While the old rumors about me being a covert operative for Black Cobra died when they shot me four times, the very same failed assassination attempt buried my old reputation as being “the untouchable one.” For all the years I had led the charge into the teeth of battle and wreaked havoc throughout Denmark, I never once was seriously injured. When everyone saw me hobbling around Askerød, it cemented that no one was safe from facing repercussions for their previous actions and that Black Cobra feared no one.
Among my longtime friends Erion, Argon, Bassim, and Omar, I had high hopes that they would be willing to back my play against Black Cobra. To my surprise, they weren’t on board. At all.
“We’re tired of your wars, Sleiman! One day, you’re at war with the bikers. The next day, you’re at war with The Egyptians. We’re done with your wars. We just wanna make money!”
Bassam told me this when I had a meeting inside a local McDonald’s with my four oldest and closest friends right after I got shot. They abandoned me at my lowest point and my most critical moment. They all told me straight up that they wouldn’t support me. That broke me.
The hope was that I would abandon my plans for war without their backing. I had already drawn first blood in the conflict with Samir, so if I just stopped now, we could call it even.
Even my beloved sister Sarah tried to talk me out of pursuing revenge: “No more”, she told me. “No more! If you take revenge now, one of you is gonna end up dead. I don’t care who your friends are, and I don’t care who Samir’s friends are. This fight has gotta end. You stabbed Samir because you felt you had to, and he stood in front of you at the clubhouse because he felt he had to.”
It all began as Bekir’s war against Samir’s dad, but it ended up being me against Samir. The younger kids started hating each other because of it. It had gone too far now. Whose war, was it? Why were they fighting? Sarah reminded me that we used to be best friends, and insisted our conflict had to end.
I was listening to Sarah, but the voice inside my head screaming for revenge was louder than hers. The thought of being the bigger man and not taking revenge hadn’t even crossed my mind. I always believed that someone who doesn’t avenge himself is weak and vulnerable. This was the lesson my father had taught me as a child, and that had been reinforced throughout my entire life in Askerod. How could I possibly let everything go and just forgive?
As soon as I healed up enough, I started driving around the neighborhood looking for the guys who had shot me. First off, I didn’t know who they were, but I knew that Samir was around. I didn’t need to be a detective to know all I needed to do was split the difference and go straight to him. I didn’t even care that going after Samir was essentially the same as going up against the entire Black Cobra gang by myself.
Not too long after my search began, Erion and I were driving around Hundige when we spotted Samir. Even while injured, I set off in pursuit of him.
“Stop! Let me out!” Erion said.
“But . . . it’s Samir!” I pleaded.
“Sleiman! Let me out. I’m not fighting your war.”
I let him out, but Pepe jumped in the car to ride with me in Erion’s stead. “Let’s go,” Pepe said. He and his friend Lefty were both wanted by the police and had to stay under the radar, so I helped them out with food and money. For that reason, Pepe felt obligated to be there for me.
As Pepe and I rolled around following leads while looking for Samir, we began to put together pieces of the puzzle from everyone we spoke to. At this point, the crew consisted of myself, Lefty, Pepe, and Tarif. We began eliminating possibilities and getting new information until we suddenly discovered a new lead suspect in my shooting, a Danish guy who was known as The Hippie. He was an outsider, someone who hadn’t previously been a part of the gang wars in Hundige. I had no clue who he was, but he was affiliated with Black Cobra, and according to our information, they had decided to outsource rather than use any obvious candidates for shooters. Before long, we were driving around Copenhagen in search of The Hippie as opposed to Samir.
Sources told us that The Hippie was last seen at a downtown department store. We went and saw he was still there. My people chased him up and down the escalators. I didn’t take part in the chase because I had been shot in my legs, and I wasn’t up for that quite yet.
They chased The Hippie everywhere in Hundige and all throughout Copenhagen. Lefty has since moved away from Askerød and is now a small-business owner, wanted to find him, and was armed at all times. Had he found him, Lefty would’ve likely executed him for me.
My other trusted friend, Tarif, was my best friend when I was young. He used to follow me home every night because he was afraid, I would get jumped or shot if he wasn’t watching my back. He kept guard and looked out for me early on in a way I’ll never forget.
Since I never cooperated with the police, no one was going to be arrested for the attempt on my life. However, in late 2007, several Black Cobra members were sent to prison regardless. Law enforcement had analyzed a series of recorded phone conversations among them, and during the trial, they used the recordings to discover that The Hippie had, in fact, been summoned from Copenhagen to carry out the hit on me. He wasn’t present when the verdict was read in July 2008, as he had already hanged himself in prison before the trial.
Samir, Zaki, and The Mexican were found guilty of aggravated assault, as well as for using lethal weapons. Samir was sentenced to two and a half years in prison. Zaki was sentenced to one and a half years, while The Mexican was sentenced to one year.
By coincidence, I got background information on what went down with The Mexican and The Hippie through the unlikeliest of sources, a biker chick named Mille I was messing around with at the time of the 2008 trial. Mille told me about her sister, who was married to and had a child with The Hippie. She told me that her brother-in-law had killed himself because he had been involved in a murder attempt on a perker from Hundige.
She didn’t know it was me, and at first, I didn’t tell her. But I started to understand what he had been going through after he had shot me. She told me that he began sleeping with a machine gun under his pillow. Apparently, he became suicidal because he believed that people were coming for him. He felt like certain people in Black Cobra wanted him to take the fall for this, and he couldn’t stomach the idea of spending ten years in the joint constantly fearing for his life. He also had a drug charge hanging over his head, so he was looking at serious time.
Shortly after finding all of this out, being with Millie just felt weird, so I let her go. I called her a couple of months later, and she told me that she was back with her ex. What’s surprising is she’s a Muslim now. She wears a headscarf and is married to a Muslim man. I honestly didn’t see that coming.