybe find out if Cross was involved with Candace’s death. Pastor Jones was a stout, black man. Kola remembered him from his church in Harlem. When she was eight, the mother of one of the twins’ friends from her building took her and Apple to a few church services. They went for a month and had gotten to know him to some extent. He would always say to them, “Such beautiful twin girls. Keep the Lord close to your heart, and everything will always be OK.”

Then years went by, and Pastor Jones, his words, the twins’ mutual friend Tina, and everything else became a memory. The streets became more important.

Pastor Jones stood over the casket in his gray suit. He said solemnly, “Ashes to ashes, dust to dust . . . dust thou art, and unto dust thou shall return. I will bring thee to ashes upon the earth in the sight of all them that behold thee.”
He then sprinkled a little bit of dirt onto Candace’s casket, concluding the service.

The crowd began to leave the burial site, but Kola lingered around near the casket. She let out a heavy sigh. She knew death was part of playing the game, but it was still painful to endure when it was a close friend.

Pastor Jones walked up to her. “It’s been a long time, Kola.”

Kola was surprised he still remembered her. “Thank you, Pastor, for everything you’ve done.”

Pastor Jones stared at her, making her a bit uncomfortable. He told her, “Don’t let it be you in that casket without you finding your way soon.”

“I have found my way, Pastor, and once I make things right, you’ll have plenty of business coming your way.”

“Revenge is not the way to salvation.”

“You need to preach that somewhere else, Pastor Jones, but not here, not now. No disrespect to you, but stay the hell out of my business!” She walked away, leaving him dumbfounded by her comment.

Kola noticed that Edge had been eyeing her hard throughout the burial service.
He got balls
, she thought. As she walked toward the parking lot, she heard someone behind her. She turned and saw Edge approaching. She glanced around to look for Cross and saw that he was already gone.
It figures,
she thought.

“Hold on a minute, Kola!” Edge called out.

Kola continued walking.

“We need to talk.”

Kola stopped in her tracks and turned to face him, her murderous look hidden behind Fendi. “What the fuck do you want, Edge?”

“Listen, I know we had our differences over the past months, and my condolences to your girl. She was cool peoples. But I’m here to help. You family, Kola, and whoever did this, they gonna fuckin’ pay.”

Kola thought he had some nerve, but she kept her feelings to herself and went along with the program. “Thanks. And you’re right, they will pay. Painfully too.”

“You look really nice, though.”

“Whatever!” She turned away from him and headed back to her car.

Edge quickly took a hold of her arm. “Wait a minute, Kola. We need to talk.”

“About what? We have nothing in common, and we never will.”

“You know how I always felt about you, Kola. He ain’t never deserved you.”

“And you think you could do better, Edge?”

“I’m not him.”

“You definitely aren’t.”

Edge frowned.

Kola softened up her attitude. “What do you need to talk about?”

“Not here, Kola. Someplace more comfortable.”

“Like where?”

“Let me take you out to dinner, and I’ll explain everything that’s going on. I promise, you gonna want to know what I have to say to you,” he said calmly.

She thought about it for a moment. “OK, I’ll go out wit’ you, and we’ll talk.”

“Cool.”

Edge gave Kola his new number. She saved it into her phone and watched him walk away. He moved like everything was cool between them, but they were far from cool.

Kola knew that pussy always made niggas weak and stupid, and Edge had been craving for a piece of her pie for the longest. She was ready to use her sexuality to get with him and carry out what needed to be done. Desperate for payback, and with her crew murdered, she had to take matters in her own hands.

****

Kola parked her black Audi a few blocks from the projects and took a taxi to her mom’s crib. She had no choice but to return home and try to rekindle some semblance of a relationship with her mother. She swallowed her pride and decided to make things work, since she had few options left. She had a little over a hundred and fifty thousand dollars in cash and a few ki’s stashed somewhere safe; her bailout money that no one knew about.

Eduardo was still MIA. The uncertainty of his whereabouts put a hollow feeling in her stomach. Each day she wished he would call and tell her what the fuck was going on. Instead, all she had was the ominous threat. Kola didn’t know if he had been detained by the feds or if he had escaped to Colombia. She was worried that she was on the feds’ radar, so she tried to keep a low profile, or planned to, after dealing with Edge.

She strutted into her mother’s apartment and heard New Edition blaring from the stereo. It was hard to return home after the harsh words she’d said to her mother. Denise constantly gave her a look like,
I knew you would be back home sooner or later
. So Kola put five thousand dollars in her mother’s hand to ease the tension.

For Kola, staying in the projects was a risk. She had enemies and haters, so she didn’t go out much, mostly at night, if ever, and she always carried a gun. She hoped that she was strategically hiding in plain sight, moving like pieces on a chessboard. Everyone knew how she felt about Denise, so it would be the last place anyone would think to look.