Family Over Everything (12 page)

“I hate y'all bitches!” Rachael screamed with each blow.

From the side of her eyes, Rachael glimpsed at a lamp that sat on the floor. Smiling devilishly, she ran to the lamp, lifted it, and hurled it at Mercedes, knocking the girl out. Looking at Corrine and Mercedes lying motionless on the floor, she flashed a toothless smile and left the bedroom to enjoy her next fix.

It was twelve midnight when Mercedes finally awoke. Waking up in a small pool of her blood, she winced in pain as she glanced around, frantic.

The bedroom was bone-chilling cold from the winter night, causing her to shake uncontrollably. Her skin was dull and her eyes carried years of pain. She reeked of trash as she tried her best to stand to her knees, but it was to no avail. Through the dark room, she could see the silhouette of Corrine's body, still lying motionless on the floor.

Grabbing Corrine's shirt and tugging it, tears seeped down her cheeks. “Corrine, get up, girl!”

Neither word nor movement came from Corrine, sending Mercedes into a panic.

The side of her head throbbed where the lamp had hit her, and the hair there was matted in blood. Dizzy and nauseous, she walked to the closet, grabbed her duffle bag, and started to pack it with the few clothes she and Corrine owned.

She couldn't stay in that house anymore. If she or Corrine spent one more night in that house, they'd end up dead. And with that thought, she had to leave.

“God, please give us strength,” she cried.

She dropped down next to Corrine, grabbing her by her hand. “Please get up; I need you!”

When Corrine's eyes finally fluttered open and she groaned, Mercedes couldn't help but flash a weak smile.

“Leave me alone, Mercedes. Face it; we're going to die here,” Corrine whispered with a defeated look on her face.

“Stop talking crazy; we're getting out of here tonight, girl,” Mercedes said firmly, using the little strength she had to help her up.

Wincing in pain, she finally rose to her feet. Wrapping their arms around each other's shoulders, they walked out of the room and painfully made their way to the front door. When they got to it, they stopped for a moment to rest.

“Is Tessa coming with us?” Corrine asked.

Mercedes had forgotten about Tessa. She snapped her fingers and told Corrine to stay by the door. Seeing double, she used the walls to support her as she walked toward Tessa's bedroom at the end of the hall.

When she finally walked into Tessa's room, she found Tessa on her bed, curled into a ball and crying. She continued and sat on the bed.

“Are you okay?” Mercedes whispered weakly.

Turning around to face Mercedes, Tessa smiled and threw her arms around Mercedes' neck, giving her a tight hug.

“Are y'all okay? I thought she killed y'all from the way y'all were screaming,” Tessa said.

“We're good, but we're leaving for good. Are you still coming with us?”

“Hell yeah, I'm coming!” Tessa hopped out of her bed and grabbed a backpack from her closet and threw it over her shoulders.

“Aren't you going to pack some clothes in there?”

“Oh, no, they're already in there. I was already prepared for this day.” Tessa shrugged.

Leaving the bedroom together, they went to the front door where Corrine was waiting for them.

Before they walked out of the door, Mercedes turned to face both girls. “Wherever we go, we have to promise each other that we'll always stick together and have each other's backs. We're sisters, and we're the only family we have right now.”

“You're right, but where're we going to go?” Tessa asked. “The only place I have in mind is that woman, Sugar.”

“I don't know, girl, but we're getting the hell out of here. That's all that matters,” Corrine said, walking out of the door.

Both girls quickly followed behind her, never looking back.

Deion sat at his kitchen table staring at the piles of
Hustling Hard
paperback and hardcover books that were scattered across it. His clothes were disheveled, his breath stank, and he was in need of a good shave. Ever since he had that talk with Day'onne and Ms. Younger, he'd moped around his condominium, lost in his thoughts.

He'd spent more than a week contemplating if he wanted to get down with Day'onne or not. Even though Day'onne was his family, and his twin brother at that, he couldn't cope with the thought of even being around him. When the three of them got separated and Deion was adopted by Ms. Younger, he'd done whatever it had taken for him to be successful.

Once he discovered at a young age that he had the gift to write, Ms. Younger, like she'd promised, had helped him hone his craft and took her time with him. She'd taught him everything she'd learned in college as an English major, teaching him the values of writing. When he'd turned twenty-one, he'd started writing
Hustling Hard.
Now that it was published, he felt as if all his hard work had paid off.

But with Day'onne popping up into his life out of nowhere telling him someone was out to kill him, he felt as if he was back at square one.

The loud ringing of his cell phone brought him back to reality.

Glancing at the caller ID, he exhaled and raised his eyebrow when a strange number popped up.

“Who is this?” he answered.

“What's up, bro? You think about what I told you?” Day'onne's deep voice boomed through the phone.

“Yeah, I did.”

“Look, meet me up Northview in an hour on the corner of Penfort Street and don't be late,” he said before ending the call.

Deion sighed as he stood up to finally get himself together. Walking into his spacious bathroom, he took his time shaving and bathing himself. An hour later, he stepped out of his place cleaner than he was two hours ago. Dressed in a black Gucci suit, he jumped into his BMW and made his way toward the place he hadn't seen in more than eight years.

Deion cruised down Hazlet Street, bobbing his head to the loud Rakim music that blared from his radio. Looking through his tinted windows, he scanned the poverty-stricken neighborhood
he'd grown up in. Nickel-and-dime hustlers and other people turned, almost breaking their necks to get a peek at his car. Deion shook his head as he cruised through Penfort Street. Seeing Day'onne standing on the corner, he stepped out of the car with a grim look on his face. Day'onne, who was dressed in a blue Lacoste polo shirt, crisp black jeans, and black Polo boots, smiled as Deion walked toward him with a mean scowl on his face.

“Damn, nigga, what the fuck is wrong with you? Rolling up on me looking all mean and shit.” Day'onne laughed before walking away.

Deion remained silent as he followed his brother into a nearby abandoned apartment.

Walking into the building with caution, he flinched at the sight before him. In the empty apartment, a table sat in the middle of the living room with stacks of money laid on top of it. There were a couple of people sitting around the table counting the money. In the corner, he saw a couple of drug addicts on the floor, sticking needles into their veins. When Day'onne walked him into the kitchen, Deion almost fainted because he'd never seen so many guns and drugs in his life. There in the kitchen, more than a dozen hustlers sat at two different tables with AK-47's, shotguns, .45 calibers, and .9mm's in their hands. On a different table, beautiful naked women with stacked, curvaceous physiques and surgical masks adorning their faces, cut, cooked, and bagged dope.

“What's up, Deion?” a dark, black-blue man with pearly white teeth asked.

“Who are you?”

“Awe, nigga, don't act like you don't recognize me. It's me, Menace.”

“Oh, what's up?” Deion said.

Menace waved Deion off, then turned and started handing out bags of dope to his workers for them to sell. Around the time Melissa was slain, Day'onne and Menace had taken the money and drugs they'd robbed from Jewels and created their drug empire from the ground up. Starting off working themselves, they'd quickly expanded their team, having over twenty workers working for them by the time they hit nineteen. At age twenty-one, they both had touched millions of dollars. Their names were booming everywhere throughout the streets of not only Northview, but all over Pittsburgh and even New York as well. Basically, Day'onne and Menace were untouchable.

“So, this is the shit you been doing with your life?” Deion asked as he followed Day'onne into an empty bedroom.

Taking a seat in a nearby chair, Day'onne took a blunt from behind his ear and lit it. He nodded as he took a pull from it and exhaled.

“Yeah, this shit is all I know, bro.” Day'onne shrugged.

Deion silently took a seat next to his brother and shook his head in disbelief.

“What you mean? There isn't shit to living this life.”

“Well, not everybody could fucking make it out the hood and write a book, Deion. This shit is my ticket and I get mad respect from niggas. Shit, I even make niggas bow down to me. I'll die doing this.”

“You know, when we were living with Melissa, she only wanted the best for me, you, and Corrine. I wish she could've seen the day I graduated from high school and published this book; she would've been so happy, man. But, what would she say about you? She always worried about you when you were out here robbing people and shit. What's up with you? From what I can remember, you always been like this.”

“Man, fuck all that shit. She could barely put food in our mouths and clothes on our backs. I did what I had to do, so why you sweating me? I was born this way and I'll die this way.”

“Alright, man; what do you want from me, Day'onne?” Deion asked, hopping up and scowling down at him.

Day'onne inhaled the marijuana, blowing out a thick cloud of smoke, trying to collect his thoughts. As he looked into his twin brother's eyes, he couldn't help but shake his head. He couldn't believe how they were identical but acted nothing alike.

“Like I told you before, I want you on my team, Deion.”

“For what? And why does that man, Jewels, want us?”

“Remember the time you walked in on me and Menace with all that money in the duffle bags?”

Sitting back down, Deion tapped his chin, thinking. “I don't recall.”

“Yes, you do, man. We had those duffle bags and you asked where we got all that money from!”

“Oh, yeah, I remember that now!” Deion said, snapping his fingers. “Why? What about it?”

“Well, that was the money and drugs we confiscated from Jewels. That's why Melissa was killed, because of the money we took,” Day'onne admitted.

Deion sat in deep thought as he digested what Day'onne had said. His mind raced back to the time he'd overheard Shay talking about the robbery to her best friend, Cherry, and when he'd walked in on Day'onne and Menace with the duffle bags. It all made sense. He wanted to kick himself for not realizing that earlier.

“Man, why would you do that? You had something to do with Melissa's death and you're just now telling me this?”