Bad Behavior

by Kiki Swinson, Noire

Genres: Anthologies; African American Women's Fiction

Synopsis

"Nine Lives" by Kiki Swinson: Wild-card Aiden. Dead-shot Ava. Efficient, fast, and brutal, this notorious brother-sister hit team grew up abused, unwanted - and in lethal tune with each other. Killing nine targets in 10 days will be their biggest score yet. But as Ava sets up their final target, she falls hard for him and a chance at a normal life. And that's a betrayal she may not live to regret.

"The Crushed Ice Clique" by Noire: At first all ghetto princesses Honore and Cucci want is quick cash-flow. But after sexing jewelry distributor Slimy Sam and learning his illegal tricks of the trade, they assemble a crack team of thieves for one dazzling scam. Replacing diamonds with fakes and selling the reshaped real deal on the black market is making them crazy-rich. But when Sam double-crosses them, these diamond divas must survive to steal another day.

Release date: December 26, 2017

Publisher: Kensington Books

Print pages: 368

Sample

Normally when niggas get released from jail they are all happy and shit. They walk around the prison making plans about what they’re going to eat, who they’re going to fuck, and what they’re going to wear when they go to the nightclub. Not me. I’m kind of dreading going back into the streets. I don’t have a woman. I don’t have any kids. I don’t have any money, so I’m pretty much fucked up. Realistically speaking, the only person I have waiting for me on the outside is my twin sister, Ava. She’s been my rock since day one. I can count on her for anything. There has never been a time when I can say that she wasn’t there for me. When I needed commissary money, money for the telephones, and visits, she was there every single time.

I’ll be getting out of this hellhole in a matter of three days. Niggas been walking around the prison giving the handshakes, talking about, “Yeah, Aiden, you’re about to get out of this joint! Nigga, I know you’re happy.” They say it with excitement. And I always come back and say, “Nigga, fuck the outside! I don’t give a fuck about going home. This is my home. I’ve been in jail almost my whole life.”

Most of the cats roaming around here talk behind my back and say how crazy I am. And you know what? They’re right. I’m fucked up in the head. I don’t have any love for no one. The only person I can honestly say I love is my sister. So I vowed that if anything ever happens to her, or if a motherfucker ever tries to take her from me, I’m coming killed them on site. End of story.

I was sitting on my bed minding my damn business when this cat named Winston Battle walked up to my cell door. I looked at this nigga like he was crazy because everybody in the jail knows not to bother me because I am not a friendly guy. “I heard you were about to hit the streets,” he said.

“What do you want?” I asked him, straightforward. I wasn’t feeling his company at all, and he knew it.

“I was told that if a person needed a job done, you were the person to do it,” Winston continued.

“I’m listening,” I said, giving him the same blank stare.

“A’ight, so here’s a story. I need to get rid of this cracker who’s standing in the way of my freedom. He told the cops that he witnessed me kill somebody. So I will pay you anything to end this motherfucker’s life. He’s got to go ASAP. You feel me?”

“How did you want that nigga eliminated?” I wanted to know.

“Execution style.”

“Where does he live?”

“In some ritzy area of Virginia Beach.”

“Is he a big guy? Little guy? What?”

“He’s about the same size as me.”

“How much are you paying?”

“You give me a number.”

“Nah, dude, you give me a number,” I instructed him, refusing to change my facial expression. I wanted him to stop wasting my time so we could get this conversation over with, because he was invading my space.

Winston hesitated for a second, and then he said, “I’ll give you ten grand.”

“When do I get my money?”

“My cousin will give you half up front and the rest after you do it.”

“Done. Give me his name, address, and the names of anyone close to him before I get out of here,” I instructed him.

“A’ight, cool!” he said, and then he walked away from my cell door.

After that nigga Winston walked away from my cell I thought about whether he was really serious or not. I also thought about if the ten thousand dollars he was paying me to execute that nigga was enough. I wasn’t a contract killer, so I didn’t know the going rates for bodies. I just hoped that if this was a legit hit, I would get the rest of my money after I completed my job. If not, then anyone connected to Winston was going to die.

My twin brother, Aiden, was getting out of prison today, and boy, was I happy. He’s been in prison so much I’ve lost track of the time he’s done. And as much as I tell him that I miss him while he’s doing time, it seems to go in one ear and out the other. Aiden was definitely detached from everything dealing with people and feelings. I think he checked out a long time ago, when we both got in trouble for beating a kid up, ultimately killing him. After that, Aiden’s view of life was: nothing really matters.

I often told him how much I loved him, but I never got an I love you back. I knew he loved me, but showing emotions and talking about them wasn’t something that Aiden did. I’ve learned a long time ago that Aiden and I only had each other, so we made a pact that no one would ever come between us. And we’ve done that until this day.

I was front and center of the jail where Aiden was doing his time. I was sitting in a tan, four-door, late-model Cadillac SUV. The truck belonged to a guy I was fucking named Nashad Stone. He was a thirty-five-year-old merchant seaman. He was currently out to sea for a ninety-day trip, so he was scheduled to be back in Norfolk in two weeks or so. He and I had been seeing each other for close to six months now. I liked him, but sometimes I wasn’t sure. Sometimes I thought I had feelings for him because my brother Aiden wasn’t around. Now that Aiden’s getting out of jail, I’d have to see if my feelings for Nashad would fade.

When I looked at the clock on the dashboard of the SUV, the time was 7:30 a.m. The Virginia Beach jail always let inmates that had been released from custody out by eight a.m. So I knew that at any moment my brother was going to be walking out of that iron door. While I sat in the truck and waited, I popped in one of Nashad’s mix CDs that niggas be selling in front of the corner store. The CD had some of Lil Wayne’s and Future’s music. I started pumping the music loud as fuck, but when a Virginia Beach cop walked by the truck, he asked me to turn the music down before he wrote me a ticket. I almost flipped out on that rookie-ass cop, but when I saw movement on the left side, I looked in that direction and noticed that it was my brother walking my way. Ignoring the cop, I turned the music down, hopped out of the truck, and ran toward my brother. His smile was as bright as the sun. “Aiden, I missed you so much!” I yelled.

When I got within arm’s distance of him, he dropped the brown paper bag he was carrying. I jumped right into his arms. “I’m so glad they let you out of that shit hole!” I said with excitement and kissed him on the cheek.

“You know me, I don’t care if I’m in or not. All I care about is seeing you,” Aiden said, his face showing no emotion. Ever since we were kids, Aiden has had this attitude that he didn’t care about anything. I partly blamed my mother, because she never really gave a fuck about my brother and me. Okay, granted, we killed a little kid when we were in middle school, but what we did was only out of retaliation. That motherfucker kept bullying my brother, so we had to take a stand. My mother didn’t care, though. She saw an opportunity and left my brother and me to rot in a juvenile detention center. So this man standing in front of me didn’t trust or love anyone but me. He didn’t even love himself. That’s why I couldn’t ever turn my back on him.

After he let me down on the ground, I grabbed his left hand and pulled him in the direction of the truck I was driving.

“What did that cop say to you?” Aiden wanted to know.

“He was just telling me to turn the music down.”

“Fucking racist-ass cops! I fucking hate ’em!” Aiden huffed.

“Don’t let them get you all worked up. It’s not even worth it.” I lifted his hand up to my mouth and kissed the back of it as we continued to walk toward the truck. When we got within arm’s reach, Aiden asked, “Who does the truck belonged to?”

“This guy I know,” I replied, trying to downplay my involvement with the owner of the truck.

After we got into the truck, Aiden looked around at the dashboard and then he peeped into the backseat. “This is really nice,” he complimented.

“Yeah, it is. It drives nice, too.”

“How long you been knowing him?”

“Knowing who?” I tried to play dumb.

“The nigga that owes this truck.” He pressed the issue.

“Oh, not long. Maybe a month or so,” I lied. I was getting uncomfortable answering Aiden’s questions, because I knew where he was going to go with it.

“What’s his name?”

“Melvin,” I lied once again.

“Where is he now?”

“On a ship out to sea.”

“How long he gon’ be out there?”

“A couple of months,” I lied. I was not going to divulge any information about this guy to Aiden. I knew my brother; he didn’t like outsiders. So I was keeping all the information concerning Nashad under wraps.

“Well, when he comes back I want you to give him his truck back. I’m going to buy you a car as soon as I do a job for someone.”

“What kind of job?” I wanted to know.

“When I get all the information I’ll let you know,” he told me.

“Whatcha want to eat?” I asked him while I started up the ignition. Everybody who got out of jail always wanted to get something to eat first. It was like we had to feed a craving that had built up while they were in jail. Unlike everyone else I knew, Aiden didn’t want anything special.

“Stop by Popeye’s Chicken and get me a two-piece with a biscuit,” he said.

“Really? That’s it? Popeye’s Chicken?” I repeated as I pulled into the road.

“Yeah.”

While I sat in the passenger seat of this truck my sister was driving, I stared at every car that we passed and wondered how those people’s lives were. Were they happy or sad? Were they rich or poor? I even thought about whether they were good people or bad. In the world I came from, I was sad and poor. And I was bad. I was all those things because I had no other choice. Maybe if I had been raised in a different environment, I’d be a different person. But since that didn’t happen, I was who I was.

Ava stopped by Popeye’s Chicken like I asked her. After she ordered and paid for my food at the drive-thru, the cashier handed her a bag of food. After she handed me the bag of food and drove away from Popeye’s, I asked, “Where are you taking me?”

“I was going to my apartment. Why? Do you need me to go somewhere else?” she replied.

“I need to get a throwaway cell phone.”

“Does it matter where you get it from?”

“Come on, Ava, you know me. You know I don’t give a shit about name brands. I just want the phone to work when I try to make a call.”

“All right, well, I guess we can stop at the smoke shop on the next block. They sell throwaway cell phones for fifty dollars.”

“Well, let’s do it,” I told her.

The smoke shop was less than a block away. As soon as Ava drove into a parking space directly in front of the store, I put my food on top of the dashboard.

“Do you want anything while I’m in there?” I asked her.

“You got money?” she wanted to know.

“Yeah, the jail gave me the money I had left in my commissary account.”

“So, you got enough money for your phone?”

“Yeah, I got it.”

“All right, well handle your business,” she replied.

Without saying another word, I hopped out of the truck and headed into the store. “Can I get a cell phone?” I asked the Indian-looking cat standing behind a fiberglass partition.

“What kind do you want?” he asked me, motioning to the selection of phones on the wall behind him. I looked at the wall and decided to get the black Tech cell phone that cost forty dollars. “Does that phone come with minutes?”

“No. You gotta buy a phone card.”

“How much?”

“I got twenty-five-dollar, forty-dollar, and fifty-dollar cards.”

“All right, well, give me the twenty-five-dollar card.”

After he rung up the cost of the cell phone and phone card, I paid him, grabbed them both from the counter, and walked back out of the store. The moment after I got back into the truck, Ava wanted to know had I gotten everything I needed, and when I told her that I had, she sped away from the curb and headed in the direction of her apartment. After I activated the phone, I pulled out the piece of paper Winston had given me with the information I needed on it and dialed the phone number. As I waited for someone to answer my call, I saw Ava look at me out of the corner of her eye. Instead of saying something to me, she waited.

Finally, after the phone rang three times, someone answered. “Hello,” said a male’s voice. I assumed it was Winston’s cousin. “Hello, this is Aiden. I was told to call this number,” I said.

“Yeah, I know,” the guy said. “Can we meet up somewhere?” the guy continued.

“Where?” I wanted to know.

“What about the car detailing spot on Princess Anne at the Longshoremen Hall?” he suggested.

“When?”

“What about within the hour?”

“All right, let’s do it.”

“See you there,” he replied.

Immediately after I disconnected the call, Ava went into question mode. “Who was that?”

I shoved the phone into my front pants pocket and said, “A nigga that’s gonna pay me to do a job.”

“What kind of job?”

“I’m supposed to get rid of somebody.”

“You mean kill ’em?”

“Yeah.”

“Who does he want you to kill?”

I already had the information, but I told her, “I’ll find out when I see him.”

“Are you sure you wanna get involved with that shit? I’m not trying to lose you to another prison bid. I need you out here.”

“Don’t worry. I won’t get caught. And if I do, I won’t be taken alive,” I told her.

Ava didn’t say another word. She continued to drive in the direction of her apartment. After we reached our destination, she parked the truck and told me to follow her.

She lived in an apartment complex off Baker Road. I could instantly tell that the apartments were brand-new—well, at least to me, considering I hadn’t been a free man in a few years. “Is this your spot?” I asked Ava while we walked toward the apartment building.

“It is while my friend is out to sea,” she told me.

“You talking about that nigga that left you his truck?”

“Yep,” she replied as she led the way up to the second floor.

The manner in which Ava answered my question about the guy who owned the truck and also owned the apartment sent up a red flag for me. I saw a spark in her eyes and she gave me a half smile. I didn’t make mention of it, though. But I knew I needed to keep a close watch on her and this nigga she was involved with.

When she unlocked and opened the front door of the apartment, she let me go in first. I scanned the living room area and the kitchen area. I could tell that it was a bachelor’s spot within seconds. There was nothing that told me Ava lived here. Normally when a man and a woman live together, you’re gonna see some flowers on tables, nice feminine pictures on the wall, among other things. But not here, and it pleased me.

“When did you say this nigga was coming back home?” I asked her after I took a seat on the living room couch.

“A couple of months,” she replied as she picked up the remote control for the television. “Wanna watch anything in particular?” she continued.

“Nah, I’m good. I just wanna relax a minute and eat my food before we head back out of here to see that nigga I called earlier.”

“All right. Well, I’m gonna watch one of my favorite reality shows while you eat. And when it goes off, we can leave.”

“Sounds good to me,” I told her.

I watched Ava as she pressed play to watch the show she recorded, but then she walked away from the TV. I heard her go into what I assumed was the bedroom, and then I heard the door close. She stayed in the room for what seemed like halfway through the show. When she finally returned she looked a little disheveled. Her shirt was only halfway tucked into her pants, and her hair looked out of place. “What the fuck is up with you?” I asked her.

“Whatcha mean?”

“What’s wrong with your hair and clothes? You look like you just came back from wrestling with somebody. You sure homeboy that owns this spot ain’t back there?” I asked her, cracking a smile.

She burst into laughter. “No, boy, what are you talking about?” she asked me as she stood and looked into a framed glass mirror hanging on the wall behind her. At the sight of her disheveled reflection, she started fixing her hair and repositioning her shirt. “Damn, how did I do that?” she said. But only she could answer that question.

I didn’t pursue any more information about how she got like that. I figured if she wanted to talk about it I wouldn’t have to twist her arm to do it. So I changed the conversation altogether. “I’m gonna want to leave here in a few minutes and head to the spot to meet the guy,” I told her.

“A’ight,” she agreed.

Why hadn’t I checked myself before exiting Nashad’s bedroom? I needed to be more careful—I was slipping. Aiden was a very observant guy who would zero right in on anything he saw out of order. If he knew that I was hiding things, like intimate photos Nashad and I took together and a white gold Tiffany heart pendant that he had personalized to me, Aiden wouldn’t understand, even if he knew how deeply Nashad was falling for me. I didn’t want Aiden to think he had competition for my attention. I had to keep him in the dark about Nashad.

Fifteen minutes later, Aiden and I left the apartment. After we climbed back inside of the truck, I asked him to tell me exactly where we were going. “He told me to meet him in the side lot of the Longshoremen Hall off of Princess Anne Road. I think he’s going there to get his car detailed.”

“Are you sure this guy is legit? I mean, you could be going there to meet up with a cop,” I pointed out.

“The nigga that gave me this guy’s cell phone number said that this guy was his cousin. It had better be legit.”

“I hope so,” I commented. I knew I was casting a lot of doubt into the atmosphere, but I loved my brother, therefore it was my duty to make sure that he was all right. And if that meant I had to do something to protect him, then that’s what I would do.

The drive to the Longshoremen Hall was only a twelve-minute ride. When we were two blocks from our destination, Aiden called the guy back to ask him what he was wearing and what kind of car he was in. After the guy answered both questions, Aiden disconnected the call. “He said he was wearing a gray hoodie and a pair of blue jeans. And he was standing outside of a white Ford Mustang.”

Giving me the description of the guy’s attire and the type of vehicle he was near gave me something to look out for. It only took Aiden and I a minute to lay eyes on the guy. “He’s r. . .