Trust No Bitch 3: Deadly Alliance (6 page)

“Let's go see what's on this nigga's mind,
” she said.

When they stepped it was in unison, one behind the other. Femme Fatales ready for whatever a nigga had on his mind. Their heels clicked with each step and their hearts beat a cacophony of fearlessness.

The door swung open almost as soon as Lissha pressed the bell. She stepped into the house followed closely by Treebie with Bayonna bringing up the rear.

The twins greeted them with a stiff hello but neither of the girls took offense. Bayonna stepped around them and hugged JuJu. “You okay, bae?
”

The softness in her voice and in her eyes disguised the truth. If any gunplay popped off she would ride with her bitches not him.

“I'm a'ight,” JuJu replied. It was no secret that he stood firmly on Kiam's side.

Behind them Treebie's face was stone but her eyes and instincts were alert. She felt an immediate tenseness in the room that rushed up on her like a whoosh of stale, hot air.

Lissha made a beeline straight for Kiam who was seated on the couch with his fo-fo in hand and a bottle of Jack on the table in front of him. She leaned over and hugged him. “I'm so sorry,” she said, sounding genuine.

Kiam saw the tears well up in her eyes but he wasn't sold on their authenticity. Crocodiles always appeared to be crying.

“What happened?” she asked.

Kiam ignored her question.

“Y'all sit the fuck down and start explaining where y'all been all day.”

Lissha sat next to him on the couch. Bayonna squeezed into an overstuffed chair across from them with JuJu. The twins remained standing, posted up around the room.

Treebie remained standing too. She placed her back against the wall and watched everyone closely.

Kiam noted her paranoia but he said nothing. If her guilt became obvious he would address it with three up top.

Lissha took his hand in hers and spoke first. “Kiam,” she said, looking him squarely in the eyes. “Faydrah and I might have had our differences but I knew how much you loved her. I would never touch you like that, baby.”

Kiam knocked her hand off of him.
“Don't touch me,” he gritted. “I hear all that sweet shit but what I wanna know is where the fuck were you at.”

“
I was with Treebie. We went to meet with a lawyer for Daddy out in Akron. He's supposed to be the best appeal lawyer in the state, but he said that he doesn't think he can help Daddy.”

“
We were depressed after that so we went back to my house and got fucked up,” Treebie cut in.

“
Did Big Zo know that y'all were meeting with the attorney?”

The wrong answer was going to get their wigs pushed back.

Lissha replied, “No, I don't tell Daddy things like that because I don't like to get his hopes up.”

Bayonna had prepped them well.

Kiam fired one question after another at them, trying to trip them up, but they had their story down pat. Kiam let out a heavy sigh and relented—for now. He turned his head towards the casket that sat across the room and everyone's eyes followed his gaze.

Like her girls, Lissha had noticed the black coffin as soon as they entered the house. Now she asked the question that was on her mind.
Why had he chosen black to bury Faydrah in?

“
I would think a softer color would be more appropriate,” she opined.

Kiam chuckled.

“What was the rush to pick out the casket?” Bayonna chimed in.

Treebie remained quiet, she had a feeling that the casket wasn't for Faydrah at all. She eased her hand behind her back and wrapped it around her Nine. If that nigga thought he was putting her in that muthafucka, he should've bought two because his ass was going to need one, fucking with her.

Isaac stepped towards Treebie with his strap already out. “Let me get that,” he said.

Treebie was tempted to test his gangsta but looked in his eyes and thought better of it. She recognized a killah when he was in her presence. She slid the burner out and gave it up without protest.

Isaac grinned.

Treebie did too, but inwardly, as she felt the weight of her spare gun on her ankle.
Sleep on a bitch if you want to.

Lissha and Bayonna looked at each other nervously.

“If I wanted y'all muthafuckaz dead it would be done already,” said Kiam, rising up from the couch. “Follow me,” he commanded.

The twins held their posts while JuJu remained seated, they already knew what Kiam was about to disclose.

Lissha and Bayonna followed Kiam across the room wondering how he had managed to get Faydrah's body from the morgue so soon. Out of mere curiosity Treebie joined them in front of the casket.

Kiam's expression was hard as granite but they could still hear the grief in his voice as soon as he began to speak.
“A lot of people are going to pay for what happened,” he said.

He took a deep breath and let it out slowly as the loss that he had suffered tugged at his heart and strained his voice. He placed his palms on top of the coffin.

“Beginning tonight I'm murdering any and everybody that I have beef with. The nigga inside this casket is supposed to be like a brother to me. We grew up under the same roof but I don't trust his bitch ass so he has to die. Let what I'm about to do to him be a lesson to any muthafucka in this room that might think about betraying me.”

Kiam opened the lid of the casket and looked down at DeMarcus. He was bound and gagged, his face was hideously swollen, and one eye hung out of its socket in a
grotesque manner, resembling an egg yolk. But he was still alive.

When Lissha peered inside the casket she almost fainted, and it was not because of the blood and gore. She steadied her legs but her mouth remained open.

DeMarcus looked up out of the one eye that wasn't gauged out, hoping that she was his reprieve, but that wasn't happening. Lissha had a vested interest in his immediate death.

She looked from DeMarcus to Kiam.
“If this nigga called himself your brother and violated you, this is what I think of him.” She leaned inside the casket and spat in DeMarcus' face. Take that to hell with you.

DeMarcus squirmed around and muttered out pleading sounds as he saw her whip out her ratchet. Kiam reached to remove the gag out of his mouth; he wasn't too cold to not allow the nigga a few last words. But the bitch beside him could not chance what DeMarcus might know.

Lissha aimed the whistle inside the casket, and blasted him in the head and chest.
Boc! Boc!
For insurance she put another shot in his thinker.

Blood and bits of skull splashed up in her face.

She turned to Kiam and proclaimed, “Fuck whatever that nigga had to say. Your enemies are my enemies, baby.”

She took a final look at DeMarcus and let her gun bark again.
Boc!
Boc! Boc!

Now DeMarcus was deader than dead and Lissha was determined not to let Kiam find out why she hadn't wanted to chance letting him speak.

Chapter 5

Saying Goodbye

K
iam stood looking down inside the casket, but this time it was with a heavy heart. The church was packed with Faydrah's extended family, friends from her professional life, and with a horde of street types that came out of respect for Kiam. Silent tears ran down his handsome but weary brown face and dripped onto the soft blue dress that Faydrah was being sent home in.

The organist strummed a song that was likened to a chorus of angels crying. Ms. Combs wails could be heard over all other sounds.
“My baby,” she cried. “Lord Jesus, why did you take my only child? You said that if I served You faithfully, I would receive Your blessings. Is this how You treat Your child?” she challenged.

Ms. Combs raw grief had become stronger than her faith. It was times like this that made mothers temporarily forsake God.

If You're omnipotent bring her back dammit! Bring her baaaccckkkk!

She looked down into the face of her baby and realized that there was no prayer she could utter that would ever give Faydrah life. The reality of that was more than Ms. Combs could bear; she collapsed into Kiam's arms, sobbing from the turmoil of a mother's tortured soul.

Ms. Combs' grief intensified Kiam's. He held her in his arms and let her weep against his chest. His face was as wet as hers but there was no sound coming from his mouth. He helped her back to her seat in the front row and left her in the care of a church member.

With leaden feet he returned to the stage to say goodbye to the only love that he had known.

In spite of the brutal manner in which she had been murdered, Faydrah looked beautiful. Kiam had hired one the best morticians in the state to make his baby as pretty in death as she had been in life. “But no amount of money can bring you back, my love,” he said.

He fought hard not to choke up as he reached down and gently stroked her face.

“Eyez, you were the only soft thing in my life; the one person that loved me for
me
. What we had transcended any love that anyone has ever known. Your love kept me human and sane, it was my only comfort in this cold, cold world and now you're gone.” Kiam's head fell down on his chest. Grief was such a heavy burden to bear.

JuJu walked over and put a hand on Kiam's shoulder but didn't trust his voice to communicate his condolences. Kiam's pain was his pain and it was immense.

“Eyez, I don't know what I'ma do without you,” Kiam continued. “I just know that I'll never smile again. Every bit of my happiness died with you and my seed. Every bit.” 

He leaned in the casket and kissed her lips as his tears wet both of their faces. “Sleep in peace, baby.”

When he rose up, the anger inside of him bolted high in his chest and ricocheted to his mind before settling on his darkened soul. So many muthafuckaz were gonna suffer for this! They had cut out his heart so now they were going to feel the wrath of a heartless man.

Kiam looked over at the tiny white casket that sat next to Faydrah's. It was in memory of his unborn son that had died inside Faydrah's womb.

Died?

Hell no! My li'l dude ain't die, they murdered him. They took his life before it had a chance to begin.

The organist played
Eye on the Sparrow
as Kiam stepped over to the small closed coffin and laid his hand atop it. He closed his eyes and pictured a little hard head just like himself; a fearless li'l dude with crazy swag. The little girls would've loved him and other hard heads would've feared him.

Kiam's chest threatened to collapse. The game had served him the cruelest loss imaginable. His mouth was like a slash across his face.

“Daddy gon' make 'em pay, that's on our blood,” he vowed.

With the weight of vengeance on his shoulders, Kiam turned and walked back to the front of the pews where Ms. Combs sat stone-faced. Her tears had dried, leaving streaks down her face that might as well have been blood. Her overwhelming misery had been replaced by bitter anger that she whispered into Kiam's ear.

“Every day I open the newspaper I better read about somebody else's mother crying. Do you understand me?”

Kiam slowly nodded his head up and down.

In the back row of the church a tall, thin but shapely woman watched from under the black veil that covered her face. There were no tears falling from her eyes and she would have gone unnoticed had she not been texting on her cell phone.

When she looked up Isaac was staring at her with a strong interest.

**********

In the blistering cold the funeral procession traveled to The Highland Cemetery on Chagrin Boulevard to lay Faydrah and baby Kiam Jr's coffins in the ground.

Kiam proceeded up the path to where his family would be laid to rest with his arm around Ms. Combs. His team flanked him in heavy numbers and with even heavier artillery underneath their coats.

JuJu and the twins were on alert for anything suspicious.
I wish a muthafucka would,
JuJu thought. His head was on a swivel and his hand inside his coat. Other soldiers were equally ready for whatever.

Lissha, Treebie and Bayonna walked together in silence and blended in with the other mourners.

The graveside service was respectfully brief, to spare everyone from more tears. Gina, a close friend of Faydrah's from work, sang
I'm Going Home to Jesus,
acappella
.
Her voice was angelic and it tugged a few more tears from eyes that were already red-rimmed.

Kiam bit down on his bottom lip as he watched both caskets lower into the earth into the same allotted space.

The preacher announced, “Ashes to ashes and dust to dust,” then he tossed a handful of dirt on top of the caskets.

Kiam put two fingers to his lips and blew a kiss to his girl and his son. Lissha came up behind him and wrapped her arms around him. “I'm here for you if you need me,” she whispered.

“Don't you touch him!” Ms. Combs hissed, recognizing her from the description Faydrah gave of her nemesis.