CHAPTER TWENTY
Black Tone stood in front of the hospital emergency room entrance. Alexis had texted him saying she was no more than five minutes away and for him to meet her there. He wondered what was so very important that she was coming way over there to speak to him face-to-face. It was puzzling, to say the least. The entire day, or at least since the power had gone out in the city, had been full of mishaps and the unthinkable happening. It was like he was watching some bad low-budget movie and not actually living it in reality.
After years and years of Alexis doing her best to avoid any contact with Dre besides hello and good-bye—if forced since they lived in the same house—tonight was different. Tonight was strange. She had come outside not to cheer him on when he was about to mangle her brother’s rotten, devious ass for all the trouble and mayhem he’d caused, but to defend Dre. Black Tone had found it strange while the whole scene played out, but he had had too much on his mind regarding his grandmother’s well-being to give it much thought.
“What the fuck?” Black Tone mumbled under his breath as Alexis’s car came into view. He rubbed his tired eyes. He felt he must be seeing things. The strange day had just become stranger. Alexis had indeed come to the hospital, just as she’d said she would. However, she wasn’t alone. While she was riding shotgun, Dre was behind the steering wheel.
None of this bullshit makes sense. What the hell is going on with these two all of a sudden?
When the vehicle came to a complete stop, Black Tone reached over and pulled up the door handle. As Alexis took her seat belt off and then lifted herself up, he saw she had on a pair of sunglasses. Immediately, he noticed that her face was swollen on one side and her lip appeared to be busted. Raising his eyebrow, Black Tone got heated. He had just calmed down some from seeing his granny’s face battered and bruised, and now he had to deal with this. Both of the most important women in his life were hurt, and he hadn’t been there to protect them.
“Alexis, what the fuck happened to your face? Who did this? Who? Tell me,” he demanded, blocking her from moving any farther from the passenger seat.
Alexis was ashamed of what she’d been through at the hands of her small son’s cousins. When she came within arm’s length of Black Tone, she broke all the way down, knowing he would comfort her. After she removed her sunglasses so he could better see her face, Black Tone’s body locked up. Leaning back out of the car, he stood straight up and grabbed the sides of his head with both hands. Applying pressure to his scalp, he closed his eyes as tight as he possibly could. Tilting his head backward, he slowly opened up his eyes and looked at the bright, scattered stars that filled the sky. After silently questioning God as to why all these things had happened to him today, he looked over at Dre, who had gotten out of the car.
“Yo, man, come over here. Let me holler at you on the real about some shit.” Dre nodded his head toward the rear of the car. “We need to kick it before I leave my sister with you.”
Black Tone sympathetically looked once more in the car, at Alexis. His best friend had stopped crying, had her arms folded and snuggly pressed against her chest, and was rocking back and forth. Not knowing what to do or say, Black Tone did as Dre had asked. Standing near one of the taillights, he demanded that Dre tell him what the hell had happened to Alexis. Not in the mood to mince words, Dre began to run down the whole story. Not scared of anything or anybody’s judgments or any consequences, and definitely not remorseful about what he felt had to be done, Alexis’s older brother didn’t leave out a single thing. He knew Black Tone was especially close with Amir and his family and practically ran Detroit Live for him, but so fucking what? This was Alexis we were talking about.
“Yeah, dawg, I got a nine-one-one text from my sister this evening, before dark,” Dre revealed.
“Yeah, she texted me too,” Black Tone interjected.
“Well, it said she was up at the store. So at first I ain’t think nothing about it. You know how she be when she get going on a nigga. I thought maybe she was just cussing Hassan ho ass out for not buying the baby some new shoes or something.”
Black Tone nodded his head in agreement. He knew Alexis was known for having a short fuse when she felt she was being wronged, and he wondered if she was the one that set the store on fire, perhaps by accident.
“But then something came over me. I dunno what the hell it was. It was just a damn crazy feeling, so I stopped what I was doing and headed that way.” Dre paused in telling the story. “Matter of fact, that’s when I saw that dick-sucker nigga pushing that white truck. I almost ran his ho ass off the road.”
“Yeah, that nigga. He as good as dead, but go on, guy. Finish.” Black Tone frowned from even thinking about Li’l Ronnie still alive out in the streets, as if he had gotten away with something as horrible as beating up on an old woman, not to mention stealing his money.
Dre went on. “So yeah, when I got up to the store, I already knew they was closed for the day. I was up there earlier, kicking it with Hassan, when they was locking it down. I seen Alexis’s car parked around the back, so me and my boys pulled back there. I had knocked on the door more than a few good times when some random ho-ass sand nigga came yelling through the door, trying to go for bad. Man, I swear that motherfucker was going like he couldn’t get got.”
Black Tone knew that had to have been one of the bigmouthed twins who always caused trouble and were the known black sheep of Amir’s family.
“Well, finally, after that fool kept running off at the mouth, Hassan came to the door, talking that bullshit. I asked him to let me talk to my sister, and both them clowns kept saying she wasn’t inside. I mean, what the fuck they was lying for? Shit. She had just texted me she was there, so I wasn’t just dreaming that bullshit, ya feel me?”
“Right, right,” Black Tone mumbled as he looked through the rear window of the car to see if Alexis had stopped rocking back and forth. She hadn’t. He then returned his full attention to Dre. This was the most interaction the two of them had had since Dre used to jump on both him and Alexis as kids just for fun.
“I kept banging on that bitch and told them I was gonna run my car up in that motherfucker if they ain’t send my little sister out. I kept calling her cell, and it kept going to voice mail. So a nigga like me was seconds away from getting back in the ride and going straight movie gangsta on them and that store. Just then I heard gunshots!” Dre finished giving Black Tone a blow-by-blow account of exactly what had popped off from the time Alexis cracked the rear store door and let him inside until the minute she came out on their front porch to take up for him when he was accused of bringing harm to Granny.
Black Tone was enraged. What Dre had told him made his soul ache. He couldn’t believe it. He had encountered the twins before and knew they were capable of rape and just about anything else. But Mikey and Hassan, Amir’s little brothers . . . He was stunned. Black Tone knew Mikey was a coward. The entire world knew that. Yet he just couldn’t wrap his head around the fact that Hassan would allow those two idiots to violate Alexis. Black Tone was fully aware that Hassan had not told his ailing mother about the biracial relationship he was in or about his small son. But the rest of his immediate family knew about Alexis. They might not have accepted her as kin and would taunt Hassan for his choices, but they still would never go that far, especially Mikey. It didn’t make any sense, none of it.
Dre and Black Tone spoke a little bit longer to get a deeper understanding of what had to happen next in order to make sure that both he and Alexis could walk away clean and free after having committed murder and arson. For the time being, it was decided that Alexis, after getting treated at the hospital, would stay with Black Tone. And Dre, who was built for this type of thing, would go back to the neighborhood and stand tall, like he had done no wrong and knew nothing about the crimes, which they all three felt were justified. Normally, it was just Alexis and Black Tone who ran together and was thick as thieves. But this time around Dre, their frequent enemy, was strangely and finally a part of their secret club. The table for two had just grown to a booth. If they stuck together, maybe they could make the lie seem like the truth.
Of course, Black Tone was far from being a fool. He knew that when Amir found out that not one, but both of his brothers were dead, having been shot and burned to death, there would be hell to pay. He’d want revenge on those responsible for the deed, no matter what their reason was for doing it, and honestly, Black Tone couldn’t blame him.
“This shit is messed up, but we gonna make it do what it do.” Black Tone angrily slammed a closed fist down on the corner of the trunk, creating a gigantic dent. Startled by the sound, Alexis was shaken out of her trance and called out for her most recent protector, Dre. After she asked Dre to please help her out of the car, because her legs were weak, Black Tone took over and picked Alexis up in his arms. Then he told Dre that he could go home and that he would keep him posted. He then softly kissed Alexis on her forehead and disappeared behind the hospital doors.
* * *
In between avoiding calls from Pops and just outright lying to him, Amir was growing weary of standing guard himself. He was like a fish out of water. Most of the people that were up to no good this time of the night were thinking about trying to rob him as well. He’d tried to call everyone he knew who could possibly come and help him. But all his close friends either had their own businesses to guard over on this terror-filled night or had flat out refused to take a chance and come into the city. He was running out of options.
Black Tone had finally texted back, explaining that there was no way he could leave his grandmother’s side, even if there had been a fire and Mikey and Hassan were missing. Amir’s next thought was to pull the remaining two guys off of safeguarding the club and have them come help him, but Amir knew that he had not only thousands upon thousands of dollars’ worth of liquor, food, and electronic equipment but also a stash of heroin locked up in one of the club’s utility closets. He couldn’t afford to risk that potential loss.
Thinking about the dope that was stashed at Detroit Live, Amir came up with an idea. He knew that Black Tone wouldn’t like it, but just like the other man’s loyalties were with his grandmother, Amir’s had to be with his family. After getting back inside his car so that he could hear, he texted Ethan. Just like every other self-respecting drug dealer, Amir assumed he’d be up checking his traps, especially on a night like tonight. In a mere matter of minutes, just as Amir had prayed, his text was answered. Seconds later, his cell rang.
“Hey, Ethan. Thanks for getting back to me so soon.”
Ethan was shocked to hear from Amir. Naturally, after what Li’l Ronnie had done to his right-hand man, Black Tone, he figured all contact with them as a whole was over. “No problem, Amir. But I ain’t gonna front. I mean, I’m surprised to hear from you. And I want you to know that damn nephew of mine is gonna pay the ultimate price. Not only has he overstepped the rules of the game with the old woman, but he has crossed me out also. For both those offenses, his blood will run on these streets.”
Amir was, of course, glad to hear that the disrespectful youngin’ would pay, but he had more things on his plate to swallow than that. Not wanting any more slow stroking of each other’s egos, Amir cut straight to the chase. “Look, Ethan, here’s the deal. I need you to do me a favor. And I need it done with the quickness. No delay.”
“If I can, I will,” Ethan replied, hoping he could redeem himself and make amends.
“Ethan, man, some fucking assholes set my father’s store on fire. I don’t wanna go into details, but I need some manpower to come over here and kinda stand guard until daybreak. I got all my people tied up on other bullshit. So what you say? Can you make that happen for me or what?”
If nothing else, Ethan had a small army of East Side soldiers standing in line, begging to be put to work on anything for him. Quick to respond, he asked Amir for the address to the store and asked how many guys he needed to show up. Amir replied that he needed at least three, to be on the safe side, but Ethan informed him he would be sending five, and they would be there shortly.
Before ending the conversation, Amir told Ethan that all that bullshit his nephew had done at the club and to Black Tone’s grandmother would be squashed in return for what he was doing.
“I swear to God, I appreciate you, man. Up until that fool showed out, we been doing good business, and I wanna keep it that way,” Ethan said. He was relived he was back on the ticket and hung up from speaking to Amir with a smile on his face. Now, if he only heard from J-Blaze or if only his girl Sable came walking through his front door, his life would be back on track.
Amir got back out of the car and holstered his gun, just in case. He was glad that Ethan had agreed to what he needed and that reinforcements were on their way. Of course, he had deliberately failed to tell Ethan that he feared four of his family members were dead, buried under the collapsed and still scorching hot beams of the building, the very place he wanted the men to guard over. But that really wasn’t Ethan’s business or concern, at least not now. Amir already knew Black Tone wasn’t going to be happy about the choice Amir had to make in joining forces with Ethan to help protect the store, but in the real world, blood was always going to be thicker than water, and Mikey, Hassan, and even the twins were blood.