Gods & Gangsters 2 Read online

  Aphrodite knew the power of her sexuality. How could she not? She smiled to herself, pretending as if she hadn’t noticed Mac’s presence, and told Joe, “Honey, you have an urgent call in the living room.”

  “I’m a little tied up here,” he answered, nodding his head towards Mac. Aphrodite turned, faking her surprise as well as she faked an orgasm.

  “Oh, I’m sorry, hon. I didn’t even see you. Aphrodite Hamlet,” she held her hand out for Mac to take.

  He shook it, loving the silky softness of her smooth skin.

  “I know. My mother died of cancer several years ago, but you were a part of the non-profit that helped her get back and forth from chemo. I never got a chance to thank you before now. I’m Macklin Bethel,” Mac said.

  Aphrodite touched her hand to her chest.

  “I’m so sorry to hear that, but I am glad we were able to help in some small way.”

  Joe stood up. “Aye, can you keep Mac entertained? I’ll be right back.”

  “Of course, love. Go, take care of business.”

  Joe stepped out of the room.

  Aphrodite looked at the brandy in Mac’s glass.

  “I see Joe broke out the expensive stuff. He must really like you, or you must be somebody important,” she smirked.

  Mac smiled. “One or the other.”

  Aphrodite sang him a silent lullaby with her eyes. It was a subtle song, one that allowed the man to read into what they willed as she remarked, “May I assume you’re a part of the Othello gang?”

  Mac’s expression twitched with subtle irritation he failed to keep out of his tone. “We’re not a gang, or a crew, or anything that basic. And even if we were, it wouldn’t be named Othello.”

  “I’m sorry if I offended you,” Aphrodite apologized, but the truth was in one sting she’d pulled his card and learned all she needed to know about him.

  Joe walked back in. She knew her man. She knew that look. He was concerned about something.

  “Is everything okay, honey?”

  “I’ll talk to you in a minute, can we have the room?” She nodded and left them to it. He turned to Mac. “Listen, I’m going to have to cut this short. Tell Othello we will be getting together later on tonight.”

  “Tonight? Naw, O ain’t even in town. He went to Vegas and took this bad little bitch named Mona,” Mac making sure to keep that undertone of innuendo in his chuckle, letting it torture Joe’s parental imagination.

  Joe stopped and looked at Mac hard.

  There was a moment.

  A beat.

  Then:

  “What did you say?”

  Mac acted as if he was surprised by Joe’s reaction. “I was just sayin’ O is wit some bitch...”

  Joe snatched him up by the collar and with force belying his age, had him off his feet and slammed Mac up against the expensive books. He was already hot because of the phone call, but now Mona slipped away from her tail. They’d been following the wrong girl. Celeste came out of the motel too early. Joe was sick with worry, and now Mac was telling him Othello had some bitch named Mona in Vegas? It wasn’t fuckin’ funny. It was like some nigga had just cornholed his heart with a giant dildo.

  “Joe, man, what the fuck?” Mac asked, fronting like he didn’t know exactly what had the other man riled.

  “Nigga, that’s my daughter!” Joe roared.

  Mac’s eyes got big.

  He could’ve gotten an Oscar for his performance.

  “Shit, man. I didn’t know, Joe! I swear!”

  Joe grilled him hard, damn near nose to nose for a moment, breathing in his grill tasting like he was about to spew fire. “Joe, be reasonable, man, there are a lot of bitches...I mean women named Mona. What’s the odds?”

  “Does she look like that?” Joe spat, pointing at the painting Mac had already scoped.

  He acted as if that was the first time he’d noticed it, looking at it for a beat, then turned back to Joe and dropped his eyes.

  “Yeah, man, sorry, that’s her.”

  Joe let him go with a shove and began to pace the floor. He couldn’t believe his ears.

  “I’m going to kill that nigga…You said they went to Vegas?”

  “Joe listen, I’m sure Othello didn’t know.”

  “Muhfucka answer me!”

  A beat.

  “Yeah. Vegas.”

  “Out of my sight. Now. Go.” Joe seethed.

  Mac didn’t waste any time getting out of the lion’s den.

  Damage done.

  “I hear congratulations are in order,” Cash remarked sourly, as he and Mona got situated in the back of the limo.

  “Thanks,” she replied, without looking in his direction.

  Her cool attitude, heated him like boiling lava.

  “That’s all you can say? Thanks?” He spat.

  She continued to ignore him, making out like the view through the window was the most fascinating thing in the world.

  Cash sighed hard.

  “Look ma, I ain’t tryin’ to be on no bullshit, okay? I just wanna know what the fuck happened? I called you, I texted, I did everything I could to reach you and you ignored me.”

  The desperation, pain and frustration in his voice, broke her veneer of ice. Finally, she looked in his direction.

  “I wasn’t looking for anything serious, Cassio,” she lied.

  She had to be lying.

  The truth was, she was still deathly afraid her father would do something awful to Cash if he knew the truth. She knew Joe Hamlet wasn’t one to threaten lightly, even if he had tried to shield her from his world for most of her life.

  “You’re lyin’,” he replied, calling her bluff.

  Mona shrugged nonchalantly. On the inside she was trembling.

  “Believe what you want.”

  A beat.

  “Do you love him?”

  “Honestly? Yes. I do.”

  Her words broke his hurt all over again.

  He couldn’t answer with words, so instead he answered her with his phone.

  He went to his fake Facebook profile and tapped out a two word message.

  She watched him, hating the ignorance of it.

  Her phone rang in her clutch.

  She glanced down at it, opened the clutch, then took out her phone.

  She saw the message from Black Love Hurts.

  Congratulations… Mona

  She looked at him, penny dropping. “Black Love Hurts is you?”

  “It does,” he answered.

  She didn’t know what to say to that.

  “The girl I was talking about was you, Mona. The one woman in the world that could break my heart, was you, and you did. But hey, I guess I deserved it, huh? As many hearts as I have broken… Now I know how it feels,” he admitted.

  Seeing Cash on the verge of tears, softened her heart even more.

  Her spirit reached out to him as tenderly as an Al Green song.

  “Cassio, I...” she began, but her phone rang in her hand. She almost dropped it in surprise.

  It was Othello.

  She glanced up, and Cash knew who it was from the look in her eyes.

  She answered.

  “Hey baby…. yes, I’m good. Of course he’s taking good care of me,” she replied, forcing a smile, glancing up at Cash.

  He looked away.

  “Okay… I love you, too.”

  She hung up, then started to speak. “Cash…”

  “Don’t speak, ma. We both know ain’t nothin’ to say.”

  They sat back, both lost in the regret of possibilities.

  They went about the rest of their time together bubbled off from their own inner emotions as Mona burned through fifteen thousand dollars like she was spending nickels and dimes on Broadway. From time to time, they’d share a laugh or some wise-ass comment, but even that was dangerous. It was too close to being normal, and they could be anything but that.

  By the time they were through, they had found a sort of closure through shared si
lences.

  Once they got back to the hotel, they went straight to the suite. Othello was already there, sipping a drink and watching a game on TV.

  Weighed down with bags, Cash waddled through the front door. Othello cracked up. “Damn ma, you bought half of Vegas, huh?”

  “Yeah, and I’m a buying the other half tomorrow when you come with me,” she shot back playfully.

  Othello shook his head, chuckling as she took her bags into the bedroom.

  He turned to Cash.

  “Ay, I appreciate that brah. I hope it wasn’t too painful.”

  Cash shrugged.

  “Torture, actually,” he replied, but the irony was lost on Othello. “How was the meeting?”

  Othello smiled.

  “We got a green light. Shit about to pop off big! Our connect just gave us a blank check on consignment!”

  Now Cash understood why Othello was being so secretive. He had arranged a meeting with a cocaine connect to ensure a steady flow of coke moved through them. It was the next step up. Logical. Now that they were getting their own territory, they were going to need it. He who controlled the coke controlled the streets.

  “That’s what’s up,” Cash replied and gave him a gangsta hug.

  The two men drank to their new found success. And for a few seconds at least, everything was right with the world.

  A little while later, there was a knock on the door.

  “Who the fuck is that?” Othello questioned.

  “You order room service?” Cash asked.

  “Naw.”

  Cash moved towards the door and peeped through the peephole.

  Joe Hamlet glowered back at him.

  “It’s Joe.”

  “Joe?” Othello echoed. “What the fuck is Joe doing here?”

  “You tell him you were going to Vegas?’

  “Naw.”

  “Let him in?”

  “Why not?’

  Cash opened the door, but before he could greet Joe, the man barreled past him, shoving him into the wall so hard his body cracked the plaster.

  Behind Joe were three immense black goons.

  “What the fuck!” Cash spat, trying to get his balance, but before he had even half-straightened up one of the goons uppercut him so hard he spat blood.

  “Muhfucka!” Joe thundered, raging as he roared at Othello, both fists balled into steel.

  Othello had a split-second to react to Joe’s aggression.

  He didn’t know what was going on, but he wasn’t about to wait around and find out.

  As soon as Joe stepped into striking distance, Othello caught him with a nice two-piece that would’ve knocked any other man flat on his ass.

  But Joe ate them both like pieces of gummy bears.

  “Nigga, that’s all you got?” Joe sneered, his eyes seething like molten lava. He crouched in his boxer’s stance, faked a jab that Othello leaned away from easily, moving straight into a kidney crushing left hook that lifted him off his feet.

  Othello grunted beneath the impact, his ribs feeling broken, but refused to go down. Not that easily.

  Joe launched two more head shots that would’ve sent Othello out over the balcony rail had he connected properly, but Othello weaved one, and caught the glancing end of the second before tying Joe up.

  “What in the actual fuck is going on, Joe?!” Othello huffed, wrestling with the larger and stronger older man.

  “My daughter, nigga!”

  “Daughter? What the fuck you talking about?”

  The answer came from an unexpected source.

  “Daddy!” Mona cried.

  Joe slung Othello into the bar, knocking drinks, glasses and with another brutal jab, Othello onto the floor.

  Joe pounced on him, knee on chest, and drew back to knock his head through the floor. And he would have, had Mona not grabbed his arm, slowing the momentum enough to ruin the punch. But that wasn’t what saved Othello from the beating. He ended up flinging her across the room as she lost her grip on his arm. She hit the floor. Hard.

  His babygirl crying was the only thing that calmed Joe’s wrath and saved Othello’s life.

  He got up and went to comfort Mona.

  “Daddy, why are you doing this?” She managed through snot and tears.

  The three goons had Cash hemmed up in the corner, working him over like a punching bag.

  Joe held up a hand to say enough, and they stopped.

  Cash fell to the floor, dazed and bruised.

  “What the hell are you doing in Vegas, child?” Joe barked.

  “I’m with Othello, Daddy. I love him!” Mona screamed.

  “Love him!” Joe exclaimed. “You don’t fuckin’ love him, girl. You don’t have a clue what fuckin’ love is.” He spat out his distaste, eyes going from her to Othello, to Mona then back to Othello. In Joe Hamlet’s world, there were no coincidences. Maybe Othello didn’t know and just fell for the wrong girl, maybe not. The bigger question was, did Mona know who Othello was and that he was working in Joe’s world?

  Joe came back over to Othello who had struggled back up onto the couch.

  “How long have you been boning my daughter?”

  “I didn’t know she was your little girl,” Othello said, his mind ablaze with vengeful rage.

  “Not what I asked. How long?”

  “A few months.”

  Joe shook his head, but he read the man. Othello was telling the truth. Had he been using her to get to him, he would’ve made his move by now. Meaning, if he did know, it wasn’t about the game. That was something.

  Joe sighed hard and looked at Mona.

  “Okay… Booker, get that other nigga out of here. Get him cleaned up. Treat him with respect,” Joe begrudgingly added on the end.

  Booker reached down to help cash up, but Cash snatched away and stormed out. The three goons left out after him.

  Alone, Joe looked at Othello.

  “I’m going to forget this happened. I’m going to forget you were here, and in return you are going to forget my daughter,” Joe warned.

  “What?” Othello bassed.

  “You heard me.”

  “But Daddy, we’re getting married!” Mona sobbed, holding up her ring finger for Joe to see.

  “Married?” Joe echoed. “Ain’t no fuckin’ way short of hell freezin’ over! This is done.”

  Othello stood up, his face bruised, spirit unbroken, and looked Joe in the eye. He said, “Ain’t nobody gonna stop me from marrying Mona. Not you. Not no one. She’s the woman I love. And before you get beat up, I respect you as her father, and as a man, Joe, but that’s the way it’s going to be.”

  Joe stood toe to toe with Othello.

  The other man had him by a few inches, but Joe was a warrior.

  “Oh, is it now? This ain’t about The Commission, this is about my family!”

  “I love Mona.”

  The two men looked at each other, knowing the other would never be moved from their position. It was a standoff that would only end when someone on one side or other was dead.

  Mona stepped up and stood beside Othello.

  “Daddy, Othello is the man I love. I will always be your babygirl, but I’m not a child. I have a mind of my own. I’m marrying Othello,” she stated firmly, fronting up to her father.

  Joe looked into his daughter’s eyes.

  He saw his own determination reflected back at him.

  She wouldn’t back down, same as he wouldn’t.

  Joe sighed hard and went over to the wrecked bar.

  Everything was on the floor, including the ice.

  He picked through the broken glass until he found three unbroken glasses and a bottle of Johnny Walker Black.

  Without a word, he poured the three of them a drink.

  Finally, he sat down, ready to lay down more home truths, starting with the most obvious. “If I hadn’t come in here and found a ring on your finger babygirl, there would have been nothing you could’ve said to keep me from dragging you ou
t and putting a bullet through this nigga’s skull. You burned me. But marriage, that’s something I have to respect.”

  She nodded.

  Joe turned to Othello.

  “And as for you… You need to understand this: my daughter is my heart, my world. I only have one. You say you love her. Fine, you love her, but I am old enough and ugly enough to know words are only wind. If you want to marry my daughter, you have to give up the game, plain and simple.”

  Othello sipped his drink. “Is that an ultimatum?”

  “You can call it what you want, but you need to understand I will not allow my daughter to be subject to the dangers that go along with being a gangsta’s wife. You can keep your seat on The Commission because the power will benefit you in the civilian world. Fine, I’m good with that, but all ties to the underworld, they need to be cut. Period, non-negotiable.”

  Mona looked at him.

  Love of her or love of the game?

  She appreciated her father’s wisdom.

  Othello thought about the move he had just made.

  The game laid before him wide open. It was the dream. Everything he had been trying to realize from those first hours as a small-time hustler. But looking at Mona, there was no comparison. He would never give her up in a thousand years.

  “That’s no choice, Joe. Mona, always. Every time.” Othello answered with pride.

  Mona smiled through her tears.

  Joe nodded, happy with an answer that at least guaranteed his daughter a safer life.

  The two men shook on it, deal brokered and sealed.

  They were joined now in ways more important than the thug life.

  “I guess congratulations are in order, O. Welcome to the family.”

  In a private gentleman’s club later on that evening, Joe and Othello could at least laugh about it.

  “Yeah, I ain’t gonna lie, when you gave me that kidney shot, I thought I was gonna piss blood for a goddamn week,” Othello admitted.

  “Yeah, I’m sorry O, but all I thought about was you and my daughter. No fuckin’ father wants to think about some big dick nigga breakin’ up his little girl, and frankly, I still don’t wanna,” Joe chuckled, sipping his drink.

  “You still could be a heavyweight, fuck the age factor, man you still got a fuckin’ punch on you man,” Othello complimented him.