The Last Kings (21 page)

“When Ray finds out—” I started, but was cut off by loud laughter.

“Not even Ray can save you now, bitch. I've been waiting for this shit for six fuckin' years!”

Khiron looked down at the broken television and the glass from the screen that was scattered on the bloodstained carpet. He stopped an arm's length in front of me with his head cocked.

“What . . . You didn't like my little home movie? Or should I say,
your
little home movie?” he chuckled. “Damn, shorty, you was a freak, though. I can see why Nino kept biting.”

The knots in my stomach tightened. My past, something that I thought was over, had finally caught up to me. I knew he was the one behind all of the havoc being caused in the city, but none of it added up. Ray denied business with him, so the fuck what? That couldn't have been it.

“Why are you doing this?” I cut my eyes at him. “Ray is going to kill you.”

“Ray doesn't even know what the fuck is going on, bitch. How can you call yourself a kingpin and don't even know what the fuck is going on in your own city? He ain't shit but a fuck nigga, but he's just icing on the cake. You, Sadie? You're the big fish I've been wanting. It was one hell of a coincidence too! When that bitch-ass nigga told me I couldn't hold his product, I was going to just chill. But then I found out he worked with the Italians. I couldn't just leave. Not without taking what's rightfully mine.”

“What the fuck are you talking about?” I yelled into his face. “And how did you get those tapes?”

The house burned down. I saw it. There was no way anything could have been preserved . . . least of all, Nino's sick, fetish tapes. Who the fuck was this nigga, and how did he know about my past? Khiron's cold stare turned distant and foggy.

“You were all he ever talked about. He always told me how hustle lived in your heart . . . and how much of a waste it was on a little bitch like you.” Khiron was talking and my mind was reaching, trying to grasp his words. “Imagine my frustration. Being in the shadow of someone I never even met! I was nineteen and on the verge of inheriting an empire bigger than you could ever dream! But because of you, I was held back from it because somehow, you could put in more work than me. That made me . . .” Khiron paused and snapped his fingers. “Now, what was the word he used? Aw yea, that's right,
incompetent.
”

Without warning, he struck me in my face so hard I felt my jaw crack. I fell to the ground with a loud thud, and he walked up and kicked me hard in my ribs. I felt blood flow from my mouth, and I spit it out, clutching my stomach where I lay. Khiron began pacing back and forth in front of me, and he continued with his story.

“Bitch! I remember the last time he came to visit me. It was the weekend. Summer vacation just started, and he was meeting with an Italian connect in Atlanta, but something was wrong with him. The nigga was jumpy, and a boss is never jumpy. When he left, it was in a hurry, and he forgot his duffle bag. I called it his duffle bag of secrets. He never even said good-bye.”

He stopped pacing and knelt down in front of my aching face. I was confused. Why would Khiron care about a good-bye from another nigga? I struggled to sit up to face him, my mind reeling. I thought back to Nino's monthly trips to Atlanta. I knew he went there because he ran big business there, but he also went there to visit . . . Something in my mind clicked, and my heart froze over.

“You're his son,” I whispered, wide-eyed. “You're Nino's son.”

I couldn't believe how naïve I'd been. The resemblance between Khiron and Nino was undeniable. Nino always called Khiron “Khy” when he spoke about him, so I never knew his full name . . . I did now, though. Khiron's distant look was replaced with coldness once again, and he grabbed me by my hair. He studied my face.

“Finding out my pops had a thing for young pussy was a little disturbing. That shit was sick, especially since he was still fuckin' my mom, but I still watched the tapes.” He yanked my head so that his mouth was directly on my ear, and he spoke in a soft, taunting tone. “I watched you beg and scream and cry over and over. He had cameras in his office too, Sadie . . .”

His voice trailed off and echoed in my head.

No
, I thought, shaking my head, knowing what he was saying.

My mind took me back to the day I'd broken into Nino's office. I was so clouded with anger that day six years ago that I'd been careless. I never would have thought Nino would be sick enough to record the malicious acts he did with me, but I should have known that his office was under surveillance. Khiron let go of my hair and leaned back to get a good look at the expression on my face.

“Priceless,” he said. “Yea, bitch, I knew it was you who had my pops killed. Snitch! You killed everything, bitch!”

Khiron kicked me again and more blood came up. I knew that unless some sort of miracle happened, I was going to be murdered. I never in a million years thought that the son of the man I had killed would come out looking to spill blood. I felt tears rush to my eyes as the reality hit me. It was my fault D and Amann were dead. Khiron was toying with me. He was enjoying seeing me suffer.

“Where's Mocha?” I asked with a mouth full of salty blood. “And Devynn?”

“Devynn is dead. Bitch took a shotgun shell to the chest,” Khiron laughed, and tears came to my eyes.

Devynn and I weren't the closest, but she was a real bitch and a true soldier. She didn't deserve to die.

“You bitch!” I screamed. “They didn't do anything to you! Why did you kill them?”

“All of you have to die,” he shrugged. “I'm taking Detroit. Fuck a business deal.”

“No!” I yelled. “Where's Mocha?”

I was afraid of what he was going to say. I would take his gun and dead myself if he told me she'd met the same fate as Devynn.

“Don't trip, shorty,” Khiron said, his Georgia drawl strong. “That bitch is probably on a yacht chilling, eating crab cakes or some shit.”

“Stop lyin', nigga! Where is she?” I snarled, rushing him, only to receive a blow harder than the first one.

“It's funny that you're worried about ya homegirl when
she's
the one who gave up your whereabouts. She's the one who brought me here to Grandma's house, who, I might add, was one feisty old bitch. You wanna know where she is?”

Khiron came to where my body was laid out next to Grandma Rae's and once again grabbed the back of my tussled hair, forcing my head up to look at him. All three of him. As my eyes tried to focus on his face, I heard somebody else enter the room.

“You wanna know where she is, Sadie?” Khiron yelled, pulling my hair so hard I felt some rip away from my scalp.

“Yes,” I said weakly, cringing in pain.

“I'm right here,”
a voice so familiar to me said.

I didn't want to believe the owner of the voice was my ride-or-die bitch. My day one. But when my eyes averted to the figure standing in the doorway, I knew it was real. My vision was blurry, and my mind slightly out of it, but I could spot Mocha from a mile away. She was my best friend.
Was
. The betrayal I felt was so powerful, it hurt physically. The hurt I felt overpowered the anger. Mocha stood over where I was , bleeding in a mixture of my own and Grandma Rae's blood in a designer dress and open-toe stilettos. She looked like a celebrity. Khiron threw my head back down viciously, almost causing me to black out again before standing up. Through my clouded vision, I watched him walk to Mocha and kiss her sloppily on her mouth. She let him for a second, but then she pushed him off of her.

“This isn't how it was supposed to happen, Khiron!” I could hear in her voice that she was starting to cry. “You promised me you wouldn't hurt her!”

Khiron laughed.

“Baby, I'm a dope man. That was
your
mistake if you believed me. This is what I do. If you have a problem, you can join this bitch in the afterlife,” he told her. When she was quiet, he continued. “This bitch killed my pops!
This
is the bitch responsible for taking
my
empire, baby! Aw, yea, I'm killing this bitch!”

I used all of my strength to sit up and stare into Mocha's eyes. A huge knot was forming on the right side of my face, but I ignored the screeching pain.

“Why, Mocha?” I asked. “Why would you turn on us?”

“I-I love him, Sadie,” Mocha said what only a weak bitch would and shrugged her shoulders meekly. “He promised me a life outside of the drug ring. A life of riches without having to put in any work. You know that's all I ever wanted! This was
your
dream, Say!
Not
mine!”

“You could have had that, Mocha!” I screamed, letting the tears fall. “At any fucking time! I would have had you! You let this snake-ass nigga know where we laid our heads—for what? So you could go shopping all day and sit at home? You're going to let him take everything for your own selfishness. Fuck you, Mocha. When he kills me, don't even mourn my death because you're
already
dead to me.”

Mocha's eyes went wide at my words and a sob escaped her mouth.

“All those trips to Atlanta.” I shook my head at how dumb I'd been to trust her. That's how she met Khiron. She was his key to me.

I stared at Mocha disgusted that she'd chosen dick over me. She was like my sister. Blood couldn't have made us any closer. I trusted her with everything I had, and there she was, staring down at me in my demise. She looked at Grandma Rae and turned her head so she couldn't see her until she stepped over her to get to me. She dropped on her knees and grasped my hands.

“It wasn't supposed to be like this, Say.” Her lips trembled when she spoke. “I'm sorry.”

I pulled my hands from hers and spat in her face.

“Fuck you,” I said and meant it.

Mocha stared into my eyes for a few more moments, and I saw her heart break. I knew she saw mine break too.

“No.” She shook her head and stood up and ran up on Khiron, swinging her fists. “You're not going to kill her! We had a deal!”

“It's too late, Mocha!” Khiron grabbed her and threw her hard to the side. He pulled his .45 from his waist and advanced on me again. “You're going to live and watch what you caused. You won't get the luxury of death, bitch.”

He aimed the chrome barrel at me and fired once, catching me in my leg. I'd never been shot before, and the pain was excruciating, but I didn't scream. I fell back and tried to stomach the pain.

“No, Khiron!” I heard Mocha scream, and a bullet hole appeared inches away from my head.

“Get off me!” Khiron said, and I heard another thud and a grunt from Mocha.

I turned my head in time to see Khiron coming for me, and I tried to get up, but the pressure from Khiron's foot on my chest prevented that from being possible. So I laughed. I laughed like a crazed person, and I saw the look of confusion on his face. I was about to die. I knew it, but my mouth still worked perfectly fine.

“You think you can kill me, bitch?” I said through clenched teeth. “Kings. Don't. Fucking. Die!! You will
never
be near as much of a boss as me. Even your punk-ass daddy knew that! Fuck that nigga too. I'm glad I had him killed, and guess what? No matter what happens here . . . you'll be next!”

The pressure of Khiron's foot lessened, and he stared down at me as I laughed. His lip upturned, and he aimed his gun at my heart.

“You took everything from me, so I'm going to do the same thing to you. You're going to burn. And Ray? I'm about to kill him too.”

I saw Khiron's jaw clench just before he pulled the trigger twice more, and I felt heat in my chest and in my stomach.

“R-Ray,” was all I could get out before I began choking on my own blood.

“N-n-nooooo!!!” Mocha screamed and tried to get to me.

Khiron strong-armed her and held her back. He grinned at me, enjoying the sight of me dying slowly. The world around me was becoming dim, and I knew my life that remained on the earth was short. I coughed on the blood that spilled from my mouth, and the pain in my chest was unbearable. My hands clutched my stomach, trying to catch the blood, but there was so much of it, it was no use. I just wanted the pain to stop.

“Sadie, I'm so sorry!” Mocha screamed. “Why? No! No! No!”

Her voice grew distant, and my eyes closed. The pain was slowly subsiding, and my last thought before everything went black was Grandma Rae's voice.

I let go of the little piece of life I was holding on to in sorrow with sadness and comfort that soon Ray would be joining me.

Ray entered Amore and immediately knew something was up. It was empty. Top and bottom levels. No one was there, not even his workers. It was so quiet he would have been able to hear a pin drop. Gun raised, he went to the secret entrance of the club that was in the basement and found where all of his workers were. They were all sprawled out on the floor—dead, his money and product on the ground around them.

“Ray,” he heard a voice whisper behind him, and as soon as he turned around to click on the owner, something hit him in the head so hard that he fell to the ground, blacked out.

When Ray finally opened his eyes, it felt as if no time had passed, but his body felt different. He looked around and the dead bodies of his employees let him know he was still in the same place. But when he tried to move his body, he found he couldn't. Looking down, he saw that he was bound tightly to a chair, and no matter how hard he tried to fight against the ropes, he couldn't get free. Around him he saw that he was encircled by a group of men. He recognized none of their faces, nor did he see a Last Kings tattoo anywhere on their bodies.

“There's no point, fam,” Ray heard a vaguely familiar voice say. “You ain't gettin' free.”

Ray's head whipped around, looking for the source of the voice, but with his head injury, that just made him dizzy.

“Who the fuck is there?” he called out angry that he'd been caught slipping.

“I told you I'd be seeing you, Ray,” the voice said. “You know who the fuck it is.”

Ray heard footsteps behind him, then a man appeared in front of him. Khiron stood over him like a man gloating over a big trophy fish that he'd just caught. And that's exactly what Ray was.

“I'm not going to make this last too long. I've already gotten what I wanted,” Khiron smiled evilly at Ray. “This shit was too easy; easier than I expected. Glad you waited until I got here to come around to your senses. This should be fun now.”

He laughed out loud and looked above Ray for a split second.

“You have a really nice house, by the way,” he taunted. “I burned it down, of course.”

Ray fought harder against the rope around his wrists and ankles but only tired himself. Sadie was in that house. If he'd burned it down with her in it . . .

“Don't worry,” Khiron chuckled, pulling up a chair in front of Ray and taking a seat. “She was alive when we left the house.”

The sick smile he wore like a shirt gave Ray a queasy feeling.

“Where are they?” Ray growled in a low voice. His tone was deadly. “Where are Mocha, Devynn, and Sadie?”

“Devynn is dead. I had no use for that bitch.” Khiron shrugged his smile still planted on his face. “And Mocha? Well, see for yourself. Mocha!”

Mocha then too appeared in front of Ray, confusing him, and when he saw the tears in her eyes, he knew something was wrong.

“I'm so sorry, Ray,” she whispered.

“Tell him where Sadie is, Mocha.” Khiron grabbed her and pulled her so that she was sitting on his lap looking directly at Ray. “Tell him about how you gave me the directions to his home. Tell him about how you brought me to his grandmother's house, and how I blew the back of her head off. Tell him about how you watched me put the bullet in Sadie's heart.”

Mocha was shaking as she stared into Ray's eyes and watched him fight against his restraints at the news he'd just received. That was the only time that she'd ever seen him look any form of weak. He'd always been their rock, their savior. He stopped fighting after a while and looked tired and beat. His dreads hung loosely around his slumped shoulders, and his eyes instantly were filled with pain at Khiron's words. He knew they were true by the tears rolling down Mocha's face and the sobs she was choking on. Ray was about to speak, but he had no words to say. He looked around at his establishment and the thousands of dollars on the ground and shook his head. His eyes fell on the entrance of the club, and he saw Devynn and Adrianna's faces. Devynn had her guns out, ready to rain fire on them all, but he shook his head slightly. If they entered the room, they would surely be dead, especially since Khiron already thought Devynn was. He saw tears form in Adrianna's eyes, and he thought of his promise to her. Promises, in his eyes, were never meant to be broken, especially if they were made by him. But at that moment, he knew that was the only promise he made in his life that he wouldn't be able to keep.

“You shot her in her heart?” Ray turned his attention back to Khiron. “In my grandmother's house?”

He was trying to send Devynn and Adrianna a subliminal message.
Get to that house.
Saving him was a lost cause unless they all wanted to die together. His eyes averted back to Mocha, and he spat on her in disgust.

“I took you in because of your loyalty to my cousin. You both better hope that whatever bullet enters my body kills me, or may God have mercy on ya' fucking souls . . . because I won't. And I
know
she won't.”

Khiron laughed at the man before him, ignoring his comment.

“I thought about shooting you, but that's so old-fashioned, don't you think, my nigga?” Khiron pushed Mocha off of his lap, and one of the men surrounding them grabbed her by her arm to restrain her just in case she got out of control. “I want to watch you scream. I brought down the best! The Italians are going to have to find another flunky bitch. Look up.”

Ray did as he was told and looked at what Khiron had glanced at earlier. Hanging from the ceiling was a huge bucket, and a rope was attached to it. Ray's eyes followed the rope and saw that one of Khiron's goons was holding the other end of it, an evil glint in his eyes.

“Acid.” Khiron stood up and backed away. “There won't even be a skeleton when we're finished here.”

“No! Please, Khiron, don't!” Mocha begged trying to fight against the man holding her.

Ray's eyes locked on Adrianna's, and he smiled. They would never know what could have been . . . what
should
have been. Adrianna covered her mouth when Khiron gave the man the signal to let go of the rope and turned her head into Devynn's shoulder just before the liquid hit Ray's body. There was a spine-tingling scream, but it belonged to Mocha, not Ray. He wasn't going to give Khiron the satisfaction. He felt his body burning and the pain was unbearable. It didn't take long for the acid to start to eat away at his flesh, and when Adrianna looked again, she saw his head slump. Ray was no more. It felt like her heart had been ripped out of her chest and thrown into the acid that killed him.

“And that, ladies and gentlemen,” Khiron whispered just loud enough to be heard, “is how you take over an empire.”