Gods & Gangsters 2 Read online

  “What’s wrong? What happened? Why are you crying?” The questions tumbled out of Othello in rapid succession, all kinds of bad thoughts crossing his mind.

  He was ready to murder anything or anyone that had brought tears to Mona’s eyes, anyone except one.

  “It’s… it’s my uncle, baby. He’s dead…” Mona cried.

  Othello scowled.

  “My God baby, I’m so sorry… What happened?”

  He sat with her on the edge of the bed.

  “It was a few days ago,” she sobbed, “I can’t believe he’s gone. I loved him so much. He was just… so… he was always so…” she couldn’t get the words out. “Why would he kill himself?”

  Othello held her tightly in his arms, stroking her back, slowly and comfortingly.

  “Baby, sometimes we don’t know people as well as we think we do. No matter how close. There’s a darkness in a lot of people we can’t see on the surface. We don’t know what demons they are wrestling. Sometimes they just can’t take living under those conditions.”

  “It still hurts,” she sniffled, resting her weight against his big, strong frame.

  Othello sighed.

  “That’s crazy, because I lost someone in my circle recently.”

  “Really?”

  “He’s was murdered,” Othello answered, leaving out the part that it was his hand that was behind the metaphorical push.

  “Life is so crazy,” Mona ran her hands back and forth across his chest.

  “Yeah, it is,” he agreed.

  They both faded into their separate thoughts for a moment, finding a different kind of peace in each other’s company, until Othello said, “Hey, how about we get away for a while? Just me and you? Go somewhere and just enjoy black love.”

  Mona looked at him, a big smile breaking through the clouds of her grief.

  “Forreal, babe?”

  “Yolo, right?”

  “Right Yolo!” She smiled through the tears.

  Othello folded her into his embrace and held her tightly.

  She forgot her tears as she began covering his face with what started as butterfly kisses but quickly became more and more passionate until her tongue was down his throat and his hands were up her skirt, pulling her panties off. Sex and death. Powerful aphrodisiacs. Mona was frantic, grabbing his pants and fumbling with the belt and buckle until she got them open and he slid his pants down around his ankles. No foreplay. No seduction. She mounted him, gripping his dick and pushing him inside of her.

  “Yes baby, stroke your pussy good,” she purred, her hips winding like a dancehall queen from down yard.

  Her pussy was so creamy, every stroke sounded like macaroni and cheese being stirred, the smack of her juices making him pump even harder. The spontaneity of the moment had them ready to bust quick. Othello gripped her ass cheeks, spreading to get deeper. Mona rode him, head thrown back, biting her bottom lip, her moans and cries urging him on until they both came simultaneously, shaking and shivering with orgasmic delight as the rush of release coursed through them.

  “Damn, that was love,” Mona giggled.

  “The best is yet to come,” he promised.

  “Oh yeah? Don’t let your mouth go making promises your dick can’t keep,” she smirked.

  Othello stroked her cheek, his expression solemn and vowed, “I’ll never break a promise to you, babygirl. Word is bond.” They kissed, this time slower and more sensually as they took their time with round two.

  After Mona had dozed off, Othello found himself thinking about Black Sam.

  He laid there beside her, eyes closed, and remembered how it had all begun…

  running… harder… faster…

  The sound of his own breath loud in his ears, his legs cramping and the blare of police sirens and K-9’s pushing him forward. Chasing. Muscles burning. Sweat poured down Othello’s face as he leaped, making a grab for the gate, halfway up, and was damn near over until his pants got snagged on the old barbed wire spiraled on top.

  The gate separated one abandoned factory from another, and the snag was all it took.

  “Freeze!” The officer yelled, gun aimed, trembling with murderous anticipation.

  But Othello feared a cage more than he feared death.

  He hit the ground hard, jarring his senses, but he was back on his feet and moving off pure adrenaline.

  Buck! Buck! Buck!

  Three shots rang out, the blaze of the barrel bringing light to the pitch black alleyway. But it wasn’t no kind of god. The only way the officer knew he had hit Othello was because of the grunts when the bullets found their target.

  The next sound he heard was several trash cans being knocked over.

  “I’m shot!” Othello bellowed in the darkness, the smell of his fresh blood driving the dogs into a frenzy.

  “Don’t move!” The young, nervous officer screamed, as several more officers ran up behind him. More came from both sides of the gate.

  Othello laid on his back, the pain of the leg and hip wound burning like a branding iron stamping his black ass, the pain of being caught, the thought of prison and the loss of his freedom.

  “Cuff him!”

  “I’m fucking bleeding!”

  “Next time don’t run!” a smart-mouthed Irish cop shot back.

  It took twenty minutes for them to call an ambulance and ten more before it arrived. The fuckers were hoping he’d die, or at least put him through so much pain he would have preferred it.

  Othello went to trial and kept his mouth shut about Mac and Cash’s involvement. It was the code. They were brothers.

  He took his five-year sentence with a smile.

  Once he hit the yard, he hit the ground running.

  There were no thoughts of redemption or discovering God. He wasn’t into that shit. His only regret was getting caught, so his only thoughts revolved around getting out and doing it all again. Better the second time around.

  His time was spent hustling and working out, and when the situation called for it, bustin’ niggas’ heads for bread.

  If you wanted the job done right, you called Othello.

  They saw him as this big, black dumb ugly motherfucker that you didn’t want to cross, but he was a lot more than that, and one old timer saw the truth. His name was Rudy. Rudy had been banged up so long, no one alive knew he was still there. Confined to a wheelchair and being eaten away by cancer, Rudy spent his time playing chess and reading. “Say young buck, let me rap a taste with you,” Rudy asked him one day.

  Othello had never said two words to the man before, but had a natural respect for the old timers, so he stopped working out long enough to walk over.

  “What up, Unk?” Othello asked, chest heaving.

  “Push me a couple of laps, I need some exercise,” Rudy told him.

  Othello chuckled.

  “I’m the one doing the pushing.”

  Rudy pulled out one of his trademark cigars, ones that they didn’t sell in the prison commissary. “Unk, better not let the police see you smoking that.”

  Rudy snorted.

  “Fuck the po-lice, I’m dyin,” Rudy retorted between puffs, then added, “Othello, right?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I been keepin’ my eye on you, watchin’ how you move. You a smart nigga, dumb… but smart.”

  Anybody else would’ve called Othello dumb would’ve been swallowing teeth, but he respected the bluntness of the old timer. “Dumb?”

  “You run around here chasin’ this short ass penitentiary money, for what?”

  “Just doin’ time.”

  “Naw nephew, you lettin’ the time do you. That different. You could be a force in this game, if you get your head together,” Rudy jeweled him.

  Othello nodded, letting the wisdom of the older man soak into his brain. “Get my head together how?”

  Rudy pointed to the bleachers set off away from the rest of the yard.

  Othello steered him over.

  He sat on the bleacher
s.

  “When you get out, what do you plan on doing?” Rudy questioned.

  “Hit them streets and eat,” Othello answered, his focus lasered in on the vision of freedom.

  Rudy shook his head. “No neph, what’s your plan? Any dumb muhfucka with a gun and a dick can get money. I’m askin’ you how you gonna make it?”

  “I don’t know what you mean,” Othello admitted.

  “You ever heard of Frank Matthews?”

  “Naw.”

  “Frank Matthews was the baddest hustla in the game. He the only nigga to do it and get away with it. To this day, muhfuckas don’t know the real story, but I’ma pour you a drink. See Frank set up this organization called The Commission. It was to bring all the biggest hustlers around the country together. Sort of like the Black Man’s mafia, you got me?”

  “I hear you.”

  “Okay, but Frank disappeared right after he put it together and left it to a man named Willie Simmons. Now Willie put it down, but it wasn’t the same and soon, shit started going south. But The Commission is still around: here, there, everywhere, ya dig? Now, a man named Frank Myers wanted a particular area in The Commission territory, but it was already going to another man. You ever heard of Joe Hamlet?”

  “Yeah, Big Joe. That’s the most powerful muhfucka in the city,” Othello replied.

  Rudy puffed and nodded.

  “Yeah, but he wasn’t always. Frank put him on. He gave him a seat on The Commission in exchange for killing the man who was supposed to get Frank’s territory. You know who that was?”

  “Who?”

  Rudy smiled. “Your father.”

  Othello’s whole world tilted hearing the world father. That was a word he had never known in his life, never held in his arms, never threw him a football in the falling leaves of autumn. No such man in his world.

  “My… what?”

  Rudy eyed his expression and nodded.

  “Raymond Moore. He ran a bar on the Southside, but that was just a front. Ray was a cold blooded killer. He was Willie Simmons’ blood kinfolk.”

  “You’re telling me I’m some sort of nigga mafia royalty and Joe Hamlet killed my father, Unk?” Othello repeated, his anger begin to rise.

  “That’s exactly what I’m telling you. Everything Joe has is because he killed your father and set Frank Myers up to be top dog in The Commission.”

  Othello stopped, stood up and paced a few feet to the edge of the grass bordering the concrete track. He looked across at all the inmates playing basketball and working out, but his mind was a million miles away, thinking of the man he would never know, all because of a man he knew all too well.

  He turned back to Rudy.

  “Why are you telling me this?”

  Rudy smiled. “Because you needed to know, boy. But listen more, I ain’t done. Joe’s right hand, is a man named Black Sam. He’s been with Joe since damn near the beginning. But Joe won’t let Sam be his own man. Sam is ready to make a move, but he needs a team, a young team a team he can trust.”

  “With a shared enemy, so that team doesn’t turn on him,” Othello surmised.

  Rudy smiled.

  “See? I knew you were smart.”

  “When do I talk to this Black Sam?”

  “You talkin’ to him now. Sam is my brother. He needs you to handle something for him, to prove your loyalty.”

  “What’s that?”

  Rudy unlocked his wheelchair wheels.

  “I’ll let you know,” he said, then slowly rolled away.

  Two days later, Othello got the call…

  Othello gripped the sharpened toothbrush like a grudge. He pushed it down inside his waistline as he got in line to go to chow. The smell of the kill was in the air. Looking at the passing faces, he enjoyed their obliviousness. It made him feel special. He was he only one who knew what was going to happen. He eyed the metal detector as he got near it. It was a useless precaution in a shithole like this. No one had to carry metal shanks anymore, making metal detectors redundant.

  He passed through the detector, the guard on duty eyeing him hard.

  Othello dipped his head, not deferential, but knowing.

  Most correctional officers were pussies and punks. Dudes that used to get picked on in school by dudes they now lorded their authority over. The world had come full circle. Revenge of the nerds, forreal.

  Othello entered the chow hall, taking a beat to look around.

  His prey was sitting in the corner. An older man, maybe a child molester, he had that look, but Othello had already been given the rundown on the joker. He had snitched on a bunch of old timers to the Feds. Because he had such a long sentence for embezzlement, the Feds couldn’t just let him walk, so they transferred him to a state facility and cut his time in half.

  He thought he only had six months left in prison.

  The good news for him: it was less than that.

  The bad news, it was less than ten more minutes.

  Othello moved like a tiger in full stalk, using the other inmates as camouflage, from other snitching inmates, police observation and surveillance cameras. He knew how to move. This wasn’t his first prison hit, but it was the most important when it came to determining his future.

  He allowed his prey to finish his meal. It was only right. The man got up and made his way toward the tray disposal window. Othello smiled to himself. The man thought he had it made. Othello hated snitches with a passion. He would’ve killed this bitch for free, but this was a paid hit, so business and pleasure.

  Othello slid in smoothly behind the prey, keeping a few inmates between them in line.

  He waited until the prey turned the corner to go up the stairs to his dorm to make his move.

  The stairwell was built at an angle, that included a landing that turned a corner, before rising up another flight. The landing was a blind spot. The camera on the second floor didn’t start focusing until you reached the steps and the camera on the first floor only picked up your back right before you disappeared around the corner.

  In that sweet spot for violence, Othello made his move.

  “This is for The Commission, nigga!” Othello hissed like a cobra right before he struck, seven times in the neck, kidneys and chest. Fast, brutal, savage, hard. The plastic shank was sharp, but it still needed serious strength to penetrate, which only made it that much more satisfying for him and agonizing for his victim.

  The man cried out, dropping to his knees, then flat on his face.

  Othello dropped to one knee and hit him ten more times, driving the shank home, then jetted up the stairs, taking off his shirt and heading straight to the shower.

  He dropped the shank in the common area toilet as he got in the shower.

  Two other guys were under the spray, but when they saw this big, black cock diesel motherfucker get in, covered in blood, even the realest niggas knew to give a man space. They backed the fuck out of there.

  Othello showered alone.

  While he was under the water, he heard the whoop whoop! of the prison alarm, signaling Lockdown.

  “Hurry up, Moore, lockdown!” The officer bellowed, when he stuck his head around the corner and saw Othello.

  “Word? What up?”

  “Somebody got stabbed.”

  “Stabbed?’

  “Killed! You need me to use smaller words?”

  Mission accomplished.

  Othello went back to his room to find his cellmate laying on the top bunk, reading an urban novel. They called him Rihanna because he was a faggot. He’d been dead set against having Rihanna as a cellmate, until one day, he saw a dude trying to push up on him in the yard, playing him like a straight punk. Rihanna spit a razor so swiftly, the dude never seen it coming, sliced the cocksucker literally blind in the right eye and crisscrossed his face with so many buck fifties, the dude needed reconstructive surgery and came out of it looking like Frankenstein.

  “I ain’t gay cause I’m scared, nigga. I’m gay by choice!” Rihanna screech
ed.

  Ever since then, the two killers respected one another’s space.

  They even came to have a mutual respect for one another, if not a gangtsa friendship.

  “You good?” Rihanna asked, without taking his eyes out of the book.

  “You already know,” Othello assured him.

  The hit solidified Sam and Othello’s relationship.

  When Othello stepped out through those prison gates, he definitely had a plan…

  Kill Joe Hamlet and take back what was his by birthright.

  Othello looked over at Mona. He kissed her gently on the forehead. His heart ached because he knew he had taken someone away from her that was precious. He knew what that felt like.

  His guilt wouldn’t let him sleep.

  “Marry her?” Cash exclaimed, echoing Othello’s words. “Are you forreal?”

  He had rode with Othello to the jewelry store, thinking Othello was just going to pick up some new shine, but Othello had brought him, because, “You know women, brah. I need you to help me pick out the right engagement ring.”

  Cash couldn’t believe his ears.

  Not in a million years had he expected his man to get married, and not in a million more to the woman he was in love with.

  The universe was a bastard.

  “You hardly know this chick,” Cash sputtered, his indignation mocked by the sparkle and bling of the promises of forever on full display all around him.

  “Brah, she’s the one. Believe me, I never believed that Hollywood shit, but it is what it is. When you find the special someone, you hold onto them with all you got,” Othello replied.

  The saleswoman’s approach stopped Cash from saying more.

  “How are you gentlemen doing today?”

  “Good. And your fine self?”

  “I’m well thanks. Can I help you with something?”

  “I sure hope so. I’m here for an engagement ring,” Othello told her.

  “Oh, congratulations to you. We’ve got a lovely selection of pieces, if you’d step down to this next display case, I can show what we have. And if there’s nothing that strikes your fancy, we also offer a few specialty pieces.”

  “Specialty?”

  “Yes, you can design your own ring and we’ll make it for you,” she smiled.