A Kingpin's Obsession: Ajoni's Story (16 page)

“Thanks for understanding,” she whispers behind him. “Everyone needs someone to understand their decisions, whether they think you’re making the wrong or right one.”

“One hunnit, A. I wish shit was different though, and I look forward to meeting Anjuwan one day. What’s she like? Tell me she ain’t nothing like her daddy.”

“She’s beautiful, Raw, two hands full, and smart as hell,
too
smart. Oh and a diva, demanding, spoiled. That would be Seeri’s fault, and you’re welcome to come see her anytime you want since you know where I live now.”

Raw shakes his head and grins. “Yep, she’s just like her daddy, difficult, and I’m sorry about that, A.” He stops grinning. “And about what happened at the warehouse.”

I listen to their conversation without trying to be obvious that I am by watching the scenery turn from buildings damn near sitting on top of each other on the busy streets of downtown Buckhead to concrete jungle as we merge with heavy traffic on the highway, speeding toward Mecca. Both of their voices are full of regret, but neither has more regret than I do.

Ajoni reaches over the seat again, and pats Raw’s shoulder. “You don’t have to be sorry. You did nothing wrong, and I should say thank you for helping me as much as you could back then. Sometimes, our loyalties put us in impossible situations, and we do what we think is right at the time. I take full responsibility for trying to wear shoes that were not mine to fill, and putting us all in that situation. If I had stayed in my place and let life take its course, no one would have gone through what we all did.”

But we all might have went through something else even worse.

I swipe my hand down my face, feeling guilty for my part in what happened at the warehouse for the first time. I even acknowledge her apology for helping Larkin to take us all down, but it does not mean shit when she is not saying that she is sorry to me. Raw looks sideways at me before returning his eyes to the road.

After two miles of tension-laden silence, he shoots through a yellow light leading into downtown Mecca. Three more traffic lights and one stop sign later, we pull up beside the curb of a pharmacy that everyone in the car has probably used at one time or another since birth. Raw opens his door and lets Ajoni out. Suddenly, I need to know why she wanted to stop here.

“What is she about to do?”

He gets back in the car, and looks straight ahead. “You should ask her.”

“Oh now you want to stay out of it!” I retort. “But I’m asking you.”

“I’m sure she would tell you too if you ask her.”

“Raw.”

He huffs. “Man, she’s about to buy the morning-after pill. I’m pretty sure she doesn’t want a repeat of the last eight years ago
or
today. I sure as hell don’t.”

My stomach bottoms out. I shove the door open, then heave myself out of the car. Ajoni has lost her damn mind if she thinks anybody will be dying today besides Lea, her driver, and Hankin. She will not take this baby away from me too, if there is meant to be one.

I charge through the door into the tiny, stuffy store that has literally stood still in time while modernization happened around it. She is just turning away from the elderly pharmacist and owner standing behind an overstocked glass case and old-fashioned register twenty feet in front of me.

“
Ajoni,
” I yell before she disappears down the wide aisle that runs parallel with the checkout counter, and then vanishes behind the shelves that run parallel with the door. My heart skips a beat. I rush down the main aisle between shelves stacked to the low ceiling with merchandise behind the counter and on the customer’s side of it; a hoarder’s paradise.

The grizzled black man in a white lab coat frowns at me until I reach him, then I turn right to search the first of three short aisles for Ajoni. I move quickly to the second one, and find her standing in the middle of it staring down at a box in her hand. I stop beside her, breathing heavily.

“You are
not
killing my child,” I snarl.

She looks up at me with watery eyes filled with sadness, convincing me that she does not want to do this either.

“I have to, King. I’m not raising anymore children by myself.”

“Ajoni, you won’t have to. I’ll help you.”

She stares at me for a moment as a tear slips down her face. My chest gets tight, making it hard for me to breathe, and then she shakes her head, wipes her face, and looks down at the box again.

“No you won’t help me, King. You’ll make shit worse for everyone by popping in and out of our lives until you stop coming around altogether. That’s worse than being a weekend father. Anjuwan will have to go through that because of my mistakes, but I don’t have to let someone else suffer for them. I’m sorry, but I have to do this.”

She doubts me again, and not giving me the chance to prove I can be the man my family needs.

“Dammit, Ajoni! Let’s talk about this!” I cannot stop her from doing this if she decides to, but she will be cheating me out of something that I want so badly again; my children with her.

I did not know how badly I wanted to see my child grow inside of her and be born until now, even while I am planning to walk away from her just to hurt her. Like I said, she manages to twist my ass up no matter what the situation is, and this one will end no differently if she swallows that pill. I know we will not come back from this if she does.

“Fine, King, talk, but I have nothing to say. My decision is made.”

I seize the opportunity to convince her that I am nothing like either of our fathers as if it is a life line—and it is for my soon-to-be son or daughter. “Listen. Raw and I are going to move to D.C. so I can help co-parent Anjuwan. I have to talk to my parole officer first in the morning, and Raw will be looking for cribs near you after he picks up Leek.”

“Near me,” she whispers condescendingly. “That works for Anjuwan, but it won’t help me with three a.m. feedings, diaper changes, emergency doctor appointments, the crying while I work, or the bringing of more children in a fatherless household. But I’ll do you a favor and wait to do this when I get home tomorrow so you don’t have to see me do it. I have three days to get it done, but it’s done, King. And you make sure to keep Leek the fuck away from me.”

All the air whooshes out of my mouth—I had failed at persuading her to let me prove myself to her, again.

She thrusts the box back on the shelf then shoves pass me, leaving me standing in the aisle by myself.

I watch her leave while another canyon opens up in my chest beside the one already there—she is going to kill my seed before it can grow into our child, and I will never forgive her for it.

I realize that I would rather find out eight years from now that she is keeping another child from me again than go through this.

CHAPTER Fourteen

Ajoni

I cannot see where I am going because of the tears blinding me nor feel a thing, but it hurts like hell that King thinks I want to do this and only wants to help me co-parent. I open the passenger door and crawl in the backseat of the car, holding what is left of my heart together with fragile determination, while glad King gave me the excuse to procrastinate about buying the pill—life is too precious to just swallow away.

He finally walks out of the store just as I get situated in the middle of the seat, with a grimace on his face and his mouth set in a thin line. His eyes blaze at me through the opened door before he shifts his weight into the passenger seat and slams the door closed.

I want to go home and cry my eyes out to Seeri, but Anjuwan has a chance to have at least a part-time father in her life that seems to be bending over backwards to keep her and any other baby he thinks exists safe before he even meets them. The least I can do for ruining his and Anjuwan’s lives before they even knew the other existed is make sure he makes it to her in the morning, then I will move on with my life.

Yes, I had secret hopes that King would say he wanted to be with me because he did not want anybody else, and then make us a real family for Anjuwan and any other babies we made together. I do not have that hope anymore, and still wonder if I can really go through the process of preventing another pregnancy while Raw merges with the traffic, but I just grow more conflicted about it. The atmosphere in the car grows heavy and thick enough to cut with a knife. I decide to put my problem to the side to be dealt with later, and develop a one-track mind; survive the night, go back home to the life I have in D.C., and make sure King never happens to me again.

Overgrown woods on each side of the turn for the warehouse appear, and my one-track consciousness vanishes like a poof of smoke. I start to remember everything that happened to me outside the warehouse before we park in front of it, but things will not get any better for me if I go inside it this time—I will have to contend with the beautiful memories of making love to Calen here.

Shit! I have not stopped experiencing the random phantom thrusts of King’s body inside mine yet. Combine the new memories of fucking him and possibly making another baby with the old memories of making love with him when we did make a baby, I will go into a full-blown meltdown. Why didn’t I get with someone else while he was away—and on birth control? Holding out for Calen was a mistake that left me with more heartache and problems. Maybe I can fix the first one with getting under somebody else to get over him.

“What are you worried about, A?” Raw asks suddenly.

I look up at him frowning in the rearview mirror at me frowning in the backseat.

“The mistakes that I’ll be correcting soon,” I say simply.

King’s head whips around to look back at me for the first time since we left the pharmacy. His eyes are sharper than a machete, and cut right to the core of me, but I hold his stare until he turns around and propels himself out of the car before slamming the door closed again.

Raw’s head whips around this time. “Man, come on! Stop taking that shit out on my ride!”

“He thinks I was talking about getting rid of his child, Raw,” I explain before they come to blows about King’s ill-treatment of his car.

Raw may be the only one in Mecca that is not truly afraid of King, and that is a bad thing for him and me. I still need Raw as a buffer between me and King, and Raw seems to be the only one of the Blue Kings that is willing to risk his neck by telling King to back off. Leek damn sure is not going to do it, but King will kill all of our asses if we push him far enough.

Raw’s eyes return to the mirror. “Are you going to get rid of it?”

“I have to, but technically there’s no child yet, and I wasn’t talking about that.”

“Then what were you talking about? And why do you
have
to prevent the pregnancy if that’s what you’re trying to say?”

“Preventing
is
what I’m trying to say, and I was talking about making the mistake of waiting for him to get out of prison when I could apologize for the decisions I made before and after he went, but I’m not waiting for him or feeling guilty about anything anymore. I’m not going to subject another child to King’s narrow-minded ass either. I did the best I could in both situations under those circumstances eight years ago that I will not take all the blame for. I never wanted King to want me like that or go through anything because of it. But if he can’t understand any of that, then that’s on him.”

“In other words, you love him, but you’re moving on with your life and not adding anymore innocent kids to the equation or this shit between you two if he can’t get over what happened with Anjuwan.”

I nod.

“Then why don’t you tell him all of that just like that, Ajoni?”

“Because he doesn’t want to hear anything I have to say, and I’m not going to waste anymore of my breath on him.”

Raw seems to be the only one King will talk to, and maybe even listen to. He exhales, frustrated with being caught in the middle.

“Aight, let’s get this over with.” He reaches for his door.

I cross my arms, mentally planting my feet in the floor. “I’m not getting out.”

His head swivels around to me. “Why?”

“Too many memories.”

He opens his door. “Well, you have to get out when Shad gets here with your stuff.”

“I’ll get out then.” I will pass for now on making shit ten times worse for myself just by being in King’s presence. I can feel the hatred that he has for me, and it breaks my damn heart.

“Maybe you should tell him that too,” Raw says in sync with my thoughts that apparently came out of my mouth.

“Get out, Raw!” I hiss.

He laughs. “Oh no, you will not be putting me out of my own whip.”

I snicker and shake my head. “Then sit here. You are much better company than Leek was anyway.”

“Everybody’s better company than he is. That dude had a King complex back in the day. I swear he thought the sun rose and shined out of King’s ass, and that he owed King much more than he really did.”

“I doubt if that has changed since King pretty much raised all the Blue Kings in his image.” And made every damn one of them love him like he’s their God.

Raw shrugs. “You never know. People change after eight years.”

“Yeah they do. They get worse.”

“I’m pretty sure that comment had absolutely nothing to do with Leek.”

“Maybe it didn’t, but who gives a shit anymore?”

“I do. Everyone deserves to be happy, Ajoni, even King’s inflexible ass.”

“I hope that he finds what he’s looking for in a woman,” I whisper, and I truly do.

“He already has,” Raw utters just as the sound of a car’s engine resounds behind us. I turn around in my seat, but do not recognize the navy-blue, four-door Taurus coming down the lane, and suspect that it is Shad. I hope so anyway, so that this night can end and I can begin the moving-on process miles away in D.C.

The car parks behind the Camaro. Raw gets out, then pushes up his seat so I can too. The door to the warehouse opens. When I stand up, King walks out of it. I stare openly at him, who is approaching us and avoiding making eye contact with me.

I look away when the driver’s door to the Taurus opens with a squeak of the hinges. A man with skin the color of cocoa and of average height gets out. I remember seeing him around Mecca when I was too young to know what he was up to back then. Now, I do—he’s a gunrunner, and I am not surprised.

The criminal element is average for just about everybody living in Mecca, but there is nothing average about Shad’s physique and looks. Grey, oval eyes with long lashes in a round face with a wide nose and cleft chin on a lean but toned body under an army green shirt and fatigues with black boots laced up to his shins start to stare at me just as King walks past Raw.

Wrinkles appear in Shad’s forehead. “Ajoni Mitchell! I thought your ass was
dead
after what happened here, and it would have been a shame if you were.”

“I thought I was too, Shad, but I’m still alive and kicking.”

His eyes rove over my body. “I see that, and you’re doing it beautifully too. We need to catch up sometime, if you know what I mean, like a date, brunch. Shit, a late night walk on Atlanta beach after having dinner for two there will work for me. What about you?”

Damn! Is every thug in Mecca turning into a romantic?

Before I can ask, King clears his throat and stops walking to stand between us.

Shad’s eyes snap up to King’s face veiled in a dark grimace. “Oh, that’s your old lady, King? Man, I didn’t know and didn’t mean any disrespect.”

I walk around King to stand before Shad so he will stop rambling and get to the business at hand. “I’m no one’s old lady. And if I ever come back to Mecca, I’ll take you up on your offer for dinner, been sitting at home too long with my daughter.” I had to start dating somewhere, though I highly doubt if a date with Shad will ever happen—I have no plans to ever come back to Mecca. The people in this city are determined to get me killed.

Shad’s eyes widen and threaten to pop right out of his head. “Daughter! What stupid motherfucker let you get away?”

“Nobody,” I say just as King and Raw say it too. I look back at King, wondering what he meant by his ‘nobody’. He glares back at me angrily. Raw shakes his head and laughs out loud. I turn back around, deciding that I really do not want to know what he meant.

Shad’s gaze flips to King standing behind me. “You know what, it don’t even matter. Let’s get this business done before I put my foot in my mouth, and fuck around and leave without both of them if I leave here at all.”

“Correct,” King growls low and hoarsely.

Shad turns around and walks down the side of the Taurus. He aims the car fob at it. The trunk pops up. I follow in his footsteps to the back of the car. He balls up a blue tarp and stuffs it in the corner. I stop beside him. Three black trash bags with knots in the top of them, black nine millimeters with silencers attached, and Kevlar vests lay in the bottom of the trunk.

I lean over and reach for a gun, with Raw doing the same on my right side. King moves to the far side of the car and grabs his from there, as if he does not want to be anywhere near me. A fresh wave of pain ripples through my chest then up into my throat, clogging it up.

I swallow the knots it making there before tuning everyone out, to try and recall the lessons of handling weapons that I learned from my father as a child while Seeri was at work.

I grip the gun tightly in my right hand, lay my trigger finger along the frame of it, and press the magazine release button with my thumb, ejecting the clip into my waiting left palm. After checking to make sure there are at least some bullets in it, I push it back up into the butt of the gun, intending to buy another clip with more bullets from Shad.

I’m not sure what’s the unwritten rule for how many clips come with a strap bought off the streets, but not having enough bullets could cost me my life in a gunfight. Not knowing if there is one in the chamber could too, so I turn the gun sideways then pull the slide at the top of the gun back towards me with my left hand.

A round springs from the chamber into the air just like I expected it to. I catch it with my left hand and place it right back in the slot before pushing the slide home and the safety lever to on, and then stuff the gun in my coat pocket.

I look over at Shad, who is staring at me with wide, stunned eyes. Suddenly, I feel even more on my spine, then glance back at Raw and King, whose eyes are just as round with huge amounts of shock visible in them.

“What!” I snipe.

Raw looks down into the trunk and scratches the top of his head. “And I thought you were going to be a liability with that thing.”

“I wouldn’t have volunteered to go with you two if I didn’t know what I was getting myself into unlike last time.” I cut my eyes at King before looking at Shad again. “Shad, did you bring more clips and how many c-notes you charging for the heat? I only brought five hundred with me, but I wasn’t expecting to be buying a gun either, and can go to the ATM if that’s not enough.”

“I got it, Ajoni,” King cuts in bad-temperedly.

“I don’t want you to get it,” I fire back without looking at him.

“That’s not what you said at the hotel, now is it?”

I get the feeling he is looking for an argument and trying to make a point if he is bringing up what we did at the hotel.

“I said I wanted Calen, not for you to
get
anything, King.”

“Same thang,” Raw mutters under his breath beside me.

King moves out of my side vision like lightning, walks up on my backside, then reaches between me and Raw, and grabs me by the lapels of my coat before spinning me around and hauling me face to face with him before I can inhale. I stop breathing altogether, too shocked to protest while he glowers down at me.