The Last Kings 2

by C.N. Phillips

Genres: African American Urban

Synopsis

Back from the dead, Sadie is hungrier and more ruthless than ever. With a heart black as night and an itching trigger finger, she has vowed to make Ray's murderer's blood rain over the city of Detroit. However, Khiron is currently sitting as the new king of the city. He is backed by the Dominican Cartel, and he is proving to be untouchable. 
Sadie has secretly relocated to Miami and takes Ray's place as the head of The Last Kings. Recruiting a few new members and making new money, the cartel is revived and ready to go up against the worst to reclaim Detroit. In the midst of it all, a war is budding between the Italians and Dominicans, and Sadie has already chosen her allegiance. The Last Kings are back, guns loaded and ready to make one last bloody movie in the streets.

Release date: December 27, 2016

Publisher: Urban Books

Print pages: 288

Sample

They say the hardest things about life are the painful memories, and I have to say that I agree. I remember lying in my own blood on my old bedroom floor, gasping for air. The battle for life or death had complete control of my mind and body as they played a game of tug of war with my soul. I lay beside my grandmother’s cold body and was prepared to join her in the afterlife, but still, a part of me wasn’t ready to go just yet. However, if it was my time, I refused to repent, because I regretted nothing that I had done in my life. I was just going to accept death as it was. The pain that I felt was unbearable, and I clenched my eyes shut hoping that it would numb itself. The bullet embedded in my stomach made me choke on my own blood, and I was barely able to force air into my lungs.

Khiron and Mocha had left me to die alone cold and in the dark. Khiron, bitter and lost, had single handedly taken everything I’d worked for, loved, and created. I made one mistake, and that mistake was trusting Mocha. Like Ray said, all your niggas ain’t loyal. Still, her double cross was one that I wouldn’t have seen if it had stared me directly in the face. Just as I began to succumb to my fate I felt a searing pain in my stomach. It felt as if someone was cutting a hole in my body, because that’s exactly what was happening. I heard a pleading, distant voice calling my name over and over.

“Stay with me, Say,” a hazy voice called from a distance. “Stay with me, mama.”

My vision wasn’t very clear, but opening my eyes, I was able to make out Adrianna’s tear stricken face. Her hands were covered in blood as she set a sharp knife to the side and inserted a straw into the small hole she’d made in my lung.

“It’s okay, mama,” she whispered in my ear, cradling my head in her arms. “Help is on the way. I’m not going to let you die in here. Just hold on, Say. Hold on.”

Something overcame me . . . it felt like relief. I tried to offer up a weak smile, but I don’t know if it ever showed on my face, because the next thing I knew I had blacked out.

One month later, I awoke in a hospital bed. My body felt weak and I had tubes connected to it. My throat instinctively made swallowing motions, and it registered to me that I had a tube down my throat too. I used all of the strength that I could muster to pull the uncomfortable thing out and toss it to the side. Devynn was the first person I saw. Her usually curly afro was neatly combed, wrapped in an African hair scarf. She sat up straight, smiling, once she saw that my eyes were open. The smile quickly faded once she heard the first words out of my mouth.

“Where is Ray?” My voice was raspy because it hadn’t been used in a while. It was barely audible.

Devynn seemed to stumble over her words, trying to tell me something that just wouldn’t come out. She looked at me with eyes full of sadness before finally just shaking her head. I was confused at what was going on around me. I just wanted to see my cousin.

“Adrianna?” Devynn said with a slight plea in her tone.

At that moment I took notice of somebody sitting beside me to my right. My neck was stiff, but I summoned the energy to turn my head to face her.

“Where’s Ray?” I asked again. “I want to see him.”

Adrianna looked no different, except there was sadness in her eyes. Tears welled in them and slowly began to fall

“He won’t be coming, Say,” Adrianna didn’t sugar coat it. “He’s dead.”

Suddenly it all hit me like a ton of bricks. I lay there as the past slowly came back to me. I remembered Grandma Rae’s dead body, the video, Khiron . . . Mocha. She betrayed me. She turned me, her best friend, in for a man that clearly didn’t give a damn about her. He killed my cousin. They both killed my cousin. In a split second, my screams filled the hospital as I cursed the world. I wanted to know why I wasn’t allowed to die too. Without Grandma Rae and Ray I had nothing left to live for. I tried to tear out the needles in my body and jump out of bed, but I failed miserably. I was weak, and at that moment death seemed so sweet. I cursed Adrianna and Devynn for saving me and told them they should have just left me in Grandma Rae’s house. Yet, the two of them were there with me the entire time. They held me tightly and we all cried on each other’s shoulders. When the nurses heard the commotion and told them to leave, they stayed planted by my side. I realized then, in my sorry state, that those two women were all I had left from my previous life. They were my only family. The two of them visited me every day until I was able to start my physical therapy, and even then they were there throughout it all. The next five months consisted of nothing but working hard to get back to my regular physical state and reevaluating my life. I didn’t know where I wanted to go from there. I was alive, which is something I was grateful for, but what did I want to do with the rest of my life?

I was flown to Miami as soon as I was stable enough to be moved. Dev and Adrianna didn’t want word of my survival to hit the streets. They knew Khiron would be skeptical if a body didn’t turn up, so they held a funeral service for me. Except it wasn’t me in the casket. It was really the corpse of a nameless prostitute no one would miss. Money talks, and Devynn paid a plastic surgeon to operate on the dead girl’s face and make her resemble me as closely as possible. I was dead to my city; the city that had once showed me so much love. The businesses were sold so that Khiron could not profit from them, and ones that had pledged loyalty to The Last Kings were silent. I understood though—with their bosses dead to them, a dollar was only a dollar. Still, it pained me to know what was going on, because Khiron wasn’t a boss. He was just a man that lucked up at the right time. He talked like the man, but he didn’t move like him. He would never be Ray.

It took a while for her to finally be able to finally speak about it, but Adrianna told me the the gruesome details of Ray’s death. No matter what bad Ray did in this world, he did a ton more good, he didn’t deserve to die painfully like that. There would have been more honor in him dying by a bullet, but of course Khiron couldn’t let him have that. He wanted to demean him. The thought of Ray not being able to have a proper burial due to what the acid had done was almost too much for my heart to bear. Ray had always been my rock and protector; with him gone so was a piece of my soul. My heart was black and a part of me was chipped away. Every day was a work in progress, but I grew stronger with each sunrise. After six months of being in the hospital I was finally allowed to go home, except I didn’t have one of those anymore. I ended up moving into the three-bedroom condo Devynn and Adrianna had purchased. The two of them tried to make me feel as comfortable as possible, but it still took a few months after my release to get accustomed to life in Miami. I drove a 2015 red Chevy Cruz, nothing too flashy so that I would not draw attention to myself. We had enough money to sit on for a while, so working was something that we didn’t have to do at that point in time. However, we all were used to a certain type of lifestyle, and those needs wouldn’t lay dormant forever. I was a hustler, and although I was a female, I was a king. No matter how I tried to evade it, no other life would suit me. Ever.

I was still trying to get a grip on life as it was, and it didn’t help that Devynn and Adrianna had started to act funny around the house. I started to notice how whenever I entered a room, the two of them would cease their conversation abruptly. They also would leave and not inform me on where they were going, nor would they even try to include me. It didn’t take long before I grew tired of spending my days by myself. It was sad because I had nobody but them and it seemed like they were shutting me out. The day finally came when I figured it was time to kill the elephant in the room. I walked into the house late one evening, dropped my bags on the floor by the door entrance and shut the door behind me. Walking toward the large living room area I heard a rushed conversation so I decided to stop at the doorway and listen.

“I don’t know if Sadie is ready yet, Dev,” Adrianna was saying.

“What do you mean, ‘ready’?” Devynn spat back. “Yo, it’s been like nine months and our funds are running low. I don’t know about you, but I’m tired of living like a normal bitch. I’m not going back to a fuckin’ nine to five, understand?”

“I know, Dev. Trust me, I do,” Adrianna said, her Hispanic accent laying on thick. “I understand, okay? But we are all we have. We already fucked up once, this is no time to rush shit and be hasty. We have to start our foundation again.”

There was a silence, and knowing Devyn that meant that she agreed with what Adrianna was saying.

“And with the Italians and Dominicans feuding, we’ve already picked our side. Once we’re on again we’re going to be in the middle of a full-fledged war, mama,” Adrianna continued. “I’ve never followed behind a bitch before, but when Vinny gets here Sadie has to be ready to lead. It’s what Ray would have wanted.”

The respect in her voice when she spoke Ray’s name brought tears to my eyes, but that moment was ruined by what I heard next.

“Tyler came by last night,” Devynn said. “She was sleep, didn’t even know he was here.”

My heart pounded. Tyler was here? In Miami? I hadn’t seen him since Jamaica. Devynn told me that they had tried to move him to Miami as well, but that he had mysteriously disappeared from the hospital. It didn’t surprise me. Tyler was a fighter and staying in that hospital was too dangerous. I figured he’d turn up sooner or later. Not a day went by without him on my mind. I often thought about our last day in Jamaica. The feeling of him inside of me was still so fresh in my memory, and the sound of his voice in my ear telling me that he loved me replayed in my head every night. The fact that he could be that close to me and not speak hurt me in ways that I couldn’t even explain. How could he be so intimate with me at one point but not show me any love when I needed it the most? I knew he had to have felt the pain that I did, so how could he just not come to me? Did that night not mean anything to him after all?

“Any news on Marie?” Adrianna asked.

“Nah, that nigga looks restless. He doesn’t think Khiron killed her and I agree. Khiron is too messy, that slimy muhfucka would have left her stinking on a corner somewhere. The only thing is, if she is alive, where is he keeping her? Tyler has been everywhere, but you know he has to be low, he’s not even supposed to be alive.”

My blood was still boiling at the fact that Tyler was so close to me and didn’t say one word. Every time Devynn or Adrianna said his name I just got more angry. I’d given myself to him mentally and physically, but in return I couldn’t even get a hello? I felt slighted, and all his promises seemed more like lies at that moment. It broke my already broken heart all over again. I’d heard enough. I emerged into the room with a stony expression on my face.

“So this is what you two have been doing behind my back,” I shook my head at their guilty expressions.

The two of their heads jerked toward the living room doorway. The shock on their faces was priceless.

“Say—” Adrianna started trying to defend her case, but I silenced her with the palm of my hand.

I glared at the women before me and shook my head again, walking toward the one person sofa across from the couch they were on. Once I was seated I clasped my hands together, not taking my eyes off of them.

“What the hell is going on? And Devynn, you told me you didn’t even know where Tyler was when I asked. So you lied to me?” I spoke calmly, trying not to let my anger overcome me as I kicked off my Steve Madden sandals and leaned back into my chair. “Also, why is it that I didn’t know about the feud between the Italians and the Dominicans? That sounds like a bit of news that should definitely be in my mental.”

“We never meant to keep all of this from you,” Adrianna quickly explained, reading my body language like the back of her hand. “You were still recovering, Say. I didn’t want to put too much on your plate with all of your wounds. Internal and external.”

The fact that she knew I was hurting and thought that making decisions for me was the correct way to go about things made me lose it. All they were doing was hurting me more.

“I don’t give a fuck what you thought Adrianna!” I barked at her. “No moves should be made without me knowing about them, period. We are supposed to be in this together and right now you both have me fucked up! Stop looking at me like I’m just this frail-ass little girl. Am I hurt? Hell, yes, I’m hurt, but that’s life. You win some and you lose some. The way this happened is fucked up, and it will always cause an ache in my heart. But I can’t stop. You’re asking if I’m ready? I’m always ready. And because I’m ready you have five minutes to bring me up to speed on everything that has been going on so I can call the next shot. Go.”

Adrianna looked slightly taken aback while a smirk snuck its way on Devynn’s face. I know I was angry, so my words reflected that and came out a little more forceful than I intended them to. Still, with Ray gone it was time for me to grow up.

“Told you,” Devynn said to Adrianna.

Adrianna rolled her eyes and tucked her long hair behind her ears before turning her attention back to my patiently waiting face. Crossing her own legs on the couch, she began painting a picture with her words.

“The Dominicans have done great business with the Italians for years with no problem, but now a war has broken out between them.”

“Why?”

“Easy. The Dominicans have been supplying Detroit’s new kingpin.”

“Khiron,” I said, suddenly understanding. “Well, that probably pissed Vinny off.”

“Beyond it. He views it as blatant disrespect, and it is something that he cannot ignore. Mainly because although Khiron may have taken down The Last Kings, his name still doesn’t have enough clout to reach out to the Dominican Cartel.”

“So it had to be the other way around,” I concluded for her.

I understood why Vinny felt disrespected. Detroit was his gold mine. Even though Khiron had killed three of our generals he was a peasant on the business side of the dirty money. But even I had to admit that with the Dominicans backing him, touching him would probably be harder than I thought.

“Exactly,” Adrianna said. “The Italians made a small fortune off of The Last Kings, and supposedly the Dominicans felt undermined. Don feels as if Vinny was doing bad business by not cutting him into his dealings with Ray.”

“And now with Ray out of the picture they can get into cahoots with the new boss of the city,” I said as I let the news settle in. I held up my right hand and put my left hand to my head. “Wait . . . I’m lost Adrianna. Why would Don go through all of the trouble and invest? Our work died with Ray. I’m positive no operation in Detroit is pulling in numbers like we were.”

“Exactly,” Devynn told me as if a light bulb was supposed to appear over my head.

Adrianna saw the look on my face and proceeded to elaborate.

“Detroit was the home to the biggest drug cartel known; we did that. Detroit was the heart of it all and remember, Say, kings don’t die,” Adrianna stared intently in my eyes. “Even with Ray dead Don knew it would be only a matter of time before we retaliated and claimed back what was ours. It’s. . .