Cheaper to Keep Her part 2 (The Saga Continues) (20 page)

“Christopher,” Bishop continued but hesitated as if he was letting the sound of Chris’s formal name resonate with him. “You don’t mind if I call you by the name on your birth certificate, do you?” Chris didn’t say anything in return but his eyes were tight, red and full of venom. “I have found that men of danger like us . . . have one very big problem . . . we don’t account for family. Our families. We think we are indestructible . . . therefore, our families are protected by our bravado and reputation.” Once again Bishop stopped and let his words sink in.

I liked his moments of hesitation. That shit sent a message and somehow drove the point home.

I didn’t understand. Bishop was smooth as hell. But what was killing me was he was taking his time, like we were at a friend’s house holding a nice casual conversation. What if someone did see us and had the balls to come do us in? What if this was a huge set-up and Duke and his other men would be here soon?

It was also at that moment that I noticed the Applebee’s carryout bag in the house. I didn’t know who had brought the bag in. But it was my first time seeing the silencer on Monty’s weapon.

“Tell me where Duke is at?” Bishop said.

Chris’s look at Bishop grew more intense. I thought it was the angriest expression he could muster up. “Nigga, if I knew I wouldn’t tell you. So do what you gotta do and stop wasting my motherfucking time!” he barked. I prayed that stupid muthafucka didn’t have more loyalty to Duke than he did to his lady and their kids. Was he really willing to make his kids parentless? At least Bishop may have mercy on his female companion.

“As you wish,” Bishop replied and then he pulled back on the chamber of his Glock.

“Wait, I know where he is,” the woman blurted out. But before she was able to say another word, the doorbell rang. Fear crept in my heart at that very moment. My first thought was to run out the back door because I knew without a doubt that it was the police. Someone from the neighborhood saw us force Chris and his girlfriend into the house and now they were here to save them. I swear I didn’t know whether to surrender or go all out with Bishop and do a shout-out.

When the doorbell rang a second time, I got even more nervous. Everybody including Bishop stood still. Then the woman whispered, “It’s probably my neighbor, Tracy. She called me earlier to see if she could borrow a pair of my shoes.”

Bishop looked at Torch and nodded his head. Another one of those non-verbal commands from Bishop that Torch evidently knew what it meant.

She did as told and indeed it was her neighbor. Torch told her to open the door as Bishop walked over to the door as well. Bishop got behind the lady, while Torch repositioned himself next to the door. I looked over at Chris, in fear that he would try something stupid, but Monty had his gun with the silencer pointed at his head. I knew if Chris even attempted to shout out, he would probably be dead within a split second. I also noticed that Monty didn’t look up or anything. He was a true professional. His eyes were glued on Chris.

When Chris’s girlfriend opened the door and with a blinding quickness, Torch reached out and grabbed the neighbor Tracy by his hair and pulled her in the house. I couldn’t fucking believe it, another fucking witness.

Fuck! Another casualty of war!

Cheaper to Keep Her part 2 Unique

You Go To Hell First-Chapter Twenty-Four

What becomes of a broken heart?

I felt bad for the little girl that was unfortunately caught up in a mess that she didn’t know anything about. I knew the girl. I had seen her around at several of the clubs. I knew she was also a stripper at several of the clubs throughout the area. She was very attractive like Chris’s girlfriend but she carried just a little more weight around the hip area and she wore a ton of hair weave. Any moron would know that her hair wouldn’t be that long and straight when her roots needed a touch up. She also looked like a child so I assumed she was probably in her mid-twenties—much too young to die.

After Torch was sure no one was waiting on her at her house, he sat both women down on the sofa, opposite the chair that Chris was in. He then asked Chris’s chick did she have any duct tape in the house and she said no in a low voice.

Bishop signaled for Monty to go search the house to see if he could find something to probably tie the women up with and that’s when things suddenly jumped off.

Monty took two steps backward with his gun still aimed at Chris’s head, while Bishop was walking back over to Chris’s position. For whatever stupid heroic reason, Chris took this as an advantage to strike back. He lunged at Bishop but Monty shot him in his right knee and he cried out. Chris’s chick screamed and Torch backhanded her so hard, she passed out. Meanwhile her friend, Tracy, bolted for the door, but Monty shot her in the head from across the room.

If everything didn’t jump off so fast I would have probably screamed myself. I was so happy I didn’t. I certainly didn’t want to be a casualty of war as well.

When I looked back around at Chris, Bishop had stuffed a hamburger in his mouth to keep him from yelling out. I was surprised they never tied up Chris’s hands but I wouldn’t be surprised if they wanted him to do something wrong anyways. I played it off but I knew Bishop already had Duke’s location. He got that from Diamond. I understood if he was trying to verify her information but something told me that Diamond was too afraid to lie to us.

But I looked at everything that had just happened and there was only one word I could think of—efficient. These muthafuckas really were a well-oiled, smooth machine. Bishop had everything under control. Poor Tracy was the innocent one and she had died within two minutes of being in the house. And Chris’s chick was out like a light for now. Torch was looking out the window to make sure everything was cool and considering it was past midnight, it was cool.

Bishop pulled the coffee table over and sat in front of Chris. “It’s not too late to save your girl, the mother of your children,” he said. “Honestly, is Duke Carrington worth all of that?”

Chris was still writhing in pain. He was also trying to eat as much of the hamburger as he could to keep from gagging. What was left of the hamburger, Bishop finally took out of his mouth. I think it was an unsaid command that if Chris tried screaming he was a dead man.

This was the first time I actually saw tears in Chris’s eyes. And I don’t think it was from the pain. I noticed he kept trying to see what was going on with his chick.

“Christopher, forget Duke for now,” Bishop got his attention with those words. “I just want to know if Neeko suffered when y’all killed him.”

The question surprised Chris, as well as me. Chris stopped writhing and moving around. His eyes dropped to the floor. The tears fell faster and heavier.

“Or should I say . . . when you killed him.” There it was—the eight hundred pound gorilla in the room. What this was all about. “You know, Chris, I am so close to letting you go, especially since you don’t have a knee now, and just killing Shakira over there.”

Chris looked up and his face was all fucked up. Snot was running from his nose, the tears and pain had turned his eyes beet red and the anger still persisted on his face. But I know what this was all about. Bishop knew his lady’s name. Hell, I didn’t know the bitch’s name. That one fact had fucked up the big man.

“Yeah, I know, Christopher,” Bishop said matter-of-factly. “Shakira Dalton. Sweet girl. The mother of your three kids: Christopher Junior, LaShunda, named after your cousin who died in a drive-by when you guys were ten years old, and Connor, named after your uncle who raised you.”

I didn’t know what was fucking with Chris more. The fact that Bishop had obviously done his homework and knew shit Chris never thought he should have known. Or the fact this muthafucka was still speaking in the calmest and smoothest voice while he was putting the screws to him. If it was me, I would just want his ass to shut up or at least raise his voice so I could know how pissed off he was at me.

This cat was truly scary. I remembered Neeko telling me on several occasions that he had a family member that he was convinced was psycho. But he loved him to death. He never told me it was his own brother, just a family member like it could be a cousin or uncle or something. He said he remembered this family member talking to a girl and this dude rolled up on them and wanted to start some shit because it was his girl. Evidently the family member thought it was the girl’s decision to make. She chose him. When the other dude objected and he and his two friends tried to jump Neeko’s family member, Neeko said in less than a minute all three dudes were on the ground with bloody noses, swollen eyes, busted lips and wounded prides.

And during all of this, the family member would speak in the most calm and soothing voice. I knew now Bishop was that family member. What he was doing when he was younger, he was now doing on a larger scale when he was older.

Chris was outclassed and outgunned. He had a choice. Choose his family over his boss and probably best friend or vice versa. I really hope he would choose his family.

“I’m sorry,” I heard Chris say. The words were slurred but he mustered up the strength to say it with conviction. I was sure he did that to save his family.

“Yeah, you are,” Bishop replied. “You are and so am I.”

Suddenly the tears ran down Chris’s face like he was spouting a new river. “No, no, no,” he repeatedly said.

Torch threw water in Shakira’s face to wake her up. Then he told her to stand up. Chris was still voicing his rejection in the form of no, no, no. Bishop rose to his feet. He took out the gun that was in its holster in the inside of his jacket. It also had a silencer on the tip of the barrel.

“Diamond’s dead,” Bishop said to Chris. The big man just kept saying no repeatedly. “An eye for an eye, motherfucker.” With that Bishop pointed the gun at Shakira and pulled the trigger. The bullet went directly into Shakira’s left eye and out the back of her head, shattering her brain. There was nothing there but parts of flesh and blood. Chris once again tried to jump up and this time Monty shot him in the other knee. Chris fell to the floor writhing in more pain. The pain wouldn’t last long.

While he suffered on the floor in pain of both the mental and physical kind, Bishop stood over Chris and say, “This is for my brother, Neeko!” Then he squeezed the trigger. BOOM! BOOM! Pop! Pop! Bishop emptied two shots to the back of Chris’s head. The silencer suppressed the sound. Chris’s lifeless body fell limp as the blood slowly oozed out of his head.

Once a criminal always a criminal!

Cheaper to Keep Her part 2 Unique

The Hunt is On-Chapter Twenty-Five

What a woman desires—a man will always deliver.

I tried to take in everything around me. I looked at Chris’s dead body as blood oozed from his head. Then I looked at Tracy, Chris’s girlfriend’s neighbor. Out of all the lifeless bodies in the room, I felt sorry for her. All she wanted to do was borrow a pair of Shakira’s stiletto heels. And now she and Shakira were both dead because of some bullshit Chris did. This whole scenario was mind blowing and I knew that it was just the beginning.

Bishop signaled Torch and Monty to head out. They had to step over Tracy’s body and Bishop and I followed suit. We all made sure we didn’t step in the puddle of blood surrounding her head after Bishop warned us not to do it. And when we finally got outside, these dudes took their fucking time getting the fuck out of dodge. I didn’t get that shit. Were they that fucking confident that no one would blow the whistle on their asses?

“Where to next?” Torch asked after he got back in the driver seat and started up the ignition.

Bishop looked down at his watch. “We still got time,” he said. Then he gave Torch the address to where he was told Duke would be. Torch headed back up Lake Edwards Drive and made a quick right turn on Newtown Road. When he arrived at the intersection of Virginia Beach Boulevard and Newtown Road, he shot straight across Virginia Beach Boulevard and jumped on Highway 264.

We were heading towards the city of Chesapeake, near the North Carolina border. That part of Chesapeake was very secluded. In fact, it was so secluded that the closest hospital and police precinct was at least fifteen to twenty miles away. The nickname for this part of Chesapeake was known as Death Valley, with its beautiful with brand new million dollar homes build on ten acres of land. The name didn’t fit the area but supposedly it was named that because if you had a serious medical emergency and had less than ten minutes to live, then you were good as gone. Other than that, living out in this area was like living the high life.

The ride to Death Valley but also known as Pelican Estates, took at least thirty-five minutes. And when we finally arrived in the area, Bishop realized that it was too dark to maneuver. Each house was built on its own land like the plantations of old. You had to drive down long dirt roads to get to each person’s house, so it would be very easy for them to see when they had unwelcomed visitors.

When the GPS indicated that Duke’s residence was less than a half-mile away, Bishop instructed Torch to pull to the side of the road and turn the headlights off. Then he told Monty to hand him the night vision binoculars from the glove compartment. Right after Monty handed the binoculars to Bishop, Bishop pressed the red button on the left side of the binoculars and then he placed them right before his eyes. He scanned the entire property that was about a half- mile ahead of us, while everyone including me, waited for him to speak.

Finally, he took the binoculars away from his eyes and said, “I see three cars parked out in the driveway but I don’t see any lights on in the house. So I’ve got a few concerns.”

“You know whatever call you make, I’m with it,” Monty assured him.

“Yeah, just tell us what you want us to do,” Torch said.