Chapter Twenty-nine

Millie stared out of the window, characteristically puffing on a cigarette with a smug look on her face. She was in deep thought and was alone in the spacious hotel room. Well, she did have one more person in the room with her, but he was soon to be dead. She ordered Baby and her crew to leave her alone with Rah so she could “catch up on old times.” Rah squirmed as his body was tightly duct taped to a wooden chair. Blood leaked from his left pinky and dripped onto the Berber carpet as he tried to call Millie a bitch, but couldn’t because of the sock stuffed deep down his throat.

“I know what you’re probably thinking. How did this dopefiend bitch catch me slipping, right?” Millie asked rhetorically as she left the window and slowly began to circle Rah, watching him as a lioness would her prey. Millie stopped directly in front of him and looked directly into his eyes. She pulled out the sock that was stuffed down his throat and Rah immediately began to cough violently.

“Where do that nigga stay? Tell me or it’s on to the next one!” Millie joked as she repeated a rap lyric, totally having fun tormenting Rah, threatening to cut off the next finger. She pulled out the sharp pliers that she used to cut off his pinky a day before and waved them around, giving him one last chance to spill the beans before she played doctor and made a surgical cut. “Now, are you sure you ain’t trying to come up off that info on your man?” Millie asked.

“Fuck you!” Rah yelled as he tried to break free from the chair, but it was to no avail because Baby had done a number on him. Baby made sure that Rah could never escape the situation on his own.

“You crazy bitch,” Rah said as he breathed heavily and began to feel lightheaded because of all the blood he had lost. Millie smiled and shrugged her shoulders.

“Suit yourself,” she said as she pulled out a cigarette and put a flame to it. She let it dangle from the left side of her mouth as she took a long pull and knelt down, casually grabbing Rah’s finger. “Oh, I almost forgot,” Millie said just before she grabbed the sock and forced it down Rah’s throat as he tried to turn his head away from her, but she managed to stuff it even further than before.

“Don’t want the neighbors to hear, feel me?” Millie asked and she grabbed Rah’s middle finger and placed it in between the pliers and looked up at him. “Give that nigga info up. I’m only going to ask you one more time.” Although Rah couldn’t speak, he wanted to express how he felt. He just barely raised his middle finger slightly as his hands were duct taped together, flipping her off as a smile formed on his face. Without hesitation, Millie squeezed the pliers as hard as she could. The sound of his finger’s bone cracking filled the air along with muffled screams and vigorous twitching and jerking. Millie yanked the pliers, trying to rip his finger off, and blood squirted six feet into the air. She yanked for a third time, squeezing even harder, causing his severed finger to fly across the room. Millie had gone mad; mad with revenge and hatred in her heart.

“You want to tell me now, homeboy?” Millie said calmly as she wiped the blood off her face and tossed the pliers onto the bed. She pulled the sock out of his mouth and waited for him to respond. Rah panted heavily as he sweated profusely. Only whimpers could escape his mouth as he began to drool on himself. He was in excruciating pain and began to black out because of the overwhelming pain. His head became heavy and he felt himself slipping out of consciousness.

“Seven is going to kill you, bitch,” he managed to whisper with pride just before he fainted and his chin hit his chest. Millie had to admit, she admired his courage but she also knew that she couldn’t let Rah die. At least, not at that moment; she still needed him. He was her only connection to Seven and that was who she wanted badly. She smacked the hell out of him and screamed his name, trying to wake him up.

Smack!

“Rah! Don’t die on me, you son of a bitch,” she yelled as she grabbed him by his jaws and raised his head up. Millie saw that Rah’s eyes began to roll in the back of his head and she smacked her lips as she let his head drop back down to his chest. Obviously, her plan to squeeze the information out of Rah wasn’t working so she decided to go with her plan B. Rah had a little secret back home. When Baby went through Rah’s phone, he discovered baby pictures and text messages from a woman from Flint; Toya, to be exact. It just so happened that Rah was a new father. Millie anticipated Rah’s stubbornness and loyalty, that’s why she had already sent Baby and half of the crew to Flint to snatch up Toya and the baby for collateral. One way or another, Millie knew Rah was going to give up some info.

Just as Millie picked up her phone to call Baby, a blocked number was incoming and she smiled as she picked up the phone.

“Speak,” she said as she held the phone to her ear.

“Yo, who the fuck is this?” Seven said coldly into the phone.

“Hold up. Is that any way to talk to a lady?” Millie said sarcastically as she put her cigarette out on Rah’s forehead and began to slowly pace the room.

“Bitch! Fuck you. Put your boss on the phone or whoever sent me this package.”

“Seven, relax. You don’t remember me, honey?” Millie asked in a sweet voice, but was steadily getting heated by the second.

“What?” Seven asked, not understanding.

“Let me help you out. You tried to have me killed, but instead you . . .” Millie paused as she felt her eyes begin to water just at the thought of Hazel’s painful death. She then clenched her jaws and shook the feeling off. “But instead you killed an innocent young lady for no good reason.”

The words were like darts to Seven’s heart, being that he still had a heavy heart for what he had done to Hazel. He knew exactly who he was talking to. But never in a million years would he had thought that a dopefiend could get to him like Millie had just done. The phone was silent and the sound of Seven inhaling deeply was the only noise.

“Where the fuck is Rah?” Seven asked, quickly getting to the task at hand.

“We are about to play a little game. It’s called . . . if you do not come to me, Rah is going to die a horrible death,” Millie said, indirectly getting straight to the point.

The sound of Seven laughing filled the phone’s speakers. He already knew at that point Rah was going to die. But he also knew that Rah was one of the realest men he had the privilege of knowing and would never tell Millie about his whereabouts. Seven had positioned himself to never get caught slipping and Rah was the only link to him for an enemy to explore.

“Do you know who the fuck I am, Millie? Huh?” Seven said through his clenched teeth. “You can never touch me, believe that! I can touch you, though. That’s a promise. So you do me a favor. Tell my nigga, Rah, I love him to death and real niggas do real things!” With that, Seven hung up the phone, leaving Millie with a dial tone. Millie couldn’t believe what Seven had just done. Although Millie had Rah tied up, Seven was still in complete control. Millie threw her phone on the bed and in complete anger she punched Rah square in his nose to take out her frustrations. He was still unconscious, so he didn’t feel it, but Millie did as she shook her hand in pain. She had punched him so hard that she broke his nose and also her pointer finger. Millie knew that she would take it to extreme measures to get to Seven and she was willing to go as far as she had to avenge Hazel’s death. She was about to get to Seven one way or another. But in the meantime, she was about to cut his legs from under him by taking over his blocks. Lady Luck was about to fill the streets of Columbus, Ohio and she knew that a hustler’s worst nightmare was a decline in business.