Outlaw Mamis

by Jasmine Williams, Niyah Moore, Brandie Davis, Brandie Davis

Genres: African American Urban

Synopsis

“Secure the bag” is their motto, and death before dishonor is their G-code, so when greed, disloyalty, and hidden agendas threaten their enterprises, these outlaw mamis exact revenge on a whole new level!

Blood of My Blood by Jasmine Williams: Products of their environment, Naima and Cha-Cha are all too familiar with the street code, but when blood turns against blood, it sets off a chain reaction for retaliation and street justice! Watch the bodies fall in their chase to get money!

Honor Among Boss Chicks by Niyah Moore: No hustle is too grand for JuJu and Tah. Being raised as troubled youth in the system and wards of the state, they can only depend on each other for survival, but will Tah’s latest masterplan threaten their friendship and blow their cover? 

Dishonorable by INDIA: Whoever said the dope game is only for men must’ve had no idea that women are some of the best players! Markita, Alexis, and Kenya stumble into Detroit’s rising drug trade, and using their street intel and hustle-hard mentality, they quickly rise to the top. The question is, how long will they stay?

Mental by Brandie Davis: Tammy and her younger brother, Cory, solidified a desirable position harvesting organs in the black market. Their success inspires drug dealer Baldwin, and he’s desperate to eliminate his competition, even if it means catching a body. He’ll learn soon enough the lengths one will go to protect what’s theirs.

One in the Chamber by N’TYSE: Carma Jenkins has had her fair share of run-ins with the law as a wild and rebellious teenager; however, after witnessing her parents’ brutal murder, she vowed to change her life for the better. Now the ambitious real estate broker is living her best life¾until the past she deserted resurfaces to collect on the IOU.

Release date: April 30, 2019

Publisher: Urban Books

Print pages: 288

Sample

“Where the fuck my shit at, Ayana?” A deep, ominous voice jolted me out of my deep sleep.

“I don’t know what the fuck you talking ’bout,” my mother replied in a snappish tone. “You need to get the fuck outta my h—”

The sound of knuckles crashing into bone echoed throughout the still and quiet apartment.

“You dumb-ass bastard!” I heard my mom screech, followed by sounds of tussling and furniture moving. It was no lie that dope fiends had super strength, because my mother would fight anybody.

I slid out of my bed and tiptoed toward my bedroom door. Afraid that the old door was going to creak when I pulled it open, I peeked through the small sliver.

“Yo, chill the fuck out before I have to murk yo’ ass!” the voice boomed again, causing the fine hairs on my arms to stand up. “I know you stole my work, and I’m not leaving here until you give me my shit or give me my money!”

I couldn’t see anything, but the more the man talked, familiarity started to set in. I knew that voice.

“Leave my mommy alone,” my little brother, Jason, whimpered. “P–please leave her alone.”

“Get the fuck off me and go back to bed, lil’ nigga!”

“Don’t touch my damn baby or I’ll kill you in this bitch!” Mama fussed.

Another loud whack, followed by a crashing sound, and my little brother screaming at the top of his lungs caused me to jump back.

“Stop runnin’ that mouth and run them legs outta here to get my shit, fuckin’ junkie-ass bitch,” he spat, his voice laced with hate.

My eyes darted around my room, looking for anything I could use as a weapon. There weren’t a lot of options, so I snatched up the small lamp that sat on my nightstand. As I wrapped the cord around the lamp to prevent an accident, I moved out of my room and into the hallway. My heart pounded rapidly as I rounded the corner to find out who the intruder was and what he wanted with my family. Truth was, I was scared as hell, but I would die before anybody did something to them and I didn’t at least try to stop it.

Fear was replaced with rage when I peered into the living room and saw a man in a black hoodie standing over my mother and stomping her. Jason was curled up in a ball next to our mom with a mixture of tears and snot running down his innocent face. I tiptoed closer to the scene, careful not to make any noise that would alert the man of my presence.

“You still ain’t trying to tell me what you did with my shit? If you don’t start talking, your son is gon’ be next.”

Hearing those words caused me to move more hastily. With light steps, I ran up behind him and raised the lamp above the intruder’s head.

“Naima! Help me!” Jason cried out, causing our unwanted guest to abruptly turn around.

POW! POW!

I didn’t know which sound was more deafening—the gun clapping, or the wails coming from my family. It all blended together in a chorus of agony. I clutched my stomach, and my hand was met with the warm blood that poured from the fresh bullet hole. It was only because of the initial shock that I was still standing, but as soon as I realized that I’d been shot, I collapsed on the floor. Breathing had never been so difficult before, and I felt my airways filling up with a liquid that was thicker than water. The pain from the gunshot went beyond anything that I’d ever felt or could even imagine. The only thing that hurt worse than that was staring into my cousin’s eyes as he stood over me with a smoking gun. In a panic, he tucked the gun and dashed out of our apartment right before total darkness set in.

“Look, I told you to keep yo’ damn wheelchair! I know that y’all may think I am, but I ain’t handicap. I can walk on my own,” I told the jovial nurse.

“I understand, Miss Jenkins, but it’s hospital policy. I have to wheel you downstairs and to your car,” she informed me as she practically forced me into the wheelchair.

“If it’s gon’ get me out this place faster, do what you gotta do,” I huffed as I sat back and placed my feet in the foot rests.

The nurse handed me the discharge papers and wheeled me into the hallway. “So, do you have someone coming to pick you up?” the nurse asked as she rolled me into the elevator.

“Can we just ride this elevator in silence? I’m really not with all the questions and stuff right now,” I snapped.

There was an uncomfortable silence in the elevator, and I instantly felt bad for going off on the nurse the way I had. For the entire four weeks I’d been in the hospital, Nurse Stephanie had been nothing but nice to me. She was the one that told me I was brought to the hospital by ambulance, and that I had lost so much blood that I needed a blood transfusion. She even gave me a pair of sweat pants and a T-shirt to leave the hospital in since my clothes were covered in blood. It wasn’t right, but I was only taking my frustrations out on her. It had been thirty days that I was in the hospital, and not one person came to see me. For thirty days, I miserably waited for somebody, anybody, to show me that they cared whether I lived or died. That day never came.

I shouldn’t have expected much from my mom since she was nothing but a fuckin’ junkie. No matter how many times I got teased about my crackhead mama, went a day or two without a nutritious meal, or had shit stolen from me by her, I still loved my mom. You only get one, and even though I got upset with her quite often, she was still mine. You would think that for once, she would put me before chasing the next high—especially when I was shot behind some bullshit that she was caught up in. I would be lying if I said that shit didn’t hurt like a stab to the heart. It was something that I had to charge to the game, though. A drug-addicted mother is never a reliable one, so I was basically on my own.

“I wanna apologize to you for the way I just spoke to you,” I told Nurse Stephanie once we were in the lobby. “I got it from here, though, so you can roll this wheelchair right back where it came from.” I cracked a semi-smile as I slowly stood up.

Nurse Stephanie helped me out of the chair and gave me a warm smile. “You’re fine, Naima. Trust me, I understand. Just be safe out there, because I don’t want to see you under these circumstances again.”

“Thanks again for everything,” I reiterated before I strolled out of the hospital.

I welcomed the bright sun and fresh air. I was overdressed for the late-spring heat in those hot-ass sweats, but that didn’t matter. I felt like I had just been released from a jail sentence, so I was taking in everything that I had taken for granted before I almost lost my life. I never realized how much of a luxury it was to take a deep breath, feel the wind brush against my skin, or to hear birds chirping. None of that meant anything to me until it was about to be snatched away from me.

I didn’t know how the hell I was getting home, so I borrowed somebody’s phone and called myself a cab. As I sat and waited for the cab, my mind drifted off to my little brother. Jason and I had never been separated for any amount of time. Even though I was only eight years older than him, he was damn near my son. I was the one who bathed him, fed him, and made sure he got on and off the school bus. He was an honor roll student because I helped him with his homework and studying. Lord knows what he’d had to go through in the last thirty days. There was no telling with our mother. I just hoped my baby wasn’t going hungry or being neglected. I prayed for her sake that my brother was still in good health when I got to him, because I didn’t want to hurt my own mother, but I would—especially if she put sucking dick for drugs before taking care of her own son.

When the taxi finally pulled up, I rose from the bench too quickly, and a sharp pain shot through my stomach.

“Agghh! Fuck!” I growled through gritted teeth as I gripped my stomach where the pain was.

The physical therapy that I’d done in the hospital had helped me tremendously, but apparently, I wasn’t as healed as I thought I was. I had been told to continue the physical therapy for six more weeks once I left the hospital, but I had no intention of doing that. The only thing I planned on doing was putting a bullet between the eyes of the person that almost sent me to my maker.

“Stop at this Walgreen’s on the corner coming up. I need to get my prescription filled,” I told the cab driver.

Instead of verbally responding, the cabbie nodded his head and pulled into the pharmacy parking lot. Before he could even bring the car to a complete stop, I damn near jumped out of the pungent-smelling vehicle. Had I been in there any longer, I would’ve been throwing up all over the seats from the foul smell of onions and pigs feet.

As I stood in line at the pharmacy, I looked down at my prescription for the first time. A smile spread across my face when I realized that the doctor had prescribed Percocet for my pain, and there were three refills on the medication. Growing up in the hood, I knew that there were plenty of junkies who would be willing to spend money on the pill. With ninety pills, I could easily make nine hundred dollars off one bottle. Most of the doctors in Hampton Roads knew that these bitches were pill heads, so they had stopped prescribing narcotics to them. That only meant that mine would be in high demand, and junkies wouldn’t flinch when I told them that I was letting them go for ten dollars a pill.

After dropping my prescription off with the pharmacy tech and letting her know that I’d be back, I slid back out the front door of the pharmacy. Peeking around the corner to make sure the cabbie wasn’t paying attention, I took off running in the opposite direction. The pain in my stomach was enough to make me fold, but I didn’t have the money to pay his ass, so I did what I had to do and hauled ass for five minutes straight. I didn’t stop running until I made it to my front door. Out of breath, I plopped down on the beat-up lawn chair on my porch.

“Naima!”

My antennas went up when I heard somebody calling my name. The voice was so small that I couldn’t tell what direction it came from. After being shot, I was paranoid as fuck, so I kept my head on a swivel. When I saw Charlene, or Cha-Cha, as the hood called her, I rolled my eyes so hard that for a second, I thought they got stuck. She was walking through the cut with a baby on her hip and a toddler trotting beside her.

“What’s up, Naima girl?” Cha-Cha greeted as she approached me. “I heard about what happened. I’m so sorry, sis.”

“Miss me with that sis bullshit.” I waved her off. “Now that I’m back home you miss me so damn much, but where the fuck was you when I was suffering in the hospital for a month? Where the fuck was anybody? I don’t fuck with none of y’all! You can’t call yourself my friend, but then once it’s time to show and prove, you go missing. Fuck outta here!”

Cha-Cha shifted her saggy-diaper-wearing baby to her other hip. “Don’t do that, Naima. How the fuck was I supposed to get there with no money, no car, and two damn kids attached to my ass? You’re speaking on what friends are supposed to do, but friends are also supposed to understand their friend’s situation. You know I would’ve been there if I could have. Shit, you know more than anybody how hard it is for me to find somebody to watch these damn kids.”

“Whatever. I’m not tryna hear no more of your excuses. If it was you in the hospital, I would’ve hitch-hiked to the damn hospital to see about my friend. I guess we’re cut from a different cloth, though.”

“I can’t believe that you’re really sitting here questioning over ten years of friendship. It’s cool, though. I guess I’ll just keep the information that I got on Kenan to myself. See, while you were in the hospital, I was out here being a friend and doing my homework. So, I guess I’m not completely useless.” She rolled her eyes.

Hearing her bring up Kenan piqued my interest. I was ready to end the conversation and cut her off for good, but now Cha-Cha had my attention.

“Wait. How do you know that it was Kenan who shot me?” I asked. When the police had come to question me, I told them that I didn’t know who shot me. So, I had no clue how that information got leaked. I didn’t want anybody to know, because I wanted to handle the shit myself.

“Who doesn’t know? You know the news around the hood travels fast. He’s been going around bragging about how he shot you and telling people to take that as a lesson not to fuck him over. His words were: ‘If I’ll shoot family to teach them a lesson, imagine what I’ll do to a mothafucka that ain’t blood.’ According to him, your mama stole some crack out of his room,” Cha-Cha rambled on, telling me all the scoop like she worked for the Enquirer.

My heart damn near pulsated out of my chest hearing this revelation. I could feel the rage and revenge pumping through my blood. “How does he know it wasn’t his crackhead-ass mama that stole the shit? You know what? That doesn’t even matter. Do you know where he’s at?”

“I’m sure he won’t be hard to find. He’s been coming through the hood every damn day tryna be flashy and shit. Tyrell, get out of that fuckin’ dirt!” she yelled at her three-year-old son.

“Good. Well, I’ll be waiting for his ass when he comes back through.” I finally stood from the chair and pulled open my screen door. “I’ll get up with you later, Cha. I got some shit I need to handle.”

I started banging on the door, waiting for somebody to come let me in. I noticed the still quietness on the other side of the door and knocked louder. Usually, Jason would be running up to the door, screaming that someone was knocking, and my mama would be running behind him, telling him that he better not think about touching her door. The silence left an unsettling feeling in the pit of my stomach.

“Mama! Mama!” I yelled as I continuously knocked on the heavy door. I swore I heard my knocks echoing on the other side.

“Jason! It’s me! Y’all stop playing and open the door!” I started panicking as I banged until my knuckles were raw. I didn’t know what was happening on the other side of the door, but my gut had me expecting the worst.

I felt a hand touch the back of my shoulder, and I turned around, ready to swing.

“Naima, it’s just me,” Cha-Cha said, throwing up her free hand surrender-style. “You mentioned that no one came to visit you while you were in the hospital. That means you probably don’t know about what happened.”

When I made eye contact with her, the glimmer of sadness in Cha-Cha’s eyes confirmed my gut feeling. “What do you mean? What happened to who?” I asked, my voice cracking with every word.

“Well, your mom got arrested for trying to rob the corner store with a knife. When the cops found out she had a son at home, they came over here and searched the house. They found drugs and paraphernalia in there, so CPS took Jason with them. Once the rental office got wind of the legal trouble your mom was in, and the fact that she had drugs on their property, them bitches put a seventy-two-hour eviction notice on the door. Three days later, they were bringing y’all stuff outside. I got as much of it as I could.”

I had to sit down again. It felt like the wind had been knocked out of me. The pain was so unbearable that nothing but silent cries escaped. What happened to my mother was unfortunate, but she brought that on herself for doing that dumb shit. My brother Jason now being part of a system that gave no fucks about a little black boy was what cut me deep. I buried my face into the palms of my hands and bawled so hard that my body shook. Cha-Cha wrapped her arm around my shoulder and tried to comfort me, but my sobs caused her baby girl to break out in tears.

“You know you can come and stay with me for as long as you need to,” Cha-Cha said while trying to comfort her fussy baby.

I sniffled, wiped the tears from my face, and shook my head. “Nah, it’s cool. I gotta make something shake if I want to get Jason back. If you want to help me, find somebody to keep the kids and be ready by nightfall. It’s time to take it back to our wild and reckless days.”

In the still of the night, I was crouched behind a bush in the back of a trap house. Like a predator waiting to catch its prey, I was in perfect position to watch every movement in the house. With a gun tightly gripped in my right hand, I was lurking, waiting for Kenan to emerge. I had already been out there for over an hour, but I was prepared to stay for as long as it took.

Finally, a glimmer of light came through the wooden fence that was slowly opening. I heard his voice before I saw him, so I knew he was coming. I grasped the gun tighter as my adrenaline started pumping. Kenan stepped through the gate with a black duffle bag in his hand. Once he closed it behind him, he walked off without ever checking his surroundings. I quietly hopped from behind the bush and ran up behind him with light feet. Once I was sure that he couldn’t hear my footsteps, I stepped in front of him with my gun drawn, stopping him in his tracks.

“Surprise, surprise, muh’fucka!” I whispered harshly, shoving my gun into his stomach, the same place he had shot me.

Kenan started chuckling. “Damn, you still alive? I thought I killed you.”

“Well, it looks like you thought fuckin’ wrong, huh? That was your mistake, because now I’m here to make sure your mama is standing over your grave. And you know what’s even funnier? While she’s standing over your body shedding tears, I’ll be the one comforting her, and she won’t even know that I’m the one that took you away from her.”

“You know what else is funny? I already caused you and yo’ mama that same pain when I shot you in front of them, put the bug in the cop’s ear about her robbing that store, and watched CPS snatch poor li’l Jason up. It’s sad ’cause he was innocent in all of this. I didn’t have anything against my boy. He was just a liability. See, your mama was the one that got my moms hooked on that shit. If it wasn’t for her, I wouldn’t have lost the only person that I love in this world. Your junkie-ass mama damn near shoved that shit up her li’l sister’s nose. My mama wasn’t the same no more after that. Ayana took away somebody that I loved, so it was only right I returned the favor.” Kenan smirked.

Kenan had my emotions running high with every word he spoke. I couldn’t believe he had been plotting and planning against his own family this entire time. There were so many questions running through my head. I wanted to know why. I wanted to know if he had been secretly hating us our entire lives while he was smiling in my face, pretending that we were cool. What I wanted to know more than anything was why I didn’t see this side of Kenan before now. Then, I realized that none of that even mattered now, because Kenan had already signed his death certificate.

“Okay, enough with the small talk. Give me what’s in that bag, bitch!” I pushed my gun into the side of Kenan’s face, and he grimaced. I didn’t want him to know that he had my mind rattled, so I just changed the subject. Talking to him was wasting time. I needed to smoke his ass and get the fuck out of dodge.

“I ain’t giving you shit! You gon’ have to kill me to get what’s in this muh’fuckin’ bag!”

A Joker-style grin spread across my face, and I cocked my gun back, making sure that a bullet was in the chamber. “That won’t be a problem, ’cause you’re gonna die anyway. It’s a shame you have to die because your pussy ass is sad that your grown-ass mama became an addict. Last time I checked, nobody can make a grown woman do shit she doesn’t wanna do, so apparently your mama wanted to be a junkie. Think about how much worse it’s gonna get when she finds out somebody left her son stankin’ in the bac. . .