Promise Kept, page 7
“I can’t call it.” Starla got out of the car. “Sliding through to get some bud.”
“Oh, you don’t shop with my people no more?” Asher teased her.
“I could ask you the same. I’m sure you ain’t all the way over on this side of town to take in the scenery.” She gestured to the dilapidated neighborhood. “What’s going on other than that though? We don’t see you on the block too much since you took B-Stone’s position.”
“Inherited,” Asher corrected her.
“Right, inherited.” Starla gave him a knowing wink.
There had been rumors circulating in certain circles about the mysterious circumstances surrounding B-Stone’s murder and the timing of Asher securing a new plug, who just happened to be affiliated with one of B-Stone’s rivals. Couple that with Ab, a man who didn’t do drugs, overdosing and clearing the way, and the whole situation just felt wrong. There was indeed some buzz about Asher possibly having a hand in the turn of events, but two things made the streets hesitant to turn on him. The first being that he had increased the organization’s profits by nearly two hundred percent since taking over. B-Stone got more people killed than he made rich during his personal war. The second thing was that the one remaining person who could’ve possibly exposed Asher for what he truly was had gone missing. If Asher had it his way, he would remain missing. Though it hadn’t been Asher’s hands that took B-Stone’s life, there was still blood on them, and he planned to keep this fact a secret for as long as he could.
“Well, it was good seeing you, Starla, but I gotta dip.” Asher began to walk around to the driver’s side of his car. He still had to wait for Cal to come out of the spot before he could push off, but he was looking for an excuse to get rid of Starla.
“I hear you big time. You got an operation to run and all that. But before you dip off, I got a little gift for you,” Starla said slyly.
“What could you possibly have for me, Starla?” There was something about the way she said it that made him uneasy, so he popped the door of his car in case he had to get to his gun in a hurry.
“A blast from the past.” Starla knocked on the window of the Honda.
A second woman slid from the driver’s side of the car and came to stand in front of Asher. It was a simple motion, but one executed with the grace of a banded sea krait slithering toward its next meal. You knew it was dangerous, but it was so damn beautiful you couldn’t help but want to get a closer look, even at the risk of being bitten. Asher had always been turned on by the way she moved. He would sometimes just sit and watch her carrying out the simplest tasks. She looked especially good that day. Better than he’d remembered seeing her look in a while. A crimson red sew-in hung in loose curls down her back and stopped just above her plump ass. Long, toned legs that had moved across trap houses and runways alike extended from the tight shorts she was wearing. The raven-skinned beauty looked more like an exotic model than what Asher knew her to be, and that was a gangsta and former holder of his heart.
Ruby was Asher’s ex. They were childhood sweethearts and had dated on and off since middle school. Back then Asher had only dabbled in the streets, as his focus was still on being an athlete, and Ruby was still in her good girl phase. She was a military brat, having moved around quite a bit before settling in Newark. Her mom had started creeping with one of her dad’s brothers, and when her dad found out, he snapped. He sprayed his brother’s car up while him and his wife were in it. Thankfully, Ruby’s mother had lived, but her uncle hadn’t been so lucky. For his crime, Ruby’s dad had been dishonorably discharged from the military and thrown in prison. Ruby and her mother ended up staying with relatives in Newark until they were able to get their own place.
After what had happened with her ex-husband, Ruby’s mom managed to get her shit together and build some type of life for her and her daughter. She secured a two-bedroom apartment in a multiple-family home in the South Ward of Newark that she and Ruby would call home for the next few years. It wasn’t the greatest neighborhood, but it was quiet enough and cheap enough to where someone who didn’t know the area could be sold on it. Ruby’s mom was from Newark, so she knew what the city had to offer and tried to keep her daughter on a short leash so that she wouldn’t get caught up in it. But the call of the streets would prove to be too powerful for her little girl. Back then Ruby and Asher had to steal time to be together outside of school, but they had made it work. This was around when Ruby’s mom had gotten her into modeling. With her flawless dark skin, fiery eyes, and long limbs, she had a unique look, and the camera loved it. Early in her career, she mostly got booked for small print jobs and was hired as an extra for a few projects. It was a decent start, but Ruby’s heart was never as in it as much as her mother’s was. She was trying to live her wasted youth through her daughter, so she sometimes pushed harder than she needed to, which only made Ruby more resentful. The more time she spent in front of the camera meant less time she got to spend on the block, chasing the young street punk who had her nose wide open at the time.
When Asher jumped off the porch and got involved in the streets, Ruby followed him. It was the same with gang life. A lot of Ruby’s friends who had gotten put on the set did so by sleeping with some of the high-ranking members, but Ruby chose combat as her method of initiation. For as pretty as she was, Ruby was a dual threat. She had hands and could whip most girls, and a few guys. In addition to that, her dad had made sure she was adept with firearms. The skills were his parting gift to his baby girl before the government buried him in a hole, never to be heard from again. Asher filled the void left in Ruby by her father, and the two became the Bonnie and Clyde of the hood. You couldn’t tell them that they weren’t destined to become ghetto stars, but like Nas said: “Love changes . . . a thug changes . . . and best friends become strangers.”
A silence hung between them, eyes locked like they were having a staring contest. Ruby took a step toward him, more from reflex than anything, but she caught herself and held her position. His response was to shove his hands into his pockets awkwardly.
“Sup?” Asher finally broke the silence. His tone was dry and somewhat harsh. He hadn’t meant to come across that way, but he couldn’t help but to wear his feelings on his sleeve when it came to Ruby.
“Damn, it’s like that?” Ruby asked.
Asher shrugged.
The dismissive motion cut Ruby deeper than anything that could’ve come out of his mouth. It made her feel basic. Like she was just another one of countless notches on his belt. Ruby was well aware of the fact that they weren’t currently on the best of terms, but had it gotten that bad between them? She expected more . . . no, she deserved more, especially considering their history and the bitch he let derail their future.
Asher loved Ruby, in his own way, but he had never been totally faithful to her during their relationship. He fucked other girls. Some she knew about and others she didn’t. In the beginning, when Ruby would hear rumors about Asher being intimate with other women, she would stalk them down and rain hell on them. As time progressed and she got older, she learned to stress herself out less over it. She hated the fact that Asher couldn’t control his wandering dick but knew that he would always find his way back to her once he got bored with whoring. She could turn a blind eye to him giving his body away, so long as he kept his heart with her. Physical attachments she could stomach, but emotional ones were a deal breaker. It was an unspoken pact between them. A pact that Asher had honored until he met a girl that moved him in ways that Ruby couldn’t. That was the one infidelity, of many, that Ruby couldn’t overlook. The slight that her pride wouldn’t allow her to forgive. In return, she punished him in a way that neither of them was sure he would ever be able to forgive her for. It had been a while since Asher had seen Ruby. Word around town was that she had got back into modeling and wasn’t spending as much time in the hood as she had when she and Asher were still a couple. That was a good thing because seeing her regularly would’ve made it hard for Asher to honor his promise not to fuck with her like that anymore.
“How you been, Ru?” Asher followed in a kinder tone when he realized he’d hurt her. It hadn’t been his intent, but there was an awkwardness between him and Ruby now. During the time when they had split, Ruby had shown Asher a side of her that he never knew lived there. She almost felt like a stranger to him.
She picked up on the fact that his tone had gone from cold to room temperature. “I’m okay. Some days are better than others, but I’m living my life. I’m in a good space these days.”
“I can tell.” Asher studied her face. “You got a little glow going on or whatever.”
“That’s because I cut a lot of stress and bullshit out of my life,” Ruby said.
“Except Star,” Asher joked.
“Fuck you!” Starla had heard the slight.
“You know that my bitch is forever going to be by my side,” Ruby said confidently. She and Starla had been best friends since they were kids.
“Star is as loyal as they come,” Asher said genuinely.
“I’m thankful for my girl. Very rarely do you find someone who comes into your life and loves you exactly how they said they would.” Ruby spoke into his eyes when she said this. She didn’t mean anything by it, but from the frown that crossed Asher’s face, it must’ve translated wrong. “I didn’t mean it like it sounded.”
Asher shrugged. “You don’t owe me no explanations. I granted you your freedom a long time ago, remember?”
“How could I forget when I still wear the scars on my heart?”
“A person who shoots themselves can’t be a victim,” Asher said slickly.
“Really, Ash? What was I supposed to do? Sit back and play dumb while you embarrassed me with yet another side bitch? A busted white ho at that?” Ruby snapped.
“I told you that I never slept with Promise.”
“I find that hard to believe. You fucked that bitch, and you would’ve kept fucking her had she not got run out of the hood,” Ruby accused. “She just better hope that the police catch her before I do because it’s still on sight!”
“Ruby, it’s been a year, and you’re still carrying that grudge? Let it go!”
“How the fuck can I when she blew up my life?”
“And you tried to blow hers up. Call it even and leave that shit alone,” Asher said with a sigh of annoyance.
“Look, even now you’re still defending a bitch you claimed not to have slept with. I don’t know how you can go so hard over that bum-ass chick, especially after what she did to the big homie.”
“Tread lightly, Ruby,” Asher warned.
“What? I’m not saying anything that everybody else in the hood doesn’t already know. That white girl was the last one in the room with B-Stone before they found his body. That girl killed the homie.”
“Promise ain’t no killer,” Asher said definitively. “Even if she was, ain’t no way she’d have been able to take B-Stone down. Don’t act like we don’t all know what kind of animal he was. The man had his throat slit and his skull caved in. That’s the work of a monster, and I just don’t see that in her.”
“Maybe she had help?” Ruby suggested, giving Asher a look.
“Fuck you trying to say?” Asher asked defensively.
Ruby knew how far she could push Asher and pulled back just when she had taken him to the edge. “Look, even the police said there was an eyewitness who saw two people running from that room, one of them being that white girl.”
“Right.” Asher tapped his chin as if he was deep in thought. “You know, I always wondered where the police would get somebody to stand on that story? Everybody there that night was gang.” He flashed his set. “All of us are solid. As a matter of fact, if I recall correctly, Ab kept steering the homies out of the hall and into the suite because he didn’t want hotel management complaining. B-Stone was killed not long after I left, and there’s only one person who I can remember that was lingering in the hall about then.”
“Fuck you, Asher!” Ruby said angrily. She hadn’t expected him to call her on her bullshit. Asher had always been sharper than people gave him credit for.
“Nah, fuck you and all the bullshit and lies that you bring to the table. You wanna know the real reason why I cut you loose?” Asher asked. He didn’t wait for her to answer. “It was never because I wanted to fuck other bitches or because you didn’t make me happy. The reason I walked away from our relationship is because I realized, for the first time, just how dangerous a broad like you is. You lied and tried to get an innocent woman killed. For what? Over your ego? Some dick? Fuck her. Did you ever stop to think that what you did could’ve kicked off a gang war that would’ve probably gotten half the hood killed or locked up, including me? I could never spend the rest of my life with a woman who has that kind of treachery in her heart.”
His words hit Ruby like a closed fist. For a good while, she didn’t speak. Not because she didn’t want to, but because she could find no words to counter the damage he’d just done to her. Ruby had always held onto the hope that, one day, she and Asher would get back together. She was getting her life together and becoming more than just a hood rat, like Asher had always wanted her to be. A queen to his king. Once he saw the new and improved Ruby, he would realize that they belonged together. What he had just said to her shattered any hope of that. It was at that moment that something in Ruby clicked.
“Yeah, I might’ve played a part in lining her up, but not for no murder.” Her voice had taken on a dangerous edge. “It killed me to watch you chase that bitch around like a love-sick puppy, so I wanted to show you that she ain’t no different than the rest. So, I put her in a position to show her true colors. It didn’t have the results I had intended, but . . .” She shrugged her shoulders. “I wonder if you would’ve still praised her as your White Goddess once the homies got done running through her?”
“You are one twisted bitch.” Asher shook his head in disgust. He had never known the circumstances under which Promise left or the details about that night, but hearing Ruby break it down made him feel nauseous. He couldn’t believe that he had ever allowed himself to love someone so foul.
“Twisted enough to put your pretty ass in the big chair,” Ruby shot back.
“Fuck does that mean?” Asher didn’t like where she was going with this.
“Asher, we’ve been together since we were kids. I know you better than anybody including your mother. You think I didn’t peep the way you started looking at B-Stone when you thought nobody was watching?”
“Don’t go there, Ruby. You know I had love for Stone,” Asher insisted.
“I don’t know if I’d call it love. You respected B-Stone, but you hated what he was doing to the set . . . all the drama with his personal war . . . the killing. Violence ain’t your thing. You just wanted to get money. I know your heart.”
“You don’t know me as well as you think you do,” Asher told her.
“So you’ve shown me over the last few months. It was a hell of a coincidence how Ab managed to party himself to death before B-Stone’s body was even cold, and you ended up being the one to save the organization from crumbling. These dumb niggas are running around with you on their shoulders like some conquering hero, when, in reality, you’re just a damn good chess player. I told you I know you better than your mama!” She cackled madly. Ruby could tell by the look on his face that she had struck close to home. For the first time in she didn’t know how many years, she had been able to put a kink in his armor. He was on the ropes, so she figured she might as well finish him. It was only fair that she broke him the way he had broken her. She opened her mouth to continue her verbal assault, but Asher’s hand closing around her throat killed the words before she could speak them.
“Little bitch,” he hissed, “whatever you think you know, you better unthink it! B-Stone was a casualty of a fucking war that he started, and Ab didn’t know his limits. Both deaths were tragic, but that’s what it is. Leave it alone before you and your far-fetched conspiracy theories get both of us killed.”
“Asher, baby, I was just talking because I’m angry! You know I’ve always kept your secrets and would never betray you!” Ruby had started crying, both out of fear and the fact that she knew she had gone too far and pushed him further away.
“Ain’t no secrets to keep! And you betrayed me the minute you walked into that hotel suite and started all this bullshit. The sooner you get that in your head, the better off the both of us will be.” Asher gave her a little shake to drive his point home.
“Ash,” he heard Starla’s voice behind him. “I love and respect you, but if you don’t get your hands off my home girl, you’re gonna force me to do something that neither of us will be able to come back from.”
Asher looked at Starla from the corner of his eyes. She was standing close, but not too close. Just close enough to where she could get the drop on him if she had to draw her weapon. He turned his focus back to Ruby. Her eyes were wide and fearful. He had gotten his message across, so he released her.
“You good, baby girl?” Starla asked Ruby.
“Yeah,” Ruby rubbed her neck. “I just want to go home.”
“But the weed—”
“Please. I just want to go home.” Ruby dropped her head and got back behind the wheel. Starla didn’t follow right away.
“What’s good with you?” Starla stepped to Asher.
“Nothing . . . you know how me and Ruby get. We toxic for each other.” Asher tried to downplay it.
“That ain’t nothing new, but what is new is that shit you just pulled. Asher, I been around you and Ruby for years, and I done seen y’all get into some knock down drag out shit, but never once have you put your hands on her.”
“Sometimes you gotta let a muthafucka know where you stand on certain shit.” Asher smoothed his clothes over.
