Promise Kept, page 20
“I’m not asking you to give me your trust. Make me earn it. Can I get, at least, that?” Asher asked. Promise opened her mouth to say something when Asher unexpectedly plucked her cell phone from her hand. “Don’t answer right now.” He waved her silent and tapped away on her screen. “Live with the question for a minute. You got my number now, so hit me when you come to a decision.”
“You know I’m probably never going to call you, right?” Promise told him honestly. She had already sampled the fruit of the poison tree once and had found it too bitter for her tastes.
Asher shrugged. “If you do, I’ll know that you listened to my heart and not my words. If you don’t, I guess we chalk it up to a shared moment in time. Nothing more.”
“You and that silver tongue,” Promise said, unable to fight the smile that forced itself to her lips. Asher was the fucking devil, and she knew it, but a handsome one. From the way he was shining, his time at the top had surely been kind to him.
“Act like you know, lil mama.” Asher poked his tongue out suggestively. The blaring of a car horn broke up their flirting. A gray Honda Civic pulled to the curb just shy of them. The windows were heavily tinted, so Asher couldn’t see who was driving, but he could feel eyes on him. “I guess that’s your ride?”
“I guess so,” Promise replied. She continued to stand there for a beat as if she had more to say, but held it and opted for, “It was good seeing you, Asher.”
“It was better seeing you, love,” Asher replied coolly. He continued standing there while she walked to her ride. He couldn’t help but feel like she had put a little something extra into her strut, because that ass was moving under those leggings. She wanted him to see how much she had grown. Promise had barely closed the passenger’s side door before the Civic peeled away from the curb. The driver didn’t seem to be in the best of moods and Asher’s ego hoped that he had been the one to sour it. He reasoned the driver was whatever lame guy Promise had shackled herself with since her move to New York. It hadn’t occurred to him to ask her if she was seeing anyone. In truth, it wouldn’t have mattered to him one way or another. Lightning rarely struck twice, and if given a second chance, he wouldn’t squander it.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Sammy had gone ahead to get the truck, while Don B. and Tone stood out in front of Dirty Wine. Tone was happy to finally be out of that place. He hated seedy joints like Dirty Wine. They were death traps that allowed people in from all walks of life and didn’t have the most reliable security. Don B. was a millionaire who had no business in a bootleg strip club full of gangsters. It was asking for trouble. He’d tried to explain this to Don B., but of course, the Don wouldn’t hear it. He insisted on taking the meeting with Trap in the club, instead of having him come to the office like Tone had suggested. Don B. had said it would’ve been in poor form not to accept the invitation from Inferno, but for as long as he had known Don B., he never cared about offending people, especially an unknown like Inferno. Tone knew this was more about Don B.’s ego than it was him worrying about how Inferno would take the slight. For the last year or two, he had been going out of his way to prove that he was still a gangster, and putting himself, and Tone by extension, in questionable situations. It was like his friend was going through a midlife crisis of sorts.
“You wanna tell me what all that was about back there?” Tone finally asked.
“Us getting what we came for,” Don B. replied, without looking up from the blunt he had been trying to unsuccessfully light on the windy corner. “By this time tomorrow, Inferno will be a Dawg.”
“But what did it cost us?” Tone questioned.
Don B. finally got his blunt lit and took a deep pull before answering. “With a nigga like that, we don’t have to start him out with a big advance. About a hundred thousand and a new car should keep him pacified for now.”
“I’m not talking about the advance, and you know it. This ain’t our first walk in the park with Trap, and I find it hard to believe that he conceded in letting you have an act he was interested in because he didn’t think he could beat us in a bidding war. I’ve seen our books, and we ain’t as liquid as we were five years ago.”
“All the more reason we needed to sign Inferno. Streets been starved for that brand of ignorance for a long time, and who better to feed them than Big Dawg?”
“I don’t disagree. Inferno is definitely going to give us a push in the right direction, but that same push could’ve been the nudge to put a smaller label like Trap’s over the hump. So, again I have to ask, what did you have to give him in exchange for letting us sign Trap?” Tone pressed.
Don B. exhaled a cloud of smoke, watching Tone from behind his shades. Tone knew him better than most and could see that whatever he had done in that back room was weighing on him. “Keys. We’re gonna sign Keys’s contract over to Trap in exchange for him not trying to block us getting Inferno.”
“Are you fucking high?” Tone asked in disbelief. He knew letting Don B. go in that room by himself with Trap would come back to bite him in the ass, and here he was bleeding.
“Calm the fuck down, man. We got the better in this deal. You know like I know that Keys didn’t do shit as an artist,” Don B reminded him.
“Yeah, but that was on us. We threw an eighteen-year-old kid with zero knowledge about this business into the deep end of the pool and then were surprised when the lil nigga ended up drowning. This is why we usually have people around to develop these artists before we try putting them out to the mainstream. We cut corners with Keys. The boy is a self-taught musician who also writes some decent songs. Over time we could’ve shaped him into something special.”
“Time is something we ain’t got a lot of!” Don B. snapped. “It’s like you said, you’ve seen the books, and we’re in desperate need of capital, which is just what I went in there and got us! Ain’t nobody got time to develop Keys when Inferno is ready to go right now. What’s done is done, Tone. You just make sure Trap gets that paperwork.”
Tone knew, at that point, that there was no more arguing about this. Don B. had done something that night that Tone hadn’t seen him do since they were in the streets trying to build their dream. He made a business decision out of desperation. It was just further proof of how far down the rungs of the ladder the once mighty Big Dawg had slipped. Tone had been trying to hold the company up as best he could, but his shoulders were getting tired.
“Say, ain’t that the bitch from the club?” Don B. got Tone’s attention. The clumsy white stripper from back at Dirty Wine was standing in the cut a few feet away from them. She had on a baggy sweatshirt and leggings, but Don B. could still spot that ample ass. She was having a heated discussion with some dude who looked familiar, but Don B. was too focused on Promise to pay him much mind. He couldn’t shake the feeling that he had seen her somewhere before. When she shifted and the streetlight fell across her face, Don B. was able to get a good look at her, minus the stripper makeup. That’s when it finally hit him where he had seen her before. “That’s the bitch from Jersey!”
“What bitch from Jersey?” Tone asked coming to stand next to Don B.
“The white broad who Keys almost got himself murked for that night we went to Newark to hear him play,” Don B. reminded him.
Tone squinted. “Nah, that can’t be her. That broad is probably halfway across the world. I heard the homies are looking to have a not-so-nice conversation with her over that shit that happened with B-Stone.”
Don B. shook his head. “I still can’t see it. B-Stone was a real-life goon, so him getting killed by a bitch don’t make sense to me. Maybe I should reach out to our friends on the other side of the Hudson and see what it’s worth to them to find out where their little snowflake has landed.” He rubbed his hands together sinisterly and continued to watch her until a beat-up Civic pulled up to the curb and she disappeared inside, leaving the guy she had been talking to standing there smiling like the cat who swallowed the canary. “Lucky bastard.” He chuckled knowing the guy had done what he couldn’t and pulled her.
Tone was about to say something to Don B. when a flicker of motion caught his eye. The shadow moved so fast that Tone probably wouldn’t have even seen it had he not been looking directly at it. “Don!” he shouted, but he wasn’t sure if Don B. had heard him over the boom of the gun.
Sin moved with the stealth of a jungle cat while he skirted the edges of Dirty Wine. His eyes were locked on Don B., who was just wrapping up his meeting with Inferno. From the look on Finesse’s face, their night hadn’t gone as expected. Little did they know, Don B.’s wouldn’t either. Sin noticed that, when Don B. and the others made to leave, the young dude they’d come in with stayed behind. From the way he was pawing the stripper in his lap, it looked like he had opted to keep the party going, instead of leaving with his crew. It was probably for the best. At least, for him.
He was careful to wait a few seconds after Don B. and his crew had gone before making for the exit. Sin wanted to give them time to make it outside, so he didn’t risk bumping into them in the foyer and making this job even more complicated than it was already turning out to be. As he was slipping out the door, he noticed Odell watching him from the other side of the room. He gave Sin a knowing smile, before turning his back. Sin wasn’t sure what the gesture meant and didn’t have time to dwell on it.
Luck must’ve been on Sin’s side because he found Don B. and Tone absent of their bodyguard. He’d likely gone to fetch the car, and Sin wasn’t sure how long that would take, so he had to make his move quickly. He spotted Unique and Bone across the street, right where they were supposed to be. Bone looked anxious. Unique was his ever-even self, but Sin knew, once he gave the signal, that would change, and Unique would be the first to react. Don B. and Tone had their backs to him, so that put the element of surprise on Sin’s side. They were preoccupied with something outside his line of vision. He slipped a bandana from his pocket and tied it around his face, before drawing the baby 9mm and easing forward. He kept his body low and his steps quick. He was so close to Don B. that he could spit on him if he wanted to. Sin raised his gun and pulled the trigger.
“Don!”
Hearing his name, Don B. instinctively turned his body. That’s when he felt the searing pain across his neck. It was like someone had cut him with a white-hot knife. Don B. had been shot enough times over the years to know a bullet when he felt one.
“Got that ass!” a masked man growled, advancing on Don B. with a small gun.
“Fuck!” Sin cursed when the bullet he had been attempting to put in Don B.’s head grazed his neck. The lucky bastard had turned at just the right moment and fucked up a perfect hit. Didn’t matter. Sin was too close to miss a second time. He fired again.
Don B. got low, and the bullet shattered the window of a passing car, causing the driver to swerve and hit a parked car. It was officially lit! Don B. tried to scramble away, but Sin was on his ass. Sin was too close to miss. Don B. called on one of his nine lives, and it manifested in the form of a girl from the club trying to get out of harm’s way. Don B. grabbed the unsuspecting girl and placed her between himself and the man who was trying to kill him.
Sin tried to target Don B., but every time he moved, so did his target. He was hunkered down behind the girl. Sin had heard stories of how low down the Don of Harlem could be, but seeing it firsthand with him using the girl as a shield turned his stomach. “You serious right now? And you got the nerve to call yourself a gangsta.”
“I call myself a survivor,” Don B. snickered, pulling the terrified girl closer to him. He was daring Sin to take the shot.
“Please . . . I got a kid,” the girl pleaded.
“Fuck yo seed!” Don B. tightened his grip. He knew he was foul, but he’d sacrifice the innocent girl and a hundred more like her, if it meant the Don would live to see another day.
Sin was trying to figure out his next move when something slammed into his side with almost enough force to knock the gun from his hand. He found himself struggling with Don B.’s manager. Tone was a scrappy son of a bitch, but no match for the battle-tested Sin. Sin pulled Tone’s jacket over his head and whacked him in the back of the head with the gun, sending him into a face plant. Tone was out of the fight, but Sin had a mind to shoot him anyway, just off the strength that he was dumb enough to risk his life over a scumbag like Don B.
The screeching of car tires drew Sin’s attention away from Tone. The bodyguard was back, and unlike Don B. and Tone, who had been caught by surprise, he was on point. He threw the car door open and came out blasting an automatic. Had he been a shooter, instead of just another nigga shooting a gun, he would’ve torn Sin’s ass up, but most of Sammy’s bullets had been wasted on the club. Sin scrambled behind a car for cover. From his hiding spot, he scanned the area for Don B. The rapper was sprinting down the block, leaving the screaming girl sitting on the curb. Sin couldn’t let him get away.
When the shooting finally stopped, Sin spared a careful glance through one of the broken windows of the car he had been sheltering behind. He spotted Sammy, slapping another magazine into his weapon. He knew that he had Sin trapped and wanted to capitalize on this. Sammy had been so focused on the task of killing Sin that he never saw Unique walk up behind him. Sammy’s brains jumped from his skull and stretched across the yellow lines in the middle of the street. Sin knew he could count on Unique.
Once freed, Sin took off after Don B. His prey had at least a half-block’s head start on him, but Sin’s determination added speed to his legs and began to close the distance. Don B. did a Three Stooges–like skip when he rounded the corner. He wasn’t moving as fast, a result of all the blunts he smoked catching up with him. Only a few yards separated them now. Sin could taste sweet justice on the back of his tongue. He slowed, raising his gun level with the rapper’s fleeing body. “It’s done.” He wrapped his finger around the trigger. Then something unexpected happened.
Sin was about to knock Don B.’s wig off when someone stepped out of the shadows between two cars just ahead. He was followed by a second figure coming from somewhere in the doorway of one of the buildings. They had Don B. in a sandwich. One of them pulled a gun, and there was an exchange between him and Don B. The exchange was a brief one, and based on the end result, not a friendly one. Sin saw a muzzle flash, followed by two more. By the time Sin realized that someone had robbed him of the opportunity to kill Don B., the rapper was already stretched on the cold concrete. The shooter was on the move, and his accomplice followed closely behind. As they crossed under a streetlight, Sin was able to catch a glimpse of their faces. The shooter was an older guy who Sin was sure he had never seen before. But the accomplice he recognized. His face was unremarkable, yet familiar, though with his adrenaline pumping the way that it was, Sin couldn’t focus enough to figure out where he’d seen him. He waited until the two men had gone before moving toward Don B.’s prone body, and that’s when he saw the familiar flashes of red and blue lights closing from the other end of the street. He raised his gun with the thought: One bullet, that’s all it would’ve taken for him to say honestly that he had shot Don B. But what points did he get for shooting a dead man? Sin was too gangsta to live his life with a fraudulent charge on his jacket, so he stayed his trigger finger. It bothered him that he hadn’t been the one to end Don B., but the fact that his evil taint had finally been washed from the world was a fair exchange.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
“Finally!” Promise said when she was inside the car. “What took your ass so long to get here?”
“I was handling something in Brooklyn when you called,” Mouse told her. Mouse was as short as her name suggested, but she had the heart of a lion. She was the one person in the world that Promise knew that she could depend on in any situation, which is why it was Mouse that she called to rescue her from Dirty Wine. “You could try showing a little gratitude,” she said, adjusting her rearview mirror. Something was going down in front of Dirty Wine. A few seconds later, they heard the first gunshots. “From the sound of things, I got you out of there right on time.”
“Girl, you don’t know the half,” Promise said with a sigh. “Shit was getting too crazy for me, and I had to cut it short.”
“For as heavy as that bag is looking, it had to be serious for you to cut your night short. What you got? A few grand in there?” Mouse asked.
“We can count that shit up once we’re back at the crib and away from this place,” Promise said.
“And was that who I thought it was?” Mouse asked once they were away from the club. The dude Promise was talking to when she pulled up bore a striking resemblance to Asher, but Mouse refused to believe it was him, because of what it would mean for them if it had been.
“Yeah, that was Asher,” Promise confirmed.
“Shit, Promise! How did they manage to track us down? Better question. Why ain’t you hog-tied in somebody’s car trunk on the way back to Newark for Ab to deal with?” Mouse asked frantically. Seeing Asher standing out there had spooked her because of the period in their lives he represented.
“Ab is gone,” Promise began before briefing Mouse on her conversation with Asher and the revelation about B-Stone’s true cause of death. By the time she was done, Mouse felt like her head had been screwed on backward.
“All this time I been out here thinking I had a body under my belt, and I ain’t did shit but give a nigga a severe concussion.” Mouse laughed. She wasn’t laughing because she found it funny, but because she found it unbelievable. She had been carrying that weight for so long that, now that it had been lifted, she wasn’t sure how to react.
